(upbeat music) - From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 521. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, vitally, and delete me. And welcome back to the summer of-- - Summer of fun! - I have a hashtag, snow talk, no hashtag. What's snow talk question for you, Jason Snow. How do you like your hot dogs? - Cooked, grilled is better, all beef preferred for me. And then what I think this question's actually asking, I am a super basic ketchup and mustard, yellow mustard. - Okay, ketchup and mustard. - That's it. - Okay. - Ketchup and mustard. - I'm more ketchup, I don't mind mustard, but I'm mostly a ketchup guy. I like some crunchy onions, you know? That's just good. That's not fried onions, I have some of that. - Grilled onions are fine, but I'm not gonna make any effort for any of the other things. Ketchup is my must have, and then a yellow mustard is a kind of nice bonus. At the ball games, I always get it with yellow mustard if it's there, but at home, I have, we have yellow mustard in the fridge, but I will sometimes just do ketchup, and that's fine. I very rarely have a hot dog at home, but we did have a, there was a period in there where we always had hot dogs at home 'cause it was a thing that my son would eat reliably, and so you stock hot dogs, and then there's a lunch and there's nothing to make it, but there's a hot dog, and you're like, "I guess I'll have a hot dog." - If you're at a Chicago style hot dog, sure. - They're weird, I've had one, they're weird. It's interesting. - Yeah, I like some of it in just like other parts of it. - Yes, I liked it for having had it, you know what I mean? Like it was like, I'm gonna have this thing, I had it, it was like, that was fun, but I wouldn't want all of my hot dogs to be like that. - Grilled onions is a good hot dog thing I've decided. I like the idea of a grilled onion, but some of the stuff that the Chicago hot dogs have, I find bizarre, but that's okay. The beauty of a hot dog is that you have a hot dog and then you can put whatever you like on it, and I don't believe there's one true hot dog, I think that it is a blank canvas on which you can place anything you desire. If you wanna put pineapple on it, do it, I don't care. - I wanna try that now, you've said it, you know? - I actually have, there's a hot dog place in Hawaii that we've been to called Puka dogs, and they have the bun that's like the bun doesn't open, it's just got a hole at the top that the hot dog goes in, slides in, and they have one of their specialties is a pineapple, I forget what else is in it, but it's like pineapple is one of the flavors, and it's awesome, that's Puka dogs, which is sort of near Poi Poo Beach on Kauai, so for those Hawaiian travelers, it's by-- - It's like a pineapple relish, isn't it, website. - That sounds good, man, that sounds real good. - So yes, I can get pineapple into anything. - Yeah, because why not, you know? - Why not? - Pineapples, even on your t-shirts. - There you go, I can't believe I was going to Puka dog, but here we are. - Thank you to Matthew for sending in that snow talk question, you could send in your own questions for us to answer on the show right now, we love some summer themed snow talks, just go to upgradefeedback.com. Let's do some follow up Jason Snow, a very excited, severance is returning, not so excited that it's not coming back into January. I got so hyped that they were doing a teaser clip, and I'm like, oh man, and it gets to the end, and it says, January, I think, oh man. - Oh, how do you do it to me? - So I said to Lauren, you know, hey, there's a severance teaser today, and she says, what, November? And I said, ha ha ha ha, January, January. - Oh my God, January. - I'm just happy it's happening, 'cause they look like there was a while where it might not happen. - It was troubled. - And I'm happy it's coming back. - Yeah, I'll look forward to the rewatch before it. Before the new season. - That's a show, yeah, that's a show I will rewatch. - Yeah. - Absolutely. Season one, severance for sure. - 'Cause I feel like it's a show that you would probably wanna have had the knowledge of what's happened in your mind for when the new season's beginning. I feel like, because it's layered and complex, and I think having some of that in there is probably probably for the best. - Season one was such a great ride too, that I love the idea of being able to come into season two, fresh, I'm sure they will try to be welcoming to people who don't remember it all, but that's a show that I enjoyed so much that I kind of relish the opportunity, relish I don't put that on my hot dogs either, the opportunity to rewatch it and then go straight into season two. - So nevermind, Phil Shiller will not be filling a seat at the Open AI board after all. This is something we spoke about last week that was being reported by a few outlets, I think Bloomberg and the Financial Times. Well now, not only has Apple pulled out or declined this board seat, Microsoft is dropping their board of server seat as well, due to fear of regulator scrutiny over the arrangements. However, Open AI are gone on record to say that they will be holding regular stakeholder meetings to share progress on their mission and ensure stronger collaboration across safety and security with their partners, Apple, Microsoft and others, I would assume. - Maybe Phil, this was Phil's end game all along. Let's just get Microsoft to just make Microsoft's life harder. - Well, say, I didn't know this until John Voh, he's alerted me to this and I read a little about the virtues and article about it. There are multiple investigations in the UK, Europe and elsewhere into Microsoft and Open AI and like the amount of control Microsoft has or does not have on Open AI. - Right, 'cause it's this weird situation where it's this separate organization and yet Microsoft seems to hold all the purse strings and all the strings, even though it's a nonprofit and it doesn't really operate like one. And yeah, I do really wonder if the Phil Shiller thing was sort of like brought up a lot of issues that made somebody inside maybe Open AI be like, let's wave it all off, like all of it. Let's just not do this this way. This is making people angry. Let's just go to a different approach that is gonna be, will maybe survive scrutiny. - Ben Thompson made a good point too, which is it sends the wrong message because one of the problems I think Apple has faced post WWDC is the implication that Open AI is powering Apple intelligence. - Right, which it is and seeing them tied closer. I always thought, it is bizarre, right? That like, oh, well, because Apple is optionally plugging in chat GPT, among others, probably with warning labels, this means he gets to have an observer seat on the board. It felt very much to me like more of a, an Open AI wants to look good thing than an Apple wants to be seen their thing. So it is absolutely true that people think that Apple intelligence is powered by Open AI, which is not the case. So this would just muddy it further. I think that's a very good point. Yeah, I wonder how this went down and if people just didn't think of it, or, you know, it was literally Sam Altman saying, "Hey, why don't you, Microsoft's, you know, such as sits in on our board meetings, why don't you send somebody to sit in on our board meetings too?" And then the adults were like, no, that's a bad idea. Let's rethink this. I don't know. - Last week we spoke about the potential for a new, well, the renewed rumors of a home pod with a screen of the Mac rumors found some code references to such a product. Well, nine to five Mac, not to be outdone, have found evidence of a system called poster board, which is hiding inside of TVOS, that will be responsible for some user interface elements for a design like this. They even have a screenshot of like a wide screen lock screen with a passcode thing, which doesn't exist for anything else. Like this is hidden, it looks like it's TVOS and it has this kind of like touchable lock screen. I said poster board, it's called plaster board. Sorry, that was a spelling error in the document. Poster board is a different one. We were talking about some on Connected last week. - So many-- - Prostable is the internal code name that Apple have given to this interface, which I pointed out unconnected, that I think actually further indicates the home element of this, because plaster board is a material used for walls. It's sheetrock, it's also-- - Sheetrock, yeah. - Yeah, this is cool to see. Like, I love the smoke coming together on this one to give me a fire, which is a home pod with a screen, TVOS combo thing. Yeah, that's what I want. - Yeah, Dan, Lauren, and I predicted on the six colors podcast, I'm gonna give this to Dan, but I sign off. He was like, next fall for, what'd you say, $550 or something like that, 'cause you gotta follow the Snell rule, right? Which is, what are the competitors and then what do you think Apple would do and then you increase it and then you round it up further and make it hurt. And then you ultimately get to a piece that is much, you know, $5.99, home pod with a screen, $5.99 next fall. That's Dan's guess. And I think he's probably not far off. That feels like it might be an iPhone 17 event product that's using the same chip that's in the iPhone 16. Could be a mid-year thing, but sounds like a fall thing to me for next year. - Yeah, I would sign on to that timeline too. And the price makes sense because they're not gonna skimp out on the screen. - Not the screen and not the processor and probably RAM, right? 'Cause it's presumably an Apple intelligence device, right? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because at this point, it really is, it feels kind of like irresponsible from the product teams to release products that can't run Apple intelligence, right? Like even if they're not immediately running it to ship new products that can't support this stuff, yeah, is still like-- - If it's possible to do so, yeah. For sure. - In the spirit of the summer of fun, well, I don't know if this is why they chose to do it, but we're talking about it because it's a summer of fun. Famed film composer Michael Giacchino is releasing an album which he has re-scored some of his favorite and like most famous film score and film themes in, I would say, surf rock summer vibes. It's really good. - Yes, really good. - Yes, it's called exotic themes for the silver screen, volume one, and it would be on all streaming services and you can also like buy the CD if you want to. And it is really fun. There are some previews of some of the tracks. And though I was listening to their track, "The Enterprise and Young Men," which is like the theme from the JJ Abrams Star Trek movie. And like, I started and I was like, "Is this really chill vibes?" And then it gets into it and it's got the like, the brown guitar and the little dududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududududa. And we, I mean, this is what we did with the summer of fun theme. We said to Chris Breen, can you do a surf rock chill vibes version of the upgrade theme and that's what we use too. So I love it. He gets it. Love it. Heads up. There's no good there. We know episode of upgrade next week as we're going to be preparing and traveling and all kinds for the Relay FM 10th anniversary live show in London. So Jason's coming over along with a whole host of Relay FM hosts, a whole suite of Relay FM hosts. This may be a better way to put that. We're going to be playing a game of fortunate families in front of an audience over over a thousand Relay FM listeners in the historic Hackney Empire in London. There are some last minute tickets available. If you want to go to relay.fm/london and we really look forward to seeing you all there. I'm so excited. Now we're getting so close. And so yeah, there'll be no episode next week. We're back on the 29th. Yes. Thank you for your support. You use next week to catch up on other podcasts that you've gotten behind on. Well, later on in the show, I'm going to make some recommendations for show. It's good when we get to ask upgrade. We have some recommend that someone wrote in and asked for recommendations. I have some podcast recommendations. I'm sure you do too. What else could you listen to while we're not here? You know, and I just want to point out in terms of the value that we provide. Mike, as we record this, it's been 513 weeks since upgrade premiered. And we've released 521 episodes. Look at us go. We're so clear. So we're going to take 10 weeks off of something. We are we are wide open. Well, because you know, there were those periods where we were doing emergency draft episodes. So there's some weeks where we did two episodes in a week. You know, you saying I know what I know that we're episode 521. Like I know that like. But to hear you say, the show has been around for 513 weeks is wild. Like we're we're we're staring at 10 years, like a little later on this year, September, other shows been around for a decade, which is incredible to consider. Like, I know that relay has been around for 10 years, but then there's something about the individual shows that I still can't get my head around, that me and you have been working together for 10 years. 10 years, incredible. I don't feel like I could have been working with anyone for 10 years. And yeah, right. But yeah, and yeah, 513 weeks, 521 episodes. I would say it's unprecedented, but it's not. I think we have skipped the last week of the year a few times, although then we sort of then we started getting the upgradeies and the upgradeies. And so then not so much anyway. So next week, just no upgrade, just stay tuned. Episode 522 will happen July 29th. Yep, that's how that's going to go. Time for the details. iOS 18 beta three is out. And there were a couple of things I wanted to note. And I'm assuming you're using it with some frequency. I've not put iOS 8 into my phone. I have I have it. I am writing previews of the Mac and iPad betas for whenever the public betas drop Dan's doing iOS. So I've spent a little less time on the phone, but I do have and I actually got the watch too. They're all kind of over my shoulder here sitting. So I've spent a little time with it, but more time with iPad than iOS at this point. So in beta three, dark mode is being forced to all icons. So there are some icons where Apple's doing something to change the colors of the icon or they're dimming them if they're kind of like a full color icon. But it's it's really interesting to me because it seems like Apple is making some decisions somehow about third party apps. Like I've seen some screenshots of like the one that stands out to me the most is the Facebook icon where the Facebook icon is a white f on the blue background and they have a black background of a blue f. I'm saying, how do you get to that? So it's very interesting. But it is, you know, the thing that I was wondering, would Apple do this because brands have their colors and like, you know, would they force it on people? The answer is yes. So what this will make people do, which is I think is what Apple wants people to do is to submit like their own dark mode icons and like, you know, like to submit an icon with the new system where it will you choose where you want the tent to be? Because if you don't, Apple's going to do it for you. Right. Very aggressive find that probably intriguing. Yeah. Also, finally, stickers are now now actually can appear as emoji. So this is a thing that has long been said, like, you know, these are emoji stickers. These are sticker packs, just like emoji. You can have me emoji did it and it's always been their stickers and their emoji. But you can't have like tiny stickers inside of text or whatever, like you would an emoji with a three, you can any sticker can show us an emoji. You can use them in tapbacks, but you can also just use a sticker as part of a text message and it will appear. So you can now finally, if you want to, use me emoji in place of emoji. I can't believe it's taken this long for them to do this, but clearly they needed to do this for the tapback system and also for Jen Moji. So they've done it. Yeah, it's good. It's good. Finally, again, it's that in writing a bunch of stuff about, like I was writing about the calculator app yesterday and I didn't know what to say about it on the iPad, other than to say, I mean, I'm going to talk about my math notes, but like the actual app, it's like, I mean, yes, it's good that it's here. Do I give them credit for finally doing it? I don't know. I mean, like it should have been there, but I'm glad it's there. And I feel that way about this too. It's a it should have been there, but I'm glad it's there now. It's like they tempted us with it so many times and like here it is. I've only seen it and I've only tested it in messages. I don't know how it appears in other apps across the system. I expect it's a thing where like if you use Apple's actual text input system, it probably will work. But if you don't, it's not going to work. Yeah, I think that this is a yeah, the special thing that Apple's doing to make these things go in line and treat them as text, even though their images is a thing that's yeah. And it's hilarious if you send these messages and then look at an iOS 17 device or Mac OS, like 17 or whatever it is. What are we, Mac OS, something, whatever, an older version? Yes, Enoma because they all just send us individual images, which is very funny. Beta three also introduces a new default wallpaper on the phone that dynamically changes colors throughout the day, which is a nice touch. Yeah, they've introduced this idea of sort of the generators for wallpaper and screen savers. I mean, screen savers sort of do this already, but they've sort of going back and making them wallpapers this on Mac OS. They've got the sort of classic Mac thing that they're doing as well. And it's and it's beautiful. It's a really well done. So whatever they've gotten on the wallpaper train a little bit. And it's a good thing because these are really interesting and different. If you want something more dynamic. This episode of upgrade is brought to you by Squarespace, the all in one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just getting started or managing a growing brand, you can stand out from the crowd of the beautiful website, engage directly with your audience and sell your products, services, the content you create. Squarespace has everything you need, all in one place, all on your terms. You get started with a completely personalized website using Squarespace's new guided design system, Squarespace Blueprint. 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You can sell exclusive content on your site by adding a paywall to select content or courses or sell files your customers can download, like PDF, music or eBooks. You can integrate flexible payments to make checkout seamless for your customers as simple but powerful payment tools. You can accept credit card, PayPal and Apple Pay and in eligible countries offer customers the option to buy now and pay later with afterpay and clear pay. Squarespace is also a fantastic option for if you have people in your life that need help of a website or a club or a society because they have all of these really easy to use tools. They build a system that can grow with someone as their needs expand, but they also have fantastic customer support too. So go and check it out for yourself right now by going to Squarespace.com. You can sign up for a free trial there. You can build your entire site. And when you're ready to launch it, just go to squarespace.com/upgrade and you'll save 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com/upgrade when you decide to sign up and you'll get 10% of your first purchase and show you support for the show. Thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show and all of Relay FM. So Jason, we have something a little bit special today. Do you want to talk about what we're going to play for our listeners now? Little, little summer of fun special in this episode. We talked a few weeks ago about the Vision Pro. What if interactive special interactive story, I guess, experience. So this was a thing with Marvel and ILM interactive that they did. It's like an interactive story. We really enjoyed it. There's a part at the end that you really loved. And so we have this nice, nice chat and I talked with some of the technical people and some of the designers for a little quick six-hullers thing that I did. That was all very nice. And then we heard from, I got an email from one of the writers of the thing saying it's so awesome that you liked it. Maybe we could, we could come on and talk about it sometime. And that was really a cool thing. So we talked to the PR people at ILM interactive and all that, we set it up. And so we get to have this interview in this episode where we got to talk earlier last week to film a cardie and David Dong, who are the writers. They come from a screenwriting background as you'll hear the writers of this. What if interactive experience, which is, you know, it's not a movie. It's not a game. It's something in between. And I think it's really interesting to go into sort of how they got involved and what goes into writing something, an experience like this. So it was really a pleasure to talk to them. Guys, thank you so much for joining us. We are very excited to talk about this. I mean, I am a huge fan of all MCU projects and especially the what if thing was incredible. I think we'd like to start at the beginning. How did this project come about and kind of how did you guys get involved in it? Dave, be sure came to us and we got involved with him. I believe Phil and I wrote a spec for the Sundance like TV. Was it like TV lab or something like that? This was a long time ago and what's funny about it is our spec was about. It was like a thriller. It was like a thriller procedural set in VR. OK, then this was this was back in the day before everyone had a pilot about VR. We were fast. We did every world pre cutting edge at the time. And I believe Dave is there at our table read. Yeah, at our kind of big table read. And then, you know, years later, I think he had this opportunity and he came to us and asked if we wanted to push some ideas around. I just and again, I know that this is a complicated thing. Do you come in and say, are you handed a bunch of elements and saying, let's make this into a thing? How much of that is sort of like pre baked or is it more like because because there's obviously the software and the platform and the story that they want to tell. How much of that comes from you and how much are you handed kind of elements? To saying, these are the elements that we need in the story that you need to work on. Oh, it was absolutely a blank slate to start off with. Like, there was nothing. It could have gone any number of directions from project inception. Like, there was nothing dictated. That's what you're asking, essentially. Yeah, that's what's really cool about Marvel Studios. They kind of just like kind of let you let you play. And if the idea is cool, then we're going to do it. I think you'll see some stuff that like some characters, like Carol Danvers, Nova Corps, you know, and some certain characters like that that probably wouldn't have immediately come to mind, but we pitched them and Marvel was like, yeah, this is cool. Let's do it. So from what I understand on our end creatively, this all started at just like every other, every other project that starts at creative. We have to think about what's, what's a story that we want to tell. And then he looked towards what is really right for what if, how can this be a plus up for people who are big fans of what if, but also kind of turn that and give them something that they've never experienced before. So it was really the concept was what if and a VR interactive story. But beyond that, it was, you know, come up with some thoughts and pitch this. Yeah, we came up with a bunch of pitches. Yeah, at first. Yeah, it wasn't even what if from the beginning, like we landed on what if we definitely, there were some initial iterations that were sort of in like Black Panther space and then, you know, just various properties. So we ultimately landed on what if it could have gone anywhere. I could apologize if I'm so used, I confess I'm a huge fan of your podcast and I've listened to both a lot of this and the incomparable. So there's, I'm having this a little bit, like our experience where you're watching the thing and you're watching and you get to partake. And I'm like, I'm so used to it. Listen to you guys talk. And now I'm like, oh, I'm supposed to talk about this podcast. Every podcast I has had this moment where you guessed on a show you're used to listening to and then you realize you haven't said anything. Like the first time that I was on the incomparable, I think may, or one of the first times it was, I think we were doing Endgame. We did like an endgame review episode. And I realized I hadn't spoken for like 15 minutes. Cause I was just listening. What a great episode. That's me being a bad host too. Cause I'm supposed to notice when the guests don't talk. Yeah. So you feel now you're the hero of the story. Yes. This is an interactive, the most interactive of all podcasts. You're going to snap myself away. I do think that like the, what if idea was maybe the best place for a story like this, um, where you can, things can kind of be unexpected and strange and weird things are happening. And also the idea of, you know, with the, the experience of Vision Pro being in a bunch of small sections, like you're dipping into a lot of character stories. It feels like it fits the anthology style of a, of a what if really, really well, I think, I think it was a, having experienced it, it seemed like a very logical place to, to land on in the end. Yeah. I wish you could take credit for it. There's also a lot like the fact that it's not a photo realistic, you know, property, essentially, right? Like that we allow for a stylistic environment. It seems so smart in retrospect. Like, yeah, what a great choice that was. It's just, we landed there rather than kind of like aimed there, if that makes sense. But yeah, I think that a lot of things made this the ideal property for, for this platform. The thing about the MCU, right, is that you've got, and Marvel in general, as you've got a toy box there of all of these characters, you know, you had to pick some because this is, you know, there are only so many, and there are tech limitations, too, right? Like there are only so many characters that they're going to build and design in order to build this thing out. So you can't, you can't have a cast of thousands. Um, what drove you to the choices you made in terms of the characters that are in there? I mean, obviously, what if you're going to get the watcher? But, you know, Wong is in this a lot, which I always thought was actually an incredibly clever thing because of the way they build out magic as a hand gesture and the MCU films and this and pro is all about hand gesture control. What goes into choosing the toys from the toy box? Well, so for Phil and I, this idea, a lot of this idea started very much as a like, simplifying it, but it's very like, what if the villains you knew were heroes? And what if the, you know, and what if the heroes weren't who you thought they were? Um, and so when you start there, we, we gradually put, put our guests through, you know, like, well, who's the biggest bat of them all, Thanos, right? So when you first encounter that, it's emotionally very uncomplicated. You, you, you know what you're doing. Even if you've been overwhelmed, this is your first, you know, kind of immersive spatial thing, um, you know, you know, this is, this is the big MCU bad guy. Um, so there, uh, then we wanted to do something, something, a bit of a tone switch. Uh, and so we, that led us to kind of the, the like 70s, 80s Cold War feel. And then that's a couple of iterations in and we came up with the kind of cool dark man, Captain America, um, kind of, kind of story twist on that. Um, and then finally we wanted a, your third one to be a character that was very, that you would have very emotionally complex feelings about when you were dealing with that. You weren't suddenly, you shouldn't be so sure that, that these are all villains. So we took like one of my favorite MCU villains, hella, she's that character. So hilarious. And then we, we, we spun her story, we spun her look, you know, we, we, we turned all the dials to sort of play with your, your expectations. And, and like maybe, maybe these aren't multiversal villains. And maybe I'm not being led down the right path of, of all this. Um, yeah, Wong is great as, as magic and all of that stuff came more to the forefront from interactive. It made more sense to bring Wong in. Um, and then at a certain level, you realize that, well, Wong now needs to be part of the story in a, in a big way. He can't just show up and talk, uh, and show you tutorials and then leave. So. So interactive is ILM, right? So the team, I'm correct. And it's the team behind like putting together the technical aspects of the experience. Yeah. ILM immersive. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And how, what was that like that this kind of like the team work, because obviously this is, you know, every, I'm sure every writing project, it, it comes with constraints, kind of during and after, and the experience goes through as you're working with directors and actors, but in an experience like this, as well as that, you also have brand new technology, brand new, uh, ways of interacting. And I'm sure things were appearing throughout the process that were changing the story. What was that kind of interplay like of understanding how the tech could be used and how it would adapt to the story and push the story? Yeah, ILM was, ILM immersive. They were really good about, um, empowering us for lack of a better word. You know, we would say, hey, can we do this? And they would just very cleanly say, yes or no, we weren't necessarily privy to their kind of like backend considerations and like what the Apple vision for it was capable of or not. But I do know that there was a lot of consideration on their end to determine what was kind of inbound so that they came to the table saying, Hey, guys, yes, this idea is great. Run with it. This might not be feasible, you know, this sort of thing. So it was mostly us sort of like brainstorming and daydreaming. And then kind of giving us a thumbs up or thumbs down on like what fit within the scope because of the project and the timeline we were working with. It was a really tight partnership. We were in a lot of meetings with, uh, just a real, yeah, it was like daily at some points, um, but just kind of really refining what both, what could be done. Um, what, what made sense to do and then dealing with curveballs. Cause I'm sure you guys can imagine even small curveballs can really like force us to take a story, you know, down a, down a different turn. So yeah, it, it was a lot of that. I mean, it was, it was really such a joint venture and even, even from them to, to, uh, point at creative and, and be like, well, if this is this, then we have an opportunity to creatively do this. Um, I know, like one of my favorite moments in the thing came about a really tight partnership. And that was, that was the time stone moment. Yeah. Yeah. Because, um, sorry from jumping around, but, uh, yeah, the, the, this was a big collaboration by, by every, you know, Joe Ian, um, Sharif, Dave, all of us to kind of craft that very specific moment where like this character asked for help. But as the player, you don't know what to do, uh, because we haven't given you the tools to do it. And then suddenly a portal opens and you hear clink, clink, clink and we put the time stone right in your vision. And then it's like, Oh, you start piecing it together. Um, what it is, right? It's no one, no one ever tells you how to use the time stone and no one ever really hands you the solution about how to save Fenris until much, much longer after most people have already, you know, done, done the motion. And that was a big teamwork by, you know, me and Phil and all of the immersive team. Right. It's set up at the beginning that there's this mechanic. And so when you have that moment, then you, you realize what to do. I mean, this is interesting. So I talked to some of the designers involved in this a while ago and they said, you know, the challenge here is that it's, it is an interactive story. It's not quite a video game, right? It's an interactive story. And in part, that's because if they made, there's a, a complicated, if you guys made this, a complicated branching narrative, you would be building out huge sections of story that people would never see. And I'd still be writing to this day. Yeah, exactly. And so there's one, there's one clear narrative branch. But otherwise it's more of a gentle kind of like leading you through and letting you participate in what's going on. It strikes me as being though writing wise a little bit like working on a video game where there's this incredible kind of like collaboration between the people who are writing and the people who are building the technology. Have you guys worked on video games before? Is your background just in, in like movies and TV and things like that? Cause, cause, cause this would seem unless you come from a video game background to be a little bit of a, a different kind of collaborative effort. Both of us, we were like trained, we were film TV screenwriters. That's kind of our back. You're also like everyone on the project lifelong gamers, right? Like so everyone has a little bit of that vocabulary. When I was younger in college, I worked for electronic arts. It's like a game tester. So I had a little bit in the back of my mind, but how was it not having to do something that's not quite a game, but it's kind of close? It was really interesting because as a film writer and screenwriter, you have like your core utilities for your protagonist to like do and say things, right? Like they get to do things and say things. And that's how the audience gets to like have a feeling about them or like get to know them. We were in a situation where in this story, you're telling a story and the protagonist, the player can't say a single thing. Like there's no way for that person to kind of express any sort of emotional agency, and there's nothing they can do. And so on some level, it felt very much like you were kind of like, you know, handcuffed, like, oh, our primary tool wasn't available to us, but you know, kind of necessity being the mother of invention. It encouraged us to like find other ways to have like the watcher or Wong bounce back emotional responses to kind of an implied emotion from the player, if that makes sense. It was very, very interesting. And again, luckily, everyone on the team was, we were, you know, a family of gamers, essentially. So that shorthand was already like built in, like we all knew that that was a limitation, but it was definitely different from our traditional writing. Yeah, I don't have any professional experience building a game, but I have played enough games in my life to certainly be able to put myself in the shoes of my audience, which is always really important to me when I'm writing something. So I know what this is going to look like from, from the audience perspective, whatever we're writing, whatever we're working on. And like, like Phil said, you, your tools change when you're in interactive, right? So you don't, you no longer have control the camera. I took this great course that UCLA about games writing, I think by like John Kalen. And it, it turned me on to a thought that was really interesting. We're like, in interactive writing, you're now, you're, you're not really in control of time, you're in control of place. Right? What you're really doing is you're shuttling your player in this, in this instance, from location to location, and they're discovering the story there on their own terms, of course, within reason. So, so that really, that really struck me and that you can probably see some of that philosophy in the writing and the, and the staging and the structure of what if immersive. It never really occurred to me the idea that, yeah, you usually are writing dialogue. And instead, you've got a whole bunch of characters who can kind of lean in toward the player toward the viewer and say, Oh, yes, but they can't respond unless, because this is not one of those things where they're going to put up like a, a grid of responses. You don't have a video game controller, like it's a very limited set of interactions. So you have to make those assumptions about like, obviously, the character is troubled in this moment. They've just seen something difficult, or they've just done something and they're reacting to that. And you can kind of react to that, but you can't ever have the character who's running the show say anything. That's, that is quite a challenge. That's amazing. Yeah. And I did like in some of the moments where I know there was something to be done, but I could kind of sit with it a little bit and a little bit more would happen. Like, I thought that that was really cool. Like, you know, like, I know why I'm supposed to deal with this thing right now, you know, I'm supposed to stop this fight. But if I let it play out a little bit, I can watch Carol Danvers flying around and like doing the whole thing and like, you know, they're talking like it was, it's, you know, I can see how that is like also a complicated part of video game writing, which is, as you say, like you, you're encouraging someone to go do a thing, but they still have to go and do it. And you've kind of, I guess, got to account for that a little bit that it's not going to just end. There has to be some element of, I guess, looping. I would have supposed in that that you have to consider. Yeah, I mean, so it's like you said, it's a very tricky thing to balance, right? Like you have to give the player enough agency where they feel like they're not just like on rails completely on a roller coaster, where if I black out, I'll wake up and this thing will be over. Like you want to, you know, make them feel like they have to do something, but also you can't give them complete, well, agency where they can do anything so that the narrative does progress. So yeah, so in that moment, there is like a little bit of looping and in other places, and there are a couple of places where if the player doesn't do anything, we will kind of like nudge you forward so you don't get stuck or anything. Yeah, that is a, it's certainly a tight rope to walk on. But I would say that's where the bounds of like immersive story and games are being drawn, right? Like if this were a game, my expectation would be to give a lot more of this freedom and to account for a lot more of this type of thing. Right. But we're not a game, right? We are trying to tell a story of which you are the protagonist. I always envision the writer's job as being, I'm going to, obviously, you're enact interacting, but you're doing your job and there's a whole team of other people doing their jobs. Did you interact with like the art and design teams? Or was it much more like, you know, we have some ideas, here's what we're doing and then they can't, they came back and, and you know, you wouldn't have to worry about that part or was there a lot of give and take with on a project like this with the people who were designing the art and the, and the environments. And I mean, there's a lot of pieces that go into it. Yeah, there was an ongoing kind of, you know, iterative cycles. And so we would come up with a pitch for a location and then that location would go off to the artist and the artist would draw a rendering of it. We'd see and go, oh, based on this, we can kind of like incorporate that into our writing process. Or here's our take on a couple of characters we'd like to use. And they're like, oh, could Hella look like this? Like, oh, maybe she should be younger or could Steve look like this? Oh, people, people, they see this costume. They're going to know exactly who this is. We need to dial down how much Captain America is in. You know what I mean? So there was definitely extensive back and forth. One of the designers actually asked me, I was praising that Cold War bunker kind of location and they actually said, so did you know that it was the winter soldier in that, in that pod off to the right? And I was like, well, yeah, but I mean, who else is it going to be? Given the context of it. But they were concerned, right? It was this like, it was kind of Easter eggy, but also kind of like, we do want you to kind of be able to get it. And did you notice? And that's a hard, you don't want to be obvious. You don't want to put a spotlight on it because then then it's just super blatant. But at the same time, you want people to notice it. You don't like there's a video. There's a like a video game console floating in space. That's the last remnant of New York City at one point that made me laugh. Just so little touches, but I can appreciate that. That's it's tricky to get the balance right there. Yeah. And making it even trickier is you don't. We didn't really know who the audience for this was, right? Because it's like it's people that are going to buy this headset that doesn't exist yet. It's coming out shortly. Will they have seen all the movies? Will they have seen none of the movies? You know, how much can, you know, safe to write a game that's an experience, excuse me, for, you know, a wide number of people with completely different backgrounds as far as the source material goes, which is again, it's all very dicey, but fun. This episode of upgrade is brought to you by our friends at Vitalee. Vitalee is bringing in a new era of customer service productivity with their all in one platform. 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That's vitalee.io/upgrade for a free pair of AirPods Pro when you schedule a qualified meeting. And thanks to Vitalee for their support of this show and all of Relay FM. What was it like when you first tried the experience, like for the first time or the final time, whatever the most kind of impactful moment was for you? What did it feel like seeing and being in the story that you had made rather than just watching it on a screen? It was a little like for almost like the first, like third of it. I, you know, I forgot that I wrote it. Because it was like, yeah, there was like a period of time, like, you know, turning in the final draft to speak and then and then them going off and making magic. But there was like a chunk. So, so at first the first time when the watcher steps out and is really like corporeal and I'll say like, what an amazing job. Like because like these characters like really do feel like they're there. And it's so weird, right? Because they're cartoons and so the idea that like these cartoons feel like they have presence and weight was just such an amazing magic trick. But like the first third of it, I was kind of just just coming along and like not even remembering that that I wrote this. And it wasn't until like certain turns of phrases that are very much like things me and feel like to do that. I was like, oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. That's what we did this. This was this was our fault. I had a super weird onboarding to this experience because I I'm currently in Portugal and I was going through hoops to get my vision pro here. So when it came out, I was watching all the playthroughs on YouTube first. So I got to watch everyone else kind of play through it before I get into play through it and I was like, oh, okay, that's pretty good. That looks pretty decent. Oh, that looks fun. That's great. That's cool. And then in so having written it and then having watched it from afar, I thought I had a pretty good read on what the experience was like, essentially. I was like, all right, I'm I'm a pro at this experience. And I got the headset, installed it. And it again, it felt like an entirely like the sea chain shift in reading or watching something 2D and being immersive is so fundamental for that. Even with all that kind of exposure, it still felt cool. I was like, how can I think this is cool when I'm so intimately and familiar with it? Like, how can I still be wild by it at all? And that kind of really, yeah, it was I was I was surprised. I think you've you've quite adequately described the idea of it being immersive and like that it is a different medium. And it truly requires experience. Like to to see the footage of this game on a flat screen does not tell the story of what it is like to be in it when the watcher is making eye contact with you. Yeah. While standing in your living room or wherever you are. Yeah, one of the most impressive things for me is the fact that the characters are looking at you and like that makes it feel real because that is what people do and just lots of little touches like that make it an experience, which is it's hard to grasp unless you have been being in it and it becomes like part of your memories. It's a very strange thing, but it's what makes this medium so exciting, I think. Absolutely. I mean, this is this is obviously a pretty special and a unique experience to build this seems far away from what you'd done before. Any interesting things you learned along the way about this, like what were you came out of and are like, Oh, I'd never really thought about something like that. Because you would think that this would be kind of a changing experience for both of you where you'd be like, wow, how do we get here? And and you have to solve some problems you never expected. A lot of our learnings, we kind of ironed out in the initial stages. Because again, like we, our inclination is to have people say things and do things to like tell the story and our producer, David Bishore, very much like made it try to drill this point into our heads like early on in the project, which is that like when people put on a headset and there's a new world around them, their attention for their appetite for dialogue and learning and kind of information whittles to like almost nothing. Because you're just like a kid in the can't, you're just here. There's everything going on around you. Sensory overload. You are your sensory overload. And so there's a we had to kind of internalize a new kind of like appreciation for the ebb and flow of what a player is doing and when they're doing it and when they're receptive to things. And when you can say kind of very heavy plot or story based information or when you need to dial it back and say things that it's okay if a person didn't catch. Right. Whereas when you're watching a movie, you expect that the, you know, the audience is going to process 95% of the dialogue, right? Because you're just sitting there and you're paying attention. You're watching in a immersive experience like this. That number drops like incredibly. So we just had to be very cognizant of that. So that was helpful to learn if that makes sense. I have two and one is it's just a nice confirmation that story and emotional, emotionally connecting through, through characters and theme work, right? Like I think most people, even people who are watching on a flat version, kind of really grasp a lot of the philosophy of what we're really trying to get through with this piece and the feelings of it. And so it's rewarding to see that storytelling like that works even when you do switch mediums. Secondly, I would say the big learning is that what seems really obvious to me because I'm writing it is an obvious to once people make it and that's good and bad. Like I was, I was howling like a little child at some points about like, no, we're giving too many things away. People are going to know. And like I was just wrong. Like people didn't know and I was, I was shown that like, no, you know, like, it's okay to, it's okay to put a little bit more of that stuff out there and ultimately ends up more rewarding than to hold it, hold the hold of the mysteries of your story, super close, super close to your chest. Speaking of the mysteries of the story, before we finish, before we wrap up, I want to talk about the end. The snap moment, one of the coolest things I've ever done in a video game. If you are a huge MCU fan, like I am being able to enact that moment is like, it gave me goosebumps as like a you're now doing this and the weight of that moment. Like I know what that means. I'm like, what that does in the MCU. Just to find out, well, there isn't really a question as much as you just say. It was awesome. I love this so much. That was really great. And that's the one branching choice in the whole thing is right there at the end is the snap determines, you know, which ending you see. Yeah. What reality is like, yeah, the snaps. I mean, I'm, I'm so happy to hear everyone respond to it. I, I don't know that I, what I could do if people were like, eh, but I mean, for, for me, when, when this project came to us and we kind of understood that hand tracking was going to be our main push for interactivity, I was like, well, we got to do it. Um, and, and it almost pushed the story to be about infinity stones because I was like, what other chance in my lifetime am I going to get to reenact the infinity snap, but without any sort of like, uh, distant, you know, like it's not on a controller. It's not on a, you know, right? It is literally your, you're doing it. And I was like, I may not get another chance in my lifetime to do this. So I really got to, I really got to push on this. Just like from a technical perspective, I didn't even know that the hard way could, could, could detect that. Like, so that was also like really fun too. Like I had no, I didn't know, like, you know, if it was like a thing, if, if half was said, like, oh, and one of the ways that you do with the UI, you snap your fingers, then it, I would have probably assumed that what if would have you do that, but like getting to that point and kind of, you're just asked to do it. I was like, I've raised my hand, like, oh my God, I get to do it. It was, it was really an just an incredible moment. It's magic, right? Yeah. Cause I, I all throughout the process, I remember like Ian was, I was like, we can do this, right? Cause it has to, it has to work and it has to work really well. And he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we got, we got, we got, we got it. And I was like, okay. Cause it's, it's got to be perfect. And it was. Yeah, it was really, really cool. Any little bits in the game, or sorry, it's not a game, it's not a game. I play, I've played this thing. It is, it is an interactive story. That's the thing about it. It is an interactive story and not a video game, which is good. I will say, I will say like interactive stories are a kind of more new genre of video game. You could call it that, right? Like, you know, like a lot of, they're called like, like interactive novels, that kind of thing is becoming more and more of a, of a style of game. But I understand the, the desire to call this an interactive story to, just to expectations. It sets exactly as well for people. For what it is. But from my eyes, this is as much of a game as many games I have played. But like I, I, I get the idea of talking about it as a, as a story. Sorry to interrupt Jason. No, no, that's fine. I was the one who said the wrong word, anything that you got to get in here that you just, I mean, again, I go back to the toy box. Anything in here that you're just happy that you were able to slide in a little something here or there that was maybe a favorite idea of yours, a favorite reference, something that you said, could we work this in? I mean, you mentioned Carol Danvers in the Nova core, which is something that I caught and laughed at because I used to read Nova when I was a kid. And so, and that was, and that character has not appeared in the films, but the planet and the, the, the uniforms had. And so to have that remix where that's where Carol ends up, but I was just wondering if there were any other. And again, the bubbling, uh, Winter Soldier pod was hilarious. I just, I wonder if there were any little bits in there that you, you're like, I don't know if anybody's going to notice this, but I was happy we got it in. Oh, I don't know if they're all super, like super subtle like that, because I'm not a very subtle person. But, but I mean, uh, whatever makes you happy. I was really giddy to be able to fit in someone saying what if, uh, and that, that cold open into the, into the Marvel logos, gives me chills every time I can watch it, I could do it and like being inside the Marvel logo. Ah, it just sounds so great. Like so great, so great. Brad Winterbaum came to us about the Star Fox inclusion. And originally I was a little scared about it, but ultimately, I was like, I was really happy that we got to, we got to play with that character. Um, and so it's not, not an Easter egg, but I'm, those two things I'm, I, I didn't expect going in and I'm so thrilled to be able to do it. What about you, Phil? There was just a moment. I was, I was really happy with, because I thought this was going to get cut. Uh, there's a moment where, um, you finally meet the Scarlet Witch and she has just, you know, she has dismissed everyone. She sent everyone off to various places. He's like sealing you all on the side and you go, it's like Oprah. It's like, you're in the Soul Stone. You're in the Soul Stone. You're in the Soul Stone. And she gets you, you're in the Soul Stone and you know, it's, it's a super low moment, right? Like you've, you've essentially lost in your trap forever. And I love that vision who has been like just trapped in here, who is, you know, trying not to die, essentially his wife is like wreaking havoc in the universe. And he just hits you with this sort of like very rye, like, so I see you've met my wife. And it's just such a very, I just was glad we were able to stick that in there. It's good. It was very real and unexpected for vision. And I was like, they're going to take this away from vision. But no, it got in. So I was happy with that one. How about you? What, what about, what was your, uh, I, this is kind of, you know, because you have such a great purview into both movies and games. I saw a tweet recently that was so interesting that I feel stupid for never having noticed it or someone said that a lot of the great kind of, uh, tech shifts have created a lot of the great IPs. And I forget who tweeted it. But it was something like four color printing press gave us Marvel comics and sync and sound gave us Disney and CG gave us a star, or no, blue screen compositing gave us Star Wars, et cetera, et cetera. And so I kind of have, I was like, oh, I, the context of the street wasn't this, but I wonder if immersive storytelling opens up the door for a new kind of IP. And, you know, do you, you, you guys both love tech and, and story, do you have thoughts about that? Is there a, a, maybe a type of story or a thing that even just from this small taste of it that like sparks your own curiosity, like, Oh, where else could this go that maybe we couldn't have done in other mediums and other platforms or without this technology? If that makes sense. You know, like if we look at what you did here with what if as like, this is the beginning of, of what this kind of storytelling can be while, you know, Jason touched on earlier, the complexity of branching narrative is always a huge thing. But I can imagine immersive branching narrative to be much more emotionally effective than in regular video games. Because when you are in these immersive environments, you feel more active in your participation than when you're there is a controller that is the medium for you to participate. And I really wonder what the kind of morality stories that can be told in these environments, I think could be much more emotionally effective than the typical types of video games that we have today. And so I can, I can see something happening there. But of course, it's like, it's a big, huge thing to deal with. But I think people are more likely to be emotionally effective of the decisions that they make if they actually feel like they're in the world with the people that they're making them with. I'm going to interrupt quickly, because we talked about that very specifically and kind of used the last of us as a reference point when we kind of briefly entertain the idea of doing a printing narrative upfront. It's very difficult. And it's, I'm curious to see how other people balance this themselves. It's difficult to tell a story with an emotional arc, like the last of us. If you don't know what experience is the players going to have along the way. Right. So if they have free latitude to do whatever and say whatever, they might not get all of the key pivotal moments that'll make that final decision so emotionally impactful. So there's definitely like, there's a, there's an art to giving enough freedom to feel free, but narrowing down freedom enough so that the story can have all the emotional beats necessary to hit that emotional climax. Does that make sense? Yeah. As a child of the text adventure era, right? The idea of interactive narratives, I've always been kind of interested in it. So it's kind of fun to see it get to this scale. Like, oh my God, it's not just, well, it's like going from a book to a movie or a video game. It's just, it's the, it's a similar concept on a completely different level. I wonder, Mike said, the emotional connections when you're in immersive environment, it's not even just the, the characters. I keep coming back. This is probably a dumb idea, but I keep coming back to the idea of, do you remember everybody, there was this fad like 15 years ago, the alternative reality game idea? Like, we're doing a movie, but also you scan a barcode and go to a website. You can download a thing that you can scan and then it takes you here and all of that. And I wonder in this, in a, whether it's AR or VR, if there is a way to do, um, narrative that is part of your immersive world. So the idea that if you're working in an, in an augmented reality environment, there may be aspects of it that aren't, that aren't really there, but that if you interact with them, they will lead to other things being generated later on, almost on an extended kind of narrative. And then the, the vision pro environments are so spectacular that I also think about that. Like what if things happened in those environments or something like those environments where you could be in it, but, you know, you could get your work done, but somebody might come walk, walk up to you on the beach or something might wash a shore on that beach. That leads to another kind of thing, whether it's a super heavy narrative or whether it's just a little bit of delight that unlocks something somewhere else. I, I, because to me, the difference between playing a video game on a screen and being in something like the vision pro is, is that immersion, that, that, that you're somewhere else. And, and so anything that can take advantage of that, whether it's an interactive narrative, or like even the very limited supply of those immersive videos that Apple has, has put out so far, like you can see it's not like anything else. So what could, what could you do with that? And I'm not quite sure what, but that was the first thing that, that came to my mind was what if they were a little bit more, even lightly more interactive or a narrative, like a friend of mine back in the 90s did a short story that was done by email. So you basically got, you signed up for it, and then you got a series of emails that were supposedly between two people talking to each other via email. And it was, you know, you weren't participating it, but, but time was part of the experience. The time between the emails was part of the story. And I, I think about just weird ways of doing story that you, you could do in an immersive or an AR environment that you, you can't do in the real world, or at least without scanning up barcode that you got on a Mountain Dew can or something. So the environments, it's, I don't know if you saw, like in the latest vision two docs, they kind of like released kind of like the guidelines for making your own environments, right? Like there's a little bit of like a, so they're definitely, you can see that Apple sort of paving the way for that. So that there will be third party environment kind of things, right? I think that the kinds of things that can happen in AR and mixed reality can be like, if a video, if you're playing a video game, when someone comes along and taps you on the shoulder, it doesn't mean anything to you, or someone steps up to you and says hi in a game, it means nothing. Like you're saying, if you're in Bora, Bora, and a person walked up to you and said hi, like that has a transformative experience for you, right? Like it'd be horrifying if you didn't know it was going to come, but it, you know, but it's very fundamental basic things get opened up. So yeah, I think that there's almost an extent to which traditional games have been so hell bent on sort of like coming photo realistic and how many frames per second and like, you know, what's the realest shooting game ever that now we can sort of maybe step back to like very basic interactions, like even like, you know, like I think you're referred to like the Zork and Sarah online games earlier, like just walking around a cave and, you know, finding a thing can be so much more engaging because of the platform that you're on, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, I think that there's, there's a new old frontier there, if that makes sense. Yeah. Shout outs to Mountain Dewkins. Yeah, I mean, you got to scan it to get your secret code for that for some movie that's in and out of theaters for a week. And that's got big credits and sending us off into a stamped envelope to this address. That's how we had to do it back in the day. It was really slow. Well, Phil and David, thank you so much for coming on and talking to us about this. I know like the mic especially was, I mean, we both really enjoyed it. And Mike was like pumped about this and that snap really got it. Yeah, it is. So I'm so glad that we got to talk to you about, about this very interesting thing that's like outside of your wheelhouse and it's not like something that we've ever really seen. And, and it was a lot of fun and I hope, I hope there's more down the road from you guys and from my LM interactive and, and, yeah, it was a lot of fun. Thank you for talking about it with us. Thank you so much for having us. So a real honor, again, surreal to hear you guys and feel we'll talk back. Thank you so much for, yeah, letting us be a guest on your podcast. Yeah, thank you. Such a pleasure. I'm so glad that it that it landed. So, yeah. This episode of upgrade is brought to you by Delete Me. Have you ever wondered how much of your personal data is on the internet? 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I really love to customize the ability that Delete Me provides that it isn't just like get rid of me completely. It's get rid of just the information I want. And I am also able to and I've spoken with them before about they give me their reports that I get sent by email. And I've been able to say to them, hey, you don't need to remove me from this one. This is actually a website database that I would like to be a part of. And like no problem. And they can remove that and like remove the request and just keep going. And they send me these regular updates. They tell me where they are in the process of having my information taken off the web, which I love. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now with a special discount full listeners of this show, you can get 20% of your Delete Me plan today when you go to joindeleteme.com/upgrade20 and use the promo code upgrade20 at checkout. That is the only way to get this 20% off offer. It's just to go to joindeleteme.com/upgrade20 and enter the promo code upgrade 20 at checkout. That is J-O-I-N-D-E-T-E-M-E.com/upgrade20 promo code upgrade20. Thanks to delete me for the support of this show and relay FM. It is time for some ask upgrade questions. So this one was promised and foretold earlier on in the episode. Zach wrote in and asked, "What podcasts should I listen to in your absence?" So we're not going to be here for a week. What should people listen to instead? I think a great starting point is to go to the website that Zach maintains for us, actually, which is upgradeys.com because there is a favorite podcast category. So you can go through that list and maybe pick up something from a previous favorite podcast winner from the upgradeys, right? That's a good starting point, I think. And obviously, just the blanket starting points of relay.fm and the incomparable.com. Go pick up the show from those. But I wanted to make a selection of recommendations from shows that I am particularly enjoying right now. One is the upgradey award winning the town by Matt Bellany from Puck. It's just a great entertainment focused podcast. But I just think it's just a very good and like entertaining, enjoyable show. I think Bellany is a fantastic interviewer and he just does a great job. There is a video game podcast that I picked up recently called Into the Aether. This is a show that essentially it is a podcast about video games, but it's not necessarily following the day to day happenings of all the latest games and all of the news and drama around gaming. The episodes that I've actually been listening to, they do these incredibly long episodes where at the start of each season, they'll play basically the vast majority of a back catalog from a retro system and we'll talk about their favorites. So you've done like Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS and Sega Dreamcast, for example. They also do really, really long episodes about Game of the Year. They actually just put out an episode to celebrate a milestone a couple of days ago. Jason, it is games of the decade, like the last 10 years, 15 hours long. That's our thing, which I'm excited to listen to, but like I appreciate the commitment that the Aether hosts have to making podcasts, because that is an incredible achievement. I've recently picked up the rest as politics, because I guess with everything going on in this country right now, which I'm happy about, I just want to be a little bit more informed about what's going on. So I wanted to get some like election takes and I'd heard of this show, partly because of something you're going to mention in a bit, like, but I was aware of the show and they did a couple of emergency pods about the election. So I was like, yep, let me start with those. And I really like it. So it's Alice the Campbell and Rory Stewart, who have both been in government. And one is typically Labour, one is typically Conservative, which I also appreciate because they like talk things out. Yeah, it's an interesting show. I also recommend just in general, the kind of funny podcasts that I love, especially kind of funny games daily and kind of funny games cast. And Federico, John and Brendan. Brendan is one of the hosts from Into the Aether, the show Next Portable Console is the new gaming show too. So lots of gaming content from me. All right. Yes, people should look at the favorites. Obviously, Flap House still listening, still one of my favorites. I mentioned Origin the Story a while ago. That's a very interesting podcast, British podcast. Ian Dunton, Dorian Linsky talking, sort of taking apart kind of terms and where they come from in terms like lots of terms using politics and what they actually mean, you mentioned the rest of politics. That is a goal hanger podcast. They have a bunch of the rest is podcasts, but it all started with the rest is history, which I mentioned, I think on a previous show. And that's the one that I have gotten to. I, it's a great window into what our members go through, which is that I got into that show and I load so much that I started to be, I became a member and then they're like, okay, well, now you get bonus episodes and you get the discord community and all that stuff. And I get to see it from the other side, which is really actually kind of fascinating. But I also really enjoy that show. It is two historians. A, a, it's actually interesting because I think their, their political views are a little divergent and their areas of specialty in history are divergent. And yet they are just hilarious together, a really great history podcast. And they've done so many episodes now that just pick, just find a topic you're interested in. I got into it. I said this on what I mentioned them the last time I got into it because somebody sent me a link to British historians doing a series of podcasts about the American Revolution. And that was just mind-blowing, but they're actually just a lot of fun. They're doing a series about the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. And while I've known the basic detail that somebody named Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo and it kicked off World War I, I knew no, and the Gavilo Princip, I think the assassin's name, I think I knew at one point, no other details. And, and so that's a great example. The rest is history. It's just like six part episode about that, which they actually recorded in Sarajevo, which is even it's, they don't usually do that. But that was kind of a hilarious extra. So anyway, love it. That's fun. And the incomparable game show, I'm just going to mention a specific incomparable podcast because people don't know necessarily. And it's every other week, and it's just various games that we play that are fun, including feuding families and the thing that I just brought back, Cultrivial Retreat, where we play trivial pursuit backward. And yeah, there's usually there, there's just, it's a lot of fun. It is the maybe the most ongoing kind of silly fun podcast that I'm involved with. And so people don't know about it. They should check it out. What was the name of the first show that you mentioned? I think like the origin story. Or, yeah, I remember. Yeah, which I mentioned a couple of years ago. I think it was one of my upgrading. Yes. It's also mentions and it's just, Ian Dunte is a very fun political writer from England that, and then he went and did that story. That it's not a gold hanger podcast, strangely. It's some other British podcast network. I just remember last time, it's the same issue that I've had this time, is that it's an incredibly hard show to search for, just the name. So having Ian Dunte in there helped. Because like, there's a million shows called Origin Story. Yeah, it's never ever. Podmasters is the name of their podcast network, apparently. Podmasters. Podmasters. Nathan writes in and asks, do you think the conversation on Apple Intelligence would have been different if Apple used the old strategy of simply labeling the features as smart or machine learning? By labeling them all as Apple Intelligence, it seems to have grouped the criticism around software design, ethics, legal reasons, use cases, et cetera, all under one umbrella. What do you think? So for me, my, like, issues are twofold, image generation, and the way in which they acquired the data set for their LLM, which I think they did in an underhanded way, and they're trying to pretend like it doesn't just brush it off. For me, these aren't branding things. Like, branding, the branding of Apple Intelligence is not the problem. And actually, I quite like the brand of Apple Intelligence. I think it's clever. Like, branding these things and collecting them all together, it's not, that's not the issue, I don't think. I think the issue that some people are having is, like, the specific things that they've done and how they've done them. Similar, like, some people, just, like, for them, like, the thing they can't, that they draw a line of anything text-related, right? Like, even just rewriting. Or for other people, it is the open AI stuff is the issue. Like, I don't think that the collecting of this altogether makes a difference, and I don't think the way they brand it makes a difference. People have particular issues or particular features, that's my take on it. Yeah, I think that's true. Also, I think it's the point. The point of collecting it as Apple Intelligence is to say, yes, we're doing this because there are some people who felt like Apple was behind and that Apple products are going to become inferior because they weren't doing this sort of thing, and they wanted to send the signal that they are. And in a different way, et cetera, et cetera, but that they are. And I think that they probably did need to, the way the world has got, look, sometimes a term that you prefer is not used, and a term you don't prefer is used instead. And at some point, you've got to stop fighting. Like, did the Apple for years insist that everything was a notebook? And now they've given up the call them laptops? Yeah. I mean, at some point, you just got to give up. And this is a case where Apple fought against calling this AI because it's inaccurate. And they use machine learning, which is accurate. And then the world said, it's AI. And at some point, Apple was like, oh, geez, we're not only are we behind on some of the AI, but we've hidden all the ways that we're not behind because they're using a different term. So let's just call it AI. So I think that they kind of needed to do that, whether we like it or not. I think they kind of needed to do that. But I agree with you, Mike. This is, the criticisms would not really have been hidden because they announced that they've got a model running in the background that's been trained on the internet. And that is the thing that is the issue for a lot of people. - Have you seen, I can't remember the exact phrase now, but there's now like another name for AI, which is like the step between now and the like AGI, I think it's called a super AI or something like that. - Artificial general intelligence, right? Which is the, like, well, that's the problem, right? They've had to invent a new term for real AI 'cause AI has been co-opted by this stuff that we've got now. And originally like real AI was it's a thing that thinks and then there are these, you know, crackpots who are like, oh, it's thinking now. And it's not, that's not how it works. But, you know, that is part of the naming. But again, you don't get to control it. Like I didn't love, I didn't love that Steve Jobs was all about the apps, but you know, their apps, there's nothing you can do about it. Like program, software, applications, nope, they're apps now. And at some point you just got to give in 'cause that's the word that people use. And you got to use it. Remember when Lea Laporte wanted everything to be a netcast? - Netcasts. Netcasts, you love people you trust. - He gave it up because it's too bad. Like you can use a word that nobody else uses, but eventually you just seem weird and nobody understands you. And in the interest of clear communication, you just have to use the word that so everybody knows what you're doing. - Yeah, like I remember on this show, like I made my point, which is it's not AI, it's just machine learning. Like I got my point out, but I was not going to hold on to it forever. But like I do like to mention it every now and then when like it is actually just machine learning. It's all it's doing, which is incredibly impressive technology. - And powerful, yeah. - But it is not artificially intelligent. Like that's not what is happening. But languages, what languages, and it changes and adapts and evolves and things. - It's just the remaining challenges. - Somebody was commenting on the fact that the magic sparkles emoji has come to just mean AI. And it's like, I don't know how that happened, but like everybody just puts little magic sparkles on features now. And it means AI like, okay, I don't know how it happened, but at some point you just have to say, okay, I guess that's what we're doing now. Because you can refuse it, but it's not how it works, right? You can fight against it, but the truth is that at some point, especially as a communicator, you just have to accept that this is how people communicate. And if you want to communicate, you use the tools that people use. - So David Imel, who works at MKVHD, he actually made a 30 minute YouTube video about how the sparkles emoji became the AI emoji. I'll put a link in the show notes. If people want to watch that. So if you want to know where that came from, I like why that started to happen, he does a deep dive into like how that began. - Kevin writes in and says, what are the chances Apple could open up Apple Vision Pro and let it be more like a Mac with Gatekeeper and an App Store but able to load any software that the user wishes? I for one could justify buying it if it offered the openness and community expandability of the Mac rather than the lockdown App Store of the iPad. - Your answer, which I can see in our document and my answer are the same, which is no chance. - No, I don't think Apple will ever unless legally forced to by entities, ever, ever do another platform like the Mac, right? Apple's model, how many platforms has Apple launched since the iPhone? Many, are all of them using the iPhone model? Yes, all of them, the Mac has been retrofitted to use a modified version of the iPhone model but also accepting the fact that the horse has left the barn and it's always gonna be that way. So I would say in terms of like Vision Pro being a Mac and being open, I'm gonna say absolutely not 0%. However, I have one little caveat here, one little quirk, one little aside I'm gonna make, which is I don't think depending on how the product goes, I don't think it's impossible that at some point, Vision Pro, I actually think it's the most likely of any of Apple's products could run Mac OS in a virtual machine. I think that's possible, right? Like again, it could happen on the iPad, it could happen on the Vision Pro but I did, like the Vision Pro is so good with a Mac, right? Like they've got that, that pass through mode and it's gonna get, you know, widescreen this fall at some point, like there are really interesting applications of using a Mac and a Vision Pro together and I can see a scenario where that goes on to be so powerful that they decide, you know what, on a future version of the hardware, they've got enough RAM, they've got enough processor, they could just let you run Mac OS in an app, in a window, in a virtual machine but that's the only scenario I can foresee where there would be anything like what Kevin is asking about and even then it wouldn't be Vision Pro, it would be Mac OS running inside a Vision Pro. - Yep, it's funny saying about Vision Pro, we're recording this episode on Friday the 12th which is the day that Vision Pro is available in the UK and it has been really funny to me to see people in the British media having the same rollout plan that America media had, like I'm seeing pictures of people taken by Apple with their hands in the air, you know? - Yeah, sure. - It's just like funny to me of like, we're just gonna do that again but like now. - And it's two years after we saw it, more than two years after we saw it, right? Or no, it's a year. It's what, 13 months, 13 months. More than a year, sorry, it seems so long ago now but yeah, like remember, 'cause it shipped this year, remember it shipped five months ago or whatever in the US but 15 months ago we all tried it. And now here it is and people are having probably very similar experiences now, it's just funny. - They're having the beginning experience again. - I did, going back to this question at hand, like about, you know, the Mac, I believe that there are many people high up inside of Apple that wish, wish they could make the Mac App Store the only place to get apps on the Mac. - Like, absolutely. - It is the outlier through age, it is not a strategy. They attempted to make the Mac App Store a thing and like, the Mac App Store is a thing for what it does and I think it's good that it's there because it is an easy way for developers who want that to get their apps out. Like, I know lots of developers that want the Apple model because it is easy for them and that makes sense but the idea that they would ever be another platform like the Mac, no, because they don't want that. - They really don't want that unless you say they are forced to do so. - Right, so they've got this kind of ring fence thing where they set the default and that's how they do it with the Mac and it's actually pretty smart. Like, the Mac, you can set the default to Mac App Store only or you can set the Mac to, which I think is the default to its Mac App Store and Notarized and they've changed, I gotta check the latest beta, but they've changed sort of how it works when you try to launch a non-notarized app in macOS now where you, at least the last time I checked it, like through the first time you do it, it throws a security warning and you have to go to settings and say okay and then if you open it again and then it puts up a warning and you have to say okay and then it asks for your password, which I think is like a bridge too far here because it's not authenticating anything at that point but I've also, at WWC and I will screen bloody murder if they ever try to do this, I don't think they ever will, but at WWDC in San Jose, I think the last year they had it in San Jose, maybe 1918, something like that. An Apple person stood up on stage at WWDC and said, the Mac will, you will never be prevented from running unsigned software on your Mac, flat out. And I believe them, I believe that Apple is committed to erecting as many walls as they can and the reason they're doing it is because if you look at any story about Mac malware, the way Mac malware happens generally is that they socially engineer a user to turn off those protections and click through those warning dialogues. They're like, here's how you have to install it. You gotta click okay here and then it's gonna warn you and then you say okay and then your great awesome app is installed and then it's actually spyware or malware of some sort, right? So Apple's trying to create ways to get between the bad stuff and the user, but then I'm trying to launch an app that isn't signed and a couple of which I use and it's yelling at me and making it hard. But like that's, so they're gonna keep doing that but that's because they don't like it. They want the default to be Mac App Store or Mac App Star plus notarization. They, yeah, the idea that they would ever allow something more broad even notarization without being legally forced to like they are in the EU is just it will never happen. They don't want to do it, but they may be forced, right? And even then the notarization thing like again, as we talked about last week, unless they're legally forced to drop notarization or change their notarization policies, they will use it as a way to control it as well. - If you would like to send in a question for us to answer on a future episode of the show or you'd like to send in feedback or follow up, please go to upgradefeedback.com and you can send that in. You can find Jason's work over at sixcolors.com and here is his podcast on the incomparable.com and here on Relay FM. You can listen to me, here on Relay FM and check out my work over at cortexbrand.com. You can find us online, Jason is @jasonow, J-S-N-E-W-L. I am @imike, I-M-Y-K-E. You can watch video clips of this show on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube where we are @upgraderelay. Thank you to our members who support us with Upgrade Plus. You can get longer ad-free episodes of the show. Just go to getupgradeplus.com for this. We're going to talk about Jason's travel prep coming over to London. Thank you to our sponsors of this week's episode, Delete Me, Vitalee and Squarespace. But most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back in two weeks. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow. See you in two weeks, everybody. Goodbye. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) You [BLANK_AUDIO]
Jason and Myke interview the writers of "What If...? An Interactive Story" for Vision Pro about the challenges of writing something that's not quite a movie and not quite a video game for a brand-new platform. Also: hot dogs!
