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Upgrade

629: Jony Ive Loves a Handle

 

00:00:00   From Relay, this is Upgrade, episode 629. It is July 20th, 2026. Today's show is brought

00:00:17   to you by FitBod, Decagon, and Squarespace. My name is Mike Hurley, and I'm joined by Jason

00:00:23   Snell. Hi, Jason.

00:00:24   Hi, Mike. It's good to be here. This is a good time. We've been doing a lot of things.

00:00:30   But you know what? As we discussed before the show, we don't have time for throat clearing

00:00:35   and small talk. We do not. Here at the Upgrade program, we get right down to it.

00:00:40   We get down to the Snell talk, and I have a question from Sims who wants to know, Jason,

00:00:43   do you have plans to see The Odyssey, and have you read the book slash poem? I see people

00:00:48   referring to it as a book. Some people referring to it as a poem. I think people that are referring

00:00:52   to it as a poem are trying to show they've read it. I think that's what you say if you've

00:00:55   read The Odyssey. Jason, what are your feelings about all of this?

00:00:59   It's a poem in book form that I read in college.

00:01:03   Jason gave it away.

00:01:04   Humanities 1, Revelle College, Humanities 1, I think Humanities 1, might have been Humanities

00:01:09   2, five-quarter sequence about Western civilization.

00:01:14   Nice.

00:01:15   Probably not like that anymore, but in the late 80s and early 90s, that's what it was

00:01:22   like. Anyway, yes, we did read The Odyssey, or at least all of it, some of it. I don't know.

00:01:29   I don't remember that far back. I remember that there's stuff in it that was also on

00:01:33   Friday night. So the answer is yes. I guess the answer is no. I have no plans to see The Odyssey

00:01:45   because I saw The Odyssey.

00:01:46   It's already. Yeah.

00:01:47   Although, actually, I do have some plans that are forming to go see it in IMAX 70 millimeter

00:01:51   because I would like to see it again in the gigantic format in which it was shot. However, I will reveal

00:01:58   you'll hear that in San Francisco, the really good IMAX theater that we've got currently only

00:02:04   has show dates out to August 12th, and they're all sold out. And over the weekend, they were showing it

00:02:09   at 6 a.m. and 3 a.m. in order to pack in more people to see The Odyssey. So Odyssey mania has struck,

00:02:17   but I'm hoping to maybe see it in mid-August if I can get in there at a reasonable time.

00:02:22   Yeah, I haven't seen it. I was actually sharing this with you on Friday when we were recording

00:02:27   Designed in California that I felt like I had to make a decision as to whether I would see The Odyssey

00:02:34   or Spider-Man because those movies come out very close to each other. And right now, things like going

00:02:39   to the movies requires a level of negotiation in my life.

00:02:43   It's very difficult.

00:02:45   I'm excited about The Odyssey. I want to see The Odyssey. I need to see Spider-Man as close to day

00:02:50   one as I can make it because that's just what it's like if you really care about Marvel movies,

00:02:53   which I do. The best thing to do is to try and see them as soon as possible so they don't get

00:02:58   spoiled for you. I will. I mean, I hope that maybe I can do what you're doing and in a few weeks time,

00:03:04   go and see The Odyssey. I reckon it will be in IMAX for a long time.

00:03:08   Yeah, I think so.

00:03:09   So that's a good thought. I might take a look at that.

00:03:12   The first movie that we saw as parents was the original Tobey Maguire Spider-Man.

00:03:18   And it was literally, can we do this? And we took the baby.

00:03:24   Yeah, yeah.

00:03:25   And we made it work. It was very much like the baby may need to nurse during the runtime of Spider-Man

00:03:31   and to remain silent and fall asleep. And it totally worked. And we saw it and it was very

00:03:36   successful. And that baby is now our video editor. So hi, Jamie.

00:03:40   Hi, Jamie.

00:03:41   Adina took Sophia to a few, like they do baby showings, right? Where it's like you can just

00:03:49   bring your baby, but they're not kids movies. So when I saw, I think I said this in the show,

00:03:54   when I saw F1, I saw it in IMAX with underscore David Smith, Sophia and Adina were watching F1 in a

00:04:02   more local cinema at the same time.

00:04:04   The same time.

00:04:05   That's nice.

00:04:06   That baby slept, unbelievably, through what I think is the loudest movie I've ever seen.

00:04:11   Obviously, they turned the volume down a bit.

00:04:14   But if you or Adina even whispered your voice, she'd wake up immediately.

00:04:18   Yes.

00:04:19   Because that's how baby sounds work, is that they don't care about that car sound. They care

00:04:23   about their parents.

00:04:24   Yep.

00:04:24   If you would like to send in a Snell Talk to help us open a future episode of the show,

00:04:29   just go to upgradefeedback.com and send in your Snell Talk. I have some follow-up.

00:04:34   The 2mm increase in thickness for the iPhone 18 Pro rumor that you spoke about last week has been

00:04:42   debunked based on the dimensions of the 18 Pro dummy models. The current 17 Pros are 8.75mm

00:04:51   thick and the iPhone 18 Pros are rumored to be around 9mm. I think the person who reported this

00:04:57   wanted to communicate that it was 0.2mm increase and instead said 2mm. This is one of these things

00:05:05   that when I read this, I was like, oh, yeah, this was something that went into my head and

00:05:09   I just never fully articulated it. And now here we are. And this makes a lot more sense that

00:05:14   thicker, but not like 25% thicker.

00:05:18   No, you know, we bunked that and they debunked it. So I appreciate somebody debunking it.

00:05:24   The bunking and the debunking is an important part of the process.

00:05:27   Get out of my bunk.

00:05:28   Get out of the bunk.

00:05:29   Rumor. Out.

00:05:29   Yep. You take top bunk and then we're going to push you out.

00:05:32   Yep.

00:05:33   Reuters is reporting that the Chinese government has finally approved Apple intelligence to be

00:05:38   permitted for use in the country. On Chinese iPhones, there is no version of Apple intelligence,

00:05:43   kind of original or current that is running. Apple is going to be working with models made by Baidu

00:05:50   and Alibaba to be compliant. So they're using kind of like different models for image stuff and

00:05:56   different models for kind of the general Siri AI. And so there's the Chinese intelligence authorities

00:06:03   have apparently said this is going ahead now.

00:06:05   I don't know if it's Siri AI. I think it may be for the Apple intelligence as we think of it from

00:06:10   two years ago.

00:06:11   That's a good point. And I think about, yeah, but I, I would assume that Siri AI will eventually

00:06:16   follow probably once they've got this all established, they're going to, they're going

00:06:20   to want to use, uh, uh, official sanctioned models in China and get that up to speed. So I think this

00:06:27   is literally a two year later Apple intelligence thing, but I do think over time it's probably

00:06:32   going to be the case that Apple will have a, an AI framework with China where they'll know

00:06:37   what models they use in China.

00:06:39   Yep. There's a very, there's a line in this Reuters story that I find funny, which says the

00:06:44   development could help bolster Apple's position in China where consumers have been waiting for the

00:06:49   rollout of Apple intelligence. Now I have multiple issues with this sentence.

00:06:54   you know, there are a lot of business articles that you can see the writer or the writer's editor in a lot of

00:07:05   cases is like, please put this in the wider context of Apple's, for example, Apple's business in China.

00:07:11   And so they're like, uh, uh, this might make Apple's business better in China because people might want it.

00:07:20   And, and like, eh, is that, but you got to justify your, like, why is the story relevant at all?

00:07:26   Um, and so they're, they're like, oh, well it's relevant because people have been waiting for Apple intelligence on the iPhone in China.

00:07:32   And it's like, eh, they, I mean, I don't, they keep selling iPhones in China.

00:07:36   Apple, the 17 Pro line seem to have done really well in China, right?

00:07:41   So it's not like they're having a China problem.

00:07:42   They're actually doing great in China right now.

00:07:44   And I don't think anyone is waiting for this version of Apple intelligence because it essentially has nothing.

00:07:50   Yeah, this is the Reuters equivalent of when Bloomberg inserts that line three hours after they run a story that says what the stock price did after they posted the story, implying that the story somehow impacted the stock price, which it almost certainly didn't.

00:08:03   My favorite one of these, we, we may at some point in today's episode to talk about the open AI smart speaker rumor.

00:08:12   Oh man.

00:08:12   In that article, they referenced Sonos' stock price dropping.

00:08:17   That's what I was thinking is like, on this report, Sonos price went down and Apple's price.

00:08:22   And then the best line is not only do they quote Sonos and I roll my eyes so hard, like, oh yes, I'm sure you, you're the ones who did that.

00:08:29   Then they, then they quote Apple stock price and they're like, Apple stock price basically didn't do anything.

00:08:34   I'm like, okay, whatever, whatever.

00:08:36   The company that this article was about did nothing to them.

00:08:40   And a completely unrelated smart speaker company that don't have really much in the way of a, of a assistant, their stock went down.

00:08:49   In the wake of publishing this article, gold went up slightly.

00:08:52   It's a great, good for gold.

00:08:54   A butterfly flapped its wings and this article was produced.

00:08:58   Yeah.

00:08:59   Uh, Apple music is going up in price.

00:09:01   It's now a dollar per, a dollar more per month.

00:09:05   And it's pulled the prices of the Apple one bundles accordingly.

00:09:08   Yeah.

00:09:09   I'm going to play.

00:09:09   I'm going to be paying more.

00:09:11   I'm an Apple one bundler.

00:09:12   I'm going to be paying more.

00:09:14   It's more, it's $3 for family.

00:09:18   And so it's $1 for student and individual $3 for family.

00:09:21   And since family has rolled into the bundle, the bundle is then going up, uh, what $2.

00:09:26   So yeah.

00:09:28   For family and premiere.

00:09:29   Oh yeah.

00:09:29   Cause they're like, maybe there's three people in your family.

00:09:33   Pay up.

00:09:33   Uh, this, there's an article I'll put in the show notes that kind of has all the prices and

00:09:37   stuff in, uh, by chance Miller at nine to five Mac.

00:09:40   And chance has a line in here, which it kind of enforces to me, the never tweet kind of

00:09:46   aspect of, of modern life.

00:09:49   Um, it says here the price increases for Apple music come after Spotify announced its own round

00:09:55   of price hikes earlier this year, which Apple poked fun at on social media, uh, which they

00:10:00   did.

00:10:00   Right.

00:10:00   So this was when Apple, when this happened a few months ago, Apple music tweeted BTW, we're

00:10:06   still the same price as is in February.

00:10:09   And it's like, I get that that social media manager, like they're just doing their job

00:10:13   or whatever, but it's like, now you just look silly, right?

00:10:16   When you post things like that.

00:10:17   And then a few months later, you're just doing the same thing.

00:10:20   Like this kind of like dunk culture is just, it just never works for you in the way you think

00:10:25   it will.

00:10:26   I don't disagree that that's probably not the way to approach, um, these kinds of announcements

00:10:32   is to mock your competitors.

00:10:33   Cause you'll probably be there too.

00:10:35   Yeah.

00:10:36   Eventually.

00:10:36   I would also say though, nobody remembers what happened four months ago and nobody cares.

00:10:40   So it's also that one of those things is the gotcha.

00:10:42   The dunk culture is dumb.

00:10:44   So is the gotcha culture.

00:10:45   Exactly.

00:10:45   That they actually go hand in hand of each other where ultimately it doesn't do anything

00:10:49   for anyone.

00:10:50   Every dunker gets got.

00:10:51   Yeah.

00:10:52   Every gotcha gets dunked.

00:10:53   De-dunking and debunking.

00:10:55   That's what we, that's what we get.

00:10:57   De-dunking and dunking.

00:10:58   That's what this episode is all about.

00:11:00   And, uh, and, uh, and de-dunking, which is very important too.

00:11:03   So yeah, if you, if you don't get, if you don't get got, you're getting dunked on.

00:11:07   Yeah.

00:11:07   And, uh, it's like you're punching your own yourself in the face.

00:11:11   So just don't even, just don't even do it.

00:11:13   Just don't do it.

00:11:13   And I have some lawyer up follow-up as well.

00:11:17   Oh, wow.

00:11:18   Yeah, I know.

00:11:18   It's a new, it's a new vertical here on the show.

00:11:21   There's so many levels to this.

00:11:22   Do we need new show art?

00:11:23   Do we need follow-up show art that then contains what we're following up inside?

00:11:27   I don't think we do.

00:11:28   No, I don't think we do.

00:11:28   Let's move on.

00:11:29   The Financial Times is reporting that Apple has now issued, quote, legal preservation letters

00:11:35   to around 40 ex-Apple employees who have joined OpenAI.

00:11:38   Essentially, these letters are telling these people don't delete anything because this will

00:11:43   all become part of legal discovery.

00:11:44   Can you imagine, Jason, how it will feel to get one of those letters?

00:11:47   Like, oh no, I'm in it now.

00:11:50   Not to be, not to be confused with that weird NBC story that was like, hey, Apple sent an email

00:11:55   to the wrong guy.

00:11:56   Yeah.

00:11:56   It was like, what?

00:11:57   What?

00:11:57   Why is that anything resembling?

00:12:01   And then they didn't.

00:12:02   And then they called, then they emailed the right guy.

00:12:03   Oh, well, this is, how did the markets move on the release of that NBC news story?

00:12:08   I wonder.

00:12:09   How did it affect NBC's stock as well as OpenAI's and Apple's?

00:12:14   We will never know.

00:12:16   No, we'll never know.

00:12:17   And in unrelated Apple legal news, Mark Gurman is reporting that Apple is in the early stages

00:12:24   of a discussion with the U.S. Department of Justice about a settlement.

00:12:27   to the antitrust case brought against them in 2024.

00:12:31   I will read from Mark Gurman.

00:12:32   Apple has made multiple offers this year to the Justice Department to bring the case to

00:12:37   a close.

00:12:37   The activity has picked up in recent weeks with the two sides exchanging draft settlement materials.

00:12:44   Yeah, this is, first off, it's the Trump administration and it's a thing brought during the Biden administration.

00:12:51   So my default is that maybe the Justice Department won't, you know, will not, will take it lightly,

00:12:58   actually, because that seems to be what they do with everything.

00:13:02   A lot of this stuff is, I mean, again, not to keep saying this, but I rolled my eyes when

00:13:06   I was reading what was covered in this store, in this suit.

00:13:09   Because to remind you, this is like the Apple harmed competition by not having super apps.

00:13:15   Yeah.

00:13:15   That was one of the big points in there, which is first off, the super apps thing is kind

00:13:19   of dumb.

00:13:19   And then they said, no, we actually, we do off, we do allow that now.

00:13:23   And they made changes to kind of, to the app store policies to kind of reinforce the mini

00:13:30   apps thing.

00:13:31   Yeah.

00:13:31   And they, and they support RCS now, which was part of it.

00:13:34   There's the Apple watch availability, but like, I, I mean, this was, this was not the most

00:13:42   interesting case anyway.

00:13:43   And now I suspect you've got a Justice Department that cares even less about it.

00:13:46   So if I were Apple, I would also be making some offers to say, can we wrap this up?

00:13:50   I think it's also a Justice Department that at this point is well known for loving a deal.

00:13:56   It's true.

00:13:57   The current, it seems like the current Trump Justice Department will take a deal.

00:14:01   So if you've got a deal to give, they will accept that deal.

00:14:04   And it seems like they're going to, going to deal with the deal.

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00:16:07   So last week, we were...

00:16:09   Oh, by the way, it's time for the details.

00:16:10   Woo-hoo!

00:16:12   You almost missed a segment there.

00:16:14   I know.

00:16:14   Can you imagine?

00:16:15   Last week, we were ready in case the public betas dropped.

00:16:20   We were.

00:16:21   We were so ready.

00:16:22   And they dropped like two hours afterward.

00:16:24   And then they came out before we got the episode published.

00:16:27   Yeah.

00:16:27   But we're going to talk about them.

00:16:28   You have focused your beta impressions on macOS Golden Gate, right?

00:16:34   Like that's kind of where you've focused your attention.

00:16:37   But what's great now, I think, in this...

00:16:40   I would say in the last few years, but also in this year's 27 releases,

00:16:46   the biggest features are available on all platforms, right?

00:16:51   So like Siri AI, some of the photo chain stuff.

00:16:54   But what has been your impression with Golden Gate so far?

00:16:58   Well, I think it's good.

00:17:00   I had to, of course, preface my whole thing by saying, look, I liked Tahoe.

00:17:05   I know so many people are like, I'm not even running Tahoe.

00:17:07   I don't even own a television.

00:17:09   And I, whatever, I found Tahoe to be a really good update in the sense that Apple actually

00:17:18   added productivity Mac features that like Mac, the Mac is a place where we want to be productive.

00:17:22   And for years, I felt like Apple didn't really focus on that.

00:17:25   And they did some Mac specific productivity features that made me really like that aspect

00:17:30   of Tahoe.

00:17:31   Yeah, the design regressed, although I think it was not as bad as it could have been, which

00:17:35   is I chose to look at that glass as half full, which is if they had devoted more time to liquid

00:17:40   glass on the Mac, I think it would have just made it worse, not better.

00:17:43   So I'm kind of glad that they only gave it a light touch and then ran away.

00:17:47   That all said, Golden Gate rolls back, you know, I would say most of the egregious changes

00:17:53   that were in Tahoe to the point where I think that, you know, somebody could go straight from

00:17:58   previous OSs to jump right over Tahoe and land in Golden Gate and you would be fine.

00:18:04   Like the sidebars metaphorically were right in Tahoe where it was like, well, this is a pane

00:18:11   of glass on top of a pane of glass.

00:18:12   But the net result was a mess and the sidebars now make sense again.

00:18:17   Toolbars are toolbars again, instead of it being sort of like an area where individual

00:18:22   buttons can appear with content sliding under them that changes based on what contents and

00:18:29   like all that is gone and it's just a toolbar now.

00:18:31   So like the interface stuff is a lot better.

00:18:35   And so I think, I think that's good.

00:18:39   I mean, I, all the windows feel a little square, which I think was the intent to get the, the

00:18:44   roundedness of it to be something that makes a lot more sense.

00:18:46   So I thought that was all, I thought, you know, so I guess if you're somebody who has held

00:18:52   out because you're like, oh, I just don't like how it looks.

00:18:55   I think you could go into Golden Gate even now and certainly in the fall and not worry

00:18:59   about it because the look has been cleaned up a lot and you're going to get the benefits

00:19:03   of all those productivity features in Tahoe that you haven't had for the last year.

00:19:07   If you, if you said, I'm not going to use Tahoe.

00:19:10   So that's good.

00:19:11   Did they change Spotlight much?

00:19:13   I mean, that was one of the biggest productivity changes, right?

00:19:16   Was Spotlight and the, and the different features that it brought.

00:19:19   Has it changed much with Golden Gate?

00:19:22   It looks totally different because they're picking up the Siri AI style and it's got one

00:19:29   of the engines in it is that it's detecting if you're asking a Siri question and then it

00:19:33   flips over to ask Siri, but otherwise it's the same in that it's got the multiple categories.

00:19:39   It's got apps, actions, files, and the clipboard history.

00:19:43   And that all seems pretty much the same as last year.

00:19:47   So again, if you're coming from two versions ago, it's a pretty dramatically changed Spotlight

00:19:51   because they did so much with it.

00:19:52   Obviously the underlying Spotlight index is different now because they're using the same

00:19:56   index that they're using elsewhere.

00:19:58   And so how that will play out, who knows?

00:20:02   Like it's a long process to index and, you know, I found it to be pretty successful.

00:20:08   In fact, my biggest complaint is that at this point, if I do use it as an interface for Siri,

00:20:14   I feel like I almost have to give it a minute to realize that I'm asking Siri something.

00:20:18   I'll type something in really fast and then I'll just sort of sit there until it turns

00:20:21   to ask Siri.

00:20:22   Sometimes that can be a little bit sluggish.

00:20:25   But it is something...

00:20:27   Joe Rosensteele wrote a piece on Six Colors like, I don't know, last year?

00:20:30   That I'd never really thought of it, but he made a really great point, which is that Apple

00:20:36   has too many places in its interface where you can type things in.

00:20:39   And it's like, why do I have a place that I type to Siri and a place that I type to

00:20:44   Spotlight?

00:20:44   Why do I not have a place to type?

00:20:46   And that's one of the things I really like about the Siri AI Spotlight integration is

00:20:52   command space type of thing.

00:20:54   If it's a search, it'll search.

00:20:56   If it's a Siri query, Siri query, it will...

00:20:58   It doesn't quite rhyme.

00:20:59   It will...

00:21:00   It'll do that.

00:21:02   Like that's how it should be.

00:21:03   I should not need to think about which box I want to bring up in order to type a thing

00:21:07   in to find out an answer, right?

00:21:09   And then, as you talked about recently in your beta experiences, as a question engine,

00:21:17   Siri AI seems fine.

00:21:20   It seems like they did it.

00:21:21   We tend to downplay it because we've been surrounded by all these other LLMs and that so much of

00:21:27   the LLM conversation now is about these heightened things like writing code and agents that are

00:21:32   doing work for you and all of that.

00:21:33   But so much, I think, of what AI is actually used for is essentially what used to go in

00:21:39   search engine queries, which is, can you give me the answer to this question or can you give

00:21:43   me a list or suggest this or something like that?

00:21:46   And in my experience, all that stuff works pretty well.

00:21:49   Like they did that.

00:21:50   They solved that issue, which is why I think it may be as smart that companies like OpenAI

00:21:55   are de-emphasizing their simple chatbots and focusing on their complex agents and code

00:22:01   building and things like that.

00:22:03   Because it really feels like if Apple and obviously Google with Gemini have nailed the table stakes

00:22:09   of, I just want to ask a simple question.

00:22:11   That's not, I mean, people still use ChatGPT and stuff, but like it's going to defang a lot

00:22:18   of that functionality because your phone's just going to, you're not going to need to

00:22:23   take an extra step to get there, right?

00:22:25   Yeah, I have, I mean, I don't know if you want me to do this now.

00:22:28   I have a bunch of thoughts about Siri AI.

00:22:30   Like I could share them now while we're kind of on the subject.

00:22:34   Sure, we're in the beta train.

00:22:34   Let's do it.

00:22:35   So I am very impressed by Siri AI.

00:22:38   Like I've been using it for a bunch of tasks, I guess some small, some kind of medium.

00:22:44   And on the whole, it performs well.

00:22:47   I would say tasks that I consider to be large tasks, I'm still defaulting to something like

00:22:53   Clawed, right?

00:22:54   Where it's like vibe coding, or if I'm like even doing things on my Mac, like file-based

00:23:01   stuff, I'm still using Clawed for it.

00:23:02   Maybe some of that stuff will change when I install GoldenGate.

00:23:06   I'm not using GoldenGate on any devices yet.

00:23:08   I don't really like to play around with the Mac beta as they scare me, honestly.

00:23:12   There's too much going on there.

00:23:16   But in general, my hope was that Siri AI would kind of take the place of general knowledge or

00:23:23   simple research stuff, which is what I was using ChatGPT for.

00:23:26   And it's absolutely done that for me in my experiences over the last kind of four to six

00:23:33   weeks or whatever.

00:23:33   I want to give some examples for the types of things I've been asking that I think are

00:23:40   interesting.

00:23:40   Because it still requires a little bit of massaging in places.

00:23:45   I've mentioned this one on the show before, but like I have like a repeating reminder for

00:23:50   putting my laundry away and I've been quite impressed by just kind of like out of the

00:23:56   blue, I can say to my iPhone, I put my laundry away and it understands that and then just marks

00:24:02   the reminder as complete.

00:24:04   Which I just think that that kind of interface is the kind of interface that you would want.

00:24:09   I didn't need to say mark my laundry task as complete, right?

00:24:14   Like that kind of like very specific way that we talk to computers.

00:24:18   You don't really need to do that.

00:24:20   And I think that's quite clever.

00:24:21   And it's more of a natural dialogue.

00:24:24   And I've done the typical thing that everybody's doing, right?

00:24:27   Which is like asking about a trip, that kind of thing.

00:24:29   But you could just say like, how is the weather looking for my trip?

00:24:32   And then it knows where I'm going.

00:24:34   It gives me the temperature.

00:24:36   I was actually quite impressed with this.

00:24:37   It gave me what the temperature was today.

00:24:39   I asked this like a week or so ago.

00:24:40   And it was like, I can't tell you what it is going to be in that time.

00:24:45   It's too far away.

00:24:46   And I think it's a clever result, right?

00:24:50   Like it could have just said like, no, I can't do that.

00:24:53   But it's like, no, here's the temperature in New York today.

00:24:56   And, but I can't tell you what it's going to be like in two weeks or whatever.

00:25:00   And then I've been doing some kind of like the typical trip planning stuff with it.

00:25:04   And I've been asking like, oh, give me some suggestions for restaurants.

00:25:07   And I would, and what I said was within a 30 minute walk of where I'm staying, I didn't

00:25:14   tell it where I was staying, but it knows and it, right.

00:25:19   It knows where I am.

00:25:21   And so it just does it.

00:25:22   I don't need to say within a 30 minute of this hotel or this street, it just knows the answer

00:25:27   to that question.

00:25:29   Um, and you know, like, like every AI tool, there are the things that you need to, to

00:25:34   give it prompt wise.

00:25:36   Like for example, when I've asked any question around food, it gives me answers from Apple

00:25:42   maps, which is not what I want.

00:25:45   I want it to go out online and find me recommendations based on articles that are talking about the

00:25:53   best places in such and such place.

00:25:54   And so, but so what I'd say is look online and it then gives me exactly what I want because

00:26:01   I just don't really think that like reviews on Apple maps or Google maps help you find the

00:26:06   right places to eat.

00:26:07   Um, so it's like a thing of just say, oh, and check this on the web and it will go away and

00:26:11   do that.

00:26:12   I asked, when will Toy Story 5 be coming to Disney plus?

00:26:16   I feel like that's a pretty good question.

00:26:19   And it said it, and I love the answers that I don't have an answer yet, but based on the

00:26:24   way that Disney releases their films, I expect it to be a 45 day window.

00:26:29   So probably sometime in August.

00:26:31   Like I thought that I found this to be a really great answer where it's using knowledge.

00:26:35   It, the, the, the answer doesn't exist because Disney haven't said, but it's using context to

00:26:41   try and give me that answer.

00:26:42   This is a question I never would have asked the old Siri because it's like, there's no

00:26:47   way you're going to give me the answer that I want.

00:26:50   Um, and I, you know, I've, I've done stuff like, uh, I'm where at the moment we're like

00:26:57   coordinating stuff for design in California and I'm working with the people that bought

00:27:01   our sponsor tier.

00:27:02   And I said for it to list me the sponsors information I have in my inbox for design in

00:27:08   California.

00:27:08   And it then pulled me a text list of all of the emails of all of the people then create

00:27:14   at a table with their names, the company names and the sponsorship details.

00:27:19   I was like, wow, that was, I would not have expected this kind of stuff from Siri.

00:27:24   But yeah.

00:27:24   And then in general, the onscreen awareness stuff is great.

00:27:28   Who is that?

00:27:29   Where is this?

00:27:30   What is that?

00:27:31   You know, like things you see online, like people, no places, people are eating on social

00:27:35   media.

00:27:35   Like I've had this, like people, I'm like, where is this place?

00:27:37   And it, you know, takes a screenshot, goes away and finds it.

00:27:40   And I thought it was pretty good, right?

00:27:42   Like all of this stuff is really good.

00:27:44   So all, all of this to say, just reset your expectations of Siri's performances in the

00:27:50   past, like forget all of that and go into it and just try it out.

00:27:55   And I think you'll be surprised.

00:27:56   Like I've found for me that my kind of typical usage of ChairGPT has been replaced with, with

00:28:02   Siri AI.

00:28:02   And it's also just integrated so well into the system.

00:28:06   It has the personal context.

00:28:08   I think it's doing a good job.

00:28:10   Like I've been very, very pleased with it.

00:28:12   Yeah.

00:28:13   I, I find the personal context to be much more hit and miss, but again, I'm willing

00:28:18   to give it the benefit of the doubt at this point in the summer.

00:28:22   Yeah.

00:28:22   I think that some of the personal context stuff is difficult.

00:28:25   Like I, I'm having okay or fine reactions to it so far, but I think we've got to wait

00:28:34   until third party apps are in there as well.

00:28:36   And I think, and then like, or then what happens, you know, um, it's going to be interesting

00:28:41   to see how that kind of stuff rolls out.

00:28:43   But in general, you, I got from your review that you just haven't really been that impressed

00:28:50   with Siri AI yet.

00:28:51   Yeah.

00:28:52   I mean, the, again, the, the world knowledge stuff is fine.

00:28:55   Like I think that it's, I think it does the job.

00:28:58   I think my challenge is it's really hit and miss with the stuff that is based on a personal

00:29:04   context.

00:29:04   And I, you know, I'll keep using it and I'll keep trying it.

00:29:08   Sometimes it does it when it works, right.

00:29:11   It's like magic, but then there are times when I ask of things and it just doesn't seem

00:29:16   to understand what I'm saying.

00:29:17   And is that because of the system?

00:29:19   Is it because the index on the particular device that I'm asking is not, you know, complete?

00:29:25   I don't know.

00:29:26   I don't know the reasons why.

00:29:28   So I'll keep an eye on it.

00:29:31   Yeah.

00:29:32   What do you think about the photo editing stuff?

00:29:34   How much, how much time have you spent with those tools?

00:29:37   Oh, quite a bit.

00:29:39   Actually, um, the, you know, all of them have a generative element, right?

00:29:48   Like extend.

00:29:49   It's very cleverly done.

00:29:52   Extend is literally the crop tool, but the crop tool goes the other way, which is just a

00:29:58   very simple concept.

00:29:59   What if you could uncrop an original image?

00:30:02   And expand the horizon of it to the point where I think in a very clever move, not only

00:30:07   did they do that, but like all the aspect ratio controls remain.

00:30:10   So like, if you've got an image and you want to make it 16 by nine, you can do that.

00:30:14   And then it'll extend in exactly the space that it needs to.

00:30:18   I think that's smart.

00:30:19   However, every pixel you add is generative.

00:30:25   Every pixel you add, it's going to upload that data to private cloud compute, and it's going

00:30:30   to crank on it and it's going to return imaginary pixels to you.

00:30:33   And that's why I advise people to be judicious with it.

00:30:38   I think that it actually is a great answer to the problem I've certainly had, which is I

00:30:44   want to print this and put it in a frame, or I want it to fit in this particular shape

00:30:50   in a calendar.

00:30:51   And it's just not the right shape.

00:30:53   If I, if I, if I put it in that, in that space, it cuts off the sides and it cuts people

00:30:58   off.

00:30:58   And so I can't use that photo.

00:31:01   And so with extend, you can say, I'm going to make that photo a little taller and it does

00:31:07   it.

00:31:07   And generally it does a great job.

00:31:10   It really does.

00:31:12   You know, the warning is you got to look, you got to, you got to look because it may

00:31:16   do a bad job.

00:31:18   So you got to, and Apple's tools actually do a pretty good job here.

00:31:20   When the detail comes back from the server and you see the new generated result, it's not,

00:31:27   it hasn't saved it yet.

00:31:28   There's like a button to say, okay, I'll take it or redo it.

00:31:32   Let's clear that.

00:31:33   And then maybe you can redo it or you can give up.

00:31:35   Um, and that's good because sometimes it's very bad.

00:31:38   I had a photo of Julian at his graduation and it was, uh, right taken literally on the

00:31:44   floor where they did the graduation.

00:31:46   There's a place that they stand and they take your photo and then families get that photo.

00:31:51   And so it was a little too narrow and I wanted to just be a little wider and I widened it with

00:31:56   extend.

00:31:56   And so he's standing there and it's just him and his gown and his cap with the tassel hanging

00:32:02   down cause he's a graduate and it generated a metal table next to him and hanging from above

00:32:12   dangling down like a lamp or something was an enormous tassel.

00:32:16   Oh, like, like a tassel, the size of a Muppet.

00:32:20   It was like a horror movie about graduation where the tassels descend from the ceiling and kill you.

00:32:26   And I thought, well, I understand why it did this.

00:32:30   It saw a tassel and thought, oh, I guess this is tassel land that this person is in.

00:32:33   Maybe there's a giant tassel over here.

00:32:35   And I was like, nope, that's nope, not it.

00:32:38   But I did it again.

00:32:39   I did it right.

00:32:40   So again, it's like, it happens, but you got to be careful.

00:32:43   There's still going to be mistakes, but I think extend used judiciously is really smart because

00:32:47   you're, you're taking a photo that might've been the perfect photo, but unusable for the

00:32:53   application and making it just a little bit more.

00:32:56   And I, you know, and, and with good, usually the results are amazing.

00:33:00   So, um, very impressed with extend.

00:33:04   I think it's going to help people.

00:33:06   The combo of using extend and then recropping the image is, is a pretty good way of doing

00:33:12   things.

00:33:13   Like I've had it, you know, for me, the best use of this is wallpapers.

00:33:16   I already on my iPhone.

00:33:18   Now my lock screen wallpaper was a wallpaper I made by using the extend feature.

00:33:22   Um, and I, you know, basically I extended it and then recropped it to cut off a lot of

00:33:27   the stuff that it would have generated about the people in the picture.

00:33:31   And it's just like behind them, it's just, oh, they've just added more wall.

00:33:34   Yeah.

00:33:35   Right.

00:33:35   And it's like, that's perfect.

00:33:36   It's exactly what I need for a lock screen image.

00:33:39   And so I, I've been really impressed with that.

00:33:41   And also the cleanup feature is much, much, much better now.

00:33:44   Yeah.

00:33:45   I, as far as I can tell, there's two versions of cleanup.

00:33:48   There's the old version of cleanup and there's the new one that uses private cloud compute.

00:33:52   Which is the one I've used.

00:33:53   And there's actually in the interface, it, it describes them as there's auto where it

00:33:58   chooses.

00:33:58   And then there's sort of like fine and high quality.

00:34:03   And the fine seems to be the on device relatively fast, uh, one that was there before.

00:34:10   And then the high quality one, because you see the progress bar when you try to do it,

00:34:15   that's it sending data out to private cloud compute and getting the result back.

00:34:19   But I did a test because there's a photo in my, in my book, uh, about photos that is cleaning

00:34:25   up.

00:34:25   It's Jamie standing on the beach in Hawaii and she's got, um, there's two guys standing behind

00:34:30   her and they're, and they're like overlapping right behind her and she's got her long hair.

00:34:35   And so they're overlapping and cleanup tried, right?

00:34:39   And it, it's okay, but you can see it's kind of rough around the edges and you can see that

00:34:44   there's something back there and the private cloud compute, the high quality version in the

00:34:48   current betas, um, did a vastly superior job to it.

00:34:53   I had to, you know, put it in high quality mode to do that, but it, it did a great job.

00:34:58   It's not always perfect, but you can also that cleanup is also a thing that can be progressive.

00:35:03   So I did a cleanup where I took, I was at a baseball game a couple of weeks ago and we got

00:35:08   to do this thing where we were out in the outfield before the game on the, on the warning track.

00:35:12   And, and I took a, took a selfie and then there were people next to us and I cleaned them up.

00:35:16   Right.

00:35:17   It said, let's get rid of these people.

00:35:18   It's great.

00:35:19   But it, it made an assumption that there were these like barriers, like blocking off

00:35:24   the rest of the compartment we were in that weren't there, but then I just cleaned up the

00:35:29   barriers and they went away and the result was then good.

00:35:33   So it was like, I, you know, that's how it's supposed to work is you say, no, no, no, not

00:35:37   this.

00:35:37   And then it gets rid of it.

00:35:38   And again, sometimes that doesn't work very well, but sometimes it works really well.

00:35:43   Um, the, uh, the reframe feature that uses the spatial, I guess what I should say about

00:35:50   that is don't move it very much because they, I'm sure there are applications where moving

00:35:58   it a little bit.

00:35:59   I think that their, their suggestion that it's for things like, I didn't like this thing that

00:36:03   was right behind the head of one of the people in my shot and I moved it a little and now it's

00:36:08   gone or now it's not behind their head.

00:36:10   I think that's a good use of this feature, but don't do too much because it has to invent

00:36:15   everything.

00:36:16   And I was taking pictures of people where you read, you pivot it.

00:36:20   Like there's a picture of me and I was like, let's just move it over to the right, to the

00:36:24   left a little bit or to the right.

00:36:26   And what it does is it reveals the left side of my face that wasn't in the shot.

00:36:30   And it's like, my face has a head growing out of it, like a second head.

00:36:35   And it's like, it's grotesque and awful.

00:36:38   And it's like, that's, that's the problem, especially with faces, every pixel that is

00:36:42   being revealed of that face is being generated.

00:36:45   And that means you're going to get synthetic face and our brains are really good at noticing

00:36:50   that that's not that person's face.

00:36:52   Now, will there be a future version of this in a few years that looks at who that person

00:36:57   is, recognizes other source photos of them in your photo library, is able to send those

00:37:01   as reference and generate something that is completely realistic.

00:37:04   Yeah, probably, but not this one.

00:37:06   This one doesn't do that.

00:37:07   This one is entirely out of context.

00:37:09   And so, uh, like be really careful.

00:37:12   But I find extend to be a much less useful feature than, or I mean, uh, spatial reframe to

00:37:18   be much less useful than extend.

00:37:19   I think extend and cleanup are the winners here.

00:37:21   Yeah.

00:37:22   I, I think I've, the more I thought about it and the more I played with it, I'm struggling

00:37:27   to find a good use of reframe that can't just be taken care of with cleanup.

00:37:33   That's true.

00:37:34   Just clean up that thing that's behind that person.

00:37:36   Yeah.

00:37:36   Like, otherwise, I don't know what it's really for.

00:37:41   Reframe is a cool magic trick, but it feels very much like what we said at the time, which

00:37:45   is, oh, I see.

00:37:46   They've assembled this feature out of other features that they have.

00:37:49   Yeah.

00:37:49   Because that's exactly what it is.

00:37:51   They're using the spatial photos feature, which allows them to build a depth map.

00:37:54   And then you can pivot it around in real time because that's what they do on vision pro.

00:37:58   And then you can send the result to a server and do generative on it because it's going

00:38:04   to be able to tag the stuff that changed and regenerate the image.

00:38:06   So I get why they were able to build this feature.

00:38:10   It feels a little more forced.

00:38:12   Like this is a feature we could build.

00:38:14   So we built it.

00:38:14   Yeah.

00:38:15   It's got the feeling of image playgrounds to me, uh, but just a little bit, just not as

00:38:20   bad.

00:38:20   Like I don't feel as strongly about this as I do about image playgrounds where it's

00:38:24   kind of just like, you know, what's the phrase I'm thinking of?

00:38:29   Like, you know, just because we could didn't mean we should.

00:38:31   Yeah.

00:38:31   Kind of every, every pixel in the reframe, it's not like extend or cleanup.

00:38:36   Every pixel in the reframe is regenerated by an AI model because the perspective has changed.

00:38:41   Yes.

00:38:42   And I think in some cases when we definitely saw this, uh, there was somebody sitting with

00:38:47   us who was doing some of this at WWDC and they were pointing out how uncanny it could

00:38:51   be.

00:38:51   And I think it's because in part, the 3d scanning depth model is not always that sophisticated.

00:38:57   I think that they, it's kind of like, Oh, this is like a mannequin head basically.

00:39:01   Like the head goes here and then the body goes here and then the background is back there.

00:39:05   And the problem is people's faces aren't mannequin heads.

00:39:08   Like the nose is a different shape.

00:39:10   The chin is a different shape.

00:39:11   The hair is a different shape.

00:39:12   All of those things are true and at different depths.

00:39:14   And I think maybe that model is not quite that sophisticated.

00:39:18   And as a result, when you rotate it, it's rotating and calculating a new face based on probably

00:39:24   some pretty simplified geometry.

00:39:26   And the result, if you know a face really well, and you look at a face and reframe, you will

00:39:31   often go, Hmm, it's not quite right.

00:39:34   That's not quite right.

00:39:36   And I, I think that that makes that a much harder feature to use.

00:39:39   Yep.

00:39:40   Uh, what have been your experiences with shortcuts so far?

00:39:43   Obviously the Mac gets the, um, kind of generate a shortcut, but also has new tools, um, that

00:39:49   other platforms don't get.

00:39:50   Describe, describe a shortcut is very good, right?

00:39:54   I mean, that's, that's, that's, it's simple, but it's iterative.

00:39:59   I'm very impressed with that.

00:40:01   Um, I, I think they did a good job.

00:40:04   I, I hope for growth there, but it's a good place to start.

00:40:07   Yes.

00:40:08   Yes.

00:40:09   Very much so.

00:40:10   Because, you know, it's even for people that know what they're doing, it's like a good

00:40:12   way to get started.

00:40:13   And then you can very easily go in and change things and see how it did it and stuff like

00:40:17   that.

00:40:17   I think that it is a, a rare feature that benefits both regular and power users.

00:40:24   Um, I think everybody can get some benefit from this, which I think is nice.

00:40:29   You don't, you don't need to know more than to say, I'd like this thing to do this thing

00:40:32   and have it do it.

00:40:33   And then you test it and you go, yep, that did it.

00:40:35   And if you don't, if it doesn't do it, you type in the box and you say, no, no, no,

00:40:38   I want it to do like work like this and then it changes it, rebuilds it and then does it

00:40:42   again.

00:40:43   Um, yeah, there's otherwise if now for people who are using that, it's got storage now, so

00:40:49   you can save storage and it's persistent over time and it can update it, which is really great.

00:40:53   That makes it much more functional.

00:40:54   And then there's a new three pane interface on the Mac that is totally useless because

00:40:58   the third pane is just that giant shortcut summary that is pointless.

00:41:02   And then when you edit it, well, at least it means that you don't have to swap between the

00:41:06   views, right?

00:41:06   So like you just got that benefit, I guess.

00:41:09   Yeah.

00:41:09   You have, you, you can't, instead you have to double click and then it opens the shortcut

00:41:13   separately.

00:41:14   So, but there's no, uh, I don't know what you're thinking of.

00:41:17   I don't think there's anything that is Mac only.

00:41:20   Oh yeah, no, you're right.

00:41:21   Uh, uh, you're, you're, you're very right.

00:41:23   I guess the three pane interface is the, is the only thing.

00:41:26   Yeah, it's just, uh, it's just kind of pointless because it's, it's, yeah, I, I mean, I get why

00:41:31   you, it, it'll work on any shortcut.

00:41:33   So it's using its AI model to try to describe shortcuts, even using doing things that it can't

00:41:37   actually generate itself.

00:41:38   And that's kind of fun, but in reality, it takes up in a huge amount of space and doesn't

00:41:43   do anything.

00:41:43   So I would like to be able to close it, please.

00:41:47   Um, yeah, but otherwise it's, it's, it's good.

00:41:51   Like, again, it's a very simple feature that is, it shows the way to the future more than

00:41:58   anything else.

00:41:59   I think.

00:41:59   Speaking of way of the future, uh, you know, obviously you've played around with sidecar.

00:42:03   It's very clearly the harbinger of touchscreen Macs, right?

00:42:07   Yeah.

00:42:08   And the story about sidecar is that it's boring because it just works.

00:42:11   Like you, you attach an iPad via sidecar and you start using the Mac interface with touch

00:42:16   and it just works.

00:42:17   Like you'd expect it to work.

00:42:18   You can scroll and you can select and you can move windows around and it's fine.

00:42:24   Like that's for all of the hype about like, oh no, uh, touchscreen Mac will have to be redesigned

00:42:31   for touchscreen.

00:42:32   Not really.

00:42:33   It just seems to work fine.

00:42:34   Like it just seems to work fine.

00:42:37   So I wish I had more exciting things to say about, about sidecar.

00:42:41   That is the most exciting thing in my opinion, that it just works perfectly fine.

00:42:47   Like I don't want Mac OS to start like shooting fireworks, right?

00:42:51   Just because there's a touchscreen.

00:42:52   Like I don't want it to do anything weird.

00:42:54   Like just do what iPad does.

00:42:56   If I'm using a MacBook pro with a touchscreen, I expected to do exactly what it does on my

00:43:01   iPad, which is I'm sitting there.

00:43:03   My hands aren't on the keyboard.

00:43:04   I'm looking at something I want to scroll and I just idly reach out and flick and scroll

00:43:09   the webpage.

00:43:09   And I do that on my iPad all the time when it's in the magic keyboard and it works fine.

00:43:14   And it's just not a big deal.

00:43:15   That's what I think this experience should be like.

00:43:17   And as far as I can tell from sidecar, that's exactly what it is.

00:43:19   Like you're not like, like this is a secondary input method.

00:43:23   This is not for people who are not, you know, and I know several people who are like this,

00:43:28   who have like a mouse on one side and a trackpad on the other side.

00:43:31   I am that person.

00:43:31   Jason, in front of me right now, I have three input methods.

00:43:34   I have a Wacom tablet, a magic trackpad and a mouse.

00:43:37   Exactly.

00:43:38   So for people who are not used to that concept, it might seem weird, but like having an additional

00:43:43   input method is not a big deal and is sometimes nice ergonomically.

00:43:47   I do not anticipate that people are going to be navigating their Macs entirely by touch.

00:43:51   It's just not going to happen.

00:43:52   It's just not going to happen.

00:43:53   I mean, maybe in a pinch you could do it, but like, it's just not going to happen.

00:43:57   And that's okay.

00:43:58   It doesn't need to happen.

00:43:59   It's fine.

00:44:00   It just works okay.

00:44:02   Doing exactly what we've been doing with iPads with keyboards attached for like five years

00:44:07   now.

00:44:07   Yeah.

00:44:08   Six years.

00:44:09   Something like that.

00:44:10   I would assume it's similar with Golden Gate to iOS 27, which is that it's all performing

00:44:16   very well for me.

00:44:17   It's all very stable.

00:44:19   And there are just tons of little improvements throughout the operating system.

00:44:23   Like I, I think people are going to be happy with these releases just from that perspective.

00:44:28   I think especially when they launch to the world, you know, later on this year, I can only imagine

00:44:34   them feeling even better than they currently feel, which is very good.

00:44:38   Is Golden Gate the same?

00:44:42   Yeah.

00:44:42   They're bugs, but I'm, I mean, that's my standard public beta advice applies here, which is if

00:44:50   you want to see what the future is and you want to mess around with it, I think you can do it

00:44:54   and it's pretty safe.

00:44:55   But just know that those of us who use betas have come to accept the fact that it's a beta.

00:45:01   That means some of your apps might crash or they might not work right.

00:45:06   Like all the menu bar utilities are broken.

00:45:08   Yeah.

00:45:08   Actually, the Mac kind of has a different, different struggle area, right?

00:45:11   because you've got the app store and non-app store stuff.

00:45:14   And so, yeah, my iPad is, I mean, my iPad is draining battery more than it did before

00:45:19   the beta, but like, yeah, on the Mac, you just have like, there's third-party apps that get

00:45:24   weird and there's bugs and, and like, I restart my Mac more when I'm in a beta because things

00:45:32   are working weird.

00:45:32   And I'm like, okay, let's just restart.

00:45:34   And then usually that solves it.

00:45:36   Um, I re I've restarted my iPad a couple of times in the last week because things got weird

00:45:41   and I was like, all right, let's restart it.

00:45:42   So it's not, you know, I'm not giving you a free pass here, but if you're willing to run

00:45:47   into those issues and say, well, this is what I get for running a beta, I think you could run

00:45:51   the public beta and, and you're going to be fine and you get to try out all this new stuff.

00:45:55   If, uh, that turns you off, then don't.

00:45:58   And you can wait until September or longer if you want to.

00:46:01   I will give you a freer pass for iOS 27.

00:46:03   I think iOS 27 is feeling really good to me.

00:46:07   Um, and it doesn't have a lot of the edge cases that macOS 27 will have, um, for, for what will

00:46:15   and won't work.

00:46:15   Let me just give a quick aside on watchOS 27, Jason, which I have now recently installed because

00:46:20   I was having some issues, uh, with notifications on my Apple watch.

00:46:25   So I upgraded and it fixed them.

00:46:27   I think that there was something was getting lost.

00:46:29   A couple of things.

00:46:30   So Siri AI is on the Apple watch.

00:46:33   Um, it's not on all Apple watches.

00:46:34   Actually, no, it is on the ones, but the watchOS 27 is not available on that many Apple watches.

00:46:39   Right.

00:46:40   Um, I like having the app there.

00:46:42   I think it's, you can ask complex questions to get answers.

00:46:45   I like that you can read the full text of previous conversations.

00:46:49   I just think that's a nice thing you can have on your Apple watch, but I've noticed some

00:46:54   of the more basic stuff, like setting a timer.

00:46:57   Yes.

00:46:57   Takes a little bit longer than it used to.

00:47:00   I have, I have seen it take longer and I have also seen it fail.

00:47:03   Yeah.

00:47:04   And it also fails at adding things to my reminders list.

00:47:07   Okay.

00:47:08   I, I, I do.

00:47:09   One of the things I use my Apple watch for is add sour cream to the shopping list.

00:47:13   Yep.

00:47:13   And it, and it says, I'm sorry, there's no list called shopping list, which there is.

00:47:18   Good stuff.

00:47:18   There is.

00:47:19   Yep.

00:47:19   And then it says, would you like me to make a list?

00:47:22   And if you say yes, it, it, it fails because there's already one there.

00:47:26   And if you say no, then suddenly my default list has sour cream on it, which is not a shopping

00:47:31   list list.

00:47:31   And it's very baffling.

00:47:32   So, I mean, this is, this is why I have not had, I think watchOS is the worst of the betas

00:47:41   because I think that they did break large parts of Siri and it, I can't recommend it to people.

00:47:47   No, I wouldn't.

00:47:48   I wouldn't.

00:47:48   They've got to tighten it up.

00:47:49   It's busted.

00:47:50   Because I think, say with the timer stuff, I think it's, it's waiting for more information.

00:47:59   Like, it's like, is this a big request they're asking me?

00:48:02   And like, it takes a, like, there's a delay.

00:48:04   Like, yeah, they got to address it.

00:48:06   And also if I set a timer, you don't need to wait for another, like, it's, it's still

00:48:11   waiting.

00:48:11   Like, you know, it sets the timer and then it's like, I'm still listening.

00:48:14   It's like, you don't, it's fine.

00:48:16   You don't need to keep listening.

00:48:19   Um, so I think they've got to tighten that up.

00:48:21   You know, actually you mentioned that the shopping, this thing was just another great experience

00:48:24   I had where Idina text me a bunch of things that she wanted and I just held the button

00:48:29   down.

00:48:29   It was like, add all of these to my shopping list.

00:48:31   And then it just did it.

00:48:33   And it also did it in all the pre-made shopping list categories too.

00:48:36   Like this was on my iPhone.

00:48:37   I thought it was great.

00:48:39   The new app layout thing.

00:48:40   So when you press the digital crown and it gives you the apps, I like this UI actually,

00:48:46   um, because it is surfacing the stuff that I want.

00:48:48   And so I think as a, as a maybe fourth or fifth try of trying to, to work out how to show you

00:48:55   apps, uh, on the Apple watch, I like this one.

00:48:58   Um, that, and also I, I felt like in, uh, all of liquid glass UI, the Apple watch was the

00:49:06   worst.

00:49:06   Like it looked the, the more worse than anything else, uh, from, from my taste.

00:49:11   And I think they've done a lot of UI refinement in 27.

00:49:14   And I think it looks a lot more considered now where it felt like to me with watchOS 26,

00:49:20   they were like, let's just make everything clear.

00:49:23   Like, and there wasn't really any consideration about it.

00:49:26   And I feel like it's, it's looking much better, but my battery life on my Apple watch ultra is

00:49:31   destroyed.

00:49:31   It's so bad.

00:49:33   Uh, so, but it fixed my main problem, which was I wasn't getting notifications on my Apple

00:49:38   watch.

00:49:39   And it's one of the main reasons I wear my Apple watch.

00:49:41   So it fixed it, but this one will get better.

00:49:44   I think once it does get better, I think this will also be a pretty solid, uh, release.

00:49:49   Right.

00:49:50   And I believe the way Siri AI works is that it's talking to your, your pair of, uh, iPhone.

00:49:55   So it's, it's going back to the iPhone for that.

00:49:57   Cause it can't do that itself.

00:49:58   If it's too tiny, too dumb.

00:50:00   But I feel like if I tell you set a timer and like do it, well, actually, I don't know

00:50:03   if it's the way I set timers.

00:50:06   I don't know if anybody, if you do this or anybody else does this, I just say five minutes.

00:50:10   That's it.

00:50:10   I don't give it anything else.

00:50:12   I do this cause you showed it to me.

00:50:13   This was the power user tip you gave me when I was in London.

00:50:16   And I don't know.

00:50:17   I just say the amount of time.

00:50:18   It just sets a timer.

00:50:19   And I don't know if maybe that is a problem, right?

00:50:21   Cause I, but I, that has worked for me forever.

00:50:24   But here, here's the thing with all of this, and this is true for the iPhone, but it's

00:50:28   especially true of the Apple watch.

00:50:29   If we get Siri AI on the Apple watch, but it comes at the expense of all of these simple

00:50:36   commands that make life easier because I'm just adding sour cream to my shopping list,

00:50:40   or I'm just starting a five minute timer.

00:50:42   If, if those get bad, but you get Siri AI, they blew it because you gotta, you gotta do that

00:50:49   stuff, right?

00:50:49   All that simple stuff has to work and it has to work well, and it needs to not spin for 15

00:50:54   seconds before it starts a timer.

00:50:56   Just do, you can't do it.

00:50:57   If, if you can't get that to work, revisit what you're doing on the Apple watch.

00:51:02   Cause that stuff has to work.

00:51:03   Yes, I agree.

00:51:05   Especially something like that.

00:51:07   Like this, the very, very simple table steak stuff for like why you would wear an Apple watch

00:51:11   is quickly setting timers while you're cooking.

00:51:13   Right.

00:51:14   And just being able to speak into the watch.

00:51:15   I get that needs to be tightened up.

00:51:17   Don't, don't overcomplicate this, right?

00:51:21   Like, and this is, it's interesting.

00:51:22   I've not had this experience with the iPhone, like doing things like asking it to set timers,

00:51:28   change lights, you know, all that kind of stuff.

00:51:30   That is as quick as it ever was, but it feels like in trying to shove this technology into the

00:51:35   Apple watch, they've maybe added some kind of latency that, that wasn't there before.

00:51:41   Um, and that's not great.

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00:53:31   Rumor Roundup time, Jason Snell.

00:53:33   Yeehaw!

00:53:34   So this one is a slight aside to the typical Rumor Roundup fare, but considering all of our

00:53:40   discussion about Apple and OpenAI, let's talk about a report from Mark Gurman at Bloomberg

00:53:45   about what OpenAI's first hardware device is likely to be.

00:53:50   So, Mark is reporting that they are working on a smart speaker without a screen.

00:53:55   It is intended to be a, quote, new type of home computer for the AI era that is designed

00:54:01   to be a human-like AI companion that lives in your home.

00:54:06   It is, I mean, I guess it's probably, I don't know what smart speaker means in this context.

00:54:11   Is it going to be canister-like?

00:54:12   Is it going to be a little ball, like a little pebble?

00:54:15   You know, what is it going to be like?

00:54:16   It will have a rechargeable battery so you can move it around, but it's not designed to leave

00:54:22   your home.

00:54:22   So that tells me it's a Wi-Fi product, right?

00:54:25   You'd guess from that?

00:54:28   Because if you take a Wi-Fi product out, it's dead.

00:54:30   It's got to be on the internet all the time, so it's got to be on your Wi-Fi.

00:54:34   And it's presumably not via a Bluetooth connection or whatever, you know?

00:54:39   Yes.

00:54:39   To a helper app on your phone?

00:54:41   No, it can't be.

00:54:42   It's a Wi-Fi device, for sure.

00:54:44   As well as being something that you talk to ChatGPT with, this product will also play media

00:54:49   and control smart home appliances.

00:54:51   I mean, sure, right?

00:54:53   What else would it do?

00:54:55   OpenAI expects that this device will become increasingly personalized to a user and their

00:55:01   preferences over time, even offering proactive suggestions.

00:55:05   This is a quote.

00:55:06   OpenAI envisions the device anticipating needs, surfacing information proactively, and serving

00:55:12   as an expert on its user, they said.

00:55:15   If you remember, Jason, a long time ago, we spoke about one of Mark Gurman's reports for

00:55:20   the Robotic Arm product.

00:55:22   The tabletop robot?

00:55:24   Tabletop robot.

00:55:24   And in that, he was saying that over time, it may start just saying things.

00:55:30   Hey, you, you're wrong!

00:55:32   I don't know what it's going to say.

00:55:34   What do you think about this idea?

00:55:36   Imagine that the technology works, right?

00:55:38   And they start making proactive suggestions.

00:55:42   If they are useful, proactive suggestions, would you want a piece of technology to just start

00:55:48   talking?

00:55:48   Well, I think having the option is okay.

00:55:51   I have lamented for all the time I was using an Amazon Echo that there's no way for me to

00:55:56   like, on a scripted basis, set an alert to have my Echo say, you know, you're exporting

00:56:03   solar, you ought to do some laundry or something like that.

00:56:06   It's like a push notification.

00:56:08   It's like, okay, there are scenarios where having your in-home assistant ping you in a place

00:56:18   other than your phone and say, here's a thing that you might want to know.

00:56:23   That's different than I'm listening to your conversation and, and butting in.

00:56:27   And it's different than what Amazon poisoned all their products with, which is like, by the

00:56:31   way, I have a sale on laundry detergent.

00:56:36   It's like, get, oh, go away.

00:56:38   I'm going to rip you out of the wall and throw you in the garbage can.

00:56:40   We're done.

00:56:41   Our relationship is over.

00:56:42   That's how my relationship with Alexa ended.

00:56:45   Same.

00:56:45   Me too.

00:56:46   By the way, I have things to sell you.

00:56:48   And it's like, nope, gone.

00:56:49   But goodbye.

00:56:50   Goodbye.

00:56:50   Yep.

00:56:51   So, um, but I, I mean, I think there are scenarios, but the question is just like how, look,

00:56:57   so much of this description is like people spit balling in a room somewhere in Silicon Valley

00:57:01   saying, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:57:02   And it could do this and it could do this.

00:57:03   And it's like, okay, but what do people actually want it to do?

00:57:06   But yes, like I built that whole thing a couple of weeks ago just to alert me on my phone or

00:57:14   my iPad that I left the EV plugged in and it was going to charge overnight because this

00:57:21   time of year I do the EV charging during the day using overage from solar and it's free.

00:57:27   And if I do it overnight, I will fill up the battery, but it will be off the grid and it

00:57:32   will cost me.

00:57:33   So I have an alert to say it checks to see if the car is plugged in and says there's a car

00:57:39   plugged in.

00:57:40   You might want to unplug it.

00:57:41   And it runs that at 9 PM, but I have to have that on my iPad.

00:57:44   Or whatever.

00:57:45   And I have to be paying attention to it.

00:57:48   That's the kind of thing where I might say, why don't you ping me at 9 PM and say out loud

00:57:55   whether, if this thing is true, like there are scenarios in which you might want somebody

00:58:00   to interrupt you like that.

00:58:01   Yeah.

00:58:02   But I look at this and I think, is that what they're going to do?

00:58:06   Or are they going to do a whole bunch of dumb stuff because they don't understand what

00:58:09   people actually want, which is probably the answer here.

00:58:12   But like, I'm not opposed to it.

00:58:14   I think the idea that you can't send, or at least when I last used it, you couldn't

00:58:18   send a push notification to an echo because there was no API for that.

00:58:23   It's like, no, no, you can't do that.

00:58:25   It's like, that's, that seems really dumb.

00:58:27   I should be able to alert myself with a automation I built somewhere.

00:58:31   So I could see it or using AI to say like, you know, if you say, why don't you warn me

00:58:38   when someone, if so-and-so ever emails me and it's like, oh, did you know you just got an

00:58:43   email from so-and-so and you're like, oh no, I better go check that.

00:58:45   Okay.

00:58:45   If I choose to do that, having my little roaming speaker person thing tell me about it would

00:58:54   be fine.

00:58:55   So like, let's imagine, you know, you're here in Megastudio with me and we're talking

00:58:59   about the rest of this history again.

00:59:00   And we're like, oh, such and such thing happened in 1874.

00:59:04   And then this device is like, oh, actually that was 1875.

00:59:07   How would you feel about that?

00:59:09   I wouldn't like that, right?

00:59:10   Like I, I don't want a thing kind of correcting me.

00:59:15   Never, never, ever do I want, never, ever do I want somebody, uh, some AI model butting

00:59:21   in on my conversations.

00:59:22   Yeah.

00:59:23   Cause I worry about that kind of stuff too.

00:59:25   Or like me and yourself, where do you want to go for lunch?

00:59:28   It's like, oh, why do you try this new pizza place?

00:59:30   Like, no, you need to leave me alone.

00:59:32   By the way, there's a new pizza place, Mike.

00:59:34   Cause these are the, these are also the kinds of things that I imagine a proactive assistant

00:59:39   could be doing.

00:59:40   Um, and I, and I, I just don't know about that.

00:59:43   No.

00:59:44   Mark says that it could also include a mechanical element that will move to show emotion and

00:59:50   response to a user.

00:59:51   I like the thought of this.

00:59:53   I think that could be fun.

00:59:55   Yeah.

00:59:55   Like that it, if this thing, this was a conversation again from the tabletop robot, like if it wants

01:00:02   to be proactive, kind of raise your hand, right?

01:00:05   You show me, you have something that you want to say, and then maybe I'll ask you to, to give

01:00:09   the information.

01:00:10   Like I like that kind of thing.

01:00:12   Or if a device, if I, if I start speaking to a computer, it alerting to me that it knows

01:00:21   that it's to receive this input.

01:00:24   I like, we have that visually, right?

01:00:26   Like if I start talking to the assistant on my phone, it lights up to let me know that I

01:00:31   have just kind of like this little cylinder on my desk, you know, it kind of like raising

01:00:36   an eyebrow essentially to let me know it's listening.

01:00:39   I, I like that as an element for a device like this, I think.

01:00:42   Sure.

01:00:43   That's, it's just ambient alerts, whether it's color, a little light somewhere, or whether

01:00:49   it's movement or a different position that it usually is in.

01:00:53   I'm not, I mean, that could be fine.

01:00:55   Sure.

01:00:56   I mean, that's the, I think that's the idea of the tabletop robot and what we saw in a

01:00:59   bunch of those demos to those, those demo videos that, that Apple AI engineer was working on

01:01:03   where, you know, you're basically, uh, you've got a little thing that can move.

01:01:07   And so it can have a personality and it can be like a little, again, tabletop robot.

01:01:12   We, we, we laugh about that, but that's the idea is to have it have personality and feel

01:01:16   like it's, uh, alive on your countertop or, you know, wherever you put this thing, the

01:01:21   same idea.

01:01:22   I'm not opposed to it as an idea.

01:01:23   It's feels very gimmicky and it might be dumb, but, um, I, I see the impulse there and it could

01:01:28   potentially be interesting.

01:01:29   And, you know, I feel like there is this whole vibe of like trying to bring humanity to technology

01:01:34   and giving us a sense of life physically to these products is, is a way to, to inject that

01:01:44   feeling right in the way that like every time anybody gets a robot vacuum, they follow around

01:01:50   the first time they think it's hilarious.

01:01:51   They laugh at it, bumping into things, you know, like it's because it, it does more pet

01:01:57   like stuff, right?

01:01:59   It's like, it's moving around your house and it's like a fun novelty.

01:02:02   Um, apparently this device will also have a camera and other sensors to gain an understanding

01:02:07   of the environment that it's in that.

01:02:09   Yeah.

01:02:10   I mean, sure.

01:02:11   Right.

01:02:11   That feels like it would have that.

01:02:12   Uh, this is one of my favorite things in this article is this quote, open AI believes that

01:02:19   this device fears significantly from anything Apple has on the market today and that it is

01:02:24   unlikely that it violates trade secrets belonging to the iPhone maker.

01:02:28   I love the significantly.

01:02:30   And so carrying on from this is though Apple sells the home pod and home pod mini smart

01:02:36   speakers, open AI doesn't see them as comparable to what it is building.

01:02:39   The new speakers, audio system and other hardware differ substantially from Apple's designs and

01:02:45   open AI believes its first product doesn't violate any trade secrets.

01:02:49   according to people with knowledge of the matter.

01:02:53   Good news, everybody.

01:02:54   We didn't violate trade secrets on this one.

01:02:56   Come on.

01:02:57   I mean, all right.

01:02:58   Sure.

01:02:59   You didn't steal anything related to this, but also really how different is it?

01:03:03   You know, like how different can you be?

01:03:05   No, the, the, the real counter argument is what they don't want to probably say, but was

01:03:11   my reaction to this entire report, which is get ready.

01:03:15   Everybody, open AI has finally made some hardware and what have they made?

01:03:19   They made an, they made an echo.

01:03:21   They made a home pod.

01:03:23   They, they, this, this product is not interesting.

01:03:28   This product is, uh, battery operated wifi speaker.

01:03:33   Like you can get from all sorts of different companies attached to, uh, attached to an AI

01:03:39   subsystem, although directly.

01:03:41   So more like an echo or a home pod than something that would be paired with a phone.

01:03:46   Okay.

01:03:47   And it might have a thingy that moves on it or something, but like everything else is like,

01:03:53   Oh, it's a new type of home computer for the AI era.

01:03:56   Come on in what scenario is this a new type of anything?

01:03:59   It's not a new type of anything.

01:04:01   The only new thing in it is that it'll be attached to chat GPT and you know, yes, chat GPT is very

01:04:07   interesting and they've got that new GPT live where it, it, it is like even more kind of like

01:04:12   a back and forth and it's listening and reaction to, as you talk and like they're building this

01:04:17   whole thing up almost like Disney imagine, imagineering style to make it a richer experience.

01:04:24   Fair enough.

01:04:25   But like, as to what this product is as described, it's not even remotely interesting to me and

01:04:32   nothing about it is, is new or significantly, significantly different, but I will grant you

01:04:39   that this stuff is so old that I'm certain it doesn't violate any trade secrets.

01:04:43   It's because I don't think there's a secret, I mean, short of the tabletop robot moving

01:04:47   around a little bit.

01:04:48   And that maybe Apple could claim that if they do some stuff that the mechanical element on

01:04:52   this, that that is lifted from aspects of what Apple's doing.

01:04:56   But I believe them.

01:04:57   I, I, I completely believe open AI that this was probably not a product they needed to steal

01:05:02   any trade secrets to, to release.

01:05:03   Because it's not that interesting.

01:05:04   No, because I feel like they are going to have to go to great lengths to try and show

01:05:09   me why this is better than using my phone, right?

01:05:12   Like I have ChatGPT and GPT Live on my iPhone if I want it, right?

01:05:16   Like it's really, you know, this like proactive and the physical nature of this device is going

01:05:22   to have to be very appealing.

01:05:24   And I'm just not convinced that it would be, honestly.

01:05:27   This whole hardware thing that they're doing is because open AI has a, has an AI platform

01:05:33   and doesn't have any place to put it, right?

01:05:35   Because they've got Apple in the way, they got Google in the way.

01:05:38   They, they, they, the most important interface is the, is the phone, the iPhone and, and Android

01:05:45   phones.

01:05:45   So Apple and Google and Samsung, and you know, you can list some people, but there's like

01:05:49   in the way and Google and Apple are not going to turn over and hand it all to ChatGPT,

01:05:54   to open AI, right?

01:05:56   They're not going to do it.

01:05:57   So what do you do?

01:05:59   And their answer seems to be, well, we've got a lot of money because we've got a lot

01:06:03   of investment and there's this huge AI bubble.

01:06:06   We're just going to pour money into making our own hardware.

01:06:09   And, you know, honestly, building your own Amazon Echo line that's based on ChatGPT and

01:06:17   is substantially better than what, because let's be clear, the smart speaker market, the AI smart

01:06:23   speaker market is terrible.

01:06:26   Like there's nothing out there that's any good.

01:06:28   None of them do a good job.

01:06:29   And so there's an opportunity for them to do something there where they, they build hardware

01:06:35   that allows them to embody ChatGPT and get it in people's lives and get it in people's homes

01:06:41   and good for them.

01:06:42   But like, that's what is going on here is that they're stymied by hardware being the place

01:06:48   they want to go to get this stuff in the real world and having the companies that are running

01:06:54   the operating systems, running the hardware, don't use their stuff and they don't control

01:06:59   it.

01:06:59   So they're going to build their own.

01:07:00   Like I, I get it.

01:07:01   I get it.

01:07:02   But this is a, this is an uninteresting product in any other way.

01:07:06   I bet this product has a nice handle.

01:07:08   I bet.

01:07:09   Right.

01:07:10   Like, like some way.

01:07:11   Sure.

01:07:11   Because I think it's going to be intended that you pick it up and take it around the house

01:07:15   with you.

01:07:16   Johnny Ive loves handles.

01:07:17   And he loves a handle.

01:07:18   And I think I am intrigued.

01:07:19   I am intrigued about this because I just want to see what, what do they design?

01:07:26   Right.

01:07:27   What does IO Johnny Ive love from whatever mixture it is of this company?

01:07:31   Like, sure.

01:07:32   What is the, what is it?

01:07:33   Right.

01:07:34   Like, I think that's going to be interesting.

01:07:36   And, and I, I will want to try it for that reason as like a piece of hardware.

01:07:41   Like what did they make?

01:07:42   It could be good because all of these are so bad now that it could be good.

01:07:45   Yeah.

01:07:45   Sure.

01:07:46   And apparently this is the first of five products that the company is working on.

01:07:51   They're still aiming to release this one in 2027.

01:07:53   And as Mark says, obviously one of these devices is intended to replace the smartphone, whether

01:07:59   it's a smartphone or, or what, but we'll see, we'll see about that one.

01:08:04   If they will ever be able to get it to where they want to get it.

01:08:08   Yeah.

01:08:09   I will.

01:08:10   Yeah.

01:08:10   We'll, we'll see what they're going to do here.

01:08:12   I understand why they're making this product.

01:08:13   I mean, the challenge too, is that.

01:08:15   Their competition is also getting better.

01:08:19   Now chat GPT is going to be better.

01:08:21   But what I said before about how I'm not going to use this thing to like, I'm not going to

01:08:28   use it to build software.

01:08:30   I'm just going to use it to ask questions and remind me of stuff.

01:08:34   And that means that although open AI undoubtedly has a better AI subsystem than Apple does, let's

01:08:42   say, or Google or Amazon for a product like this, are they really going to blow the Apple

01:08:53   HomePod screen, Siri AI thing out of the water?

01:08:56   Which we'll probably see before this, right?

01:08:59   And that will have a screen, which is its own massive selling point for a product.

01:09:06   Indeed.

01:09:07   Because, because people do like to see stuff.

01:09:09   And it will be a beautiful photo frame, right?

01:09:12   That you will be able to have in your house all the time.

01:09:14   All of your favorite photos on it from your photos library.

01:09:17   So if I were them, I'd build, this is the most sensible feature or hardware to build for

01:09:23   them is, is you look at what Amazon has done and, and all the others in this category.

01:09:27   And you're like, their AI isn't very good.

01:09:31   Their ecosystem isn't any good.

01:09:32   And we've got the best of those things.

01:09:34   So if we could build a box that embodies this, that people can carry around and put in their

01:09:38   house, um, that, that'd be great.

01:09:41   It's like, sure.

01:09:41   I mean, I, I don't dispute it.

01:09:44   It's not, it's not groundbreaking in any way or interesting in any way.

01:09:47   But I do think it's a product they should probably make because again, I mean, unless

01:09:51   you find a partner, I mean, you could, you could just buy a partner or, or work with a

01:09:55   partner to make this product for you, but they've decided that they're going to hire Johnny Ive

01:09:59   and they're going to do it.

01:10:00   So like, good luck to them.

01:10:02   I think this requires less of an ecosystem than other things.

01:10:06   It still would require an ecosystem.

01:10:08   And I think it's probably going to require things like you adding a Gmail skill and having

01:10:13   it be able to read all your email and your calendar and stuff in the cloud.

01:10:16   so that it'll work at, whereas Apple is obviously going to just tether this thing to, uh, iPhones

01:10:22   and stuff and be able to look at your personal context that way.

01:10:25   But still, you know, yeah, this, this is, I think far more reasonable than them building

01:10:30   a smartphone and having to rebuild the entire concept of a smartphone interface using just

01:10:34   open AI stuff.

01:10:35   I, I think that's going to be a harder sell for them.

01:10:38   Yeah, absolutely.

01:10:38   All right.

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01:12:36   It is time for some Ask Upgrade Questions.

01:12:40   Logan says, I'm currently on the developer beta of macOS 27 and while it's been great so far,

01:12:48   I think Siri AI needs long-term memory.

01:12:50   Yes, it can access the information you have, but what if you wanted to remember something that

01:12:55   isn't in a stored, in a note, a text, or an email?

01:12:58   Do you think Apple could add memory to Siri AI in the future?

01:13:03   It could, sure.

01:13:04   I think should as well, but whether they will, I don't know, but I hope so.

01:13:09   It's nice.

01:13:09   Yeah, maybe, or maybe it's framed as you can ask it to store stuff and there's like a Siri

01:13:15   category in notes.

01:13:16   Yeah.

01:13:17   Right?

01:13:18   Because every device has notes and notes syncs via iCloud and that allows you to store

01:13:23   it in a way that it will know about it and it will remember it because it's got access

01:13:28   to all of that stuff.

01:13:29   So I wonder if there might be a way to do that, that even if it's like, you know, remember

01:13:33   this and it'll be like, well, I added a note in the Siri category to remember this and that's

01:13:39   how it does it.

01:13:40   But I agree.

01:13:41   I think that that's a useful thing to have is, you know, remember this thing when I ask

01:13:47   you about it later or take it into account when I ask you about it later.

01:13:50   That's a good feature to have.

01:13:51   Yeah.

01:13:51   Federico is playing around with this by like just adding a bunch of like custom instructions

01:13:56   to a note.

01:13:56   Yeah.

01:13:57   And it would work, but he would sometimes have to ask it specifically to reference that

01:14:02   note because the request that you're making, I guess the system doesn't necessarily know

01:14:07   it needs to access that specific set of instructions to be able to answer it.

01:14:10   So you can add it to a note and if it's like something complex, you can say a reference

01:14:16   the note, blah, blah, blah, and it will do it.

01:14:18   But that's not as automatic as you would want where if it was in a kind of custom memory,

01:14:23   even if that memory was stored in Apple notes, like by Siri, say it could then know, let me

01:14:30   just check all of my memories before I.

01:14:32   There's an efficiency there though, because then every query is checking the memory and that

01:14:36   might be, that might be unwieldy over time.

01:14:38   So that's part of the challenge.

01:14:39   I don't know how that stuff works if I'm being honest, right?

01:14:42   Like, but, but I, like, I think, I think that's what people call the harness.

01:14:46   I don't know.

01:14:46   People keep saying this word harness and like, and I kind of like go like, uh-huh, a nod and

01:14:51   like, I'm not entirely sure.

01:14:53   You put it, you put it on a horse, Mike.

01:14:55   Oh, that's what I'm missing.

01:14:57   Yeah.

01:14:57   You miss the horses.

01:14:58   Yeah.

01:14:59   Thomas says, I upgrade my iPhone every year and I can't use the iPhone upgrade program

01:15:05   because I am on Mint Mobile.

01:15:07   It's not a carrier that Apple currently offers in store.

01:15:09   Why do you think Apple doesn't offer unlocked iPhones on the iPhone upgrade program?

01:15:14   So I have a theory about this.

01:15:16   I don't know if you have one too.

01:15:17   I just, I have no thoughts about this at all.

01:15:19   So go for it.

01:15:20   I figure they do it so they don't upset the carrier relationships.

01:15:23   Yeah.

01:15:24   That they, they don't, in the iPhone upgrade program, they want you to get a new iPhone

01:15:30   every year, but they don't necessarily want to circumvent the carriers.

01:15:34   And so doing it in partnership with the carriers means the carrier stays involved in the relationship

01:15:41   with the customer, which I think they want.

01:15:43   And Apple do have to kind of keep the carrier happy.

01:15:46   So they don't, they don't sell it that way.

01:15:49   I mean, the answer is something to do with carriers.

01:15:51   It's either with the existing character carriers they have relationships with, or it's with the

01:15:55   carriers that don't want to participate at that level with Apple.

01:16:00   Right.

01:16:01   So the other way to say this is Mint Mobile offers all sorts of discounts and stuff.

01:16:05   And maybe one of the things they're doing is not paying Apple or whatever.

01:16:09   And as a result, they're not in this preferred zone.

01:16:13   So they don't get all these other features.

01:16:15   Yeah.

01:16:15   I don't know if this is worldwide, but like maybe in other countries you can, because it's

01:16:20   less restrictive.

01:16:20   I don't know.

01:16:23   The iPhone upgrade program sounds like a great thing that terrifies me if I was that person.

01:16:30   because I just, I know that Dan Morin is in the upgrade program.

01:16:33   And the reason I know this is because I think almost every year Dan talks online about problems

01:16:37   he's having upgrading his phone.

01:16:39   So this is why I know I don't want to be in that program myself.

01:16:44   Phil writes in and says, this is like, this is a, I think a great question.

01:16:48   I was excited.

01:16:49   This one came in.

01:16:49   Given the impending increase in price for the iPhone 18 line, is it worth buying a 17 Pro

01:16:56   now to replace my iPhone 14 Pro?

01:16:58   The battery on my 14 Pro is at 81% of its original capacity.

01:17:02   And I was planning on getting an 18 Pro in September, but I'm not keen on maybe paying

01:17:06   1200 pounds for it.

01:17:08   I say, yes.

01:17:11   I say you should just go buy an iPhone now.

01:17:13   I think.

01:17:14   And so I wanted to mention this like general advice.

01:17:16   Maybe you've thought about this and maybe you haven't.

01:17:18   If you are someone who upgrades their phone every few years, you should be upgrading your

01:17:23   phone right now.

01:17:24   Because how I mean, I'm sure the 18 line is going to be better than the 17 line.

01:17:30   But if you've already waited years, don't wait years and pay extra prices.

01:17:34   Like, especially if then maybe in a few years time, maybe the prices do come down again.

01:17:39   We, there's no way we can know right now.

01:17:41   But I think if you are a person who waits, I think you should get a 17 Pro.

01:17:46   That would be my, I would recommend this to Phil.

01:17:49   I recommend this in general.

01:17:51   I think that it would really suck if you had to pay 20% more when you're probably not going

01:17:58   to get 20% better phone.

01:17:59   I mean, it's hard to know, you know, there's rumors of big camera upgrades, but if you're

01:18:03   coming from a 14 to a 17, you're going to get a better camera experience anyway.

01:18:08   How much better will it be with one more iteration?

01:18:12   I don't know about that, if I'm being honest.

01:18:14   I think, I think there's a good deal to be had here and given what's going to almost

01:18:23   certainly happen in the fall and you're coming from a 14, I don't think you have to wait.

01:18:28   If you're, if you're that worried about paying more, you can lock in at this price and you're

01:18:33   going to get a 17 Pro is a really great phone.

01:18:35   So yeah, definitely.

01:18:36   David writes in and says, did Jamie really love it when you mentioned her on the show?

01:18:41   Or is that some kind of inside joke to annoy her?

01:18:43   Also, hi, Jamie.

01:18:44   Yes, she really does.

01:18:47   And she pointed out, she was visiting us this last week and she pointed out that I can also

01:18:53   use it as a way to tell where in the episode she is, if she's doing the edit, because if

01:18:59   it's happens at the end, so in this episode, we mentioned her at the beginning and the end,

01:19:02   so she's going to get me twice, but she will text me and, and then I'll know where she is

01:19:08   in the episode because she does like it and she confirmed she likes it.

01:19:11   And also when you mentioned her on connected last week, two weeks ago, uh, and, and pointed

01:19:19   out that she doesn't listen to connected.

01:19:21   I actually, uh, clipped that from overcast and send it to her so she could be being mentioned

01:19:26   on a different show.

01:19:27   Hi, Jamie.

01:19:28   Uh, Matt says, I'd like to know if designed in California will cover other companies that

01:19:33   sadly didn't make it in the market despite having arguably better hardware and software.

01:19:38   Oh, please.

01:19:39   I don't know about the arguably part that we have to say in particular, I'm thinking it's,

01:19:43   it's an Amiga person writing in.

01:19:45   Yes.

01:19:46   I get it.

01:19:46   I get it.

01:19:47   In particular, I'm thinking of Amiga, which had custom graphics and audio hardware and preemptive

01:19:51   multitasking as an operating system.

01:19:53   Uh, I think Apple had some interest prior to Commodore buying them and I feel like there must

01:19:59   have been talent transfer given how close the offices were.

01:20:01   You know, Designers in California is about Apple, but it's also about things related to

01:20:05   Apple.

01:20:05   I don't anticipate doing a series about other companies that didn't make it, although anything

01:20:12   is possible.

01:20:13   I think if I can find interesting Apple connections, I'll go there.

01:20:16   I don't really have any plans of covering something like the Amiga, but never say never.

01:20:21   It is very likely that we will cover companies that were successful, uh, and how they interact

01:20:28   and intersect with Apple, right?

01:20:29   Like you've spoken about wanting to do a Microsoft and Apple series, which would require some Microsoft

01:20:36   info.

01:20:36   I can see down the road in, you know, several years down the road that there could be a series

01:20:42   where I talk about, you know, Atari and Commodore and, uh, Tandy Radio Shack and even the rise

01:20:55   of the, um, of the PC clone and how, and what that was in framing it in the context of sort

01:21:01   of Apple and computer history.

01:21:02   I could see it down the road, but it is tangential enough that I can't see doing it anytime soon.

01:21:07   That's my answer.

01:21:08   And also we've, we've like played around with the idea of like alternate timeline kind of

01:21:15   stuff.

01:21:15   Um, not to create fiction, but like, you know, it could be fun to, if this had happened, where

01:21:21   would we be?

01:21:22   Like, and that could be like a, that feels kind of like the summer of funness of designing

01:21:28   California or of like, all right, so let's play this out.

01:21:30   Like if such and such, what could have happened?

01:21:34   You never, all I'm saying is you never know, right.

01:21:37   What we might do on the show.

01:21:38   Cause we don't know yet.

01:21:39   Right.

01:21:40   But I would say that having not released any episodes and having looked at our, our calendar

01:21:44   of ideas, we're not going to do, um, I appreciate being, being asked to take a podcast about Apple

01:21:49   history and not cover something related to Apple at all.

01:21:51   Yeah.

01:21:51   It's going to be a while before anything like that happens.

01:21:54   Sorry to say Matt, but listen in Matt, because you know, maybe in 2035, we'll do a two part

01:22:01   series on Amiga.

01:22:02   Maybe if we need to, if we need to, if you'd like to send in a question for us to answer

01:22:08   on the show, just go to upgradefeedback.com or click the link in your show notes.

01:22:12   You can also send in your follow-up and feedback there as well.

01:22:16   Uh, thank you to our members who support us with upgrade plus you get longer ad free versions

01:22:20   of the show each and every week, go to getupgradeplus.com to sign up.

01:22:24   You can find a video version of this show on YouTube.

01:22:27   And I would like to thank our sponsors, Squarespace, Fitbod and Decagon for their support of this week's

01:22:32   episode.

01:22:33   But most of all, as always, thank you for listening.

01:22:36   We'll be back next time with a full summer of fun out of time episode.

01:22:41   Yeah, it's true.

01:22:42   It's true.

01:22:42   Travel.

01:22:42   So we're looking forward to that.

01:22:44   Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell.

01:22:46   Bye.

01:22:47   Bye, everybody.