(upbeat music) - From Relay, this is Upgrade, episode 523 for August 5th, 2024. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Express VPN. My name is Mike Hurley, and I'm joined by Jason Snell. Hi, Jason. - Some are a fun. - Some are a fun. - I heard from some people who said it wasn't as fun as they hoped. So we're gonna amp up the fun here in August. - All right. - We're gonna amp up the fun. It's gonna happen. - Today, we may have too much fun. You may have noticed potentially, - Never. - Handing on how close the listener you are that the intro may have sounded a little bit different this episode, because today is the Jingle episode. - It is. It is the Jingle episode. That's what it is. - What is the Jingle episode? What is that? - I was thinking, I had this in my notes from at least one summer ago, that I remember listening to the radio and everything had a Jingle when I was a kid. They had like people singing little jingles for different shows and different hosts. And this was just a thing in radio. And I thought, why do podcasts not have more jingles? And maybe that could be a summer of fun thing is that we get the show some jingles. So we got lots of segments. We got a lot of the verticals. We got a lot of things going on. Maybe we could have some jingles. That was awesome. - Maybe today we'll find out why podcasts don't have jingles. - I think we will probably find that out. - The thing we might get there by the end. So the other thing that you mentioned to me when you were talking about this is we have artwork for every segment. - Yes. - And if you're not looking, then you maybe don't get the benefit. So what if we brought the artwork into audio? - Audio artwork. - Yeah, that's a great way of looking at what this is. This is podcast artwork that you can, you know, it's a boring lesson you learn is that the number one thing that you can guarantee about podcast listeners is that they listen. You can't guarantee anything else. They aren't in your discord. They aren't on your social media. And they may not even be looking at your show artwork, but they are listening to the podcast. So if you want to reach them and really brand them. - There's one thing I know though, is that sometimes podcast listeners also don't listen. - Don't also don't listen. I know. Sometimes they should be listening and they think they're listening, but they're not listening. - What are the chances that this episode is going to get us an email from somebody who says, I don't understand why there were these weird jingles in this when we just explained it. - Very possible, very possible. For the people that think, oh, I'm smart. I'll cut out the first 10 seconds of the episode or whatever it is they do. I'll jump to another segment. - Yeah. - So before we play the first jingle, who made the jingles? - Oh, Lex Friedman made the jingles. Our friend, Lex, who is on a cruise right now. So he will not get your feet. Well, maybe he will. He, you and I found a company that made, literally made the jingles that I listened to when I was a kid. - Yes. - And I sent them an email and it was going to be expensive and I was like, but I want to do it. And they, I think maybe that company has gone out of business and the people involved have all died of old age, but their website is still up. They never got back to me. So instead I went to Lex and I said, here's what I'm thinking. Can you do this? And he said, this may be beyond me, but I have tried my best. And then later, what he also told me was, I wish I could do this for a living. (laughing) - Okay, so that's two very different. I don't think I can do this. Now I only want to do this. - I think he's not, no, I think it's more like, he's not, he doesn't think that he can measure up to the standards of the professional radio jingles, but he, boy, did he have fun, I think is the answer. - He just started, yes, it's fun. I will use this as an opportunity to recommend that people go and check out lex.games. Go and check that out. It is, if you like games that feel similar to some games that you may have experienced in other places, and some originals, go to lex.games and try them out, that will be a little plug for us. - Yeah, thanks Lex. - Thank you for this work for us, which we appreciate. - Indeed. - Ready for Snell Talk? (upbeat music) ♪ Hey Jason, what do you think ♪ ♪ It's time for Snell Talk ♪ - Boy, am I. (laughing) - I've forgotten these, honestly. (laughing) I'd forgotten about them. I listed these quite a while ago when we were planning this. And all I know is that is button the moose bush. (laughing) Some of the segments later on in the episode. Jason multiple upgradians wrote in to ask if you were proud of your namesake Blake Snell. - Ah, yes, as far as I can tell, I'm not related in any way to Blake Snell. The two times saw young award winner, giants, pitcher, but I, and, you know, earlier this week, they were thinking, you know, there were people suggesting they should give up for the season and trade him, which I didn't agree with. And I thought, you know, I'm gonna have a lot of explaining to do. I'm not gonna regret that Lauren and I bought giants jerseys with Snell on the back, because again, the stadium was full of personalized jerseys for my favorite team. Of course, I was going to buy one, but I might have to explain like, why would you buy up Blake Snell? He was here for half a year. Anyway, never gonna have to explain it again, because he threw a no hitter this week in Cincinnati for the Giants. - What does that mean? - He pitched the entire game. It's the first time that he's ever pitched the entire game. And he allowed no hits to the opposition. He walked a couple of guys, but he allowed no hits. It's a very special thing for baseball pitchers to do. - Right, so he went through everybody and nobody got a point. - Nine innings, so 27 outs. And so he faced, I think he had three walks, but he threw a double play. So probably he faced about 29 or 30 hitters and not a single one of them got a hit. - Wow, that's gonna be pretty rare. - There are two or three no hitters I'd say a year. - That's still pretty rare though. - It's pretty rare. - The Giants haven't had a no hitter since I think 2015. And when I was growing up, they had a no hitter in the '70s and then they didn't have another one until like 2008 or something. So my whole sort of like falling in love with baseball and my favorite team and all that and they just never had a no hitter. And since 2008, they've had a perfect game, which is when nobody reaches base at all. 27 up, 27 down and a bunch of no hitters too. So yeah, very exciting. And I watched this game. The other thing is that when the Giants finally broke through and Jonathan Sanchez threw a no hitter, I was at a camp up in the Sarah's and unable to listen or anything. So it was like, what? They finally did it and I wasn't watching, but I was watching this game. So it was great. And there was several moments where the announcers were like, like, wow, he's really got it. Like they said, this is special. He's really playing incredibly well and doing all sorts of code to not say out loud that it was a no hitter. And in the seventh inning, Lauren was watching too. And I said, you know what's going on, right? And she said, no, I said, it's a no hitter. She goes, oh, and then we got to watch the last part of it. It was great. So let's hear for Snell. The pressure builds as it gets towards the end of the game. According to Blake Snell, he wasn't thinking about it at all. He was just minding his business. And then in the seventh inning, he looked up and saw there was no hits. And he was like, oh. And he says, then I was like, OK, no more messing around. We're going to finish this up. Oh, wow. This guy is serious. Yeah, it's very funny. And then they dumped a nice bucket over his head at the end of the game. But the lid hit him in the back of the head. And then they did the big post-game interview. And he said, come on, guys, get the lid off. What are you doing? Like he was talking about criticizing the dumping technique that was going on there. Anyway, it was great. That's fair. It was awesome. Snell, no hitter for the Giants. My namesake, even though I don't think we're related. But yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, very good. My jersey feels better now. But it does. Thanks to everybody who sent in that question. If you would like to send in a question to open a future episode of the show, just go to upgradefeedback.com. And it's time for some follow-up. Follow-up. Oh, did you not do one? No, we didn't do a follow-up one. So I just used one from the prompt. OK, so that's a good, good-- OK, to be fair, we don't actually have special artwork for follow-up. And also, I should have paid it right to our show notes because you put a little indicator by every segment. But I did get Steven to send me-- I did get Steven to send me the follow-up sound effect from the prompt so I could toss that in. Oh, good. So you were going to play that no matter what happened. Yes, it was going to happen. OK, good. Rollie asks, the parallel betas for iOS 18 and 18.1 may be, like Jason said, to support the new iPhone earlier on in the year since Apple wants to ship products by sea for better environmental impacts. It means they would have to ship their products earlier in the year if they did want to do this. Apple mentioned something like this in a previous presentation. So give a bit more context for this. We were talking about the fact that there are 18 and 18.1. We'll talk about that a little later on in the episode. And that potentially you threw out the idea that I received some messages from our developer friends who were very scared about the fact that maybe 18 comes out sooner to support maybe the iPhone being shipped sooner. Rory is crossing two things here. Now, I actually found an article from tradewindsnews.com, which I thought was the best place to talk about shipping. Apple have spoken about committing to shipping more products by sea as a way to reduce their carbon emissions. But they are talking about, at least currently, all the phones, that the new phones will still be shipped by air. Now, of course, just going to mend over time. But I see that as unlikely that they're going to shift their production time that much sooner. But nevertheless, even if they did do this, they could ship these phones sooner if they wanted to get them done sooner and put them on a boat for a month. They have that in-store updating system, which I think they would use. - That's right. I do wonder if they are going to try to GM, or I guess we don't use that term anymore, they're going to try to do final version iOS 18 earlier, with 18.1 running a little later, knowing that they've got this Apple intelligence update that they're going to want to get out there as soon as possible. So it wouldn't surprise me if iOS 18 goes final sooner. I don't think they're going to ship it in August, right? I don't think that's going to happen. But it wouldn't surprise me if the goal is to get that done on the sooner side so that it can be loaded on all those new iPhones and so that they can do the work of getting to 18.1 as quickly as possible, because that's the one that they're going to want to ship as soon as possible. But I don't think they're going to drop an iOS 18 update for the world in two weeks. I think that's unlikely. It's not impossible, but I think it's unlikely. - And Gilliam wrote in to say, I wanted to enforce the idea of phase rollouts, which is what you were describing, with Apple intelligence in 18.1. It's exactly why what happened at CrowdStrike was so terrible. Their update got pushed to everyone at once, which meant that everything was broken all at the same time. - I'm not saying that anything in Apple intelligence or brick phones, but I mean, why risk it, especially with something so new? - Yeah. - It's a good point. - Yeah, it's a good point. - Things we learned from the Tivo forums, right, Mike? - Yep. - Mm-hmm. - Yeah, indeed, as everybody else. What is especially interesting about 18.1 is it will be a double phase rollout because Apple already phases the rollouts of the operating system updates, right? Like, if you don't opt into it, you will get it at some point and they actually push that out a little bit to make sure because it's happened countless times that an OS releases brick phones and has brick new phones. So, like, this has happened so many times and watches and all kinds, so they phase it. - We may not know that because we're all sitting there with the settings app, reloading and swiping and pulling and doing all the things to get the update to come to us immediately. But if you don't do that, it's a lot more kind of lazy about eventually getting the update. - So, they'll be phasing 18.1 and then phasing Apple intelligence really stacking up the face. - Love it. - Time for lawyer up. (upbeat music) ♪ Get on the right side of the lawn ♪ ♪ In lawyer up ♪ - Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. - Like the orange there? - Yeah, that one. - So good. - I really like that one. Taylor writes in and says, Apple intelligence is available in the EU after all, but on the Mac. Mac OS isn't declared a gatekeeper by the DMA and the patch notes for 15.1 bay to one only say that Apple intelligence won't be available in China, whereas for iOS and iPad OS, they explicitly say China and the EU. So seemingly, it'll be available on the Mac when it launches, assuming it doesn't become a gatekeeper by then. This was hilarious to me to think about. - Yeah, it's true, right? - Didn't even think about it. Yeah, absolutely. Mac's not covered by this iPad and iPhone. Yes. Mac, no. - So if you wanna use Apple intelligence features, you'll be able to use them on the Mac. - Get a Mac. - That's right. - As I said to Federico, is that back to the Mac? - Yeah. - Exactly right. - Let's go. - Exactly what he can do that. 'Cause his iPad is also a Mac, so half a Mac. - Yep, half a Mac. - The right half though. - And Apple has filed their motion to dismiss the Department of Justice lawsuit. That one's creeping back around again. So Apple has argued, I think, in a way that we all expected, that the case that the Department of Justice has levied against them does not meet the current law around antitrust. That's what they're suing them over. And that the Department of Justice is trying to reframe it to meet their ends, in case you need to refresher the idea that it's all about interoperability and the Department of Justice basically created their own categories to say that Apple was a monopoly player in those. Dubious, as we talk about at the time. Apple also says that this case would result in harming the security and user experience for their customers, which is the often used. That's by Apple. - Yep. - Now with this being, now that they have filed this motion, we will wait for the judge to decide whether they will be throwing out the case or whether the case will proceed. Again, we're years away from this being resolved if the judge does decide to proceed. - Okay. - Be interesting if the judge does decide to proceed, I think. I don't know what that will say. - I think we spoke about it at the time. I support what the Department of Justice is like. Some of the things that they're getting at, but if we're going by the legal ground, I don't think they have legal ground. - Yeah, it seems like it's a, to me, it seems like a real stretch, but I'm not a lawyer. So we'll see what the judge thinks of the argument that they've carved out this very specific sub-sub category of a market that Apple dominates, but not really. Like, remember, it's not just a sub-sub category of the market that Apple dominates, the number that they use to get to the big scary numbers by adding Apple and Samsung together, which is-- - And World Wide. - Yeah, it's, right, yeah, well, and it, no, it's US only because it's a higher number. If it was worldwide, Apple would be a lower number and that's a worse argument. So they go, well, it's not worldwide, it's in the US and it's just premium smartphones. And then if you look at that and you look at Samsung and Apple sales together, wow, that's a big number, which is, you know, again, not looking at Apple's sales and cutting it two different ways. But we'll see, it might be good enough for the judge. - Yep, I still want the discovery. That's what I want. I want to read all the stuff, so, yeah. If anything, I will see if we get there. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just getting started or managing a growing brand, you can stand out in the crowd with a beautiful website, engage directly with your audience and sell your product services or the content that you create. 'Cause Squarespace has got everything you need, all in one place, all on your terms. 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Go to squarespace.com and you can sign up for a free trial then when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com/upgrade and you'll get 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com/upgrade and when you decide to sign up, you'll get 10% of your first purchase to show you support for the show. A thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show and all every LAFM. It's time for the B-Tales. ♪ It's the B-Tales ♪ ♪ Woohoo ♪ ♪ Future software of features ♪ ♪ They're coming right at you ♪ ♪ Woohoo ♪ ♪ Woohoo ♪ I like when they have extra lyrics, you know? I think today's episode, particularly good to watch the video version of - Just to see your reaction. - We'll get to see my reactions to what's occurring. - It's amazing. So that might be fun if you want to check them out. - I wrote most of the lyrics to these very high quality lyrics. - Did you? - Oh yes, yes. I supplied lyrics to Lex, yeah. - What a team effort. - I thought you were going to say this episode might win a Grammy. Oh well, it's fine. - I mean, it could, you know? You never know. - I have to submit it. - Grammy for podcast jingles? - Cost, soundtrack, yeah, sure. - So how much time have you spent 18.1 this week? - A little bit, not a lot. I haven't gone in on my main devices yet, so I've got a second set of devices, but I feel like I'm, this may be the week that I cut over to using the beta all the time, but I've got it on separate devices right now. - I was, we did an episode connected. We had John Volhez on the show and John is writing the macOS review for Mac Stories. And so one of the things that I'll ask you is saying about going on these betas. What bet, will you go on though? Which, if you go on point one, that's not going to be the beta that you'll be writing reviews about, right? - Yeah, I think, I think maybe the answer is that I'm going to put my main system on 18.0 and leave the test system on point one. - Yeah. - I'm fortunate because I've got an extra Mac, because I still have, I'm still holding on to a review unit. I can have, 'cause this is the problem is you gotta have an older system to refer to when you're writing about changes. So, I could use Lauren's computer for it, I suppose as well, but so the M3 Air Loner is running 18.1. I may update my Mac studio at my desk to 18.0. And then-- - Of 15, and 15 more. - Or sorry, 15, right? - 15, right, Sequoia. Because they haven't synced those numbers up, which is stupid. And my M2 Air is going to stay on 14. - So, I don't know if I mentioned it on this show, but I have two iPad Pros now. So I got the 11-inch M4, and fell in love with that computer, and it's the thing that I use most at home. I took two iPads to replace the iPad Mini is what you're saying. - Yes, basically. And then, I started doing, I was starting working on some new design stuff with Cortex brand, and realized I would really like to both A, have an iPad that's always at my studio, so I'm not taking it backwards and forwards all the time, because I don't want to do that. And also having a bigger screen is more helpful for this kind of work. So, I also have an iPad at my studio now, too. And so, first off, I put 18.1 on the iPad at the studio. - Okay. - And then fell in love with 18.1, and it's now also on my iPad at home. - All right, what made you fall in love with it? - Some of the features in 18.1 are genuinely fantastic. And I am faced with an interesting conundrum in which I now think I may switch to the mail app - Oh. - Away from Spark. - Why, why, why? - The AI summaries are so useful, so useful. So, this is both the summaries in the, like the inbox, taking place of a preview, and also the fact that there is a summarize button at the top of every email, which I find really good for, I get lots of very long email, and also email newsletters. And also, I sent for the first time an AI-generating response to an email. - Oh. - So, it was a, we'll maybe talk about this next week, because you've got this email too. I got an email asking if I wanted to try out an app under an embargo from a PR person, I don't know. And I pressed reply to the email, and it popped up with the little shiny color thing to suggest that it had, like I could tap it, and it would fill it out for me. And it basically did exactly what I wanted, and then I added one more line, and there was a couple of emails sent back and forth, and I decided to just go into it, like press what it respond, and it was doing kind of what I wanted. And like for me, in this scenario, it's like, huh, this is almost the perfect thing for this type of email, where it's like, I don't know this person, so I have no personal relationship to them. I want to use all the niceties, isn't it easier to just have the computer to create the blanket niceties that I would otherwise create for like that don't have any personality? Yeah, like nice to meet you, thanks to the entire, like all that kind of nonsense stuff that I don't usually put into emails of people that I work with, because I don't communicate like that. But in a professional setting like this, it's kind of best to put these things in. So I just let Apple Mail do it for me, and then added in the stuff that I wanted to add in myself. So all of this stuff together makes it so good. Like the fact that I can now like look at my email and see like, oh, this brand has given me a coupon code. This brand is like telling me about their new release. Like it's very good at picking that stuff out. And my tip is, by the way, if you're trying this out to increase the preview size in the inbox to like three lines, 'cause then you get most of what you want. So I really like the email stuff. I think it's very, very good. - I, just to be clear, so the email you and I both got basically said, there's new thing coming out. Here's an embargo, will you accept it? And would you like to learn more? Let me know, basically. And you had AI right back a very polite email that said, yes, I would like to do all that. And I accept the embargo time and all that. I wrote a human written email that was as follows, oh, comma, would love to learn more and happy to accept an embargo. No punctuation and a message. So your message was nicer. - Yes, even though it was written by a robot. - Even though it was written by a very polite robot. - Yeah, and this summarization stuff extends to iMessages. So giving you the preview of a, like a group thread is amazing. - So this is very much the pinnacle of, I'm happy for you or sorry that happened, but I ain't reading all that, correct, okay. - I would say by and large, it does a really good job. I've had to do some weird stuff, but in a scenario where I can't blame the computer because it's people talking about a thing that they're not given context for, but I know the context. And so in a scenario like that, fine. But a lot of the time I've been getting the messages, they're coming through, I'm using the new focus mode, the reduced interruptions focus mode, which also, I think is doing a good job. I'm not really sure how it's working, but it's interesting. Like sometimes it's surfacing a message rather than, but it doesn't always surface that person, but maybe it's doing some kind of sentiment analysis on a message to maybe indicating that it might be important to me. I don't know if it's doing that, but it's interesting to watch it. This focus mode as well does also have the, all of the manual overriding that other focus modes have. So you can say, always let this app through or always let this person through. So we go on top of the machine learning, but it's doing. - Right, so but instead of a blanket, judging, controlling it, it's using the machine learning to judge each one and say whether it does this seem like it's important enough to go through. - Yeah. - Interesting. - But I'm using the, so like, you know, the messages are all kind of collecting up in there. I really like it, but there are a couple of scenarios where I'm not really sure what the intention is, or I think it might be kind of falling down. So like, you know, it's reading the messages and the notifications and it bunches them together and gives you the little preview. These previews also show in the messages window itself, right? And the little preview on the side, like the inbox essentially. But if you have notifications turned off for a thread, it doesn't give you this, right? - Okay. - Because it's not collecting the notifications. - Right. - And also I think if you have messages pinned or the threads pinned, it also doesn't give you the summers. - 'Cause you can't see them. - 'Cause you can't see them. - 'Cause they're in a little circle. Yeah, I have this problem because my big text chat is pinned and has notifications turned off. So to do this, I actually did try this and I couldn't get it to work last week. I'll try again on the betas where I took my, I unpinned my family chat and turned notifications back on and then there were eight messages and there was no summary of any kind, which I was disappointed by. - Yeah, it can be a little inconsistent. - It's body. - I don't know. Like I've had it do summaries on one message from one person, it gave me a summary of that message. So like, I don't know what the thresholds are. But what I would like is honestly, like if I, you know, you can do like, I don't know what it's called anymore, I think like long press and it would give you the preview. - Yeah. - If I long press on a pinned, show me the summary preview first. - Yeah, yeah. - You know, like I would really like those and because I think it's very cool. And also I think the busiest group threads are the ones you turn the notifications off for, which are also the ones you would most likely want the summary for. - Right. So I think, I think this is all really interesting and you got more of it to work than I've gotten it to work thus far, but I'm gonna live with it and spend more time with it. I'm struck, we're gonna talk later about apples, and answer results 'cause that came out, those came out and we're gonna talk about that later. But I wanted to mention here, Tim Cook talked a lot about AI stuff and the analysts are falling over themselves about AI, you know, and it's great. But the narrative that Apple is pushing about Apple intelligence is not like, I would argue that it's misleading because so they released this as a developer beta and Tim Cook says on the call, you know, we rolled this out for developers to look at and we can't, you know, wait to see what they think and all of that. But the fundamental purpose of a developer beta is supposed to be for developers to use new features in order to plan their release for when that version comes out. That's what a developer beta is for. That's why it's called a developer beta. And the problem with it is developers can't do much with Apple intelligence. The big thing they can do is the intense stuff, which isn't in there and it struck me. So you're talking about Apple mail and summarization. What Apple hasn't done is make a, maybe this is why it's not going to be available in the EU. What they haven't done is make an API so that if you're the developer of, let's say, MimeStream or anybody that there's not like, I'm going to hand a message to Apple's LLM and ask for a summary. I'm going to go to summary kit or whatever. Hand them this information, get a summary back and put it in my UI. No, it's just in mail. And so I think that that's one of the frustrations that I've got with the way that Apple is sort of like saying, well, for developers and all of that. Because a lot of these features, and I understand why, I understand it's early days yet, but Apple intelligence, a lot of these features are only going to be useful if you're using the stock Apple apps. And I don't love it. And I'm sure that in the fullness of time, there will be APIs for third party developers to use that will give them access to the same kind of model and summation and all of that that Apple uses. But I don't believe any of that is available right now. No. I'm getting slack messages and they're not being summarized. Yeah, exactly. They're text. You can select text and summarize it, but that's because you're using the text tools, which are available if you use standard controls. It's not really a thing, it's just part of the standard text control. It's not like a special thing, but something like the email summary, like if you're not Apple mail, if MindStream wanted to implement this, they would basically need to roll in their own machine learning model and then feed it data, because Apple's is not available to them. Talking about those writing tools, I think they're pretty good. I like the controls that they have built in. So you select a bunch of text and you get some options. So you can change the tone of a message. So you can be like, oh, give me this in a professional tone. Give me this in a friendly tone. And so I find that's pretty helpful. And you can do this from anywhere you can select text. And in some scenarios, it will show it in the quick type. You can press the little icon, or it shows up also in the little popover, like the copy paste popover, which now is like 17 miles long, because they just keep adding things to it. But you can proofread and rewrite, which is helpful. You can change the tone, but you can also make a summary of text, take text, and put it into bullet points, the key bullet points. Or if you have lots of text, you can turn it into a list or a table. So I like these options instead of me trying to craft a prompt to a chatbot to do this in a certain way. This is just-- or buttons, just press the buttons. So is this simplified list so it is more limited than if you were to ask a chat GPT to do this for you? But I like the UI of it. And then also, you can have it-- once it gives you an answer, you can have it rewrite it. But you can't give it any guidance, right? So you can't be like, oh, yeah, be friendly as if this is my mom, not friendly as if this is my friend. It's all pre-cooked, friendly. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I tried this out on an article because I often use Grammarly for that just to give it another pair of eyes that are not before I post something because I'm posting things just straight to the internet most of the time. And it was pretty good. It was not-- I would say Grammarly's got some AI stuff, too, that's also very good. Apple's advantage is going to be that they're built in that you don't have to pay any extra. This is all really great. And then there's the UI issue, just like, what is the interface for this? Having it be built into the text controls is great. I would say the-- I find the UI not quite all there yet. But it's beta, right? I mean, it got confused. Sometimes it was showing me a correction, but not moving the text display to show it to me. So I couldn't see where the thing was. It's supposed to-- when you're going next, next, next, it's supposed to move the selection so that you can see what you're previewing. And I thought that was kind of unclear. But I think there's a huge amount of potential there for the system to make some smart suggestions about things. Also, unlike Grammarly, believe it or not, the system seems to not understand about Markdown. So it was removing my Markdown links and things. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no. That's part of what I wrote. Is that URL with the brackets around it? You need to leave that there. But really encouraging, I would say. I think it's got a lot of potential. It's useful for me, like, I'm quite frequently just giving someone to chat GPT to improve my grammar and just having it built into iOS. It's just-- and my question's better for me. It's just easier. And I don't have to be taking my text backwards and forwards. And I got it to hallucinate already, which is good news for everyone. So I was just playing around with the tools, and I was copying and pasting-- like, I was basically selecting some text from a Patreon sign-up for a podcast called Into the Aether. And I include a link in the show notes. But basically, it's talking about, you know, you'll get behind the scenes database, which shows every game that we've played, da, da, da, da, da. And the Apple intelligence center up is, oh, and guess what? You'll also get access to a special member's area called BEH. This doesn't feature anywhere. I don't know why it's gotten there. There isn't even a special member's area. Also, it's summarized that first paragraph. And essentially, it's not any shorter. They just reworded some of it, which I would say is so bad. Yeah, this was the friendly, though. I asked you to do it friendly. This is the plagiarism bot kind of thing, where it's, like, it's rewriting words. I'm not sure saying-- so the original text was we might also throw some videos in here every once in a while. And it rewrote it to, we might even throw in some extra videos occasionally. It's not-- it's not any different. I would argue, even in tone, it's not any different. It's just changing the world. It's not changing the world, is it? As if you were trying to make it not seem like plagiarism to copy it. So there's a bunch of stuff going on there. But I rewrote it multiple times, and it kept talking about BEH. So, you know, maybe it's their problem. Maybe they need to create BEH. BEH, it's time for BEH. So I was actually quite surprised at how quickly I got it to do that. Like, I knew it was going to do it, eventually. But I don't really feel like I threw a hard problem at it to get it to just come up with something completely on its own. Bigger thing that I wanted to talk to you about, though, is Siri. So it's not any smarter, right? And I know that we were expecting that. Like, really it's just UI. Right. It's only smarter. It's only smarter. It's got the new UI, which is beautiful. It's not smarter other than that they've got the part of the model hooked up now, where if you stumble around and then correct yourself and all of that, it's better at understanding that. But in terms of its powers, it has no more power than it did. And, like, I've been able to ask it a bunch of stuff, and it's still given me as terrible answers as it's ever given before, right? Because they've not actually changed the independence. And I, from me now, having access to these other tools and not being able to have a conversation with Siri, I think is a problem. It feels really missing and makes them-- I think-- look, the OpenAI integration will be important in some ways here, right? You might be able to ask some stuff and it'll go out to OpenAI for you or whatever. And Tim Cook confirmed in the earnings call that is coming by the end of the year. But when Apple says, here's our AI, here's AI, and they don't have something you can have a conversation with, I think that, in a lot of people's minds, they're just going to go, well, this thing's as bad as it's always been. That's the danger of saying, you know, you're making a bad first impression. I do wonder if they might even reconsider the Siri interface changes and roll that out. It should not change it until they've got something more significant. Until they've had a reason to do it. At least got the charge UPT. And what Cook said in the call is very specifically restating something they've said before, but I thought it was good to get the clarity, which is, our models on device are for-- and in the private cloud-- are for understanding your context and giving you answers based and performing tasks, right? Because all that AppIntent stuff is going to happen. And looking at your data. It's all about that personal data that it understands on your device and using that. World Knowledge, that phrase that they kept using at WWDC, looking up facts on the internet, is not what Apple's stuff is for. So when we said back then, it sounds like Chad GPT and other plugins, you know, down the road, are going to be the replacement for-- I found a web page for you that answers this question, essentially. And that seems to be the case, that Apple wants to kick out to someone else's model, at least for now, if it's about world knowledge. And that gives them distance. And if they find other partners, it allows them to hold that at arm's length and just say, look, you choose who you trust, but it's not us. We're not giving you that information. It just feels like it's missing the personality that is becoming much more prevalent. They said to me that there was some degree of context that is remaining, but all the people, everybody who's tried this context, have failed. The great example I have is you can use Siri to say, where is this person I know, who you've got on fine friends? And it will tell you, oh, Jamie's in Portland. And then the next thing I say is, what's the weather like there? And it gives me my weather. I had the exact same one. I said, where is Stephen? It told me, what's the weather there? And it told me what my weather was. Yeah, and that's like there's no context. And you're right, that is one of the key things they need to do with Siri is have it be a conversation. Oh, and my next one, I said no in Memphis and then it googled Memphis for me. Yeah, no, it just, although they claim there's some context there, yes, and that's why I would argue, and I think you're right, that until you've, there's a certain bar beyond which you can change the Siri UI, but changing the Siri UI while it's still dumb, bad Siri is a mistake, right? It's a mistake. It shouldn't change- No need to do it, yeah. Anyone. And then I would also say, I assume that if you don't have a device capable of Apple Intelligence, that it will use the old Siri UI, 'cause nobody should see the new Siri UI unless it's Apple Intelligence at a certain level. That's what new Siri should be. And I agree with you, this data, it's not at that level yet. But it's a beta, right? It is a beta. This is actually I think my German reported like October. It's probably when this is coming out a long time but I So far the stuff that I've tried by and large I'm impressed of it. I don't I wonder what you think. I'm not sure How I feel about this being like a Compelling enough AI release just these features like to say like hey, we're here. We're on the scene I'm not sure this is enough. This is this is something that german mentioned in his newsletter this weekend And I think I agree to a certain point. I mean we all know and we we've said since WWDC Apple's playing catch-up. They announced a lot of features. They are a Lot of reactions to other features that exist elsewhere It's it's spread over the whole year. So between now and next June essentially They're going to be rolling these out. I think If you look at it very critically you'll say You know, there's not a lot here It's a little and it's okay But there's a whole bunch of stuff that's not here yet that they're promising and they're already kind of behind And it's going to take them this whole year to catch up where with where everybody else already is and there's some truth in that Like I think that I think that that is part of what's going on here at the same time What else are they supposed to do? I mean the alternative is to not ship anything because clearly they're behind and they're they're trying to do this as quickly as they can So I think releasing features first off if you listen to the analysts on the call and you look at Apple stock People are really excited about the whole concept of Apple intelligence. It's almost as if what they wanted from Apple was Acknowledgement that Apple was adding AI features over time and that they thought it was an important category and Apple gave them that And that's not just for the you know people in the tech industry and and in the financial Community who are looking at this and going oh, I hope Apple isn't behind It's also for consumers in the sense that if Apple can say hey Apple intelligence doesn't that make you feel good and it and and then the argument is not We're gonna, you know, AI is fundamentally good The argument is we are putting these features in that make your iPhone better and make your Mac better And there's more to come because we've already announced these other features that are coming later And then these other features that are coming after that and it's just gonna keep on rolling I think first up that's what it is and I think that that will be a lot of people will say okay That's great now. Will it mean that everybody's gonna buy a new iPhone this fall because oh my god Apple intelligence? Well, I think some people will I Think for other people and I think Apple is okay with this they'll hold off and Apple knows they've got another release with more features and then another release with more features And then they'll have WWDC like Apple doesn't need to convert everybody to a new iPhone that supports Apple intelligence in September they've got time to do it as they roll this stuff out So I guess what I would say is yeah, it's a it's a small amount of stuff But they pointed a direction they say where they're going they've got time and I think that beyond that a lot of it becomes people who are just impatient because they want to get to the next thing and then there's a lot of bad analysis that happens Because the analysts are just bored and they want it They want to see more stuff now because they're bored and Apple's Apple's got time to roll this stuff out But but yeah, if the if the litmus test is Is this gonna sell more iPhones on day one? Especially since 18 one won't even be there on day one the answer's probably no or probably very few I think well, but not in a way that you would want like I think more people will buy an iPhone this year Then they would have otherwise because they either want these features. I think they're gonna get them all right Or just know that this new phone is gonna be Apple intelligence the had a phone Yeah, and so they're gonna get a new phone now and know that over the next couple of years Apple is gonna keep on stuffing new AI features into it Yeah But you know, I I reckon I'm probably for the features I've spoken about going to be the you know I think amongst our group the person most excited about them have actually just things that meet me where I need with my computer, but this does not feel like a big AI release to me It's like here's a couple of machine learning features that have been added to iOS, which I really like But I do believe that once we get to the end of all of the stuff they've spoken about Yes, it will feel like that But this is just the way things are rolling I would say actually if if the if the summary stuff works well and if the Adjusting your tone in an email or doing your grammar check in your email works Well a lot of regular people are gonna be impressed with that right because yes Yes, you've been able to do that in Chet GPT or Grammarly or all these other places But there are a lot of people who just never do stuff like that and if they have the ability like oh my god I can just select this paragraph and say fix the grammar and it does it Yeah, you could have done that in something else, but for a lot of people it's just gonna be oh this is amazing Right because it's been given to them for free with their with their device and and so that's worth keeping in mind But yeah, this is a long It's gonna be a long process right like they're gonna first they're gonna roll out phones with no AI It's just a promise and then it's a promise of an update that's followed by a promise of another update and I guess what I would say I Think they will sell models and I think that Apple's got a good track record, but what I would say to a more savvy iPhone buyer is Remember the classic warning which is never buy new hardware Because of the promise of a software update So if you're really excited about a thing that Apple is supposedly doing sometime this year But it's not out yet and that's the reason you're gonna buy a new iPhone Maybe don't maybe wait that iPhone the iPhone will remain on sale, right? It will remain on sale for the moment when you actually are confident But if you don't need a new iPhone I would wait until there's something that's compelling and you never know I mean it's possible that next June at WWDC they'll announce a bunch of stuff and you'll realize oh I actually want next year's iPhone because it's gonna be that much better for those features that we don't even know about now Like I think and I think from Apple's perspective perspective That's fine if Apple intelligence kicks off an upgrade cycle a little bit early, but it takes two years instead of all happening in the Holiday quarter this year. I think Apple's okay with that I think Apple actually kind of must accept that that's probably what's gonna happen because they can't ship a whole boatload of features on day one They know it's not gonna be like that. So they'll do their best, right? They're branding it all as Apple intelligence compatible But I think even Apple would probably admit that it's gonna take time and probably not kick off a super cycle right away This episode is brought to you by Express VPN watching Netflix without using Express VPN It's like paying for a gym membership, but just using the treadmill only You're not getting all of what you could possibly be getting that is where Express VPN comes in when you use Express VPN You can change your location. 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That is Exp ress VPN dot com slash upgrade and you will get an extra three months of Express VPN for free Oh, thanks to Express VPN for the support of this show and all of relay It's time to talk about Apple's earnings money money money money money who has all the money money money money money money who has all the money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money it's Apple Oh, dear This episode man, you know, I'm so pleased I was like bad news like this week Like we got something really sad, you know, can you imagine? I guess we probably would have just kicked it off a week Yeah, yeah, but here we go money money money who has all the money. It's Apple. It's Apple Revenue of eighty five point eight billion dollars for their fiscal third quarter in twenty twenty four that is up five percent You're over year. The Mac was at seven billion dollars of revenue up two percent the iPad at seven point two billion up 24 percent what happens when you release a new product what imagine that imagine that the iPhone 39.3 billion down one percent year of a year services at 24.2 billion up fourteen percent we'll talk about that in a minute and wearables in home eight point one billion dollars down two percent so Not a lot going on here. Really? It is it what my standard line is it is the most boring quarter possible That sets a quarterly revenue record and throws off more than twenty billion dollars in profit But that's Apple. Yeah, right now is it is a it is a mostly boring report where they made huge sums of money Bought a lot of stock back did a big dividend set a Q3 record Which you know, they said to buy a little tiny bit and Q3 is not a very interesting order for them But still it's a record. It's the most revenue they've ever had in this in the third fiscal quarter Most of their product line was just sort of like up a little tiny bit or down a little tiny bit and Apple would even tell you that the iPhone being down 1% actually if in constant currency it grew it was just the you know, strong dollar met some of that went down like, you know anyway, it a fairly Standard Apple machine continues rolling kind of quarter Well, this is the thing though. You got to find your story, right? There's always a story in the earnings somewhere And you found it. I think you wrote a just an excellent article about Services, it's actually an article where really to talk about it. I just have to quote big chunks of it Okay, because you make a lot of good points sub Over look, this is from Jason Snell of six coles calm. Okay, over the last three years Apple has averaged a 72% profit margin on services revenue Even if a quarter of the services revenue that Apple receives is just payments from Google and a further portion is Apple taking its cut from app store Transactions, there's still a lot more going on here Apple is building an enormous business that's based on Apple customers Giving the company their credit cards and charging them regularly and that business is incredibly profitable and is expected to continue growing at double digit Double digit percentages. So what I found interesting here is that you you made a point and then made its counterpoint like in the article Right, you're talking about the fact that Apple a ton of this money's from Google a ton of this money is from app store stuff Yep, and you know Apple's making its TV shows But if you took those out, that's still a huge amount of money. So like they are kind of Doing all of it and doing well. Yeah, I mean, they're building this business where what they want is To make more ongoing money on their existing customer base That's the goal is is they're gonna offer additional services and then also they're making money via again The Google licensing deal and via a cut of app store transactions Although you would you could argue that that the app store transactions fit in because it's a it's a service Apple's providing an app store And then they get a cut of that too And leaving aside the you know monopoly questions there It's still I think even if there could be other app stores Apple would still do pretty well offering its own app store as the platform owner And I also here wanted to I didn't want People reading this article to spend the length of the article going but what about Google right like yes? Google generates whatever it is. It's a very large number of of You know of amount of money like 20 billion a year I think it's like I think it's like 20 billion a year, but regardless it's it's a lot It's a lot, but there's a whole bunch of other stuff too and Apple rolls it all together and 20 you're right I found it 20 billion. Yeah, so it's it's it's like Less than a quarter of apples overall services revenue at this point, which probably when it started it was almost all of it But now it's not it's less than a quarter of Apple because this was 25 billion in one quarter And yeah, it's about 20 billion a year from Google so a fraction An important fraction that's a hundred percent profit, but still a fraction. Yeah, and the key thing being it The services revenue Grows quarter to quarter. It's not just you're a year and like you look at that chart And it just goes up keeps going up. It just keeps going up I think it said a I think Apple has said a services revenue record something like 15 out of the last 16 quarters or 15 out of the last 17 quarters. There was a little bump where they kind of came back down Three and Q4 of 2022 went down a little other than that. It's been up. It's been up for like five years. I think yeah probably so So yeah, so it's profitable. It's growing and Apple said on the call They can expect it to continue growing a double digit percentages like that for next quarter So so yeah, it's a it's a huge business and it's not just Google and it's not just App Store. It is a whole big lump of money and and of course the other part of this so there's two bits of I had a little I had a little buzzing in my head. I was like what's going on here, right? I'm looking at this. I'm thinking I'm gonna write something about the Apple results It was a really boring quarter in the most, you know, again I would love to have a boring quarter like that where I generate twenty billion dollars in profit and set a record but still for Apple kind of a boring quarter and I was thinking like well what is in here and and two things hit me and one of them was the basic math of 24.4 billion in services revenue is more than the Mac iPad in wearables home and accessories categories Generated right so already if you look at the pie chart Like there's iPhone which is big and then there's services and then there's everything else wearables Mac and iPad and they're not as big as services So services is now eclipsed all but the iPhone of Apple's product category It is it's just a huge it's a huge business for them and that's that's revenue the other thing that you and you made a good chart for this That the profit. Yes, that's that's the most that's the other penny that dropped then. I'm like, okay I like all right, so that's impressive. It's bigger than Mac iPad and wearables put together, but keep in mind Apple's profit margin on services revenue. I did the math over the last three years. It's 72 percent And you know Apple Apple makes really good profit on its hardware But it's nothing like that because it can't be because hardware costs it has fixed costs of You know every iPhone costs to manufacture it costs all the parts and all of that Services is a lot lighter because it's sort of intangible and they're there are costs, but 72% profit margin and if you do the math based on the profit margins in the last quarter what you end up getting is How much profit did Apple's products make including the iPhone and how much profit the bottom line here? We're not talking the top line. We're talking the bottom line profit from products versus product profit from services and the answer is I did a little chart 22 billion in profit from products and 18 billion from services so products still more profitable for Apple than services But it's close and I would guess that in the next year There will be at least one quarter where Apple makes more of its profit from the services line than from all Of its products including the iPhone I feel like we're probably the always it would be it'd be Q3 25 Two or three right because it's not gonna be the holiday quarter. There's a huge spike in product revenue It's on the chart you can see it, but we're getting we're getting to that point So it's just an interesting thing to think about and again a lot of people leapt to conclusions based on this It was very interesting to see there's like a little Rorschach test where some people are saying oh You're saying that Apple shouldn't make money on services and there are other people who are like yes This is why Apple is doomed and has sold its soul because of this It's like I'm not saying either of those things I'm saying isn't this an interesting fact that colors how we think about how Apple's business is put together That's that's really I'm really not going beyond that In fact in the story one of the things I said trying to reason this out is the truth is anyone who has a runaway services narrative I think it's probably wrong the danger is that there there ends up being people at Apple who don't understand and have misunderstood the business And I hope they're never put in positions of authority because it's obvious that services is revenue stream Built on the back of Apple's hardware and that if there is no iPhone, there is no services revenue You can't you can't have one without the other It starts with the hardware the hardware matters the hardware and software bundled together in that device It matters what Apple has done though is said when we sell you an iPhone or a Mac or an iPad We're not just selling you that product and making a profit on it We are also then selling you services that make you even more to the point where I don't think there's necessarily an existential crisis going on But I think it's very quickly becoming true that you know when somebody buys an iPhone Apple makes a lot of money But maybe not as much money as they make over the life of that iPhone on the services sold to that person I think services like if we're being if we're just being completely kind to Apple services makes so much sense to them as a company Because they have spent the last 25 years especially Building an ecosystem right that you are that you want to have Four products of theirs and you're gonna have a great time Services is the glue between all of them. Yeah, right that actually connects the multiple products that you have of theirs together so really like services the idea of things in the cloud and you know the connection of these devices and Like that's kind of the proposition right that you can have Four things of theirs. They all kind of work similarly and you get the same service and the same Features across all these devices So like if you just take it at its face value of what we like about Apple and the way that Apple products work Services makes a lot of sense. The problem is everything gets dumped into services right that stuff not so good Yeah, yeah, but yeah, I think what Apple is tried to do with services is say I mean when they say hardware and software and services now instead of just hardware and software I think what they're getting at is what you said. It's the glue. It's the idea that look One advantage is that our hardware is great and the software that runs on it Another advantage is then we build services that improve your usage of those products make them work better together improve, you know, these are key products in your life and we can build services that Elevate it further and let's be honest are also easier like the thing I always think about like Apple Retail Like Apple Retail is incredibly profitable. There are other retail outlets. This is why I'm not super enthusiastic about The idea of oh everything when Apple does a thing. It's a it's a monopoly play. It's like there are other retail outlets But it's sure convenient to go to the Apple store because that you know that it's Apple. It's nice They're gonna have everything they're gonna have people there and even if that's not entirely true like I think that's the vibe you get I'm going to Apple. I'm going to be I hear a lot of people say I'm going to Apple when I say I'm going to Apple I mean I'm driving to Cupertino, but a lot of people just I'm going to Apple means I'm going to the mall right I'm going to Apple and Apple has everything and if they don't have it they can get it and they're the experts and they know all about it and and and and it's convenient and there's third-party products in the Apple store and They're not they're not cheap But it's certainly easy and again Could you save money by doing this elsewhere and buying different products that aren't in the Apple retail store and all that? Yes, but it's super convenient to just be in the Apple Retail store So they make a lot of money from it and I think services is the same kind of story where You know like we have on these podcasts we talked about this and on my website and all it like okay cloud storage Google makes cloud storage Microsoft is cloud storage. There's Dropbox. There's box There's all of these things and there's iCloud. Does iCloud have issues? Yeah, not as many as it used to Does iCloud have all the features of those other things? No, it doesn't Is iCloud easy because it's built into the operating system and you're already giving Apple money for something else? Yeah, it really is and that goes for all of this stuff So that that's I think that's ultimately their game and I don't think it's fundamentally evil I think it's actually perfectly reasonable which is we're gonna make this thing that is a little pricey and very profitable for us but it's going to make our products nicer and it's easy for you to do it and You know what there are always gonna be coupon clippers out there and there are always people who are gonna be like no No, no, I've cobbled together a system that saves me eight dollars a month and Take that Apple. It's like okay. That's fine In fact, I would argue that's where Apple's anti-competitive nature is like let those people do that just let them do that That's fine because most people it goes back to like when Steve Jobs said we're gonna start selling music on iTunes, right? It's like you could people are downloading music for free like you can get Napster and get music for free But you know what you just pay 99 cents for a song. It's easy. It's right there It's convenient and a lot of people like that's like that's fine. I'll do that So convenience goes a long way having it be from Apple and deeply integrated goes a long way I know there are any competitive arguments that can be made there But like all in the big picture I think that's really what's going on with services is like they just want like they've got these products And then there's this big warm fuzzy cloud around all of them that is Apple services And they're just they're nice and they're easy and before you know it Apple is extracting huge amounts of money out of your bank account Every year every month. It happens to all of us. I Mean it is you know it's kind of right with the ease kind of incredible that They made the services thing work. Yeah, it was looked it up It was seven or eight years ago that they did the services narrative thing right where they're like, okay Hey everybody we are announcing today that we're gonna make a big bet on our services revenue We're gonna double it in the next I forget what it was five years or whatever They doubled it so much faster than that and they knew they were gonna do that But it was the launching of the services narrative which is we as a company. So this is not new, right? This is eight years since they announced it So probably longer that they were workshopping and internally we aren't going to grow our services business We are not gonna stand and I think some of this is Apple wanting all the money and it's on his platform I think that's a thing that is a not great bit of Apple's personality as a corporation But it's this idea of like well wait a second. Why are other people building businesses on? Connecting all these things and offering services to our users Why don't we do that and so they said about building an enormous services business? And as you said the funny thing is it worked worked in I think beyond their wildest expectations it worked. Yeah Because then also the industry moved in such a way that they were able to collect top more pieces and put them into services Like when they started this they didn't think they were gonna make a TV show with Jennifer Aniston in it like no That wasn't what they were thinking about that was probably not what they were thinking and again that that Apple TV plus loses money Right like that's a real hit to the profit margin. Yeah, it loses money But I think again, it's got some other benefits that we talked about they really like being nominated for awards and things like that It adds a sheen to it as a shield as well. Yeah, I would also say it adds a sheen to the services line Because it's much more glamorous to talk about services and say, you know, we got a lot of Emmy nominations Then it is to say, you know, we got another big check from Google If you enjoy this show and would like more of this show you should subscribe to upgrade plus not only do you get no ads you get bonus content every single week you get access to the relay FM members discord and Just general bonus content for being a relay FM member. We have monthly shows that talk about the behind-the-scenes or the bear Relay, I guess as well as a great show that Kathy Campbell puts on for us called spotlight where Kathy asks questions to a relay FM host Each and every month and I just did one recently talking about some some questions that the audience have for me and talking about Relay 10 so you get that but on upgrade plus this week We're gonna talk in a little bit more detail about Jason's solar experience Ooh the salt solar panels. Yes, he didn't go to the Sun. Oh, did you go to the Sun? I did not go to the Sun Okay, go to get upgrade plus calm. You'll get longer ad-free listening every week and you'll be helping to support the show too Saddle up Jason. It's room around up time Yeah, I've got a hand it to Lex for harmonizing with himself. I know What a what a talent at man, you know the things he's able to do I Especially like the I said saddle up and then Lex said saddle up. That was good. That means you really know me Jason I do I do. How do you write lyrics about the room around up? That's how you do it? Well the future is that the colors are is upon us We're starting to see some supposed case leaks of this year's iPhone line So the iPhone 16 and I guess it will still be the 16 plus will come in a white black blue pink and green These colors very saturate. They look good They look great And they have the what we're expecting to see the stacked cameras on top of each other and in the new kind of Vertical layout which I like I think it looks cool It makes the bump way smaller right and then the flash is just out on the flush on the case So that that's actually a really good look and the colors. Yeah that blue that green. Oh So nice good. Yeah pink - like all of them the white and black like whatever. It's white black, but that blue I know I know I know real good and luckily In the in the pro world for those of us who gets pro funds just gonna be a kind of bronze Kind of bronze Looking titanium option called Rose is the name right now. I don't I don't know why it would be rose Why don't you call it bronze? However, there might be some good news for people who like the most boring of phones that could exist the There are some also some leaks of the other like the white the natural and the black Titanium and the the images that have leaked from these Show a very dark black Fun like very dark, which could be fun for people that like that. I'll take it Yep, I have the blue right now Natural is really good though natural is really good, but I have the blue and natural is the winner natural was was the best black would be interesting too So I'm I like I'd like to personally Be interested in maybe what this like rose or bronze could be because I think it could just be like a Warmer natural titanium is probably what we're gonna end up with. Yeah, yeah, cuz I what I want is is just go gold again But I'm thinking to do that, but that's this would be the closest to that But yeah, it is gonna be funny when they get rid of the only color and now we have white black and two essentially grace One color None of it doesn't belong. I just don't again if you don't want to color a full phone That's fine, but like I don't understand why people who want to buy an iPhone Pro can't have a nice color I just don't understand it. I don't I just it's so frustrating to me that they don't they go no no though I found 16 is in the fun colors 16 pro. No. Mm-hmm. No good. No color for you. What are you doing for you? What are you doing? It's a shame. Come on. It is the shame. I would I would love some color, but I will say I you know nearly a year in or ever long We are really like the natural titanium. I think it looks so so so good And just for all the people that whenever we talk about these inevitably say what's the point people just put them in cases? I don't I don't we never have us put our phones in our cases. Nope. So we care about the colors of the phones. I Did buy Lauren a new case she's been using the fine woven since it came out and It's a just a little fine woven update. It's a disaster It's it's so battered and and smashed and terrible and she's had leather cases in the past and they've all looked good And this thing it's so ratty that I finally just went ahead and bought her a leather case a proper case for it because it's so Prediction. Yeah now fine woven RIP do you think do you think it's gone like no fine water? I think if Apple has any ability to build a different case They will but I'm not convinced how long their lead time is for this Yeah, I know we've spoken about it in the past and there was some some questions about it My thinking is I think kind of going on what you're saying fine woven they will make one this year I expect next year or silicon probably and That they might make some premium feeling silicon like if they will be all silicon Maybe be a texture on one of them or something, but I don't know I think they're just gonna go all all silicon because that's what they can do. They know they can do it well And they've just find some way to to wait one of them more expensive What a disaster we were right. I'm just gonna say we were right Like yeah, there's a lot of pushback about oh people critical of fine woven It's just cuz it's new it'll be fine. It's like it's not fine. It's bad. No, it's a little bit. It's real bad. Yeah Let's finish out today's episode with some ask upgrade questions Sometimes you just don't know the answer Oh That one continued in every possible way that I thought it could continue uh-huh Like even the end of the song I think would own foot like this the final note was further than yeah, uh, no lasers Thank you so much. Thank you so much about the lasers were implied by the jingle, but okay. Oh Laser implied when we play the jingle again and do lasers. Nope. We don't have that kind of time. Do we all right? Yeah, don't we don't we go you don't have that kind of time Matthew asks given the rumors of a folding phone There were more rumors of the following phone, which we'll talk about next week Is it possible that Apple may implement some sort of dual-screen usage on multitasking mode in preparation for something like that on a folding phone? so The the age old classic right yeah was size classes being introduced to the iPad to get ready for multitasking Do you think we could see something that may be a harbinger for what might come yeah if I had to predict I would say that Sometimes in the next couple of years Apple will introduce split view for the iPhone. Yeah, and it'll be top and bottom and People will be like why And Apple say why not And then it basically make it small because not only yeah, not only is it if you've got a folding phone That's open but like halfway But also if it's closed and you've got that back screen the other possibility would be that they're not gonna They're not gonna do it that they view that you like the It's either open or closed and the app just runs and you don't have two apps on those two different habs of the screen They might do it where they just have it be a regular screen on the inside and on the outside They instead adapt kind of like a widget model right so they use their widgets or their standby And so it's standby on that other screen or widgets and they've got those pieces already We'll see I mean, I want to congratulate Samsung for an absolutely incredible integration into the Olympics Which I'm sure you've seen every time there is a metal ceremony There is a Z Flip given to somebody and they take a selfie with it with the phone closed. Yep That kind of thing yeah that kind of thing they will want right the Having the camera on the front screen and like I just think that they've done such a good job with that It is funny to me every time to see the the the phone held and then given back to somebody See flip I got to touch a Z Flip this weekend Okay, cuz I was on the last studio Twit from Petaluma with and Jason how it was sitting next to me and he had Oh, no, it was actually it wasn't Jason how even though he's got he had a weird Android phone to Leo had the Z Flip and Having not put my hands on a one of those folding phones in a while um First off the Z Flip Like oh Samsung like the when it's open the industrial industrial design of it. It is just an iPhone like yeah This this newest one the Z Flip six. It's it's just a folding iPhone It's just a falling off looks exactly like the iPhone. They there is nothing about it. That says Samsung It is a it is an iPhone That is weird to me because that's not how they've been in the past and like that they've felt a little bit more unique But now it just looks like a folding on iPhone so when it's open. Yeah, I mean if you angle it There's a little you can see the little bump the little bend but it's otherwise It's a pretty nice big iPhone like phone And then you you fold it over and the folding is quite pleasant And then you've got this little screen that can have information on it and stuff and like I can see it I can see an iPhone that folds and the rumor is you know that'll be like year after next but I totally can see it if Apple is confident enough in the The hardware and the quality and all of that to stand by it I think that that is one than one of the things They're not willing to be as quite as far out on the edge as some other phone makers are But I totally can see it being a thing that and then they've got like I said with widgets and standby and stuff like that They're already kind of building an infrastructure for this And remember what Apple always does is reuse parts right So they'll build that home pod with the screen and it'll be reusing parts including widgets and standby and and tvOS and whatever And if they do a folding phone with a little screen on the outside, will it not be a standby ask kind of thing? Of course it will be of course Yeah, that that Z Flip 6 is Is very good. Like this is the first time that a Z Flip has gotten the Most up-to-date camera and processor. It's usually been a one behind And the phone has gotten a little bit expensive more expensive because of that But like I think that they have actually this time made like this is this is just a very good phone and it also folds And yeah, I think this integration with the olympics I think is going to really help them sell a lot of those I think they've done it very naturally and and also the I know it looks like it looks like a folding iPhone The phone also does just look cool at the same time Like I think the industrial design is great obviously because it looks like an iPhone iPhones look But I just think you know it also has the two cameras and the screen on the front is massive now like it's a it's a cool looking product Jack wants to know how has your editing process been affected now that you offer videos of these episodes on youtube? Oh, that's a good question Not at all in the sense that we have our good editor Jim Metzendorf. He's been working on this for a while um Since my audio Handed over the audio edit and Jim continues to do an audio edit We do not have a unified process Jim edits the audio That is the primary of the of the show What we do is our videos go to chip Sutter Um and our audio files obviously as well and he puts them all together in a video project He gets the same editing notes that go to Jim I think he doesn't do the detailed audio edit nor should he that Jim does but if we say cut this out move this around He pulls some of that stuff out. I think chip with a detailed audio edit on video is bad Is because then the video is cut video is weird, right? So I think I think chip might do some things where like an under I say something and he takes it out because I'm yeah You're talking right but um, but yeah, so chip does that So we have two streams basically where we're doing an edit that is going to do the best audio and then we're doing a Video version that will take into account like we did the other week because of the embargo Um, we had a segment that recorded at the end of the show that moved to the middle of the show Because literally the embargo dropped while about apple intelligence while we were recording and we already I had been prepped on it. I had been briefed But we couldn't talk about it live on the internet until it had come out And so though that note goes to Jim and chip and so chip took that segment and pulled it back just like Jim did But I'd say there's less editing going on Um chip is giving an eye to the cuts. There's a there's a plugin called I think it's auto pod for premiere that is entirely this is what it's meant for is that you give Multiple podcaster streams and then it generates a cut where it's cutting back and forth Um, and so that helps that chip is doing he's own different stuff though, right? So like yes Jim is looking for imperfections in the audio Background noises if we're if you know, maybe me and you were spoken over each other and I didn't make a note of that Like he's doing those kinds of things Chip is making sure that our frames look good. Yes And chip is very patient Um with me like for example He told me last week that I I move around a lot when I record and so he has to like try and level me out Uh because I'm I'm a bit of I am a bit of a fidget when we record like I move a lot Anybody that watches the youtube version will see that I move a lot when I record And so I I cause him a lot of problems that way I think but like that's like the difference is you know jim is editing to make the audio the best it can sound And chip is making sure that the video looks as good as it possibly can Yes, which is it's quite interesting that we have these two things going on And I think it's particularly interesting kind of as we for us because I'm just not used to the visual part And right and I'm still trying to get used to that It's interesting. Yeah, and chip does some things too where he'll drop in like some images So he'll be like this episode probably will have like some of those charts that we were referring to You know, and and he does a chapter art sometimes So there's there's a bunch of stuff that that goes in there from from him. He's again We want to do a nice version for youtube because we think that there's an audience on youtube And that there are people who prefer youtube. Hi youtube, but um, but we also want our primary audience is Audio and so we want to do the best version of the audio podcast So we've philosophically we basically have kept our audio production identical and then added a video production separately um, and sometimes there's collaboration like sometimes we'll have noise and Jim will do a denoise and You know and chip will say Jim can I have the denoise of Jason's track because there was a bad sound in the background or whatever? And they'll they'll exchange files behind the scenes, but basically we've got two processes So it the editing process has not have been affected, but it's been doubled And then of course there are the shorts, which is the whole reason that this Started in the first place, right? So chip will cut out those various places chip will cut out some shorts identify those And then Jamie will post them and then chip also the other thing we're doing if people don't know is we've been pulling some segments out One or two segments a week. Um, so instead of people clicking on a thing on youtube and getting a 90 minute long podcast they'll get a 15 minute long discussion of This topic and that's a good way. I think to get people sort of introduced to who we are Who might not know or who might not want to spend 90 minutes with us every week, but still get something out of it So and again just an experiment I just I fundamentally believe there are lots of different ways to consume this kind of content that we're creating And that if we just do podcast We will reach the people for whom that works and we have and that's great But I know that there are people out there who would rather consume it in a different way And if that broadens the scope of upgrade great, but it's not you know That's what it's for is just to try to reach Uh people who don't think about podcast apps, but might think about youtube and we love them too. We love them I'm giving them a thumbs up, but you can only see that on youtube Yeah, the podcast literally takes a village now I don't know we got a team we got a team we're coming up on 10 years and it's going to be that thing We talked about this when when I was in london that uh, you know when we started It was just you know you and me and we hung together and now we got a whole like upgrade crew that puts the show together So it's great shout out to all of them. Sometimes They're a jingles, you know, sometimes there are jingles. It's true Did we get to them all we did do them all we got we did them all Uh, I want to thank lex again. Yeah for those jingles Uh, is there any you would like to replay for fun because you like them I feel like we did it. I don't want to overplay them Okay, that's my concern. Is there one you want to hear? I want to hear lawyer up again. I really like it. Okay. That that's good It's got the mariachi kind of horn thing there. It's this one I feel like that one's going to be in my head a lot. I think i'm going to be singing that one to myself for a bit Okay, i'm going to give you that i'm going to give you a little bit and I won't play the whole thing But uh, I think this is the true earworm of the whole batch Mandy, Mandy, Mandy, Mandy. Who has all the money? Mandy, Mandy, Mandy, Mandy. Who has all the money? It's the little doo doo doo doo doo doo it's like a little xylophone kind of in the background there I mean and also it's like ava right who's got all the money. Oh, yeah, like you can imagine like My problem with earworms is when they become another song. That's when I can never get rid of them Well, thank you to Lex who's truly found his calls. Unfortunately, it doesn't pay very well We're gonna have to give him a thank you gift of some sort for for doing all of that But I have fulfilled my summer of fun dream of doing an episode that is Uh, like am radio in the 1970s and 80s full of jingles That's what i was going for If you would like to send us in your feedback maybe Gotta oh your follow up our questions go to upgrade feedback.com you can check out Jason's work at six colors.com And here he's podcasts on the encompel calm and here on relay where you can hear me too And you can check out my work at cortex brand dot com you can find us online. Jason is at j sno j s and e double l I am at i'm i m y k e you can watch Full video versions of this show on youtube as well as tick tock instagram and youtube where we have clips We are at upgrade relay in all of those places. Thank you to our members who support us have upgrade plus Uh go to get at great plus calm to learn more and thank you to our sponsors of this week's episode That is the people who would express vpn and square space We'll be back next time Until then Say goodbye Jason's now. Goodbye everybody [Music] [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
Myke has a mostly positive Apple Intelligence experience (except for Siri), Apple results make us consider the power of Services, and the Color Czar may be up to their old tricks.
