[Music] From Relay, this is Upgrade Episode 535 for October 28th, 2024. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, Fitbod and Notion. My name is Mike Hurley and I'm joined by Jason Snow. Hi, Jason. Hi, Mike. How are you? Good. Busy week. This is going to be a very busy week and it's already started off busy and we're going to get busy right then. I think it's going to be a huge, huge week. I'm a little apprehensive about it's going to be. There's a lot. It's like this is Mac Fest 2024 this week. We're obviously going to talk about the Mac stuff that happens. But it's just like one of these things of like, I was talking to my wife last week and it's like, "Do we have family visiting this week?" And I'm like, "Okay, this is a couple of weeks ago." I'm like, "Well, I reckon there's going to be an Apple event one day, the week that they're coming and I'll do my best to like, we'll work around that." But now I'm like, "I don't know what to expect now." And obviously that's not happening, right? We know that now. But it's like, I just don't know what the rest of this week is. But what I do know at least is I'll just be recording my shows and the days I'm supposed to be recording them and fitting in all of the things I'm going to fit in. Yeah, you'll catch what you can. Different for you. It's wild. I mean, so we'll cover what we can today. Yes. But we will only be able to cover today, day one of MacFest 2024, which will continue for a few more days as far as we can tell. So several days, according to John Turner's. And of course the earnings, right? We have the earnings on Thursday. And then Apple Financials is on Thursday. So if I had to make a prediction, it would be that MacFest 2024 lasts three days. And then there's money fest quarterly on Thursday, which is also Halloween. And then Friday is, I don't know, recovery day, it's leg day, something like that. They did say it's those three announcements. So we can assume that one day after another. But anyway, we'll get to all of that because we've got a star out of a Snell Talk question. This one comes from John who wants to know. And this is kind of an reference we were talking about. Is it John Turner's? I don't know, we mean you were talking a couple of weeks ago about the idea of not really thinking that we would be able to retire fully. But John wanted to know, would you like to live on a beach in Hawaii when you do choose to retire? Yeah, I think it's unlikely that I would be able to afford to live by the beach. Like I don't want to live like on the beach just with no home and just laying on the beach. I don't want to do that. But in general, yes, that would be a wonderful place. I would love to do that. That is one of the dreams. But I would say that feels to me like an unrealistic dream. Dreams can be unrealistic. You can just have them, you know? You never know where your life's going to take you. I mean, like a little condo in Hawaii. I mean, yeah, that would be awesome. That was good as it could get, I think, for a time. Yeah, my slightly more plausible, but also implausible dream is actually to have a little condo in San Diego. Yep. And then what I've said to Lauren a bunch of times is I kind of want to be the regular at the Padres games where they're like, oh, there's this old guy who's just always there and he watches the baseball games and he lives like across the street and he just comes over and watches the games and goes back. He's just, that's what he does with his retirement. And I kind of want to be that guy. I do, I kind of want to be that guy. But and why the Padres and not the Giants, you say, it's because the weather is much, much better in San Diego. That's why, come on, come on. But anyway, Beach in Hawaii would be fantastic. Every time I go to Hawaii, I think about it. But yeah, I mean, who knows? It is, thank you, John, for basically giving me to admit, yes, that is one of my dreams. If you'd like to send in a question to help us open an episode of upgrade, just go to upgradefeedback.com and you can send in a snow talk question of your own. To give you an example of the business of today's episode, we're going to talk about your iPad mini review in follow up. So you reviewed a whole new product. You said a couple of things that I thought were really nice about the iPad mini, I read a couple of quotes from you. The iPad mini is already a niche product within a niche product line. It's likely that Apple never wants to slice things even thinner than it already has. And what's great about the iPad mini ultimately is also what limits it. It's a small iPad with plenty of power. It fits in places that other iPads just don't. - Look, I wrote four or 5,000 words about the iPad mini last week, which is funny 'cause I thought I had basically nothing to say about it, almost nothing to say about it. But you know, you find things, I wrote the review and I'm like, how did I get 2,000 words out of this? And then my editor at Mackerel was like, can you write your column this week about the iPad mini? I'm like, what do I even say about it? I found something to say about it. So yeah, so the first part, niche of a niche, right? It's a niche iPad and the iPad is a niche Apple device, really, if you think about it. And then I get the people who say, I really wish that the iPad mini was more like an iPad pro than an iPad Air. But again, I feel like then you're saying it's a niche of a niche of a niche. Like it's too far, it's cutting it too thin. And Apple probably looks at the sales figures and just doesn't believe that a pro iPad mini is gonna be, you know, a seller that's worth making. And then also, as I mentioned in the piece, think of the capitalization. If you've got a capital P pro and a lowercase M mini and now they're in the same product name, like it's madness, you can't do it. So there's that part. And you know, the other thing, the piece I ended up writing for Mackerel, part of what I said is like, look, if you want a really super pro thing that's kind of like an iPad mini, wait for the fold out iPhone, because although it's not quite the same, I'm sure that will be a very expensive but very pro, very nice product that will get you a screen that's probably not that far off from an iPad mini screen and it's also an iPhone. And I just thought that was funny to think about, like the closest you'll ever get to a pro iPad mini is probably a fold out iPhone whenever that happens. So, you know, it's what we've been saying about the iPad mini and it's what we said last week. It's a mini with a new chip so it can do Apple intelligence and otherwise they basically didn't do anything except to loot the colors. And you know, it's good that it's there. Like the Mac mini, it fits in very specific niches and it's not just, you know, use case wise, it's also physical size wise. So, and given the price, like, I also wouldn't advocate for a pro iPad mini because then it wouldn't cost what it costs now. Right now, it's a pretty good value because it's cheaper than the iPad Air by a bit. But a pro version of it would be very expensive and I don't think it's a good idea. And I don't think they would make two. - No, I don't either. There's a one, right? Like I understand the want I would want, right? You know, there to be a pro product but what you actually, the wish you have to have is that technology moves faster. That's all you need to wish that. - Yeah. - Because eventually the iPad mini will be in OLED screen, right? Like eventually it will be. - I would argue that the number one thing the iPad mini should probably progress at, that it hasn't for, you know, a version now is anti glare and screen brightness, right? Like I still would argue that one of the uses of the iPad mini is as a reader. And that is one of those places where like where is a Kindle better than an iPad mini? And the answer is reading it outside. - I mean, we were just talking about it last week, right? Like Amazon seemed like they're getting more aggressive with Kindles now. So that weirdly, I could imagine as you're saying, that being a thing that actually lights a fire under the iPad mini team, that the Kindle, which is really like weirdly, that is the only real competitor for any iPad, I feel like. Like Apple has no competition in tablet computers. They're just, it's just not there, right? - Yeah, not speak of it. - They don't have it. Like the closest would be what? Surface, I just don't think that's the same customer. I don't think people are choosing between iPads and surfaces. - I mean, yeah, and the Android tablets, I'm sure they sell in some quantity, but it's not relevant. - It's not competition. I just, I really don't imagine people are seriously weighing up iPad or Galaxy Note tablet or whatever. - And my various 4As into using Android devices for readers, I can, you know, Android apps are fine on phones, but they're terrible on tablets. Anything larger than a phone size, it just falls apart. I mean, again, not every Android app, right? But just generally, I was very disappointed. It's a very different story than the iPad. - They just don't have it there, but like I do feel like the iPad mini and the Kindle are in direct competition. - I think to a certain degree they are, yeah. - Yeah, at the Kindle's are getting more expensive, right? I mean, that's the other thing is that when you start talking about a higher-end Kindle, like that paper white signature edition that's got the light sensor and all of that. And they're starting to have like other rereaders are getting pens now, right? So you can do markup and things like that. You start, they are starting to get close to each other. And that's really interesting. And I think that there is some threat there from Apple. And I, again, I just think that's one of those areas that Apple, they have made strides in anti-glare and screen brightness and things like that. But on the mini of all devices, I think they need to push it. But not this time. - Not this time. Well, I mean, they pushed it, just not in the way that this is here. - So I mean, they had to do that, right? I mean, I think we would agree. - They made the right call. - If you're going to make this Apple Intelligence push, you've got to have your products be able to support it, right? Otherwise, what are you doing? - Yeah, and it was the weird outlier. I feel like it was kind of the outlier. The iPad, that, no, that will get it when it gets it. - Yeah. - Continuing the Ted Lasso news update in an interview with Variety, Warner by the CEO Channing Dungy, Dungy said this. - Dungy, Dungy? - Dungy said this. We have always been clear that we weren't, we had always been clear that there wasn't going to be more Ted Lasso if Jason Sudeikos and team weren't feeling excited about it. And I can tell you firsthand that he's in a place where he's feeling really excited and feels good about it. - Yeah, this is more than, you know, what we've been hearing, which is that they're gearing up. This is her saying, we wouldn't do it without Jason Sudeikos being excited and he's excited. And again, as I said before, maybe he's excited about the money they're paying him. That's the cynical view, and I think there's probably some truth in that. I think he probably, you know, look, there's the fact that it's successful so they want to pay him more to do it. And there's also the fact that he's thinking about other projects and maybe he has that thought of like, you know, this is the thing that I'm going to be remembered for. And I could keep, maybe I can come up with an idea, he's a creative person, maybe we can do something where we can do some more of this and that's fine. But this is, this is the CEO of Warner Brothers TV saying, you know, we're working on it. So this is the clearest sign yet that this is happening, which it is that they're, they're gearing up. The whole thing is happening. So it's just a matter of that. They haven't announced what it is and all of that, which seems like they will, will do when they can. - Yup. Vimeo for VisionOS now supports immersive video. And Vimeo are releasing an immersive video of their own that they've made to celebrate it that's coming in November. And upgrading Greg contacted us to share that TV producer Andy Greenwald recently said on his podcast, The Watch, that Apple is commissioning more filmmakers around town to make content with big budgets. - Yeah. All right. These are, I think these two things are unrelated. By the way, I don't make Apple's commissioning for Vimeo. - No, I'm sorry, maybe I did a bad job there. I just lumped them all together as a massive content. I wasn't trying to say that they were linked in any way, but it's just like a more immersive video coming to Vimeo. - Right, so there's a, there's a Vimeo app with immersive stuff in it, which is like, great, where's YouTube app still not there? But I think that we all believe that it's coming. - The YouTube app, I heard somewhere that the YouTube app was coming in February. - Yeah. - And that was part of why Juno got pulled, was killed. Yes. And then separately, it sounds like Apple is indeed, after we were talking about that immersive video submerged that Apple made, that there's more money and more filmmakers trying these projects. So that's good, they should, great. - This episode is brought to you in part by our friends at 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 from the crowd of a beautiful website, engage your audience and sell anything, your products, services, or even the content that you create, because Squarespace has everything you need all in one place and all on your terms. 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When you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com/upgrade to save 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com/upgrade when you sign up and you'll get 10% of your first purchase and show you support for the show. A thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show and all of relay. Apple Intelligence is out now. iOS 18.1 is coming out today. Yep, macOS 15.1 as well. Yes, oh yeah. I always just think of iOS 18.1, but it's the point ones on the different platforms. iPadOS, iOS, macOS, they're all out now with the first set of Apple Intelligence features. I'm gonna run through these real fast to kind of just remind everybody what's in them 'cause we've spoken about this quite a bit over the last few months. Writing tools, the new series design that has some updated understanding, better photos search and memory creation, notification summaries, the reduce interruptions focus mode, smart reply and mailer messages, which I have never seen once. I have never seen this feature, like where it pops up the little sheet and lets you choose and it'll write, I've never seen this. I don't even know where it is supposed to be. Priority mail messages, this is where it shows, I can email is a priority. Email summaries and transcription in notes. So, how are you feeling about 18.1? I know you just put out a big article on six colors as we were going live today. - Yeah, Dan and I did a, we collaborated on 'cause there's a lot in there on a, I mean, I called it the Apple Intelligence .1 review, which is weird, right? But like, and I've been calling it like first wave of features. You know, it's a mixed bag. It's a mixed bag. I find that, okay, first off, they showed developer beta of .2 last week, right? So, that's a big thing. - Yeah, we're gonna talk about that for sure. - And what I'll say about it now is, I think it was really smart, right? Because when they're releasing .1, they are also pointing at .2 and saying, and also these features. And it's just like them having a public beta of .1 when they ship the iPhone. They are trying to make the story about the next thing so that you don't think of the gestalt of the thing as just what's shipping, but also about what's about to ship, which you could say that that's sort of marketing and a little bit cynical, but you could also say that they, those are real features that are coming soon. They're not promises that are unclear. They're like code that's shipping, even though it's not shipping to everybody. And then I would assume fairly soon, there'll be a public beta of .2 and people will be able to opt into that as well. So that when they're talking about Apple intelligence, they can talk about, well, this is now and this is coming and it's already available for developers and it's next up. And I think that that's smart because it changes this conversation and lots of conversations to not just be about .1. It's also funny because I think if you had shipped the .1 and .2 features together, it would be much more impressive because the .1 features do feel a little like the ones that were ready and maybe even would have been part of the OS release without the Apple intelligence push, some of them. The Siri stuff is not really improved in .1 other than the look. It's not really any different. Like the changes that they are saying are a fun demo, but I'm not really sure is a thing that people were running into that they had to constantly trip over themselves to ask Siri questions. I'm not convinced that that is really a thing that people were doing, like having conversations with Siri. - There's gonna be improved Siri in .2 and really in .4 right next year is when a lot of the stuff that we wish Siri would be better at will be better at. So it's gonna take a lot of time. But okay, so summaries are useful. And I know we've talked about this before, but just to get it out there again, I find summaries useful and they're not 100% useful, but summarizing conversations, summarizing notifications, summarizing emails in the preview instead of the first two lines of text can be very useful. And I don't find it detrimental. And I had, in my example, I know a lot of people have had similar examples. My example was the multiple alerts I get from my home irrigation app that my front yard drip irrigation is turned on and is going to run and is now, has now run and is off. And that gets turned into a single thing that says drip irrigation ran and concluded at 7.58 p.m. It's like, yep, swipe done, right? I don't need that coalescing that into one summary is great. - Yeah, I feel like this is a thing that like, especially online right now, like this feature, people are really having a good time making fun of it. Like, you know, like, and there's just like lots of memes and engagement bait around like, I'm going to post this thing or whatever. You know, like there was this one that was going around about a message, you know, while person is breaking up with you, da da da da da. And Joanna Stone had an interview with Craig van Rege and mentioned that to Craig. And I really liked Craig's response, which was kind of like, well, yeah, I mean, it works better with some places and others, but realistically, you know, but it should be getting broken up with biotechs anyway. Like, no matter how you get that notification, it's never a good one. - Exactly. - But my feeling is this is actually in point one, the absolute best feature is the notification summaries. It doesn't work for all types of apps. Like, for example, you know, I get notifications for overcast. I just have them go to notification center, so I know when my podcasts are posting. Overcast notifications includes the kind of description of the episode, long descriptions of podcast episodes that are essentially unrelated to each other, does not make sense for a notification summary. But the thing is, you can just turn them off individually for certain apps. So my recommendation for people that are installing point one today for the first time is give it a bit of time in the notification summaries. I can guarantee there's gonna be at least a handful of applications where you're gonna be like, oh, this is better. Like similarly, Jason, I have a car home security system. I have like a notification when the doors open and close. And like, I just saw it then. It was like multiple stages changes door recently closed. And it's like, that's kind of all I need to know, right? Like I don't need to see open closed, open closed, open closed, right? Like, this is a better system for that. But you kind of just go to see where it ends up working for you. - Yeah, the features, photos clean up this finally here. It's good. It's, it's, it should have been here years ago. It shouldn't require Apple intelligence level hardware to run. But they did a good job. It's pretty good at removing stuff from the background. And it does this thing. One of the things that I've noticed about this, and this really continues in point two, is Apple's really leaning into the, the stagecraft of Apple intelligence, where everything's got a, got that Apple intelligence, rainbow glow thing. And cleanup is one of those places where it doesn't just give you a tool. When you tap cleanup in the editing mode in photos, it scans your photo for things. It thinks you would be likely to want to remove and then makes them do a shimmer effect. And you can just tap on them to remove them. Now, that's not necessary, but they, I think it's part of the showmanship here, is they want to like give you examples of like what, you know, how about this guy who's standing in the background, maybe we could get rid of him. And, but it's a good feature. It's a good feature. It's just interesting to see how they play it. And then, you know, for me, the one that really I think makes me think a lot is writing tools, which in point one, you know, so okay, I, I'm a writer. I have been a writer for a long time. And I'll just say, if I give a paragraph I've written to writing tools and have it rewrite it, it makes it worse. Bottom line, it just makes it worse. But that's what LLMs do. LLMs are all about flattening it to the middle. They're, they're the most mid of things. Like that, it's all about the middle. It's the aggregate of all of the internet, of all of internet language, right? So you're all of language. So we'll be in the middle. Yeah, the middle. So it does stuff that's, you know, it replaces words with other words that are synonymous, which is, it feels very much like a student who's trying to file off the, the, the edges of a thing that they're, that they're plagiarizing so that it doesn't seem like they're plagiarizing it. They'll just, it'll just swap in synonyms. I'm like, why? Why did you even do that? And it simplifies things and it makes things more cliched. And so, you know, easy for me to say, but like, that was my personal experience with it. However, I do think it's really important to say, a lot of people, not the people who are writing about Apple intelligence, by the way, for obvious reasons. A lot of people struggle with written material. That's not their strongest thing. I know you use AI for some podcast writing, right? I do. I use it for quite a lot of things, because I'm not a writer. I'm not a writer. And you're not comfortable with that form. And yet there are lots of things that require writing. Things that sometimes I have to write get seen by lots of people. And I am very insecure about posting some of this stuff because like, you know, like it was all in good fun, but like there has been a, there was a point where a bunch of friends of mine were collecting screenshots of all of my spelling mistakes. And like that was just like a thing. And it was like one of these things where it's fun when it's a joke between friends, but then it like expands out into the world. And like, I think now I am insecure about my writing. And so I like to be able to have systems where I can say, like, here is a piece of text that I'm writing. Can you check this for me? And I would say in point one, the proofreading is fine, but it's not like super great. It's better in point two because you can describe your changes. But obviously you would never use these tools because you are a writer in the same way that I would never use a tool that would produce a podcast for me. - Right. And this is, and this is my point is I know that, but I want to point it out because I do think that there are some people are like, oh, I don't know why. And it was a good thought experiment for me because it was like, okay, if I give it something I write, it drains into the personality and kind of makes it boring. But there are lots of people, lots of very smart people, in fact, but writing is not their thing. I, you know, my dad was a very smart person and he was a terrible writer. He like, he just couldn't do it. He couldn't spell it. He couldn't, he just couldn't. It wasn't the thing that he could do. And also I haven't even gotten to it yet, but the other very clear application here is people are not comfortable in English because English isn't their primary language. And there's a lot of that too. So I think that there's a lot of this that is going to be really great for a lot of people because it's going to give you a safety net. You select your text, it just comes with your computer, comes with your phone. You select the text and you say, you rewrite this or make it friendly or make it professional. Like how many 20 year olds are out there who are applying for an internship or a job or something? And they suddenly have to write an email to their prospective employer and they have no idea what it means to be personal, to be professional. And I say that as a parent of two kids in their twenties now, like they have no idea, they have no idea. And sometimes they send us their things that they're writing and say, you know, can you look at this and see if it's okay? So imagine being able to just go, can you make this professional because I don't know how to do that and have it do it? I think that's great. Obviously with all these tools, you should look at the output and make sure that you're comfortable with what you get out of it. But I do think that there are a lot of people who are just completely at sea when it comes to written language in English in this case, more languages to come. But, and I think that that's great. So I think that there's a lot to be said for writing tools and it's very easy to be cynical about it if you're somebody who's comfortable with writing, but think of everyone else. I'd say think outside yourself and think of all the different applications to this. Now, a friend of mine who is also a professional writer, his comment to me about it, when we were talking about it this weekend was, and I hadn't thought of this, is like, you know, sometimes somebody sends you an email and you're really angry about it and you write an angry response. And he said, there is some value in selecting it and saying, make this professional or make this friendly. - Everybody's had that email that they sent that they wish later that they hadn't sent. - Right. Now you still have to think about running it through the AI. I do think that there's a mode that is undoubtedly coming which will allow your apps of choice to say, this looks a little angry. I know there used to be way back when Eudora actually had a semantic analysis feature, believe it or not. And Eudora has been gone for so long now, but it had a semantic analysis feature back in the early 2000s that would actually show you little spicy peppers. If you were really, really angry, it would be like, oh, there's three peppers here. And I think you could set a threshold where it warned you and it was like, are you sure you wanna set this spicy email? But I think that will come back. I think that there will be more semantic analysis with AI where they will say, would you like me to make this more professional because this seems to be in a professional context? But I haven't thought of that. And that's a good one. It's like, take a step back from the ledge. You have a lot of feelings. But if you run it through the AI, guess what's gonna happen? All those feelings are gonna get pulled out of it because that's what it does. It flattens it back down. And if what you're trying to send is boring and not bad, but like boring and it's doing a job and it needs to convey something but that's all it needs to do, you can get that out of this. And there's a lot of value in that for a lot of people. - I still wanna talk more about this, but I wanna just very quickly jump to the 18.2 part 'cause I need to reference that to make my point. So 18.2 is now out in the developer beta. One of the features is enhanced writing tools. So these are, it allows you to describe the change that you wanna make to existing text. And you can also generate text completely from nothing with chat GPT. So the reason I wanna mention this is for me, what I find to be very valuable with these tools is you're able to prompt them. And what I don't like about the 18.1 writing tools is they're very, you are just pressing a button that describes a prompt that Apple wrote. - Right, they wrote prompts and you press the button and the prompt goes in. Exactly, and in 18.2, you can also try to write the prompt yourself. - Yeah, because the experience I have of chat GPTs, I will say, keep the tone of this message, keep the tone of this text the same, recommend some adjustments. And what I find then is I have a much better hit, right? Of getting something to still sound like me, like it's just maybe giving me some different words or rewriting it, putting some different punctuation or grammar in place to make the overall sentences read better, right? And for me as well, like, when I do this stuff, I don't just take the output of it and just like paste it into whatever I want. I treat it as like a back and forth, really. I can now often still go in and make changes to what it's given me, but I get to a point where I feel a little bit more comfortable with the text. And so having these tools built into the system is really interesting and I wanna play around with them more, but I do like that now you have a little bit more, a little bit more say in what the change can be. And you can see why they did it this way, right? In point one, it's sort of like we got all the guide rails, all the guard rails in place, we're gonna make it just super safe and simple. And then in point two, they're like, all those other things are still there, but if you wanna take control, it'll slide up a little keyboard that'll do the AI sparkle thing that they do. That's more showmanship and you can direct it better. Also, the proofread tool is okay. It's not as good as Grammarly. It needs to improve. I got some false positives, but it's nice to have it, right? It's nice to, again, for free in the system to offer that is nice. And then the other stuff like summary, sometimes you wanna read a summary of something and see if you wanna read it. Sometimes you wanna get a summary so that you can summarize it for someone else and that it does the, again, I would say, it does the initial work and then you need to look at it and make sure it properly summarizes it, but I think that's interesting. The key points one makes me laugh, but I think it's super useful, which is a lot of people have bosses who are addicted to the executive summary. I used to have bosses who are like this. And it's like, imagine there's a thousand word memo that's going around. And then your boss is like, summarize it for me. It's like, oh, the executive summary. Well, you know what? You do key points and it literally makes a bulleted list with like bold items and then explanations of each of the bold items. And like it's building an executive summary, which again, you need to go over as a person who's doing this to your boss because some of them may not be key points and you may want to remove those, right? A little bit of editing work is always a good idea with stuff that's generated by AIs. But I look at that and I think somebody thought, oh my God, we could use the AI to generate an executive summary. It's such a great idea. And then, you know what? I love that they baked in a couple of text utilities into writing tools too. So the idea that if you've got something that's just people are writing text and it's literally like thing, colon number, thing, colon number and you're like, this should be a table. But they're like, yeah, but I don't know how to make a table. And all the controls are different when you're in table mode and all that. You literally select it and say table. And it just makes it a table or a list. If you've got like a paragraph that lists 15 things in it, that's just, you know, they're here are the things we need. This, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this. You know, like, you can select it and say list and it turns it into a bulleted list of those things. Instead, properly formatted. And again, it's a little thing, but like, it's great. Like, to intelligently take text and make it something reformat into something more useful. I think that's really smart. So there's a bunch of perfectly good features in there. It's just a little bit basic. It's just because it's, it's, it's number one. It's V one. It needs to be better, but it is. There are things in it that are good and there are things in it that are okay. - 18.2 also introduces the first round of the image tools, which includes image playgrounds, which is the AI art generation system. Jen Moji, which is a generative AI emoji creation system. An image one where you can take a sketch or something to an Apple pencil and have it, you know, turn it into something else. - Something funny happened with this. - Okay. - Something very funny happened. The people who downloaded this beta immediately, you have to sign up and say, please allow me to do image generation. The people who downloaded it right away got the image generation. And as far as I can tell, everybody else who downloaded it after that first initial burst, just, it's just not on. It's just not turned on for anybody else. - So I've got a little bit more context in that. Like, some people have gotten in 'cause I know some people who were in what I am in, which is the, you're in the wait list, who got in. - Yes. - Who, like I downloaded the beta as soon as I could and went on the list. But I know people that have now gotten in after having been on the wait list, you know, like for a few days. So an Apple said-- - Okay, so they have stopped the wait list, but the wait list-- - Very slow. - I haven't gotten this feature. - Very slow. - I haven't gotten this feature. - Yeah, yeah. - So I think Apple gave statements to a couple of people, so Chance Miller at 9.5 Mac was saying that like Apple said that they're letting people in very slowly, basically. And they're gonna continue to let people in. - That's a statement I got to, which was, I was just asking, hey, is this normal? And is there any way for me to use this feature? And the response was, the boilerplate Apple will, you know, here's how this works. And it's like, okay, I guess that's my answer. You know, the first thing I was gonna do was send a mic-themed emoji to you. - Oh gosh. - First thing. First thing. - So I've seen some of this stuff. And like, it ain't good, man. So like the image playground stuff is just bad. Like I just don't like any of the examples that I've seen. I've had sent to me, me, right? So a friend of mine made images of me and sent them to me. And they just don't look good. Like they look like versions prior. It's basically played out the way that I thought, which is the stuff that they are showing now looks like old versions of AI art. Like for example, there was a cartoony character of me on my eyes, which is these like swirly blue things, which it's got that, oh, I've seen this kind of thing before. - Like I hate to tell it to you, but your eyes are swirly blue. - Oh no! - Yeah, what? - I've seen your hands with six fingers. - Yes. - I've seen all this kind of stuff like from image playgrounds and it ain't good. Like that's, it's just not good. And I don't, I hope that they at least were gonna do a good job and they haven't done a good job. So I don't understand the point of this. I really don't. - Of the three of them, the one I'm least interested in is image playground. Because honestly, I've got chat GPT. I've got, like I can generate images all I want already. And I mostly-- - And they'll look better. They'll look better than the next one. - And they will look better. However, Genmoji intrigues me because I like emoji. I like the fact that you can use Genmoji as tap backs and things like that. And the idea that you're training on Apple's emoji design language to generate dynamic new emoji in a very constrained set of styles. A very constrained style, emoji style. I think has the first potential to be fun and probably the ones that are bad are not gonna be as bad. And you'll just hit reload and get a different one. So I'm kind of interested in seeing how that goes and have some optimism there. And then image wand is the one that I think is funny because I actually think image wand could be great because I am terrible at drawing things. And I'm intrigued by the idea that I could do a very terrible sketch and then circle it and have them generate something that looks better. I'm not sure whether the thing that looks better will make me happy or not, unclear. But as somebody who can't draw, I'm kind of intrigued by that idea. The problem, this is a marketing thing. The problem is Apple's marketing is beautiful hand drawn sketches that then get turned into AI art when you circle them. - 'Cause they can't dare to have something that looks bad. They can't dare it. - That's right, they can't bear to have a butt ugly, super bad stick man sketch from Jason that they're like, look at this crappy sketch by this guy who can't draw. Whoa, magic. - Well, we're in that situation, right? Where they're like, the things that are the prior to the AI look good and in post look bad. - Yeah. They did the thing, it was like a Buddhist temple or something and they're like, this sketch is gorgeous. And they're like, screw that sketch. Whoop, now it's AI generated. I'm like, no, no, no, the sketch was beautiful. Say, fix my bad art, don't fix that good art. But again, so I'm looking forward to seeing if it's capable of doing that or if the truth is that my art is so bad that not even the AI can save it. I don't know, I don't know. - I just sent to you in a message. I don't think I'm gonna publish this yet 'cause I don't know what kind of method that you files have in them and like this was sent to me from somebody else. This is an image of me. And like, do you see what I'm saying? - It's totally you. But you can see it to me. - It's totally you, right? You can see it. - You can see it, yeah. - But like, it just looks bad. - Do you like a boss in a Pixar movie? - Well, this was, quote, Mike as an angry CEO is the prompt that was given. - Oh, you don't look angry. You look-- - I looked very disturbed, very upset. - Yeah, you look like, yeah, one of your employees just set the office on fire. - Mm-hmm. - And you're thinking about being blamed for it by the board of directors. Yes, that's what this image is. Yeah, okay. - But you see what I mean? - Yeah. - Also, Gemmoji, right? Gemmoji are cool in a way, right? Because you can make emoji of anything you want. But I've noticed a weird trend with the Gemmoji that I have received in messages. You know when you're using Photoshop and you wanna remove the white background from an image. And you kind of like use the tools, but you don't really do a great job and there's like a little bit of white left around it. - This is how every Gemmoji looks at me because I use my iPhone in dark mode. So like there's something going on with Gemmoji where they're not entirely transparent. - They're alpha channel is not white, not right. - It's like, I don't understand what they're doing. But like, there's like, whatever is making these emojis leaving like a little white edge around them that doesn't look good. So yeah, very strange. But like the idea behind it is great. Like, you know, I could send an emoji of a, you know, a doc wearing sunglasses if I wanted to. Like, and I do like that idea. That is a cool system. And I do think people are gonna really dig it. But I just wished that the image playground part just wasn't there. 'Cause I don't, I don't think that that is it. But anyway, we'll talk more about this when me and you can actually get access to it. - Sure, that's true. Yeah, we'll talk. I'll just say, as an aside, one of the ways that they could solve this is by not letting you model your images on people in your photos library. - Yeah. - Saying no. But instead they're like, yeah, use it. If they're in your photos library, they're fair game. And it does feel a little, do you feel a little violated by having an image of you sent to you by someone else? - If it wasn't through someone that I trusted so much then yes, I would. - Yeah. - You know, but like. - Yep. - If an acquaintance just started sending these to me, like not like a close friend, then I'd feel weirded out by it. And it was a thing like, anybody could make these for me. Anybody, 'cause they're, you know, anyone could make this for anyone. 'Cause as long as you have pictures on the internet, people could just download images and just make something of you. And I can't get my head around that. - I will say that ZM Nox in the chat posted an image of, because they've got it, of a Genmoji and it's a duck with sunglasses and dressed, like basically I'm gonna say like a Miami Vice character, right? It's a t-shirt and a jacket and it's a light color jacket and it's, they're cool, man. And yeah, that's pretty good, which is why I encourage that Genmoji might be something fun. So yeah. - Chat GPT integration in 18.2. So this is in a couple of ways where you can pass off commands from serial pass commands, right, to chat GPT, where it thinks it can't answer something. You can also ask Siri to do things like, you can say, hey, show me, you know, tell me what's on the screen right now. And it will basically take a screenshot, send it to chat GPT and describe to you what it's looking at. Siri will prompt each time chat GPT is going to be invoked. You can disable this if you want to in settings, but it will still do it for images and files no matter what, but it, you know, so you can, you can have it just seamlessly go to chat GPT, get you the answer and return. It always tells you that chat GPT has been invoked, either by saying it, if you're speaking to Siri, it will say like this came from chat GPT, or if you're looking at the screen, then it will give you like a little disclaimer at the bottom. - Yeah. - Because I signed in with my open AI account, I now have a setting where, well, I now have a thing where I just have like 20 new chats they're called on the, because every single conversation I'm having that's going via the system is being saved in my account, but they're all just labeled as new chat, which is very funny to me. - That's less good. - In my kind of experience, really, it's, I've found like a, that speaking, I'm trying to find a way to phrase this. Like speaking to Siri is not the same as speaking to chat GPT. Like there are questions that chat GPT can answer via say, like say type to Siri, that Siri just doesn't answer. Like, but you can, what I'm saying is I'm not sure how great a job the Siri system is doing rooting the questions because there are things that I've asked Siri where it's like, oh, I don't know the answer to that. But if I put GPT or chat GPT in the question, do you say I'm using type to Siri, it will route it and give me the answer that I need. You know what I mean? It's like this, you can still see the seams of this, I think. - Yo, it feels, that what I was gonna say is that it feels like a very beta integration, right? The idea here is, I think it's a work in progress, right? And whether they think it's fine or not, I don't know, but I would imagine they don't because it just doesn't seem quite all there. It's there that the connectivity is kind of shaky and it needs to be better. But, so yeah, I have connected my chat GPT account on one device and not on the other, so I can kind of see both experiences. But, yeah, it's okay. I was also surprised that I was asking Siri questions that it would not pass to chat GPT and just give me answers. And some of those were okay and some of those weren't great. Even if I have chat GPT logged in and turned on, because it's take on at first before it goes to the other one. So, I don't know, it's a work in progress, I guess is what I'll say about it. Yeah, but also this version of chat GPT that Apple is using is via the open AI API. So, it's not connected to the internet. So, the world knowledge that it has is limited to the point where the knowledge cuts are. - Oh yeah, and that actually is one of those things that struck me that it needs to, they need to address one way or another, which is in the long run, what you really want is the ability to query the internet and get information back. And right now, what you've got is Siri, which is not smart, can query the internet. Chat GPT, which is smarter and is using a version baked a year ago or six months ago or whatever. It can't look up things. And the ideal AI assistant is smart but uses reference sources that are trusted, that are out in the world and can look things up and then summarize them for you or answer them for you. And right now, they're kind of in between. It's just a little weird. - This version 18.2 also includes visual intelligence, which I've used a little bit and I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to use it for and support for more English languages. - It feels like it's not all there. I don't know whether I'm using it in the wrong circumstances, but I started using it and it just says like, what are the two prompts? It's like, what or why? I'm like, what, huh, what? It's these two buttons that you're supposed to do things when I'm like, I don't know what these are. - Three buttons, there's a camera button, there's a question mark button, then there's an image button and the question, like the question bubble button or like speech bubble button will ask Chat GPT for what you're looking at. And if you do the photo with the magnifying glass, it will query Google image search. But it's like, I don't want to make the decision here. Ask or search is it easy? - It just feels, it feels confused. I think I have some suspicions that they want this to be more integrated with, for example, with Google's AI and they don't have that integration yet. So they're just using a reverse image search, which is something, but like the idea here is that visual intelligence should see your image and say, okay, here's what's going on. And instead, what I get is a still photo that's temporarily there and then I can respond with image or huh, and maybe, or my understanding is if it's text, it will like say or translate, right? Okay, but like, I don't know, it just doesn't feel quite right. It needs to be more and better and more intelligent. And it's just, again, it's developed for beta one of first version of this feature and that's fine, but like it was, I was disappointed at how basic it seemed. - So the upgradings will be happy to know that they can look in the show notes and get that image of the angry Mike CEO because I've gotten a consent from a friend of mine who made it 'cause I just wanted to make sure 'cause like, I don't know, it's weird to get consent for an image that was made of me without my consent, but nevertheless that there is a consent's important. You know what I'm trying to say? - I agree, I feel like maybe you have the rights to this, but that's fine. - Yeah, I just didn't want to put them on blasting. You know what I mean? Like this is a weird, we're in a weird time right now, but nevertheless, if you want to see it, it will be in the show notes. I put it in the discord too, in case you want to see what angry Mike CEO looks like, then you've got that. - Yep, he's not angry. I'm telling you, the building is running down. - He's concerned, and he may be responsible. - More English languages are supported in this version too. We've got what, Australia, UK, Canada, there are a couple others, New Zealand maybe, but it's good news for you, I guess, 'cause you could use UK English. - Yeah, I switched everything back, which I was happy about. So now I can have all of the settings back the way that I want them without having to think about it anymore. So I'm happy for that. There is one of a feature that I was excited about, which is an 18.2 feature, but not, I don't believe it's up until this feature, which is the male categories. You know, you get, like, male sort of activity categories. - Yes, auto-categorization. - But it's on the iPhone only. - I know, right? - Why? What is going on? Why would you do this? I don't, I am so frustrated by this, 'cause I think it's actually really good, but I can't rely on this system if it's only on my iPhone. What are they doing? - I don't know, I don't understand it. And like, I could maybe understand, it's like, oh, you know, male on the Mac is complicated, and it's old code base, and it's gonna take some time to figure it out there. But here's the thing, it's not on the iPad either. And it's literally the same app. What are you doing? I don't get it, I don't understand it. It is a great feature, I guess, for people who only ever view email on their iPhone in male, but what? It's too bad. - Yeah, 'cause it's really nice. - It's really nice, but it's, I don't get why it's iPhone only. It seems so weird and arbitrary. - I don't think it's coming in this version. Like, I don't think it's coming in 18 at all. I went and took a look at the product pages, and both iPad OS 18 and Mac OS 15 have zero reference to this at all. So this is a next year thing. And I'm like, yeah. - Why? - Gang, why bother, right? No one was expecting you could do anything for male because you barely do anything for male. Why did you do it this way? - I'm so frustrated about it because it's genuinely really good. And I don't, I cannot understand why they do this, where they're like, they bring these apps together as if they look and act the same, but then split the functionality. And they're still doing this. I kind of can't believe that they're still doing this. Well, I have more to say. I expect in the coming weeks, I think especially when the two of us get access to the image tools. 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So go now and get your customized fitness plan at fitbod.me/upgrade, that is FIT, BOD.me/upgrade for 25% of your membership. Thanks to Fitbod for the support of this show and relay. So last week, Greg Joswiak tweeted that we can expect a, quote, exciting week of announcements for the Mac this week. And today, there was a newsroom article and a 10 minute video, which was kind of buried on the iMac product page showing off a brand new iMac. So, well, brand new, it's the M4 iMac. It is featuring an M4 chip, which has, this chip has made up of four performance, six efficiency cores and a 10 core GPU. I guess we, this is the first Mac, right? That has the M4 in it, just like the base M4. This is just in the iPad so far? Yes. Would we expect performance to be the same? Yes. Yeah. I think so. If the cores, if the cores are the same, the performance will be pretty much the same, yeah. Okay. Starts off at 16 gigabytes of memory, a standard can be configured up to 32 gigabytes. There are new shades of the existing colors. Hurrah, they have remained vibrant. They did not suckle the color out of these colors. USB-C peripherals are now available. They color match for the iMacs and is also USB-C peripherals on the Apple Store. This iMac can now get a nano display texture if you want it. It features a new 12 megapixel center stage camera. All four USB-C ports have Thunderbolt 4 support. You can preorder today. It's available November 8th, still starts at 1299. What are your thoughts? Okay. The performance is going to be good, going from 8-course to 10-course M3 to M4. One of my top complaints about the M1 iMac design, which has continued on, was that it got, if you remember, it got introduced right after center stage came out and it didn't support it because it had a bad webcam, not resolution, high resolution enough. So, now they finally got the 12 megapixel center stage camera in there. They should have had it last time, they didn't, but they have it this time, so that's good. That's the, that they upgraded the iMac webcam is very good. I am surprised, especially since this was a draft pick of mine, I, after the last rev, I really thought they weren't going to change the colors because they seemed happy to just continue them. And instead, what they did is they kept the colors as, like, their names, but changed the shades, and in a good way, they look really nice. They don't look watered down and boring. So that's good. That's good news. And then, you know, display texture, like, I don't, okay, I guess everything gets the name of display texture option now, but that's great. For somebody, iMacs can be in weird places with bright lights behind them and all of that, and you can't see. And so, for them to have the ability to, right, like, it's just iMacs get placed in environments, and some of those environments are not ideal, but it doesn't matter, you're not going to change the environment. The iMac has to go there. So having a nano display texture option, I think, is interesting. For that scenario, more than maybe, like, a pro using just an M4 to do something professional is probably a less likely scenario, not impossible, but less likely. So you know, it's a nice, it looks like a nice upgrade. And we got, unlike the colors, which did change a little bit, we got exactly what we expected with the USB-C addition to the peripherals, which is nothing changed except it went from lightning to USB-C. Yeah, it's a shame. Nothing changed. It was an opportunity to change something, nothing changed, which I'm not that surprised by. I do. You live in hope, but I'm not surprised. Yeah. I mean, like, these new shades are good, like, for example, the yellow is more yellow. The one that I have, which is the yellow is quite gold-y, which I quite liked, but they have more of a gold-y vibe. Like, I would like to see these in person, but they do look good, and I am happy that they... I'm happy they kept the whole range, because I think the whole range is really nice. And I think it's good that they kind of updated it. It's really interesting to put the nanotexture on this. I guess at this point, they've worked out this process enough that they can do it... Anywhere. Anywhere. My expectation, because I was wondering, like, oh, are they putting the iPad version on it, which I found out of the event, which I spoke about, was like some chemical process that they used instead of the etching. But I think it might be the etching version, because if you get the nanotexture display, they ship a polishing cloth in the box, which would suggest that it is the etched version. Maybe they've got that information on the website somewhere, and I just haven't found it yet. But this is nice, I would say. John Thomas says in the video, that is the first of three announcements this week, and also says, "Join us tomorrow for another exciting Mac announcement." Yeah, how about that? Stay tuned, James. I find it really weird that they went through the effort of producing this video, which I've got a link to in the show notes. It's hard to find. But it is just like a section of what would be a full video. And if they're going to do this two more times, I don't really... I don't understand what they're doing it this way. Why not just put it all together and treat it like a thing? I don't know. We'll see. But it's weird. It's not at the top of Apple's website. It just is iMac Learn More. They could put a video embed there, or they could say, "Watch the video." And then on the iMac page, it just after... When you scroll down, it says, "Watch the announcement." Again, it doesn't even have... It's on their YouTube page now, too. I just said in the... But it doesn't... It should be front and center, and it's not. It's just nowhere. It's really weird, right? It's... I don't know. I don't know. It's an interesting experiment. I'll give them that. But I feel like if you're going to do a 10-minute-long product video, which, by the way, is not just an iMac video, the first four minutes of it, five minutes of it, is Apple Intelligence, right? Like, it's also the video that introduces Apple Intelligence features that are shipping on the iMac. So it's not just an iMac video. It feels much more like part of a larger whole, but it's just an iMac video. I just don't... Yeah, again. I'm glad they made it. It's a perfectly good... The same kind of production value as there are other videos. It just seems buried, and it's weird. The press release, similarly, I don't know. The press release doesn't have a link to it anywhere, I think. It doesn't. I don't get it. No. I don't get it. It's very weird. Yeah, but at least they made it. I prefer watching that to reading the press release. I'm excited that the next two days, I expect there to be the... I should get more videos. More Apple Intelligence. Yeah. It's probably too. Who knows? So I guess we're in this weird thing. We may as well, like, should we just look at the draft? It's the cool card? We might as well just do this now, and then next week we'll finish it. I think this puts it at... You get two points so far. The new iMac... I'm going to say that the new iMac does come in the same colors as before. Oh, interesting. Okay. Thank you. Unless you think it hasn't. I don't know because they are the same color names, so the spread is exactly the same, but they're different shades. So you could argue that if the shades change the color changed, you could also argue that the color names stayed the same, but the shades changed and the shade is not a color. Maybe not. I guess... Because I guess... I don't know. Here's what I would say. If they would have called it green and removed all the saturation, we would have said it changed, right? I mean, if they... If they called it green and made it silver, yes, we would have said that, but if it's still green... Yeah, but they... I think I've changed my opinion. I'm going to say easily about one all so far because they... I think that's fine. I... Yes, that's where I have it. I think I have it as one all, and I would argue minus one to each of us as well. I think we've missed one and gotten one so far. Which one have I missed? Release date given for first Apple intelligence features, because it came out, and they just said, "Let me demo Apple intelligence." I'm not sure they gave a date, and that's what we said is, they needed to give a date, and instead it just released. They did do a second newsroom post today, where they were like, "Hey, it's today." So... Mm-hmm. I don't know. That seems... Pushing it to me. You think so? So if they did an event like it's available today, that's not a... Let me... I'll put it this way. I would not have agreed to this as a pick. If the pick was literally, they will put out a press release that says that Apple intelligence is available today. Well, we have two. But we have two. Yes, they were gonna do that. Decide. But these are all... Are we grading this on the newsroom posts or on the videos? I mean, that's a good question too. That's what we haven't decided. So let's... Well, we'll figure it out. There's no point to litigate it yet, but what we know is we've just got... We've both scored one point each, and the rest will leave it up to next week to decide. What a funny way to... This is like hilarious. We don't even know how to score it. Like, what is the winner? You know, like, is the newsroom post the winner or the videos the winner? What do they do know about videos? Like, we just don't know, so we'll decide this next week. I do think you get the tiebreaker though, because there's no event. Although, if I was being litigious, I would say a three-day product release event is an event. You could. But they haven't sent an invitation to this. Oh, I agree. Yeah. I agree. Well, let's see how it goes over the next few days before we really dig into the point scoring post and shift. It may not matter. But the beauty of the Upgrade Draft scoring is sometimes we score very generously, because it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. Yup. Saddle up, partner. Let's hit some room around up. Ah, yee-haw. Let's do it. Let's ride out there. There's been some reporting from various sources about the potential slim iPhone 17 that will debut next year, which is also known as the iPhone 17 Air. I like that name. Joe Rossignol, a week or so ago at MacRumors, has pulled together the following expected specs from a variety of sources. This phone would feature a 6.6-inch display, an A19 chip, not a pro chip. But it would be made with the same process as the current A18 Pro. So it would be basically like an A18 Pro, but called an A19. It will have a dynamic island, Face ID, a single rear camera, which is a 48-megapixels sensor, a 24-megapixel front camera, an Apple-made 5G modem, 8GB of RAM, an aluminium frame of a noticeably different design, and the expectation now is that this would actually replace the plus phone. So there would be no plus phone. Yes. There would just be this in its place. Right. Well, an A19 will be in the iPhone 17 as well, right? It's the same thing as this year. They're going to use the same process, but with an updated chip, and they'll be presumably A19 and A19 Pro, and the air will get the A19 that the base iPhone 17 would also get. So it really is replacing the plus in the lineup with this thinner phone. What I wonder is, where in price does it land, though? I know, right? This could be the most expensive iPhone, depending on just how fancy they make it, you know? It's true. It could be. It's got a single camera. I feel like it's not. It doesn't come across to me as super high end, other than that it looks different in its thinner. So I think it's a good question. Is this a $1,000 phone? I think fashion is what they're going for here. I think that's what they're going to attempt to hit. I think my expectation is they're going to try and make this phone feel like a piece of jewelry. And if they do that, maybe it's the most expensive one. This is a statement, iPhone. I don't know. I don't know. I guess that specs doesn't really help me nail that down one way or another. But it is suggesting it's going to be very different. And I do find it. I wonder if they, with this phone, they will crack the problem that they have had with that second slot that they have yet to be able to solve. I love it. It's a good question. I mean, clearly they've decided that differentiating by size is not enough. No. It has to be a different treat somehow other ways. I'm going to say, I'm going to say this feels like a $1,000 phone to me. Just gut feel here is that it feels like it's probably priced similar to the pro, but with different features. Not a $1,500, $1,400 phone, but maybe, I mean, it's possible, it really depends on the details, right? Yeah. Yeah. I guess maybe similarly, or just like along with this, in a memo to staff announcing the promotion of Richard Dinh to VP of product design for the iPhone, John Turner said that the upcoming iPhone roadmap represents quote, "the most ambitious in the product's history." Yes. Is that anything? I don't know. But it could be like, as we've, as we can assume, this phone is the gateway to a folding iPhone. Yeah. Let's put it this way. The last five years of iPhone have not been ambitious. Good call. Right? Yeah. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 has been pretty, I mean, since the iPhone 10, would we say that the roadmap is super ambitious? I mean, it's been camera upgrades, not that they haven't done stuff, but it's like camera upgrades and processor upgrades. And like, they've done some stuff, but I wouldn't call it super ambitious. I certainly wouldn't say most in the product's history unless you're just hyping. So if he's serious here, I think, yeah, I think that that is what we're thinking is they're doing a thin phone. They're going to do some foldables. Who knows what else they've got in the mix. And that is much more ambitious. Yeah. Mark Gorman has yet again shared more details about Apple's smart home device in his power on newsletter, but this is, this is actually like good stuff. Yeah. So this is about the, the one expected next year, the cheaper one, the screen is expected to be pretty small, described as about the size of two iPhones side by side and will be a square screen. It will be attached to a base that will make it look reminiscent to the IMAC G4. So the little round base, some flowery kind of look. And that base will probably be a speaker. I'm going to read a quote from Mark's article in power on the device will run a new operating system that will include some iPad like apps, including FaceTime, Notes and Calendar. It's also meant to be well suited to videos and photos like shows. The device's primary purpose will be serving as a hub that can control various smart home accessories. This is the product expected to launch next year with a higher inversion with a robotic limb. Robotic. Something coming in 2026. I am so hyped for this product. Like if it's just this, I want it so bad. So I don't know if this is something about Mark Herman or something about his sources, but I find it funny that it took all this time to get to the base will probably be a speaker, because he's been describing this thing as a screen, a smart display. And I wonder if that's just the way that it's been described to him, because all along I've thought this has to be a home pod speaker too, right? I mean, it has to do both. If it's just an iPad on a stand without a good speaker, then what are we even doing here? And then why would you have a big base? The big base is to provide some weight so that it will be anchored down, but also it's got to be a speaker. So I feel like that's gotten a short shrift, but at least here he's kind of acknowledged that, yeah, it'll probably be a speaker like probably. I don't understand this product if the base is not a speaker, because that's like part of it. It's a pod with an iPad kind of grafted onto it, running a simplified version of one of Apple's OS's that will run apps and do all this stuff and be a home controller and be an Apple intelligence, Siri thing. And like all of those things need to be in this product. But if that's what it is, it sounds like a good product. I want one. I think he just described this product before, but he's described it as the expensive one, right? He's saying like it's on an arm and it will follow you and stuff. Right. And now he always said the little one was just going to be a screen. And now he's saying that the little one is like this. So what I think this is going to be is there is the mini version and the regular version. This is the mini version and then the regular version, it looks the same, but the arm moves and it's bigger. Yeah. And that's the one that comes second. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. That is a strategy that makes sense. And I do wonder if it literally is Mark Gurman's vision into this is coming from a source that it doesn't have the whole picture or hasn't described aspects of it. And so he's been saying sort of like it's a smart display where we've all along kind of assumed that it's going to be a home pod with a screen, not just a screen because that's an iPad, right? And so yeah, sounds great. As somebody who had an Echo show for years and has a Google Home Nest, whatever mini in my kitchen now, I would like an Apple one of those instead, please, right? Actually, if it does Apple intelligence and if it can run like all the video apps that are on Apple TV and iPad, you know, like apps as this says so that you can get that stuff on there, great. Let's do it. I'm ready. I'll get in line now. This episode is brought to you in part by Notion. There is so much to love about Notion. I mean, I would say I love using Notion every day. So Aquatics brand, we use Notion for collaborating as a team. I use it as where all of our information goes. It's how I keep track of all of the projects that we're working on. It's something that I have started using because it is introduced to me, but my assistant is something that we could use to kind of collaborate with. And then the more I've used it, the more and more stuff I have put into it. I've also played around a little bit of Notion's AI tools. Like one of the things that I like, we keep minutes of our meetings that we have, you know, like people are keeping notes and writing down, you know, like updates to projects and stuff. And at the end, I can say, tell me the action items that are here and Notion's AI will go through and give me the action items at the bottom of my meeting notes. The new Notion AI is a single AI tool that does it all. You can search across Notion and other apps, generate documents in your own style, analyze PDFs and images and chat with you about anything. Notion is a perfect place to organize your tasks, track your habits, write beautiful documents and collaborate with your team. And the more content you add to Notion, the more Notion AI can personalize its responses for you because unlike generic chatbots, Notion AI already has the context of your work. Notion AI is connected to multiple knowledge sources. It uses AI knowledge from GPT4 on cloud to chat with you about any topic. You can search across thousands of Notion documents in a second to quickly answer any question. And with AI connectors that are now in beta, Notion AI can search across Slack discussions, Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, and more tools that GitHub and JIRA are coming soon. Notion is used by over half of the Fortune 500 company, so you'll be in great company. It's also used by me and I hope that you can sit at that good company. Try Notion for free today when you go to Notion.com/upgrade. It's all lowercase and OTION.com/upgrade to try the powerful, easy to use Notion AI today and when you use our link, you'll support the show that is Notion.com/upgrade or thanks to Notion for the support of this show and relay. It's time for some Ask Upgrade questions. First one comes from John who asks, "Have either of you considered exploring YouTube in a more direct form than posting things like podcast recordings?" That's a good question. I mean, Six Colors has a channel and there's stuff there, but it's a very large amount of work. In the end, when I've tried it, I felt like it didn't really provide a direct benefit for my job and I've got to focus on the stuff that does. If you want to be making money on YouTube, you need to spend your time building up YouTube. I think a lot of us have experimented and done the math and then said, "This doesn't make sense." I am a solo worker, it's just me here and for video, you kind of start to need help and I get a product to review. I got to review it. I got to write it. If I've got to do a video, I have to shoot the video myself and edit it myself. I can do all those things. I have those skills, but it's a lot. It's a lot. In the end, I largely prioritize other things. I always think about it. I always think about it. If I get an Apple product in advance, do I make a video review and post that as well as my written review? My written review I have to do and then we're going to podcast about it, but is there room in there for a video review? Unfortunately, most of the time, there's so much going on that all I can do is get the video or get the written review done. I don't have any extra time to do the rest of it. In those cases, the YouTube video goes down immediately, that's it. Dan Morin and I do some live streams. That's an example where we try to do it for Apple results, also for new products that are dropping under embargo. If I've got the product or I will try to do some of that. That's a little less heavy lift because it's just a live stream and we're sitting there talking and I'm showing stuff off that's on my desk and that's a lot easier to do. I do some of that. Over on the incomparable side, we do all our D&D stuff is streamed. In terms of the tech stuff, that's the truth of it is if I wanted to stop writing articles and post YouTube videos instead, I could do that, but I feel like it's not that it would kind of break my existing business and I have no feeling like it would actually replace that with something new that would be better and so there's no point. I just stay with what I've got and that's just sort of where I am. What are you? I mean, obviously YouTube works if that's the thing you want to do, but for us, we're already doing things that are successful. So adding a YouTube in a native way that you want to do YouTube is a lot of work. It's hard to do. Over the years, I've done every kind of video type of thing that you could imagine. I've explored all of them just to see what I like. I've done vlogs. I've done video reviews. I've streamed. Ultimately, I just don't enjoy doing this as much as I love podcasting, so I just focus on that. That's kind of where I am. I do think that for the product stuff, of course Xbrand, I might start doing some new kind of video stuff. I recently did a thing on my channel where I showed off some projects that were working and then I found it to be a really interesting and helpful thing to do, so like I could imagine maybe doing more stuff like that in the future. But again, they're like quote unquote low budget stuff, right? It's not intensely produced stuff. It's not really what I'm planning to do for right now, because I just want to be able to, if I'm going to do things, to kind of just do it all on my own. Where if I get help, I can make them better, but it's not really what I'm... I don't know how cool this would be to the business right now. Yeah. I think people don't understand, a lot of people don't understand with video. When you're a professional media person and a professional content creator, the expectation is that the work you do will be at a professional level. Yeah. Here's the thing. Yeah. It's hard. You know, I write articles that are professional. We do podcasts that are professional. To generate a video that is not up to the same equivalent standard, right, which is a professional looking video, if it's a little ramshackle, because we're not professional video makers, and we're doing this kind of like as extra time. The fact is, I know you think, "Oh, well, I would be understanding. I know that." The fact is, the audiences aren't. The audiences expect you to have a very high quality video presentation, and that means so the bar is high, and that is one of my issues, is if I'm going to do a video, it has to look good. It has to be good. And that's even more work than a kind of shoddy video, because as a content creating professional, people hold me through a higher standard, fair or unfair, even about video. And so that makes it even harder to do, because I'm not going to be able to, without a huge amount of work, get something that's even close to being at the level. That's why I like live streaming, is that a live stream, the bar is not as high as a prerecorded video. Still to do it well, you've got to put some effort in, right? Oh, sure. You've got to put some lights and stuff like that. But yeah, it's like, that's why I like it too, because it's like, you get to like a, you get the base, and then the content is just, it's actually just kind of like podcasting a lot of the time, really. Yes. And we can do that. But yeah, like video reviews and stuff, like that is like, for us, is a bigger production, because if you, you know, you're right, like we are, we have an audience already. So I kind of feel this way about like a lot of projects that I have started over the years. And now I think I've kind of got my head around a little bit more that the audience's expectations are higher and my expectations are higher. So I have to feel like I can make myself and everybody else happy of any new endeavor that I try to go for. And that becomes harder and harder over time. Yeah. So it might just be best to just stick to what I'm good at. I have honestly thought about the idea of like, I saw a review of the iPad mini last week. And it was, you know, I literally reviewed that in an afternoon, because I got it Monday during the show. People who listen live know I went to get a package. Yes. That was an embargoed iPad mini from Apple. And then I spent the afternoon with it and the evening writing review. Fortunately, Lauren was working an evening. So I just, I did all that. But that, that was a quick turnaround because one, I didn't feel like I had that much to say about it because it wasn't that different. And two, that got me out at the embargo time, which I like to do if I can do it. And there wasn't that much to say. I would have not posted it that fast if I felt more, but there's no way I was going to make a video, right? But I did think about like in other circumstances. And I think about this all the time with product reviews is, is there an interim stage where I, I'm essentially writing my script when I write my blog post, my written review. And could I make a video that it involves some b-roll of the product that I would have to shoot in proper lighting and all those things, that would be extra work. But some b-roll of the product and me looking at my camera, essentially reading a version of my review as a script. What would that, that's like a video version of a blog post. Is, would that be good? I don't know. Would it be better than the blog post and better than the podcast about it? Probably not. But some people might rather watch the YouTube video. So I think about that stuff. But again, even that requires like, I got to get a set up where I'm comfortable looking at a script and reading it while it looks pretty natural that I'm looking at the camera. So am I building a teleprompter thing? Or am I just reading it off of my eye, or my studio display, right? Like it gets, it, it gets a lot more complicated. So even something as simple as that, where I'm trying to lower the bar and not write a new video script, but just take my existing blog and blog post and read it. And shoot some b-roll like, but okay, now I've, it's already more complicated. So yeah, it's a, it's interesting, you know, I think you and I both think about it. And I, and I try to pick my spots like with a live streams, I feel like that's a better, a better fit is hopping on a live stream. I've got a camera above my desk, I can hop on a live stream and if I've got a new product, I can show it off and I can take questions live and Dan can, if Dan's going to be there, he can feed me questions and we'll talk and we'll, you know, that's, that's, I'm a little more comfortable with that. It's a little more like this. So natural extension of what we do. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Mike wrote and said, I'm loving the photo shuffle homescreen that I've put on my phone. In the past, when I saw a photo in a widget that I wanted to share, I could tap on it to open photos and share them with my family, is there a similar way to share photos from the lock screen of an screen shot in the lock screen widgets and everything. So if you use the photo shuffle lock phase, yeah, lock screen, you'll see images go through, right? There is actually a way to get to that image, but it is weirdly complicated. And the only reason I know how to do this is I saw underscore do it once. So if you see an image on your lock screen and you're like, that's a lovely lock screen of my family, I want to send it to my wife or whatever, you long press on the lock screen to go into the edit mode, you hit customize, you hit the three dots and then show photo in library. I don't know why they make that as complicated as it is, but it's the thing that you can do. You know what I mean? I feel like if you use the photo shuffle locks, lockscreen, there should just be a button on the lock screen that's like, press this button and go to this image, you know, but or like, maybe even have it as like a lock screen widget type, right? It could pop up if you use that or something. But it's funny to me that you can do it, but it's that complicated. There is no way to do it that I've found on the watch face version. Just in case anybody wants to know. And Connor wrote in and said, "Given the lack of changes to the new iPad mini, would I be better off buying a 2021 iPad mini and saving some money? My primary concern is the jelly scrolling issue from the 2021 model. I don't think I care about Apple intelligence in the new chip." Well, first off, we don't know if there's more jelly scrolling or not. Almost everybody says there isn't, but then some people say that there is. And I really believe, here's the thing about jelly scrolling. I think it's a perception issue where there is a very, very small lag that some people can perceive and some people can't. And if your primary concern is jelly scrolling, you shouldn't buy an iPad. Well, you should go to the Apple store and look at an iPad mini, but you shouldn't buy the 21 model because it's got jelly scrolling according to the people who see jelly scrolling. But how do you know? You don't even know if you're one of the people that could see it. I know. Well, that's why you've got to go to the Apple store. So that's my answer is, if you're really worried about it, I guess you should go. You should get an iPad Air instead. It's very hard to tell. Most of us can't see it. It seems like it might be less on this model, but that some people claim they can still see it. I'm not entirely sure they aren't at this point seeing an effect that is. It's just so, I don't know, I mean, I don't want to say that it doesn't exist, but I'm starting to think that it's a feature of computer displays that some people notice if they really look closely more than it's a flaw of anything, but I just don't know. I see the jokes going on my iPad Mini is fine. Like I see it. I've always seen it. It's fine. I wanted them to fix it because you shouldn't, it shouldn't be there for that money. And I think, I think what they've done is improved it, but all devices are susceptible to this because it's just a device controller. It's not something that it's not like the iPad Mini is specifically, there's a problem with it. Like it's just every computer can have this issue with the display controller, just whatever they did in 2021 model, made it more susceptible than others. I just feel like as Jason has, go and try and see one of these devices and see if you see it. But even if you do, like it, I don't think it's a reason not to buy it. You really have to be scrolling fast to see it. And like, are you really doing it that often? Like scrolling quickly? Like I'm just, I don't think it's a thing that exists, but I don't think it's a reason to not buy either of these products. I had a 2021 iPad Mini that I used for like three years every day and loved it and I could see the judge scrolling. It wasn't a problem. Let's get real here too. The issue with the iPad Mini's display is that it's 60 Hertz. And honestly, that's the thing I couldn't get over is that I was scrolling to look at the jelly scrolling and I was like, God, it's so terrible because it's 60 Hertz. And I'm used to an iPad Pro that's at 120. And first off, Apple should, we are all in agreement here, I think. Apple should give their non-pro motion displays a frame rate update, go to 90 maybe. But that's the thing that I found disturbing and distracting about the iPad Mini is just that 60 frames is not great because it's all scrolling. See, I think all scrolling on the iPad Mini is bad because I think it's 60 frames is bad. So it's very hard for me to see it. But again, I believe David Pierce, David Pierce seems like a solid guy. I like his work and he says he sees it and a few other people say they see it. So I think the answer is you got to be super sensitive to it. You got to be looking for it. And then once you notice it, my understanding is you never don't notice it. And like the bottom line for Connor is if you're concerned with jelly scrolling, don't buy an iPad Mini. Just don't. Or does it, or if you're really the 21 we know does it, or at the very least go to an Apple store if you can look at a 24 model and see if you can see it or not before buying one. That's all I can say. If you would like to send in your questions for ask upgrade, please go to upgradefeedback.com where you can also send us in your follow up and general feedback about the show. You can check out Jason's work at six colors dot com. I reckon it's going to be a busy week over there. So go check it out. You can hear Jason here on relay and at the incomparable.com. You can listen to me here on relay as well, obviously, and check out my work at cortexbrand.com. You can find us online. Jason is at Jason Elle. I am at iMic. I am YKE. You can watch clips of this show on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, but we're at upgrade relay. Thank you to our members who support us about Pray Plus. Your support really does mean a lot to us. So if you would like to get ad free longer versions of the show each and every single week, go to get upgrade plus dot com. We're going to talk about Jason's holiday lights in today's upgrade plus segment. Yeah, we are. Oh boy. Okay. Okay. This is more than I thought. We're going to talk about Jason's holiday lights today. Strap in everyone. Get up. Great plus dot com. Thank you to Notion, Fitbot and Squarespace for their support of this episode. But most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Goodbye, Mike Hurley. [inaudible] (upbeat music)
We kick off a busy week by analyzing the new M4 iMac, the arrival of two different waves of Apple Intelligence, and Jason's review of the iPad mini, but we'll have to wait a week to score our draft because there's more yet to come!
