(upbeat music) - From Relay, this is Upgrade, episode 524 for August 12th, 2024. This episode is brought to you by Lady Pizza Ovens and Delete Me. My name is Mike Hurley and I'm joined by Jason Snow. Hi, Jason. - Hi, Mike. - How are you? - I'm doing all right. Nice weekend. Had a nice weekend. - Got some stuff done. - Oh, love it. - Some chores done. - Love it. - We haven't got time for that. No, we haven't got time for that. It's not time for snow talk. We've been watching a lot of the Olympics is the answer to your question. All the Olympics all the time in the Holy household and this snow comes from Anne who wants to know if you could be good enough to perform in any summer Olympics event, what would it be? Ah, see, I got you, I knew what you'd say. - Yeah, 'cause I'd just say curling, 'cause I'd be playing on the sport and I'm not very good at it. So that would be it. The closing ceremonies. (laughing) - Now let me tell you. - I've been up there with Phoenix. I've been up there with Phoenix. - I gotta say, I might be in the minority here. I hate the opening ceremonies. I do not like it at all. - I enjoy how strange it was. - It was, that was fun for the first 20 minutes. And then-- - That guy, they showed a montage of it right before the closing ceremonies. And there was that guy who was running on the water. - Yes. - And Lauren said, oh yeah, that guy who was running on the water for a very long time and I'm like, yeah, that was really boring. - So here's my thing about the opening ceremonies. It took too long. The boats didn't look good enough. They should have done something to actually make the boats look like something. All of the sounds was terrible. The lighting was bad because it was outside and uncontrollable. And because of their requirements to move things up and down the sand, things that should have been impactful took too long. Like the Joan of Arc like horse thing took ages. And like then when they took the flame from the Eiffel Tower to the Tokadero, I think it was. - Yeah, it's just forever. - Everything took too long. And so I think that their decision to do everything on the sand made everything a little bit worse because the closing ceremonies were fantastic because it was a performance that people, you could hear people, they could enjoy it and the music was good. And I love the-- - There was a dystopia where they couldn't find the Olympic rings and so therefore Earth was terrible. And then they found them and then everything was fine and then Phoenix played. - Do you know that, I don't know 'cause we get different commentary. Like what the impetus for that was? - No. - So do you know the, I think it's on the Voyager, right? There's a golden record? - Yes. - So that was produced in France, the golden record. - Ah. - And so the opening ceremonies started with them playing a piece of music that's on the record. And then that was an alien that came to Earth after Earth was quote, a archeological remnant. - Ah, yes. - And then like that's kind of, I think that's why the alien was gold and it also was referencing a statue in France. - Interesting. - And so yeah, that's kind of what that was about. - Yeah, the American announcer's basically said, ah, now we're gonna go tell, this is a story about a future dystopia where the Olympics do not exist, which made me laugh. I was like, yes, what could be worse than there not being the Olympics? - Unfortunately, there's no Earth left. - I don't, so other than up with Phoenix, you know, can I just say how fun it was to have one of my favorite bands have a concert in the middle of the Olympics? - The Olympics closely. - I'm sorry, I'm sorry. - I was very surprised. And then all of the collaborations that they did would fantastic. - Yeah, yeah, and so on the US, there were a bunch of different commentators, but for that part, it was Jimmy Fallon and Mike Turico, who was the host of the Olympics on NBC. And Mike Turico was like, Jimmy, these guys and Jimmy Fallon's like, oh, Phoenix, I love them, this is so great. They've been on my show a bunch of times, they're so great. It was like appropriate amounts of enthusiasm. And he was like, oh, a list of mania, yeah. And then they get to 1901. And Mike Turico says, and Jimmy, you're the music guy, but even I know this one. It was really cool. It was like, they were enjoying that it was Phoenix. And I love Phoenix, they're great friends. - That was a wonderful choice. - And that was really fun and then all the extras. And I honestly, I did love the bit with Tom Cruise. - I'm sorry, it was my favorite part. It was my favorite part. - Yeah. Lauren was out and she came back and I said, now if I told you that Tom Cruise stood on the top of the stadium, jumped off of it, repelled to the floor, got the flag, put it on a motorbike, rode out and flew to LA, would you believe it? 'Cause that's what happened. - I was already excited about the prospect of the LA Olympics and seeing that whole section was like, yeah, it's going to rule. It's gonna be so good. My favorite part about the Tom Cruise thing is what I assume was his dictated camera shot where the camera goes above his head and he looks into the camera as he jumps. So no one could doubt that it was him. - Nope. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. He's looking up there like, yeah, it's me, I'm here. Here I go. - Oh, I can't wait for the LA Olympics, man. But this one was, you know, overall the game's brilliant. I watched so much of it, loved it. - My mini upstream here, I'll just say is NBC, who has had the almost every Olympics in, you know, modern memory in the US. After a lot of experimentation, this year they nailed it. They nailed all of it. They showed all the events live and then showed them in prime time. They used to hide events. They used to like not, like the ones people wanted to see, they wouldn't show them live. They would hold on to them 'cause they were afraid people didn't want to watch prime time. It wouldn't want to watch in prime time. They'd have already heard about it or seen about it while the world has changed. And they gave that up so you could watch them live. Their streaming was really great. You could watch anything you wanted live or on a replay. And they had this Gold Zone channel, which is literally the Olympic equivalent of the NFL Red Zone where they literally had the hosts of that on it. And that was basically, you just tuned to that channel and they take you around to whatever is going on that's interesting. And that was on for like eight hours a day. - Yeah, it sounded like that experience was really, really good. - I was was like, okay. Like it didn't have anything special, but it sounded like Peacock really went all out this time. - Yeah, the Peacocks of, oh, and I should say the Kevin Hart, Keenan Thompson comedy highlights show that they did. I mean, we watched one last night. It reduced me to tears. It was so funny. Just so funny, those guys. So, and that was a case where it's like NBC's not so uptight that they can't, they were like, we're gonna just make a comedy show. I mean, it's like a streaming comedy show. There's bad words and stuff. Like they don't care. And it's the Olympics. And they just don't care. Because that's, if you want that, it's there. And it was really funny. So I think they got it. - I'm making Snoop Dogg, like the International Olympics Ambassador. I don't know why that works so well, but it really does work very well. Yeah, like so good. But I loved both the basketball games. Both basketball finals were just fantastic. Two of my favorite games. Yeah, women's soccer final was great too. Women's soccer final was amazing. But if you could be good enough to perform in any Olympics event, what would it be? I said closing ceremonies other than that. I don't know. Like I like archery. Oh, okay, I don't know. I would take like skateboarding or something, I think. Oh, well, that would be cool. I thought of archery because I saw some video of that and it's amazing because they're these tight close-up shots. They don't show like the arrow flying. So it's like somebody very carefully looking, looking, looking, they shoot, cut to the target. And then several seconds pass before the arrow comes in. You're like, oh my God, how far away are they? And the answer is they're extremely far away. If they cut and showed that they're like 10 feet away, it would be really disappointing. No, they're not, they're very, very far away. So I'll say that. It seems low impact. If you would like to send in a question to help us open a future episode of the show, please go to upgradefeedback.com and send in your snow talk. Thank you to Anne for giving us an excuse to talk about the Olympics. Yeah. Jason, it's time to lawyer up. All right. So this is kind of lawyer up and follow up. Thank you. It's like lawyer up and follow up kind of in one. So we were talking a bit about the streaming. Follow, follow lawyer up. Yeah, follow lawyer up. But it's not all about some of it is new stuff. So we were talking about Apple and streaming like revenues and stuff like that, services, I should say, sorry. Well, a US federal district court judge, Amit Mehta, has ruled that Google is a monopolist and has used its power to its gain in violation of US antitrust law. And why is that relevant? You may hear me asking for us talking about Apple here. Well, one of the key things that has been brought up in this monopoly case is Google's deals with browser companies and phone manufacturers to basically keep pay for placement of the default search engine. This basically does further entrenches their power and et cetera, et cetera. If there's still a lot to go here, right? Like there's actually, for as much as I can understand, 'cause this stuff is quite complicated, there hasn't been anything to say that they will block this stuff from happening. No remedies have been suggested. Yeah, we can assume that this will be the case. And so if we get to a point where Google is no longer paying Apple around $20 billion a year, that is going to affect Apple services revenue. Yeah, it's a quarter, roughly a quarter of Apple services revenue is this. So this could be quite problematic for Apple where it actually might not be that problematic for Google. Yeah, well, yeah, good congratulations, Google. You just saved $20 billion. I do wonder, I mean, so here's the thing, a lot of these antitrust remedies are, I mean, first up, it's going to take a long time. And a lot of them are weird. A lot of them can be very, very strange. We think of like simple, like don't do that anymore. But it may be a much more complex negotiated regime, like do they take Google search and force Google to spin it off or follow certain rules? And you think, well, that seems impossible, but I mean, they could do it. They could say what if Google has to make search available to other parties so that advertising in a Google search is separated from the search business, right? 'Cause I think one of the problems with antitrust is that monopolies aren't illegal. It's using monopoly power to exert your authority in other places or to maintain your monopoly, right? These are the parts that are illegal. So is there a solution where like different companies can put ads on Google search, including Google, but that other people can too. And then there are different versions of Google search and you can choose them or they're chosen for you or whatever. Like it could get weird. And that means it could get to the point. And what I think Apple would probably come in as a potentially harmed subject here and say, you know, we, 'cause it's Apple, of course, we think that every search from our apps should kick money back to us. And you're saying that if you material or heard our business, if you disallow this and could money to Apple even be part of the remedy? I don't know, right? But like it's not impossible. I know a lot of people talked about this. There's so many, it's like infinite possibilities. I will just say the one that I keep coming back to is Apple going, Apple going its own way in some places and surfacing their search engine more prominently in more places. And also potentially putting ads on it is not beyond the realm of possibility. I think it's unlikely that Apple would entirely override like all searches now go to Applebot. Like I don't think so, but they could take a lot of stuff and divert it into places where Apple would make the money off of advertising. And I wouldn't put it past them to do that. We also don't know what the impact of kind of like, AI stuff is on all of this because, you know, it could it be like with Apple intelligence, the strong implication, and we heard this on the call, the strong implication is that if you want to search with Siri for world knowledge, you'll go to chat GPT or another AI provider. Well, if that's the case, like, is that where search is going? And the US is stopping the last thing when the new thing is already here that's gonna replace the old thing, I don't know. But I just, I think Apple's gonna be okay either way 'cause it's not like they earned that money. They just, I mean, they earned it by being in existence and asking for it, but like, it's not like they invest. That's a 99%, 98% profit category, right? They may amortize, they may like say, well, Safari development is covered by this or something, but like really, it's just free money. And it's free money to help Google prop up its monopoly. So if it goes away, it's not the end of the world, but I have a hard time imagining that the Apple we know that we cover in this segment is going to just go, oh well, easy come, easy go, and not find another way to get money out of somebody. - The money might not go away, just the default might go away. - Right, I mean, I think there's a possibility where they just say we have a new affiliate system and you know-- - I believe that as a search, as Apple. - For whatever, big searches go. - Yeah, like if you choose Bing as your default, Apple get money from Microsoft. - I think so, I think it's very much like, kind of an affiliate search engine arrangement. - So would-- - Apple will just put up a choice and everyone will just continue choosing to Google. Nothing changed. - And Google will keep paying Apple because they're paying for use and not for exclusive payment, which I think honestly-- - Which I think is the way to go. - Yeah, I think honestly that is the truth, is that it shouldn't be necessarily legal under this ruling for Google to pay to be the default, but that doesn't mean that it's illegal for Google to cut in Apple for searches on its platform, right? 'Cause that's not necessarily the same. So I don't know, but like again, you know, could Apple shrug and say like, you know, it's fine? Sure, but nothing we see in Apple's behavior suggests that it's a company that's willing to leave a dollar on the table that-- - You have to find something. - Is owed. - Yeah. - Speaking of which-- - Yeah. - Apple has found another new and exciting way to charge developers 30%. So last week, Apple announced a new set of rules for external linking in the European Union. So this is what gives-- and will give developers the ability to direct customers inside of their iOS apps to purchasing options on the web that don't need to go through Apple's in-app purchases, but you can have as many links as you want now. It's not just this one link. They can be as many as you want and they can go wherever you want. And it apps that opt into this new system. They have no restrictions. They can have tracking parameters on the links and the links can be opened in an in-app web view. So this is essentially, it's like, oh great, this is exactly everything that you would want. It's enabled via Apple StoreKit entitlements. And this is also available to customers who have accepted the new EU business terms and also ones who have not. So again, all of this is like, this sounds great. But then you get to the fee structures. There are two different fee structures. I'm just going to preface this by saying this is very complicated, but we'll get through it together. There is an end point to this, which is the same either way, but just for completeness sake. If you are on the new business terms, so this is where you're paying the core technology fee and all that kind of stuff, if somebody clicks a link inside of your app and then goes and makes a purchase, you give Apple a 5% initial acquisition fee of the price of the purchase and a 5 to 10% store services fee, whether you pay 5 or 10 depends on your app size, like the size of your app, because that changes some of the fees that you pay otherwise. So you pay a 5 to 10% store services fee plus the CTF. And this store services fee is on any purchase within a 12 month period. This would result for Apple in a 10 to 15% commission plus a 3% payment fee if you use Apple's tools, 'cause you can still use Apple's purchasing tools, even with the outside linking, plus the CTF on top. If you're on the regular terms, you have not opted into the business terms, you pay the 5% initial acquisition fee for the price of the thing. So you pay 5% of whatever that is, plus a 7 to 20% store services fee that results in a 12 to 27% commission plus the 3% fee for payments. I'm gonna now read how Apple describes these two fees, again, for a complete mistake. So this is-- - Right, please stand for the reading of the rules. - The initial acquisition fee, this is coming from Apple's developer pages. You'll pay Apple a fee on all sales with digital goods and services the customer makes on any platform that occur in a 12 month period after initial install. This fee does not apply to transactions made by customers that had an initial install before you make your app available with the entitlement profile to link out. The fee reflects the value the app store provides when connecting developers of customers in the EU. And then the store services fee. In addition to the initial acquisition fee, you'll pay Apple a fee on all sales that digital goods and services the customer makes on any platform that occur within a fixed 12 month period from the date of an install, including app updates and reinstools. After you make your app available with the entitlement profile to link out, this reflects the ongoing services and capabilities that Apple provides developers, including app distribution and management, app review, app store trust and safety, rediscovery, re-engagement and promotional tools and services, anti-fraud checks, recommendations, ratings and reviews, customer support, and more. Customer support, I've reset that part, Apple didn't. So, essentially, again, like with the other stuff, Apple will reserve the right to audit any company. So you have to collect up all of the transactions from a specific customer who initially went through Apple, no matter what platform they're buying on, which is an incredible overreach, in my opinion, aside from everything else that they're doing. And essentially, the result of all of this, Apple's getting its money. It's just gonna get it in a different way. But they don't care, they're getting their money. - Yeah, I really don't like this. - I mean, honestly, Jason, it's... Okay, I've been a bit annoyed about this today, just talking about this. Like, I want to cover these things, 'cause I think they're important, but I didn't feel the need to do an insane amount of research on this, like I've done in the past, because this is just another attempt to doing the same thing at one pass. - It's the same thing they've done before. - And in six months' time, I'll be telling you about their new way, that they're gonna try and get it the right way. - So here's the simplified version of this, which is Apple believes that it is, that if you have an app on Apple's platforms, Apple is the source of your success, and that Apple wants a cut. And Apple wants a cut, I mean, let's be honest. If Apple could say, if you have a corporation, and your corporation has an app, you owe us 10% of your global revenue. They would do that if they could. Just like literally, you built your business on us, on our greatness, and therefore, we want our cut. Now, I'll point out again, Apple doesn't cut developers in on iPhone sales, and apps are a huge contributor to the success of the iPhone as a platform, the existence of third party apps. When Apple tells the App Store story, they like to talk about that it's a partnership between developers and Apple, but they also like this whole mythology of, oh, Apple invented buying software on the internet, which isn't true, and it is this idea that Apple and the developers are partners, but Apple takes 100% of iPhone revenue for itself. It doesn't share that with developers. Doesn't do that, right? But developers have to share with Apple, which says something about how Apple really feels about developers. And this is the icing on the cake. Not only is it ridiculous that Apple doesn't want links and things in apps, and says it's because of safety and privacy. This is that little thin privacy shield that they put up. Like, oh, oh, going to the internet, buying things on the internet, that's dangerous. Everybody does it, we've done it forever. Have you heard of Cyber Monday? Like, I mean, what are you talking about? And this is the mask coming off, which is Apple doesn't actually think that the internet and links are bad, except in the sense that they prevent Apple from being the gatekeeper and taking a cut. And so what they're saying here is once they leave our app, anything your customers do is because of us, give us money. In this scenario, they would make more money than they're currently making, right? - Well, because it's a poison pill, because they don't want anybody to use these terms, which is why they will, you're right, which is why they will be found to be unacceptable by the EC at some point here. But I just think, just the goal of saying we own everything. Like, I would be okay. I actually would be okay with the idea of like, if you have a link, it's like an affiliate deal, right? It's like an Amazon affiliate deal. If you have a link in your app that directly results in a purchase, cut us in. Okay, but they're like, no, no, no, no. No, if you have a link that goes out, then everything forever, because it's a 12 month purchase, a 12 month period, except if you update your app, everything else thereafter, just pay us money, because it came from our app, and therefore we are the one who brought that customer to you, which is hilarious, because of course, it again suggests a world where there's no other way to find an app, that there aren't brands out there that are saying, find our app on the App Store, download our app, and it's coming in from their greatness. Apple scenario is basically, no, no, no. Apps are only discovered by the App Store, which is hilarious if you've ever tried to discover apps in the App Store, right? So come on, I mean, like, I know that this sort of versions of this do happen, but I'm just saying, if, let's say Federico writes about an app on Mac Stories, and it drives thousands of app sales, should Federico say, no, you gotta pay me 20% of your revenue, because that link came from Mac Stories. - And the incredible thing is there was a scenario like this once, but Apple took that away. - There wasn't a affiliate marketing thing where you got like 2% if you link to it, and they're converted and all that, and they took it away because they just don't want to do that. - They wanted all the money. - And that would be, and from Federico's standpoint, there's a lot of things, it's like with Wirecutter where if you're making your money on the referrals, you have to distance yourself and say, no, no, we make our selections regardless of the referral revenue, instead of targeting the referral revenue and creating a business that's basically advertising and marketing of apps. So it's complicated, but what I'm saying is, Apple really thinks that it's a partnership that they should be a participant in when it benefits them, but in no other case, in no other case. And I'll just come back to again, if this was a partnership, why doesn't Apple share 30% of iPhone revenues with developers? Well, we know why. So anyway, the idea that they would reach their clause and even further here and say, basically, if you have a relationship with a customer, it's because of us, it's ridiculous. But you're right, I think on its face, it's very hard to see because it's designed in a way to be so unpalatable, it's hard to imagine that the regulators aren't gonna look at this and go, no, that's not gonna work. - I'm so happy that Apple are on a run right now of making credible products. I feel like the last two years, they've been making some really, really good stuff. Because if we were in a period right now, where the products were bad and this was happening, I would be struggling. 'Cause this stuff just, it just puts such a bad taste in my mouth, that if I was also, let's imagine we were in the real bad Mac time, that was many years ago. I would be struggling right now, like a lot, because this stuff just makes me so angry and disappointed that if the products weren't good, I would be. - I would be really struggling. - You know, I keep going back to like the ebook thing where, you know, you can buy a book in the US, right? You can buy a book in iBooks, but not in the Kindle app or the Kobo app for that matter. And Apple will tell you it's like, oh well, you know, they need to do 30%. And in fact, there's a story today about how Patreon now is going to have to finally do 30% in app. - I'd like to get into that next week, but yeah, we should talk about it a little bit now, but like I really wanna do some reading about it. I think that would be a good big thing next week. - They're continuing to try and, you know, catch all as much money as they can out of everything. So that's all going on. And it's this, I don't know, it's just, it is frustrating because I don't disagree that there is something there, but like Apple can sell books without a middleman, but nobody else can. And you're saying, well, yeah, but they're using Apple's internet purchase, but it's like Apple makes it illegal. This is the thing is that a lot of the, but this, but that kind of things are only because of Apple's rules. Like Amazon, I have a linked credit card at Amazon. When I'm logged in to the Kindle app, it knows who I am and it knows how I can buy things. And it's not allowed to let me buy them and download them straight in the iPhone app. It's just not allowed by Apple. And what Apple's saying is, well, you know, you think, oh, well, why don't you link out to amazon.com and buy them there? And the answer is no, you can't because Apple, Apple still wants its money because it thinks that if you buy a Kindle book on an iPhone, you're doing it because of value that Apple has added. Come on. Let's check it. This episode is brought to you by Uni Pizza Ovens. Uni is the world's number one pizza oven company letting you make restaurant quality pizza in your own home. Uni Pizza Ovens can reach up to 950 degrees Fahrenheit and cook pizza in as little as 60 seconds. That high temperature is what you're going to want to get the best pizza possible. This is also like that heat, and especially that's on the speed that you can cook pizza in when you get to those temperatures. That is what sets an Uni apart from a conventional home oven. Also, an Uni Pizza oven heats up super quickly. You'll be ready to go from turning it on to cooking pizza in 20 minutes. That's just enough time to get your dough rolled out and your topping spread on. 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But that's a different thing. - You don't want that. - I don't want that. - Trifle is a dessert, right? And there's layers in a trifle and maybe some things in the trifle you don't like but some you do, but you eat them all together and you're like, oh, that was a good trifle. So that's how today's episode is. Where there's some good stuff and there's some bad stuff and some good stuff and bad stuff, we're making a trifle. Next up in today's trifle is room around up. - Oh, yee-haw! - Mark Gurman is reporting that the first max with M4 chips are on track to launch this year. The iMac, the MacBook Pro and the Mac Mini in 2024, followed up by a refresh to the MacBook Air, the Mac Pro and the Mac Studio by mid 2025. A little bit sad that the Mac Studio is being pushed out so long. - I don't like that. - Yeah, but more importantly is just some more information about that M4 Mac Mini. It's gonna see a new design making it quote, the smallest Mac ever. It would be likely close to the size of an Apple TV but a little bit taller. So kind of the dimensions issue, you know, like the area. - With the old Apple TV. - Yes, actually. Well, the old Apple TV was bigger, right? Than the one we have now. At least it'd be like small but tall. - Yeah, I guess. I mean, there was the first of the black Apple TVs were taller than they got more than they got more than they got. Then they got a little shorter. So like that one. - I was thinking of the big silver one, the ITV as it was-- - Yeah, no, no, no, no. Yeah, the tall, the tall black one, yeah. Apparently Apple have been testing a version of this product with three USB-C ports and HDMI and a quote from Mark Gurman. People involved in the development of the new Mac Mini. Say it's essentially an iPad Pro and a small box. - Yeah. - It's like, yes, that makes sense. What do you think of this tiny Mac Mini rumor? - I love it, I love it. Well, I looked. I wrote about wanting this seven years ago. - Okay. - Yeah, 'cause this Mac Mini design's been around about 15 years. I checked in with Stephen Hackett about this 'cause we were on the six college podcast. I was kind of like trying to remember the various, I opened that original Mac Mini so many times. When we were talking about the optical drive, the truth is that they went to this design. This design, look, there should have been a Mac Mini redesign seven years ago, clearly. Because this design is actually from an era where they still had an optical drive and spinning hard drive. And then they dropped the optical drive and then they got rid of the spinning hard drive. But it's still in this big wide pancake thing. And like, it doesn't need to be, right? It's essentially a MacBook Air or maybe a MacBook Pro if you put the Pro chip in it. So it's very, very small, or an iPad Pro, right? It's, Apple has reduced energy consumption and the chips don't run as hot. And like, there are all these reasons for them to do a new enclosure. And I think it just says how Apple feels about the Mac Mini, which is that it's not a high priority that they haven't done it up to now. I'm kind of amazed they're doing it at all. Honestly, I kind of gave up. But yeah, seven, I looked it up. I wrote columns about it seven years ago saying, wouldn't it be nice if we had a much an Apple TV-ish sized Mac Mini instead? And people always are like, oh, it doesn't matter the size of a desktop computer, does it really matter? And the answer is, look, the Mac Mini is a multipurpose tool. It fits in a lot of workflows. Having it be smaller so it can get stuck in another little place somewhere is better. And it's also not necessary for it to be as big as it is now because there's very little inside. There's very little in there. - So if you just throw this exactly in your backpack, like you could just throw it in there, you know? - I just think it was awesome, I don't know what use that would be for me. But I love the idea of being able to do that. 'Cause this is the thing for me. Do they need to do this? Absolutely not. Would it be cool? Yes, so that is a reason, you know? Because call computers sell. Like we're seeing, I feel like we've seen that, like with the Apple Silicon, right? That I feel like they went on this big resurgence 'cause they made these computers that were like really interesting and people wanted to buy them. And I just think that this is a very exciting prospect of like let's make a computer that from Apple, let's make a Mac, that as you say can be used in places that a Mac would maybe not have been used before because of its physical dimensions. I just think that's a really cool, I just think this is a cool thing to do. - Yeah, I mean, the Mac community has always been that thing, right? Which is like, what is its target audience? And the answer is, I don't know, like it's whatever, it's anything, it's where I need a Mac to do a thing. And it's a cheap desktop Mac. It's the cheapest desktop Mac. And you can kind of put it anywhere. Now, there is a question about size, which is, there are a couple of questions here. One is power supply, right? There have been Mac minis with big bricks outboard. And there have been Mac minis where there's just a plug that goes out. So there are a lot of assumptions people are making about this product. Some of them may be true, but we don't know. So let's just put them out there. The MacBook Air doesn't have a brick, the Apple TV doesn't have a brick. So I'm hopeful that this won't have a brick either, that the power supply will be in it because that would stink if you have a little tiny box with another box on the outside of it. - Unless you put a couple of ports on it. - Well, okay. - So you've never done it in anything other than the iMac. - One thing they could do is something like the iMac where there's a magnetic connect and then there's a brick later on that has ethernet, at least on it, they could do that. They could do that. My guess is that they know that these things get put in racks and stuff and that the ideal situation is for it to be one surface without like a lot of messy extra blocks somewhere. The other question is ports and I get it. I mean, that would be a challenge. I will say the Mac Mini was designed in an era where Apple didn't put ports on the front of anything 'cause how dare you? And we live in an era where the Mac Studio has ports on the front of it. So the Intel Nux that are of this sort of class of computer that I had one for a while running as a Hackintosh server, like it's got ports on the front and it's got ports on the back. And it's very useful. And my guess is that that's what we will get out of this. Now, what ports there will be, I don't know. And keep in mind that the base M2 Mac Mini today has two USB-A, two Thunderbolt 4, so USB-C, HDMI and ethernet. Will it have all of that? I don't know. - They're absolutely gonna remove the USB-A ports. - I think that's true. And then what I would say is, what is the base 13 Macbook Pro have, right? Like what is the base 13 Macbook Pro have? That's probably what it will have. So what is that? - That's a lot of fun to have. - That's, here it is. It's two Thunderbolt USB and HDMI power. Headphone jack. And in that case, it's got a card reader. Like, yeah, so that's my guess, is that it's gonna be fewer ports because it's not gonna have the USB-A ports anymore. And I fill up my ports on my Mac Mini. So I hope that's not true. I hope it has more ports than that. I'll just point out that at least with the M2123, there's actually a limit to the number of ports they can put on there. And the reason the Mac Mini has the USB-A is because they can, you can put more USB-A ports on it because you don't need as much as you do with a USB-C Thunderbolt port. So we'll see, my hope is that they have ports front and back. My hope is that the power is internal because I think it makes the most sense that way. But we don't know, we don't know, but it's exciting. This is gonna be a new shape of Mac. That's exciting, those don't happen very often. And in the case of this computer, 15 years. - Yep, I think three USB-C ports, a HDMI port and ethernet on the power brick would be pretty sweet. I think as a combination of all of those things, I think that would be pretty nice. Yeah, but we'll see. Time for the details. Whoo hoo hoo. We're gonna talk about macOS privacy dialogues. See, we're in another layer of the trifle now. Oh, okay. - Do you see what's happening? - Leaving the sweet layer behind, I see, I see. - Maybe you have like a slight intolerance to whatever's in this layer, you know? Like maybe it makes you a little tingly. Apple has added new privacy and security prompts in macOS Sequoia. I always forget what the name of this macOS is, by the way, I'm always happy to get that information. Whenever I receive it, which is- - Strange for a California bear trophy holder, not to know though. - Yeah, because nobody won. - It's the reason that we both have the trophy. - Sure, we both won. - We both won. - That's true. So new privacy security prompts in the latest betas of macOS require weekly reauthorization of any app that can capture your screen. There is currently no permanent authorization that can be given. So you can't say, "Hey, just stop bugging me about this." And this adds what I would say is another stone on the pile of dialogues. Apple has been adding over the years, which I know has been a buzzbear of yours. - You can't discuss it about it many times. So you wrote a great article about some six colors, but I would like to go talk about why. Why would Apple add a weekly security dialogue to a screen recording entitlement? - Oh, great. - If you would write that, or API. - Well, so one of the things that I tried to do in my article, which is called Apple's Permissions Features are out of balance, is I didn't wanna write what I kind of desired to write, which was an angry screed about Apple getting in my way and get out of my way and this is my computer. 'Cause the truth is Apple's motivations are good. Apple's motivations are that capturing your screen is a huge invasion of privacy. And if somebody can either talk you into authenticating, which is that's how malware spreads. The number one way malware spreads is that it's a social engineering, at least Mac malware, number one, I don't know. It is a very common way where somebody calls you or you text them or whatever. You end up on the phone with an expert. They have you installed software. They have you put in your password and stuff like that. And now they're in your computer, right? Like that's super dangerous. Also abusive relationships, people who have access to one another's devices, a person who is an abuser in a relationship might choose to or for whatever reason in a relationship, but like I think a common case is abusive relationships to have surreptitiously installed software, monitoring software, model computer. So the problem is if it happens once and then it's there forever, that's really dangerous. So what you, I'm sure the motivation here is you gotta ask them again later because outside of being talked to by a social engineer or outside of the surreptitious installation of the software on your device, if you get a prompt that says, did you know that this thing can see everything you do? Are you sure that this is a good idea? At a later date where that person is not around or that person is not on the phone, it's an opportunity for Apple to say, hey, you might not want to keep giving this permission. It's very similar, on iOS there's a lot of this stuff, right? I would argue too much actually. I haven't gotten into that, but like I am very tired of being randomly prompted if my weather app should know where I am or if my maps app should know where I am, similar kind of thing. And this comes to the truth of it, which is good motivations all. I think all of these scenarios should software know where you are, should software see your screen? Absolutely, you should be made aware of it and not just in the moment. The problem is that in macOS Sequoia, they're literally saying approve for one week. And at no point am I as the user so far as I can tell, given the opportunity to say, actually I'm okay approving this forever now. And I can see scenarios where permanent approval at the moment that you install it is dangerous for all the reasons I just outlined. We're gonna ask again later. My problem is it seems to be that in this cut of beta, I'll grant them beta of macOS Sequoia, what the only power they're giving the user ever is to just kick the can down the road for a week, which I have a couple of problems with. A week is wild, a week is wild. It is wild. Like I think they've done a decent job with some of the iOS prompts, like the location prompts and the photos prompts. I don't know what their timeline is, but they pop up every now and again. And I think they do okay. Part of my issue is at some point as the user, as the owner of the device, I do want to be given the authority to say, stop asking me. The answer is yes, right? I wanna be able to say, hey dummy, I do want Google Maps to know where I am. Stop asking, right? And the problem is that you can't. And again, I'm not saying you have to do it right at start, but eventually after you get past that initial thing where you're like, oh, they might not know what they did. Let's ask them later. As the user, I need some recourse that is not ask me again in a week. And there's two reasons for that. One is, well, there's many reasons. It's a terrible user experience. It gets in your way. And often it gets in your way when you're trying to do something on your device. And then it says, oh, hey, by the way, this thing is going on. Or if you're trying to do screen sharing in your office meeting, in your company meeting, and suddenly it's like, oh, by the way, do you wanna approve this thing, which is the worst possible time to ask? It also leads to permission fatigue where people just say yes, which makes sense. Security people hate this, right? Like, oh, why do they say yes? Well, it's like, if they say no, they break their software, right? If you say no, I've had this where a thing has come up and I'm like, do I want this? Like, well, I'm trying to do something right now and if I say no, I know it's just gonna break and I'm gonna have to go to system preferences and turn it back on. So I guess I'll just say yes. So you just overwhelm people and they don't wanna break their strides for what they're doing. And then I would say not given enough focus is I think Apple, whether intentionally or not, is trying to drive a wedge between users and their software. And I hate it. This is the thing where it's sort of like, oh, you wanna use that software? Well, we can't stop you, but every week we're gonna warn you that you shouldn't, essentially. And you can give it another week, but eventually you're gonna give up. Like, well, you can do this. How long, you know, who's gonna outlast who? It's like a staring contest. Who's gonna outlast who? Well, guess what? The operating system is a computer. It will never stop bugging you if it's programmed that way. And I don't like that. I don't like that it is Apple programming it's operating system to get to bug users and basically say, hey, don't run software outside the Mac App Store. Hey, don't run that program that uses that API that's useful, but we don't want you to run it anymore. Hey, hey, hey, you over there. And it's super gross and bad. I'll throw in the other thing that they change, right, in Sequoia, which is Gatekeeper, which is what happens when you launch an app for a first time. And if it's not notarized by Apple, a system that used to be completely neutral, but that Apple is weaponized in the EU for iOS, makes me feel much less charitable toward Gatekeeper and toward notarization. The first time you do that on Sequoia, it directs you to system settings and you have to approve the idea that you could possibly open the software that is notarized by Apple. And then when you double click on it, it's gonna give you another warning and then you have to authenticate and then it will finally launch this app that is a program you installed and want to use, right? Theoretically. But worse than that is the language they use, 'cause the language they use is scary language. It's Apple can't vouch for this thing 'cause we couldn't scan it for malware and we can't say whether it's safe or not. And again, I think the attitude that Apple has with this is attempting intentionally or not to drive a wedge between users and the software that they use. And with the ultimate goal of saying if it isn't in the Mac App Store, don't trust it. - Why can't they do the scanning on the device? The scanning that they do for notarization that confirms there's no malware, why can't Apple just do that to any software I download? - What they're doing is the notarization includes a signature, so they scan it for malware on the server, but it's also got a cryptographic signature on it, which means that the app that you're using, they can verify as the app that they saw. - Right, but like-- - They haven't been modified. So they have to see it for that. You're right, they could potentially do some of the scans that they're doing. - It's an automated process, right? Mac notarization. - Right. - So like, whatever they need to do to sign it, why can't my device do that? Now they can't sign it and they shouldn't sign it, but in theory, they could verify it for malware if they wanted to. - They could, they could. But they can't sign it, they have to have the one that's on the server so they can verify. And I think what they want to do is they want to verify that the one that's on the server that they're signing is not full of malware. - Yeah, and I do support Mac notarization. Like, I do think that if you make a piece of Mac software, you should get it notarized, like, because it seems, like it doesn't harm you in any way, and like, actually it's better for even your customer support, right? Like, if you offer a piece of software, people are gonna be emailing you, but like, I can't launch it, you know? - Yeah, but that's because, yes, but that's because of a barrier that erected by Apple. - I know. - In order to get people to notarize their software. - I know. - It's, it's, I re-notarization on the Mac is harmless, at least so far. - Mm-hmm. - And the apps that aren't notarized, I don't know why they're not notarized. I, I, I don't think that it, the ones that I've tried are for malware. I think it's for reasons of either not wanting to play with Apple, play Apple's game, or feeling like Apple might reject them for content, which I don't think they would actually do. I don't think make MKV, which is a, you know, basically DVD ripping software. I don't think it actually would get not notarized. I think it would be notarized, but the guy doesn't wanna do that, and it's like, okay, fine. But anyway, so this, this is my, this is my issue here is, it's the same thing we've talked about, you know, over the last few years, which is people who say, at Apple who say, oh God, we gotta add this privacy thing, this security thing, because what if, get their way? And there seems to be nobody who is given, who is empowered to push back and say, this degrades the user experience, and that's the out of balance part, which is, I went into this when I was talking about migrations, which seem that they may have been fixed now, but you migrate to a new computer, and then you have to approve every single app on your system. And people say to me, well, what do you expect? I expect a better interface for that, so I don't have 50 dialogue boxes that I have to click through one at a time. I expect Apple to build something better that says, oh, you just migrated, here are your apps, or perhaps in the system settings, there should be a better UI for this. I saw some people unmasted on this week talking about the idea that you should be able to look both by permission and see apps, and by app and see permissions, so that you can have a good interface to this stuff. But authorized for one week is the laziest, most user disrespectful thing you can do. I grant you it's a beta, but that should never have been put in an operating system. It stinks, it stinks, it says, again, I'm not inside Apple, so I can't say. All I can say is from the outside, Apple seems to be behaving like a company where the privacy and security people can get anything they want, and anybody who speaks up and says, this is bad for the user, and ultimately probably bad for security, those people are not empowered to be heard. And so everything gets approved that's this draconian security stuff, and there's nobody there to fight for the user and say, this is the wrong way to do it. And I blame Apple's managers, right? I blame Apple's software managers, and ultimately I guess I blame Craig Federighi for this, because I'm not saying you shouldn't care about security and privacy, but if you're going to play that game, you also have to spend the money and the time. On the user experience, they go together. You have to do both. And Apple, it seems to me, is much more concerned about the one than the other, and that leads to authorized for one week. So the issue that I see here, it reminds me of something that I experienced quite a lot when I worked at the bank that I used to work at. So people that don't know, I used to work at a bank for like 10 years at a school, and I ended up in the marketing department. I was responsible for sending out email campaigns and mailing campaigns and stuff like that. And during that time, I kind of quite a phrase in my head, which is institutional one personism. Now, I'm not saying this is bad or good, but it is a thing that happens, where every decision is met by, well, what about the one person who might get this who X, right? - Right. - So like for example, you're sending out a mailing campaign to, let's imagine people you know who are getting married, right? That they've applied for a loan, and the reason is that they're getting married. And you want to send them out a mailing campaign about congratulating them. And then someone says, "But what about the person who got left at the altar?" And then the entire campaign ends because of that one person. Now, I'm not saying that this is good or bad, but it is a thing that happens. And the reason I bring that up is like one of the things that you mentioned is like a reason to do this is because of potential abuse that people might receive, right? That you may be in a harmful relationship. Because of if that is considered to be important enough, and I'm not saying it is a reason, I'm just saying if that is considered to be an important enough reason, there is no scenario in which a global approval could ever exist. Because if you have started down the process of we need to have this because people may be abused, you can never create in any scenario any kind of setting that turns off those security prompts. Because if you started down that path, you can only get more strict with it. - Right, and this goes to the core of what a Mac is. And again, you could argue that it's different from the iPad and the iPhone. I would argue that Apple's made some decisions on the iPad and the iPhone that are also questionable, but what is a Mac? You know, and I've heard people argue over the last few days who've said to me, "You can't let users make bad decisions. "You can't do it." And that's wrong. And so you keep saying, "I'm not gonna say it's right or it's wrong, "but like I'm gonna say it's wrong." Fundamentally, it's wrong. Saying we're not gonna wish, we're not gonna put up a sign that says happy mother's day because what if they don't have a mother? Come on, come on. Like there is a limit, I'm sorry people, there is a limit. - Jason this. - It is the one in one person. - I agree with you. - Like what if one person, exactly what you're saying. So this is the thing. The Mac needs to let me do what I want at some point. Do I, am I willing to have the Mac be a little more complicated so that gullible people and vulnerable people are a little bit better protected? Yes. Am I willing to give up the ability on my Mac to do what I want? Which means install software Apple hasn't seen. It means give permission for utilities to monitor my screen. Even though Apple thinks that's not smart, Apple thinks I shouldn't do those things. And this is the bottom line here which is I'm willing to be inconvenienced a little bit for the general safety of the platform. I am not willing for Apple to take my agency away and say this isn't your Mac anymore. There are things on your Mac that you've always been able to do. We don't think you should do them. And there's no way for you to tell us otherwise. That's my problem with it. And it is, I'm just going to say it, Apple spent so much time on iOS and iPadOS now where they have a top down paternalistic attitude toward all of its users. For some good reasons again, I'm not saying that they're bad reasons that it's seeping into the Mac. And I've had people say to me, why are you guys making such a big deal about this? It's just a beta. And the answer is, because if we don't, if we don't scream bloody murder about it right now, they'll just do it. - Yeah. - The reason this will change if it changes this summer, the reason it will change is because a whole bunch of us complained. File feedbacks got John Gruber to write a post about it, all of these things for somebody inside Apple to say, I told you this was a mistake and have some manager who didn't care and didn't think it was a big deal because users are stupid and we should just not let them do things. Say, okay, you're right. I guess that was too far and fix it. I should also mention as a footnote here, I've also heard from people who, including some people inside Apple who say, I think there's actually a new API that does this stuff that doesn't trigger this thing. The problem is, one, I've heard other people, other developers say it actually does trigger this thing. Maybe it's a bug, I don't know. A two, why is there a proof for one week in any scenario, even for an old API? And three, I talk to developers who don't know what's going on. They have no idea, is there like a special approval, a special entitlement that Apple can provide? Nobody seems to understand it, which comes back to the original point, which is, so who's up on this? The security and privacy people clearly can do whatever they want, but like developer documentation has nothing. The user experience is nowhere. And you're just out of sync, you can't run an organization like that. Those three groups need to be in lockstep. You need to have good UX for your new security and privacy settings. And if you're making changes that developers have to build, you need to tell the developers, here's what we're doing, we're gonna give you a warning. If only there was some sort of developer conference that they could hold at the beginning of the summer, to talk about this and make it clear to developers what's going on, but unfortunately, nobody is capable of such a thing. - In Discord, Zach says, it's a shame they have nowhere to tell all developers worldwide. - Changes like this is some sort of conference. - Some sort of conference. - It is a tragedy. - Look, the beta thing doesn't work because there wasn't a bug in the computer that wrote a dialogue that said one week, right? Someone made a decision, but like it is a beta. Yes, so feedback can be collected, but if you complain to people that are talking about this, this is part of the feedback process. Like year after year after year, this is what happens. Things happen in iOS or macOS. People write about them, we talk about them on our shows and it helps drive some people to make different decisions. This is, I think at this point, an accepted part of the beta process that we're all a part of together. And I will say, like you mentioned the iOS again, and I will just say, I think in general, they have done a really good job with iOS prompts in the last few years. Like they're providing visual context to the thing that's happening. - I never get the thing that I do on the Mac where I do one thing and I'm prompted with eight different things. - Right. - That never happens, which is good. - And also like they seem to find good, like so for example, you get these prompts when on the home screen, when you're not doing the thing, where it's like, hey, WhatsApp has access to your photos and it shows me my photos that you wanna continue. Like I think that they need to do that, right? So for example, you know, it's like every now and again on the Mac, it pops up and it's like, hey, it shows like a little screenshot of my desktop and says like, these five apps have access to this. Would you like to manage that? Like that's the way to do it. But like do it, you know, whatever, I don't know what the intervals are in iOS, but they feel better than this. - Right, and I would say also ultimately, I need to be able to go somewhere at some point, not right away and say, stop asking me about this app, right? I need to be able to do that. I think you're right in general. Like I said, I mentioned the example before, which is my frustration on iOS and iPadOS is also, there are certain apps that I want it to stop asking me. And sometimes they do. I think there is, I think it's hard because it's a progression. I think maybe you get that. I think maybe you get like, you get the location approval and then there's the sort of like when I use it or all the time that you get eventually. But you don't get it at first. - They still check in after a while though. Like it is a progressive thing when you're like, no, this is fine. And then you can say whenever I'm using this app or just like all the time. - 'Cause that bugs me when they put up the map. I'm just gonna be blunt here. When they put up the map that says, oh, your weather app showed you your weather where you were. And look at this map, your weather app. This is the driving a wedge thing. I know they think of it as disclosure, but this is them saying, - Carrot weather is spying on you. - And like, okay, if I'm unaware, that's great. But as a user of that app, at some point I need to be able to say, never tell me this again. My weather app knows where I am. Yes, thank you, stop asking me. It just, they have to. 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But there are things that I want to be gone. And what I also like is there's a customization to it too. You can contact their team and say like, hey, you don't need to delete me from this one or that and they'll take care of that for you. It's really fantastic. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for DeleteMe with a special offer for the listeners of this show. You can get 20% of your DeleteMe plan when you go to joindeleteme.com/upgrade20 and use the promo code upgrade20 at checkout. That is the way to get 20% off. Just go to J-O-I-N-D-E-L-E-T-E-M-E.com/upgrade20 and the promo code upgrade20 at checkout. That is joindeleteme.com/upgrade20 and the promo code upgrade20 are thanks to DeleteMe for their support of this show. And really, the next layer of the trifle. Okay. So this upcoming Sunday, the 18th of August, is Relay's 10th birthday. So we turn 10, which is an incredible thing. Me and Stephen will talk with you last night and we both ended up posting this to social media, but we found the, we did like a post. Yes, announcement posts kind of saying like, hey, we're coming in a week and these are the shows that, and Stephen, we thought we'd lost this multiple years ago and we ended up finding it again and Stephen posted it on 512. So it will remain online forever, which is good because we had this like, it was like a static page that was living on the domain. Our launch was tenuous. We barely got this thing together and so I'm happy we found that. So that was interesting, you know, to think about it. And obviously reflecting a lot this week. So I thought what was going on with Apple News in 2014? So I have a list of things here that occurred in the year of 2014 that we could maybe reflect on a little bit. This covers upgrade episodes minus 30 to 10. The majority of the stuff that I'm talking about, we would have actually covered on on the show, just because of the way in which Apple works, right? There's a company where the majority of things that are happening happen from June to December. - That's true. - So the biggest news of the year was the six and six plus were introduced. - Yes. - So this is the first time that we got a big iPhone. Is that, oh, both big, but we got a bigger one. - Yeah, big and bigger. Yeah, this is, yeah, this is the origin of a plus club. I guess it was the early days that connected to a plus club, I remember this. So this is at the same event that they introduced the Apple Watch, and I guess I should just get it out here. That was September 9th, 2014. Literally, the executives at IDG came to me and said, "We would like to lay everybody off on September 9th." And I said, "Well, many of those people will be, "large numbers of the editorial staff will be at "or covering remotely the Apple event. "Maybe you should come the next day." And of course, famously, this turned out it was because one senior executive had a kid soccer game that they didn't want to miss. And I'm all for work-life balance. - That might be a swing. - But hey, suit, who's here to lay off dozens of people? You got to wait a day. Sorry, I have no sympathy for you. So anyway, the announcements at the Apple Watch event and the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. And I got review units of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. And I had that moment where I'm like, "I need to tell you." I'm not gonna be, and the PR person was like, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it was very nice. "I'm not gonna be there." But I got the review units. So that was a real question of what I wasn't gonna do. And I think I ended up making a deal with Macworld where I would write the reviews for them. They couldn't pay me because I'd been laid off, but that's okay, they were paying me. San Francisco was great, and I was starting my own thing. But they had to link back to a reviewers notebook piece that I was gonna write on six colors when I launched six colors, which is why six colors launched when it did. Anyway, so I remember walking around XOXO, the festival in Portland, and then Seattle, 'cause I went to Seattle afterward for a day. With these, and walking through parks, with these two phones taking pictures, 'cause the cameras were upgraded and all of that. And then writing my review and all of that stuff going on here, it's just, it's very, that was my little teeny, tiny interregnum between my two jobs was literally that weekend. And the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus review. So it is burned in my brain. - And obviously that time was important that when we were starting the show, right? So we were getting ready for episode one of upgrade. - Yes. - Just around then too, which is an incredible thing for me to consider. And one of the reasons I wanted to talk about this is because me, you and Dan had a very good long conversation in a pub a couple of weeks ago, talking about these exact two weeks of everything happening, everything. Kind of like falling apart and being built back up again. And what, a wild time that was then, I feel like. I told you, I don't know if I mentioned this to you before, but the email that you sent to me to tell me you wanted to start this show, I was at my granddad's funeral. - Right. - Which definitely improved that day. And like, we'll get to more of this in like a month from now when upgrade times 10. - Yes, we're literally releasing our episode, the week after presumably the Apple event. I'm assuming the Apple event's gonna be on the 10th, but the week after that is our 10th anniversary. - Yeah. - That day. So we'll get to it then. - Us being able to bring you on and bring over clockwise and bring on upgrade was an incredibly important moment in relay FM success. 'Cause it was a, you know, like we had a very, very successful launch and I could not have been happy with the way that it went. And we ended up with like all of the shows that we launched had bigger audiences than they had at 5x5 when they started. I don't know why, I just think we were able to, I think cash in a bunch of favors and we had a lot of goodwill from people online and everyone was really excited for me and Steven. But then when you joined us too, it was a bit like, "Oh wow." 'Cause you could just sign your own thing, you know? And, you know, people wanted the Jason Snell podcast, right? - Did they? - People wanted that. - Did they? - Yes, they did. - Did they though? - We've been doing this for a decade. People wanted it. And yeah, so it was very important for us then. But yeah, so that happened six and six plus, which also started Bendgate. - Yay, Bendgate. - There's a thing that happened. - It's not Bendgate, which is the stuff that you rub on your arm to make it feel better and warmer. - There's a tee in. - It's Bendgate. - Bendgate. - When people said, "Hey, you know, if I push on my iPhone, I can get it to Bend." - Yep, and they could and they did and lots of YouTubers Bend their phones and Apple said it didn't have 'em very much. But then it ended up happening more and then apparently it didn't have 'em very much but they changed the internals. - It didn't have to be strong though. - I saw a phone and I forget where 'cause there was so much going on when we were in London that somebody's phone was bent and it was like sitting and we're like, "Is that bent?" And they said, "Oh, I don't know." Probably it's just a, and they pick it up and we're like, "No, that's bent, that phone is bent." I forget whose phone it was. - Wow. - Yeah, there was a Bend iPhone out there. - Still happened. - A more modern vintage, I don't know. - And of course, there was the Apple Watch, which was a fascinating launch like it. - Remember, not released, just announced. They didn't release it until the next spring but they showed it with that classic, "What doesn't it do?" It does everything, digital touch, it'll send your heartbeat, "Oh, your kids are gonna love it." - Hey, it's time for lunch, draw a fish, send it to your friend. And was it this event or the next event where they had like marathon runners and people coming on stage. - I don't think it was this event, I think it was the next one. - But of course, we got the Gold Watch, right? And that's this one. - Yep, that's what IDG and hindsight, that's what IDG should've gotten me. - They should. - For all my years of service, they said we'll give you a gold watch, series one. - We had to lay off a little bit sooner if they were giving you that gift. Your severance is being paid in Gold Watch. - Gold Watch. But of course, the most infamous thing, which I cannot believe this happened at this iPhone event, but it did when Apple created their own malware in the form of a U2 album. - Yeah. - That they infected every Apple device with songs and instruments. - Technically, U2 created the malware and Apple just distributed it. - That's true, that's true, they didn't check that one. - Yeah, this is the little finger touch between Tim and Bono. - Yep, the cringiest thing. I mean, lots of Apple events are cringy. That was the cringiest things that ever happened at an Apple event. Because it genuinely felt like nobody knew what was going to happen at that moment, but they just did that. Like, and I'm not really sure how that came about, right? Like we're gonna touch our fingers together. It really felt like it was just a thing that started happening and they did it, so they committed to it. And it just, it felt like nobody had a plan for that. Well, like, also just the whole idea of it was just in hindsight, very poorly thought out. - So I'll just say, so they did this at the Flint Center in Cupertino, incredibly crowded and cramped. The seating was awful, we were in the back. I'm like, just, it was so, my knees are hitting the seat in front of me and I'm not, I'm not like tall, I'm just average height. I'm trying to type and my elbows are like, in at my side and like, it was super uncomfortable. I'm also going through my head all the stress of knowing that, you know, this is the end for my job. And the job of more than half of the people next to me. And I gotta be honest, I missed this moment. I didn't, I was typing something, I was doing work on, and typing something in and I never saw the finger touch until after. So I missed a memeable moment, alas. - Maybe you would have like turned to dust if you were to see it. - Maybe, maybe, yeah, dodged a bullet there. - So, 'cause I'm sure there are people that maybe aren't completely familiar with what happened here. YouTube had a new album called Songs of Innocence and they did a deal with Apple, where for some reason they would distribute this album to everybody that owned an iPhone. It was like, went to every iPhone. - Everybody that had an iTunes account. - iTunes account. It was, it was this thing where they got paid a, you know, blanket fee or a per, a very, a very low fee. But it was to everybody, so they got a big check, probably more than they would have made otherwise. And this album, and then they would have gone to number one on the charts probably because of it, for this album. And that was the deal that Apple made. And Apple had previous, obviously, relationships with YouTube and they had done the YouTube iPod and they had performed at the California Theater for Steve Jobs at that event. And they came out and they did this. I think, ironically, or maybe not, as a long time YouTube fan, it's not a very good album. It's not very good. It's like one of my least favorite YouTube album. So that, that's, that's sad. It's just sad. So it was, yeah, malware in all senses of the word. - I believe, so somebody wrote about this a while ago, I think, that there is a tool to remove it? - To remove it from your library. Yeah, there's a tool to remove it. You can go, there's like, or there was, I don't know if it still works, but there was a URL they would send people to and it would remove songs of innocence from your iTunes library. (laughing) For those people who didn't want to see that. I ran to people who are like, oh, that YouTube album's still there, or people who are like, I never bought anything on Apple, but I had this YouTube album. - Well, if you just had streaming, right? You're just like streaming. But it's, now you still have this like, poet's just, I'm in your, in your, in your library. Apple Pay launched in October of 2014. - Hey. - Which, you know, I think it's one of these things that was exciting when it started, and now is just like, could not be more like with this. - Do you remember, this was a moment in upgrade history because I got to report firsthand using Apple Pay to buy peanut butter. - Manchego cheese. - Manchego cheese. - Manchego cheese. - Yes. - At my local Whole Foods using Apple Pay. - It's true. - From the grinder, peanut butter from that grinder in the Manchego cheese. I ought to do that again. To celebrate the 10th, I oughta go get some ground. - You should. - Ground up, peanut butter and some Manchego cheese. - You should do that. - I should, yeah. - Obviously, I love it and so doo 'cause of the tube. And, you know, also like Apple Pay just rolled out significantly easier here. I think that it did in the US. - We'll do a little preview of stories. I feel like we need to do some 10th anniversary things on upgrade once we reach our 10th anniversary. And one of them is we should cover this Apple Pay launch in a little more detail because I'll just say now, Apple Pay, like everybody else had tried this. Samsung and Google had tried this, didn't work. Apple did it and it like, it really set off a huge change in US transactions because the US was so far behind. And this was a major driver in getting uptake of contactless payments in general in the US. - You were so far behind. - Well, here, everybody was using contactless cards. Like do your debit card had a chip in it and you just use it. - And that had failed in the US basically to roll it out. I know I've said it before, but like I got a card with a chip in it and then like eight months later, my bank said, we sent you a new card without a chip. Like what just happened? And I was like, well, we gave up on that. So yeah, so now when I travel internationally, like I just did, it used to be as an American when you travel overseas, you'd be like, whoa, they really got it together, we're so behind. And now, not so much, not so little bit, but not so much. - And I really firmly believe that Apple Pay was the impetus for finally changing that. - In May of 2014, Apple acquired Beats for $3 billion. - Hey, speaking of Dr. Dre who appeared in the Olympics closing ceremonies. - So this was the combination of Beats Music, which had launched a few months earlier, which is an app, right? Beats Music and Beats Music Service that me and Federico loved. And also the electronics company too. And that started, I think, Apple's dominance in headphones. I think probably came from this. I'm sure they got some really good talent for helping them build things like AirPods and stuff like that. But also they continue to have the Beats brand, but then it also gave them the underpinnings to create a music streaming service in Apple Music. So another huge moment. I will say, there's a few more things on this list, but I am very struck in going through this how important 2014 was. - Yeah. - Like bigger phones, the first Apple Watch, Apple Pay, Beats. - Beats Swift, was it now, WWDC? - Which I remember that WWDC, for me, was a very boring one. - Oh yeah, it wasn't very boring WWDC. But for developers, it was a big deal. And that Swift was the thing for that WWDC. And so it took up a lot of time in the keynote, rightly so. But as somebody who is not a developer, this is one of the times where the WWDC keynote kind of went over my head, which is, I can't think of another one that was like this. But they obviously spent a lot of time really focusing on Swift. And like 10 years later, Swift is, it seems to be going great. Also in 2014, the European Union launches a formal investigation into Apple's tax arrangements with Ireland, which ended up going to the point of Apple paying a lot of money. (laughs) - I guess it's our second Apple Pay story from this year. - Oh, hey. - There we go, there we go. But this is also like, it was funny looking back at this. Oh, the European Union's here. And they got some stuff to say, you know? Yeah, very fun. And the last thing I had was Tim Cook published an op-ed piece in Bloomberg Business Week where he comes out as gay. And that also happened in 2014. - It's big year. - Big year, an upgrade launched. - Of course. - Oh, wait, that's how we started this, is relay was announced and then it launched and then about a month later, upgrade one happened. So yeah, it's good stuff. Well, happy anniversary. And there'll be more celebrations, I'm sure, but we already had the big relay 10 event as well. So it's the fun season. This is a good, if we've reached, if we're near the bottom of the parfait or whatever you serve was, to try the trifle, it's going pretty well so far. Now down here at the bottom, it's pretty nice. - Is trifle like not a thing? Like, do you, you know, 'cause you seem to have not locked into the trifle idea. Do you know how I have trifles? - I think it's a very English thing. I think we probably do have it, but it's very English, it's not a common thing. - Maybe it's something to help with Americans. It's an episode of Friends, where Rachel makes a trifle and she puts meat in it, because she gets the recipe mixed up with another recipe. And then that is a very funny episode of Friends, where Rachel is serving the trifle and everyone thinks it's disgusting, but of course, Joey loves it. - Of course. Oh, right, he like polishes it off, right? I mean, I remember that shot where he's like, they got him and he's got the spoon and the bowl and he's like, "Yeah, this is great." And he's having a great time. - Yeah, they make this, sometimes I think on Great British Bake Off. But Great British Bake Off, as an aside, is amazing in part as an American, because there are the things that they make that we're like, "Yes, okay." That they treat as, they're things that they treat as incredibly exotic, that as an American, I'm like, "Well, that's just a thing. "Why is that exotic?" And it's because it's American. It's not a thing that happened in England for whatever reason, or at least it happened in America. It might not be from America, but it happened. And then the other things that they say that as normal and as an American, you go what? A what now? Because it's a very common English thing that, or a thing that English people know about. Like in some cases, they'll be like, "This is a Swedish cake." And I'm like, "I have never heard of this thing." - Oh, no, no, no. Sometimes they show the Swedish cakes and I'm like, "I have no idea what a Swedish cake is." - Yeah, but this, yeah, the one in particular, yeah, they'd sometimes surprise the people and they're like, "I've never heard of this." The one that made me laugh the most, and we had this, I should say, we had this. Lauren ordered it as a dessert at one of the places we went when we were in in the UK. Because they announced, Paul Hollywood announced that everybody was going to be making, and I'm going to say it in a clear way. They were going to be making tart ta-ta, which is a French dish, commonly known apparently in England. As an American watching, everybody starts saying, "Ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta." And Lauren and I thought we had lost our minds. And we finally figured out what they were saying. It's like, turn on the caption, see what it is. So anyway, Lauren had a tart ta-ta. It was nice. - Mm-hmm, ta-ta-ta. - That is actually a joke in our household because it didn't like start ta-ta-ta, and I always got ta-ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta, there you go. - Ta-ta-ta, it's a thing? - We've reached the end of the trifle. - Oh, that's the end, so that was the nice, Joey was scooping out the bottom of the trifle right there. All right, great. - The end of the trifle, we're going to do a couple of ask upgrade questions to finish out today's episode. - That's right. - That's right. - The first comes in from Chip. - Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh. - Thank you, who says-- - Listen to Chip. - Listen to Chip. - I rarely see out in the world, brightly colored cars, premium phones, or other big ticket items. Do you think Apple could push the market in a more color-friendly direction? Or does their market research tell them that pro customers are, in fact, boring, and it's not worth it? Is the colors are leading, or is the colors are following? Love the podcast, especially the video version. - Mm, oh, I see which chip this is. Oh, okay. (laughs) - This is a nepotism question. - Oh, I see what you're doing, Chip. I see it. - Mm-hmm. (clears throat) - Look, we don't know, Apple knows exactly how many of each color of phone they sell, and in what markets? I don't know, though, has the iPhone Pro really ever been made in a bright color? And maybe it's just because the materials they use are not conducive. The premium materials they use are not conducive to bright colors. They're really with the anitization, and the coatings they use, and all that, that they can't make it be bright. And maybe there's a very technical reason why. I'm not sure that they even have the data to say, oh, we definitely can't make one option that's fun, because nobody will want that. That's probably, you know, maybe, maybe so. I just, I feel like I think Apple has enough sway. I mean, we've seen it with, you know, even back in the iMac days, Apple can make something that people really like, and I think they could affect fashion. So I think the colors are, could push things in that direction if they wanted to, but again, I do think it's, you know, in the end, if they're going to choose a great premium material, or they're going to choose something that's a bright color, they're going to choose the premium material every time. And so maybe that's the reason. What do you think, Mike? - I would put Apple in the category of kind of like, fashion, and in fashion, there's lots of color options. And I think that the thing that I keep coming back to, when we come back to a bunch of times, is that people put their phones into a variety of high color cases. The phones can also be fun too, right? I don't think that just because it's pro, it should mean that it is bland in color. I just, I don't think that's the case. - Yeah, I think choice is good, and that if they have the ability to offer a choice that's fun, even if it's just one, I wish they would do it because I would probably choose it. And these rumored new base iPhones look fun. And again, I always hear from people like, "Oh, I don't want to do color phones." It's like they're never going to, like there's always a black phone and a white phone and a gray phone, like that. My argument is just, some more choice would be nice. But yes, I think to Chip's point, there are a lot of gray cars out there. We do live in that era, and maybe Apple is following. I do think that Apple could be influential here if it tried to push things a little bit. But Apple knows, like if Apple puts out five iPhone 16s and the boring ones are the ones that sell best, then I mean, I understand it, right? They've got their sales data, so maybe, maybe. But I don't know, or maybe they know that some people like pastels and some people like bright colors, and so they alternate years, and that's how they do it. And it's like, okay, I wish the pro stuff was more fun. I wish I had the ability to get a more brightly colored phone or a laptop for that matter, right? - And we have another question here. It comes in from Brad, who says, "My wife and I live in a busy house "with our three young children. "We have a shared Google calendar "for all of our family events. "We currently transcribe this calendar "on to a pair of whiteboards this week and next week "that we stick on to our fridge. "I would love to replace these with something digital. "And I'm thinking an e-ink display would be good, "giving there is no power on the front of the fridge. "Do you have any suggestions "about how I might go about this project?" - Do I ever? - Yes. - Yeah, so I've got a post that will put in the show notes about my e-ink calendar that I built. I used a bunch of Python scripts from a German guy and his 3D model, I got a 3D printed model. And then I've updated it since then to do exactly what Brad is describing. So the only difference is that I leave it by the side of my microwave and it's plugged in all the time and it updates every hour. But you could very easily do something where you stick it on to your fridge but you'd have to plug it in to update it every so often, right? Because there's a Raspberry Pi attached there too and it does need power. The screen doesn't need power but the device that does the updating needs power. - That's the thing you could do on a Sunday or whatever, right? You go and you update and you kind of publishing it. - If it can show the whole week, right? That's the question. If it needs to update midweek, you would have to do it. So if, you know, but I did it with a thing that's just setting to the side. There are other things that use different technologies that I haven't liked as much that have like, that you can build with a, that have a little battery in it. And so those will last for a while. Dan Morin's using one of those in one of his, he made an on air display using a battery operated E-ink device, which is kind of cool. And so it's checking every 10 minutes it wakes up and checks to see if Dan is recording a podcast and all of that. And so that's a different, that's the ink plate six color. But for what Brad's doing, I would say, yeah, E-ink is great. And at some point I should probably put a version of my modified version of the German guys. His is like a portal themed calendar and I've stripped all of that stuff out, but I've added a bunch of other stuff in. It shows my calendar and our family calendar and Lawrence calendar. And they're in different formats like color or italics. It's got a little symbol on the night for the trash to go out about whether we're taking out our paper or our glass and plastic. That is great. It's got a little Apple weather widget in it. It's got a bunch of stuff in it. So, and if you know Python, especially you can play around with it and make it do anything you want. Really. So I think E-ink is fun and it's a great way to do it. But you do need power at least to update the display. So if you've got a way to, you know, if you can get something that just displays your calendar, you know, yeah, for a week or whatever, you can plug it in on Sunday, have it reload and then stick it on the fridge, that would work too. - If you would like to send us in your questions for Ask Upgrade or your feedback will follow up. You can always go to upgradefeedback.com. You can check out Jason's work over at sixcolors.com and you can hear him over at the incomparable.com and here on relay where you can hear me too. You can also check out my work at cortexbrand.com. You can find us online. Jason is @Jasonow, J-S-N-E-L. I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E. You can watch video clips of this show on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube or @upgraderelay. Thank you to our members who support us for Upgrade Plus. If you would like longer ad-free versions of the show each and every week, please go to getupgradeplus.com, find out more and sign up. And most of all, as always, thank you for listening. Oh, and thank you to our sponsors this week. Delete me and Oonee. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Goodbye, everybody. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) You You
This episode has a lot of layers, as we discuss the Olympics, the Google antitrust ruling, Apple's new EU fee plan, a tiny new Mac mini, macOS dialog disasters, and the tech world of a decade ago.
