MacBreak Weekly 960: Backpack Week

Summary

MacBreak Weekly 960: Backpack Week – Detailed Summary

Release Date: February 19, 2025
Host: Leo Laporte
Participants: Leo Laporte, Andy Inoko, Alex Lindsay, Jason Snell

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1. Backpack Week Kickoff

Leo Laporte introduces the episode as "Backpack Week," signaling a focus on backpacks alongside the usual tech discussions. The team plans to share their top backpack picks later in the show.

Timestamp: 00:00

2. Apple Product Rumors and Updates

iPhone SE Successor and Naming Conventions

The discussion begins with rumors about Apple's upcoming products. There is speculation that the iPhone SE will receive a new name, possibly the "iPhone 16e," marking it as the successor to the current SE model.

Jason Snell mentions:
“...the rumor says that it shall be named. It's the SE's successor, right?”
Timestamp: 05:22

MacBook Developments

Alongside the iPhone rumors, there is anticipation of a new MacBook release. The team discusses potential redesigns and hardware upgrades anticipated in the next MacBook models.

Leo Laporte notes:
“...there are a bunch of rumors about it.”
Timestamp: 05:57

Apple Intelligence and AI Integration

A significant portion of the conversation centers on Apple Intelligence, Apple's proprietary AI feature. The team debates its necessity and effectiveness compared to third-party AI tools like ChatGPT.

Jason Snell questions:
“...do you think people? I asked this in the discord and the resounding answer was no, the people want Apple Intelligence. I don't want it.”
Timestamp: 17:35

Andy Inoko shares:
“I just think that ... Apple has this lock on, on privacy and currently they have a lock on privacy and, and personal data at a level that nobody else has.”
Timestamp: 20:26

3. AI Integration and Apple's Strategic Position

User Adoption and Practicality

The team explores whether users genuinely desire Apple Intelligence or prefer existing AI solutions. They highlight that while Apple emphasizes its AI capabilities, many users are satisfied with third-party AI tools without needing Apple's version.

Alex Lindsay states:
“...I think people are motivated by what it can do for them.”
Timestamp: 26:03

Future Prospects of Apple Intelligence

Despite current skepticism, there's optimism about Apple Intelligence's potential future applications, especially with access to personal biometric and health data, positioning Apple uniquely in the AI landscape.

Jason Snell elaborates:
“I think that there is a huge potential in the future of mixing the fact that it has all this personal biometric, ... health data, all these other things that it's combining it with AI.”
Timestamp: 20:19

4. Apple TV and Netflix Integration Challenges

Integration Rollback

Netflix briefly integrated with Apple TV but subsequently pulled back. The team discusses the implications of this setback for both Netflix and Apple TV users, noting the friction between the two companies.

Jason Snell explains:
“It strikes me as a thing that either they haven't signed all the contracts yet or they are planning a rollout and announcement of this and this wasn't it.”
Timestamp: 44:10

User Experience Impact

The lack of seamless integration affects user experience, making it inconvenient for users who rely on the Apple TV app to access Netflix content. This friction potentially hampers Netflix's accessibility within the Apple ecosystem.

Leo Laporte observes:
“...it makes me think, and I thought this the moment that they yoinked it, that this is not. This does not strike me as being like a thing that happened all in error.”
Timestamp: 44:07

5. Advanced Photo Editing and AI

Computational Photography Enhancements

The team delves into Apple's advancements in computational photography, discussing features like spatial images, spatial video, and the use of 48-megapixel sensors in newer iPhones. They highlight how these enhancements improve photo quality and editing capabilities.

Leo Laporte notes:
“They've got a bunch of controls that are not called detailed Photoshop controls.”
Timestamp: 33:13

Alex Lindsay adds:
“It really has a long lifespan.”
Timestamp: 09:41

AI Tools in Photo Editing

Discussions include the integration of AI in photo editing tools, allowing users to perform complex edits seamlessly. The potential for AI to transform old photos into high-resolution, editable formats is emphasized as a significant advancement.

Andy Inoko shares:
“I just found that producers are like okay, so I can just do this object. I can just put it on here, and I just fill on and automatically make it a little bit less visible or a little bit more visible.”
Timestamp: 35:09

6. Recommendations: Backpacks for Tech Enthusiasts

Durability and Functionality

The participants share their top backpack picks, emphasizing durability, functionality, and suitability for tech professionals. Andy Inoko highly recommends the Tom Bini Synapse backpack for its longevity and organizational features.

Alex Lindsay recommends:
“...Tom Bini Synapse line of backpacks... I just absolutely love it.”
Timestamp: 130:34

Jason Snell shares his pick:
“...the Bellroy Transit backpack, ... it's versatile enough that you could go for, you know, three or four days with your computer and your clothes and stuff.”
Timestamp: 135:21

Personal Experiences and Endorsements

Members discuss their personal experiences with these backpacks, highlighting their practicality in daily use and travel. The conversation underscores the importance of investing in high-quality backpacks that withstand rigorous use over time.

Leo Laporte comments:
“...I've had mine for ages. It's what I carry with me on every trip.”
Timestamp: 138:27

7. Industry News and Developments

Apple's Manufacturing Strategy Amid Chinese Tensions

Apple aims to increase iPhone production in India to 25%, facing deliberate challenges from the Chinese government to hamper this move. The discussion touches on global trade tensions and their impact on Apple's manufacturing partnerships, particularly with Foxconn.

Jason Snell reports:
“...Foxconn, which is of course based in. Well actually aren't they? Is Foxconn Taiwanese?”
Timestamp: 71:36

Andy Inoko adds:
“They want to keep a hold on it. They want to know that they can.”
Timestamp: 72:01

Reinstatement of TikTok on App Stores

TikTok has been reinstated on both Apple's and Google's app stores following a letter from the US Attorney General, Pam Bondi, indicating that the ban would not be immediately enforced. The team speculates on the implications of this decision for both companies and users.

Jason Snell explains:
“...they rolled it back. But the more I hear about this, the less likely it is that this was, you know...”
Timestamp: 74:07

Alex Lindsay observes:
“...that means that we probably have to find customers and package it back on.”
Timestamp: 75:03

8. Future Outlook: Vision Pro and Upcoming Releases

Vision Pro Enhancements and Applications

The team discusses updates to Apple's Vision Pro, including the NBA app's integration of a 3D tabletop view. They explore potential applications of Vision Pro in immersive gaming and sports viewing, highlighting its evolving capabilities.

Jason Snell shares:
“This is the tabletop kit which is a thing that Apple rolled out a little while ago and the NBA app got updated to use it.”
Timestamp: 110:10

Alex Lindsay adds:
“...as we mentioned, the revamped guest mode, whatever that means...”
Timestamp: 117:54

Anticipated Product Launches

Speculation continues around upcoming Apple products, including a new 27-inch mini LED backlit studio display and potential updates to the MacBook Air. The team anticipates how these products will fit into Apple's broader ecosystem.

Jason Snell remarks:
“They're pushing the ball forward and we'll have to see, you know, how they implement all of this stuff...”
Timestamp: 125:00

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Conclusion

MacBreak Weekly's episode 960, "Backpack Week," provided a comprehensive overview of current Apple product rumors, AI integration debates, challenges in Apple TV and Netflix integration, advancements in computational photography, and practical recommendations for high-quality backpacks. Additionally, the episode touched on significant industry developments concerning Apple's manufacturing strategies and the reinstatement of TikTok on app stores. The team concluded with insights into the future of Apple's Vision Pro and anticipated product launches, offering listeners a well-rounded perspective on the latest in technology and practical gear.

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Note: All timestamps correspond to the provided transcript and are indicative of when topics were discussed during the episode.

Transcript

[Leo Laporte]

It's time for Mac Break Weekly. Andy, Alex and Jason are all here. The team is assembled. We will talk about Apple's soon to be released. We think iPhone SE, it's probably got a new name and there might be a new MacBook as well. We'll talk about some of those rumors. Did Netflix briefly integrate with Apple TV and then pull back and then we're going to pull out our backpacks and show you our picks. Yes, it's Backpack Week on MacBreak Weekly.

[Jason Snell]

Next.

[Leo Laporte]

Podcasts you love from people you Trust. This is TWiT. This is Mac Break Weekly. Episode 960 recorded Tuesday, February 18, 2025. Backpack Week. It's time for Mac Break Weekly. The show we cover the latest Apple news. There is some Apple news. Tara, Ra, Andy and Ako. Hello, Andy. For the show. I'm sorry. That was very much a non sequitur and I apologize.

[Alex Lindsay]

That's fine. You know, especially in early 2025 in the United States, any day that begins with songs and music is a very, very positive thing. I support that.

[Leo Laporte]

Any day that begins with levity. Mr. Alex Lindsay, Office Hours Global at 090. Medio. Hello. Hello. How are you?

[Andy Inoko]

It's good to be here.

[Leo Laporte]

See you. You've been up since 2am, I'm sure.

[Andy Inoko]

At 4. Actually went to bed at 2am this morning, but. Oh, so it was a different. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But. But normally I get up. Not 2am is too early.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Andy Inoko]

I'm not that crazy.

[Leo Laporte]

It's not too early to go to sleep. It's too early to get up.

[Andy Inoko]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. It's just right to go to sleep.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Jason Snell, six colors.com hello.

[Jason Snell]

Greetings, Leo. Are we not all singing? Mike S. Argent has completely taken over this network and we all sing.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, that's right. He is kind of a singer, isn't he?

[Jason Snell]

Singing all the time. It's good to be here.

[Alex Lindsay]

You're never not auditioning for your next gig.

[Jason Snell]

We're recording this one day from something Apple is going to do that tomorrow about.

[Leo Laporte]

Tim Cook says, I've got something really wonderful will happen.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

And maybe iPhone 16e is what some are saying.

[Alex Lindsay]

Something wonderful. So. So he just tweeted it out along with like what you would expect to be like the picture you get like in the E Invite. And so now. So now that's what Twitter is. Now Twitter is like how they tell us that something's happening.

[Leo Laporte]

This is kissing the ring, is it not?

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, not. And not the first time. There's a. They've this is. People have also noticed that they started. Apple started advertising on Twitter again.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jason Snell]

It's all part of the same because that hashtag is. Is one of those flashtags that you pay Twitter to do.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm not convinced.

[Jason Snell]

I mean, I think part of this is kissing the ring. I think part of it is also that this is an existing marketing channel they already had, and so they have a whole system set up to do it. I would not be surprised. This. The challenge is that the two other most logical places for them to do this are Facebook and Threads and Instagram. Three most. Right. And it's all Facebook. It's all meta and they hate meta. Right. So I don't know.

[Leo Laporte]

Can Tim cook Skeet? Does he Skeet?

[Jason Snell]

They don't. That's a whole thing. Actually, it's funny because one of the things that's happened with the dissolution of the sort of monoculture of Twitter as a short form thing where now people are sort of all over the place in other places is a lot of businesses, sports especially, like, are like, teams are setting up their own, like Blue sky or their own Threads account and the leagues are coming down. The NFL just did this where the Patriots, you know, started a Blue sky account. The NFL is like, no, we don't have a deal with them. No, take it down. Oh, like, how much of that is. Oh, we don't want to do anything but be on X. And how much of that is just. We haven't done that yet. There's no system or policy because, yeah, by all rights, Apple should be doing this on, on Threads and Blue sky and Instagram and, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

[Andy Inoko]

They're not advertising at all in Threads or, or Facebook.

[Jason Snell]

I haven't seen anything like this with a, you know, an announcement that they're doing a special something that isn't an event. Don't use the word event. It's not an event, but it is a happening and everyone's invited.

[Leo Laporte]

It's a birth. It's a birth.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah.

[Andy Inoko]

The Hullabaloo announcement I spent so little time on. I haven't seen a Facebook the feed for a long time.

[Leo Laporte]

So I open it up, I open.

[Andy Inoko]

It up, my click messages and then I leave.

[Leo Laporte]

It's not on Facebook. Yeah, I'll save you a click. It's on X. There it is right there.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, there's an Apple logo.

[Alex Lindsay]

Animated, no less.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, yeah, but it's not. It's a video. So.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

See that? 25 and a half million views. I guess Tim's justified. Really. And there's the very first reply. I Justine, Blue check. I'm ready. I am a non consensual blue check. Just like Cory Doctorow. I'm not gonna pay you $40 a month for that. I don't want to give you any money. But anyway, let's talk about the iPhone 16e, which is what the rumor says it shall be named. It's the SE's successor, right?

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. But they're not there. But there are a bunch of rumors about it. We've heard about the hardware. Now the thing that has been playing last over the last week is that there might be ditching. They usually they previously just call it the SE so that if they don't update it in three years, it doesn't sound like it's been two or three years behind. So that's why there's no like number behind it. Now there's people saying, oh, I think they're going to switch it to. Now it's the iPhone 16 SE, which would be an interesting shift. I don't know if I buy it because for that exact reason that gives them sort of an obligation to make people think they don't have like a four year old phone by giving them a number.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, that's interesting. Yeah. Because if you give it the name 16E, do you do a 17E?

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

Or do you?

[Leo Laporte]

There are lots of rumors that Apple's gonna really redesign the 17, that it's gonna be a whole new bulk.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. So a bunch of cool rumors, not really locked down yet. But a bunch of CAD files appeared which made it up with a couple other rumors that people have been trying to get traction on. Basically the big change being that.

[Leo Laporte]

We'Re.

[Alex Lindsay]

Going to have a pixel like camera bar instead of the usual square in the side. And basically the rumor is that that's definitely going to be for the 17 Pro. Maybe not on the 17. Nothing. There's also ideas that if the 17A or the super thin one will have a more like also have a camera bar but not quite so thick because it'll only have one lens in it. That would be interesting. I wonder how many people would really cotton to that. I like it because one of the advantages of the camera bar that I discovered like early on as soon as I got my old phone here, is that because it goes the entire width of the phone, if you have this lying flat on the table, it doesn't wobble from side to side because it's an entire brace from one side to another, but it's definitely taking away something that is a unique identifier of the iPhone and making it look a little bit more like another phone that's out there. So it's, I think people can have some feelings about it.

[Leo Laporte]

Is it credible though? I mean it's a little early for renders.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know. The exterior, the exterior is pretty commonly found because of case maker leaks and other things like that. And sometimes we know more, more about like the shape of it than what's inside and what it does. It's like there's a button. What does it do? Nobody knows but there's a button. We know that much. I mean this se. I'll just point out that what I like about this rumor and I, I've been tending to believe that they might call this a16 and place it in the 16 families. First off to today if you go to apple.com iPhone you will see the 16, 15 and 14 all listed there because Apple does sell phones from a year or two back. They drop them down in price, they're still available. And honestly the low end phone is like that anyway. So like I don't, I don't think it's as big a deal name wise as that. I do think it maybe comes with a little bit of more of a commitment that you, you know, you're, you're not going to be able to say, well we've made this 18, 17, 16 and then also the 16, like at some point you're going to need to rev it maybe more often than every four years. But I like in general the idea too that it makes it simpler for them to say all the 16 models have Apple intelligence, for example because I would imagine that this phone supports Apple intelligence and then that would let them say yes, it does that and they, and you could cluster features together where like not every phone's going to have the same set of features, but maybe there's a baseline of stuff, there's an expectation that like 16 and later works whereas now the SE is kind of an outlier. And, and so like, I mean it's a weird kind of marketing decision and debate, but I think it's a possible and I don't think it would be a problem.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, I think the big difference this time is that it's going to be harder to really zero in on what makes this an other or a lesser kind of phone. What rumor has it that only have one lens, one camera that's on the back, that's fine. But the idea that it is rumored to have the same processor as the iPhone 16 and B have enough RAM to run Apple intelligence. That's pretty cool. That gives us a very long lifespan.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, yeah. So I mean it's not, it's a. It's an important phone for them. I actually think one of the biggest challenges is going to be how good is it and what does that do to their profit margin and therefore what does that do to their price. Because the one of the great values of this product is that it is a great value and if they have to soup it up in order to get it to be 16 level, Apple Intelligence level, does that mean the price comes up and that would hurt sales in for some of their target audience for that product.

[Andy Inoko]

And I think that, I mean for the folks that are buying the Pro or you know that's out there right now, or the 16i when you sue, you take the cameras away. I still think you've already made. That's the only thing they have to change and they're going to. A bunch of people are going to make a bunch of value decisions about what they're getting. I still will always come back to the number one reason people buy phones is because of the camera. So and so and so I think.

[Leo Laporte]

That if you take also Cadillac, if you take the same model and you put fins on it, you can sell a whole new range of cars. One of the reasons you make something look different is so that people who have the old phone feel like, oh, this looks so old, I want the new stuff.

[Jason Snell]

One of the rumors, Alex, about this phone is that they might actually take that 48 megapixel sensor, the one that they've been using for a couple of years in the Pro and put it in the SE and they couldn't.

[Andy Inoko]

That would still make sense. Except like the thing that has me thinking very strongly about moving to a. I haven't moved to a 16. I've been like, I got a 15 pro max or whatever. I don't know if I really need the 16. The wide angle 48 is the thing because I've gotten very good at shooting with the wide angle. As soon as you figure out that you put the person's face in the center of the frame and then you gather this huge. As soon as it doesn't stretch them or distort them, it just shows everything else around them. As soon as you get to that, you're like, I really Wish I had a 48, the 48 megapixel for that. As opposed to just the 12 wide.

[Alex Lindsay]

Angle I think is a lot more useful than telephoto. You love to have both. But at the end of the day, if you don't have a telephoto, that means you get, especially with all the computational photography that Apple's doing, that means you get a slightly blurrier, lower definition photo of your kid or your dog like out in the yard. If you don't have a wide, super wide, that means that you don't fit everybody at the dinner table, at the restaurant inside the picture and you'd much rather have those faces in there.

[Andy Inoko]

I think the only problem with the wide angles is like anybody outside of the. For me, the wide angle is great for landscape and one person or two people in the center of frame. As soon as you take one step off, the distortion starts to pick up so quickly that I find that having one or two people, I take a lot of pictures with my kids where we were at the crater in Arizona and I was able to put the two of them in the center of the frame. You could see the entire crater behind them. And that was just such a great shot that that's when I really was like, oh, I really know how I want to use this lens. But now I wish that it was 48. And so I keep on going back and I think that like for the 17, the easiest thing for Apple to do to get people to go to the 17 is just make the third one 48. Just keep adding the 48 megapixels to each sensor and you'll. That's enough for a lot of people to upgrade. I do hope, and I know that there's like so many back and forths with the 17 that they do do the long strip instead of the corner so that we potentially can get spatial images, spatial video and spatial stills that are, that have better inter axial distance, you know, like, that have a wider, more, more diversity between the lenses.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, but, but, but getting back to the reasons why they got to do this, it's really important for them to have an inexpensive phone.

[Andy Inoko]

Oh, I agree.

[Alex Lindsay]

Because yeah, exactly. It's not, it's not going to convince anybody who was going to buy the iPhone 17 to, hey, hey, great. I was going to, I was planning to spend $900. Now I can spend just $500. No, but it will allow parents to buy phones that don't cost $1,000 when they are kind of whining about, oh, I don't want an Android phone, I want an iPhone. And also internationally where price is really, really super important.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, and you will.

[Andy Inoko]

Cause like my kids, I had to do a bunch of R and D, so I had a couple extra 12s pros. So that's what my kids have are these ones that once I was done with the R and D, I just let them use those cameras. You look at the back of my daughter's, it's like the case that she has holding it holds the phone together. She's dropped it so many times, like if she took the case off, I think it would just fall apart. And so that's the problem that parents have is that kids aren't going to treat their phones necessarily in the same way that they might. They are ninjas with the phone. I will say that the one thing about my kids is that I'm always amazed I learned something new about what my phone can do as far as the camera goes every time I hand them the camera because they just know everything about the amount of cross pollination between kids in height school around what their phones can do and what you do with the phone. My daughter, I found, I, I, I, I found these photos on my phone the other day and I figured out that my daughter had figured out how to take pictures of herself in my, in sitting in the passenger seat in a reflection of the chrome on my dashboard.

[Leo Laporte]

You know, like I was like what is that?

[Andy Inoko]

And I didn't even know where it was taken from. And so, so they, so I think that it's, and I do think that, that it'll be interesting to see. I think that they, I absolutely think that even on a less expensive phone, putting the 48 megapixel in, I think that they've, they've amortized the capex at this point, you know, into the, into the development of it. There's, it doesn't cost them much to add it. And 48 really does make a huge difference when you want to blow something up or put something together.

[Jason Snell]

And they have that whole pipeline so they can bin it and make it, make it a 24 with better quality, which makes the output better because you don't, you don't necessarily. And Nobody necessarily needs 48 megapixels, but it also gets you a much better 24 megapixel. And, and it allows them to have that virtual second camera where they just crop on the middle 24 megapixels of the sensor. And so I mean it's funny that we're talking about maybe having a 48 megapixel sensor on an iPhone SE essentially ha. I mean just as two years ago that would have been bananas. But at this point, yeah, they have shipped that sensor in so many different models and in fact you could argue this is a way for them to use the first generation sensor that they've already kind of updated in the 16 but Pro with this one. And they're. And they're going to put that 48 everywhere. So it makes the. For a low end iPhone, it actually will make that camera potentially pretty great and pretty flexible.

[Andy Inoko]

I have to. I keep on getting amazed by the camera in general. I was at my, you know, my daughter is in a couple bands and so she's playing at this, at. @ hotmonk. She's in the little session room and I put a blackmagic camera. You know, I mounted a blackmagic camera. There's a place to mount them in the hotmonk. And then I used my phone as a handheld and there's two things that I noticed. One is that the phone did a better job in low light than the blackmagic camera did. Number two was how much I could do with just my thumb of zooming in and zooming out and all the computational photography of it figuring out it's using part of this and part of that. And every once in a while I saw it bump. It would bump to another lens. But for the most part it was just figuring out what are you doing right now and what do you want to grab onto. And. And it was just a. It's a pretty amazing device. Definitely worth pushing harder than I realized. I pushed. I'd been not in that kind of interactive zooming thing with my phone. Like I was like, I pick one lens, right? I pick the lens that I want to use and it's a pretty amazing piece of machinery.

[Leo Laporte]

So yeah, you know, I mean, ostensibly the reason Apple's doing the SE is it the A18 or the A17 is so it can do Apple Intelligence. You know, they want Apple intelligence across the board. But do you think people. I asked this in the discord and the resounding answer was no, the people want Apple Intelligence. I don't want it.

[Andy Inoko]

I think eventually, I mean here.

[Leo Laporte]

Eventually they will.

[Andy Inoko]

The potential of Apple intelligence when it can look at all my emails and I can just ask it for the information from this. Hey, what email was that? There was a point that the. Because I do this with ChatGPT all the time.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, something you already have.

[Andy Inoko]

Exactly. The whole thing is I already have something, but I open up ChatGPT on my phone all the. It's at least a couple Times a day I open it up and I go. And I just push the button and I go, there was this thing that was like this thing. What is that? And it'll just figure out what that was. You know, like, I was just like, how do I do the thing with the thing? And, and, and I, I'm very like, it's kind of how, like how I spell with Google. Like, I just like, I don't know how to spell this word here. How do I spell that? And then I put it back in.

[Leo Laporte]

That's so 1990s.

[Andy Inoko]

Yeah. Like, I was like, you know, like.

[Jason Snell]

So, yeah, they should have like a UI for that. That might. LLMs is. Everybody's like, yeah, command line chat interface. Everybody loves it. It's great. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's been 40 years. No, no. Build an interface. People build a nice interface on that.

[Leo Laporte]

It's completely peripheral. But I use Perplexity AI like crazy. And they have every model, including now a complete reasoning model based on reinforcement learning. And I've just attached it to my action button. I just press it and. And whoops. I don't know what that's doing. Oh, it wants to see me. I mean, start talking. And it starts answering already. And it's just, I think, I mean, it's a good interface. I'm not, you know.

[Andy Inoko]

Yeah, exactly. I mean, with mine, I'm like, with ChatGPT on my phone, I'm typically hitting the talk button and I just sit there and talk back and forth to it.

[Leo Laporte]

Right?

[Andy Inoko]

And I'm driving, thinking about something, and I just start asking it questions while I'm driving. Just like, what about this and what about this and how many would this be and what would this look like? And tell me a little bit more about this or whatever. And I don't feel like. I don't feel like I'm missing. And I said this in the last show, I asked my wife about whether she thought Apple Intelligence important. She didn't even know it existed. Like, she didn't even know.

[Leo Laporte]

Like, this is amazing.

[Andy Inoko]

A huge chunk of people aren't watching ads. Like, you know, I know that Apple does this, but you got to remember that we're subscription based. I don't see any. No one in my family sees ads ever. Like, you know, so we don't. So the ad campaigns don't have any impact at this point on, on us thinking about things. And she's not missing. My wife uses ChatGPT all day. Like, she, She's A wizard with it. So it's not that she doesn't care about AI, she just doesn't, she doesn't care about Apple intelligence. And I don't think that again, I just don't think that it's that much of a driver. I think that Apple for investors had to say we're doing this thing with intelligence and I think that there is a huge potential in the future of mixing the fact that it has all this personal biometric, you know, health data, all these other things that it's combining it with AI.

[Leo Laporte]

It's so far behind though at this point.

[Andy Inoko]

No, but, but the thing is, is that, that, but nobody else has what Apple could potentially not even as good.

[Leo Laporte]

As stable diffusion was but three years ago.

[Andy Inoko]

Again, I mean it doesn't, but I, what I would argue is it doesn't matter right now. Like Apple has to figure it out and see how people do it. But who cares right now? But two years from now, three years from now, if it's looking at all my health data and giving me recommendations on how to do that, I'm not going to give my health data to anyone else. Like, you know, like I'm not. So, so the thing is, is Apple has this lock on, on privacy and currently they have a lock on privacy and, and, and personal data at a level that nobody else has. They can be behind for Apple intelligence. I mean, at some point they have to catch up, but not for two or three years. Like I just don't think about it.

[Leo Laporte]

The latest rumor, I guess is that it won't be until 184 that we're going to start seeing an improved Siri.

[Jason Snell]

That's, that's, that's not quite. It's worse than that. The latest rumor is that the improved Siri may not make 18 4.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, geez.

[Jason Snell]

And keep in mind, also reported that, that the really improved Siri is being targeted for, let's say 194 someday next year.

[Andy Inoko]

I mean if it just played, if it just didn't, it's hard.

[Leo Laporte]

Even Amazon can't do it. They were going to put a smarter Amazon echo together. They had a last minute live or die meeting on Valentine's Day and they decided, yeah, it's not going to make it to it.

[Andy Inoko]

The hard part is that you can run loose and goose with ChatGPT and if it's wrong, you go, oh, it.

[Leo Laporte]

Doesn'T reflect badly on Apple.

[Andy Inoko]

Yeah, the thing is that I think I was talking about this on the show, but I asked it for a router. I said here's a 16 port router. I need an 8. What's the 8 port version of this Cisco and the 4 port version, it gave me the 8 port and it was totally accurate. It made up the fourth port. The four port one doesn't exist. But it gave me a model like it gave me a model, a breakdown of it, the specs, everything else. It just made it up out of thin air. And what I thought with ChatGPT was ha, ha ha, that's funny, you're a funny guy. And I'll stick with the eight. But if Apple did it, they'd be people, they'd put it on Twitter. And so, so I think that the requirements that Amazon or Apple have to have to reach for their brand makes this way harder when we just understand.

[Leo Laporte]

Another version of the innovator's dilemma. And isn't that what's stung so many companies? Is there inability, including intel now? Is there an inability to do, to change with the time or just.

[Andy Inoko]

It's just that there's so many places, you know, I can't remember the exact quote but you know, Mark Twain said, you know, it wasn't, it's not the stuff that you don't know that gets you, it's the stuff that you're sure about is wrong, you know. And you know, I remember, I remember, you know, I taught when I was teaching green screen, you know, Justine Ezric was, that's how I met her was I was doing a green screen in Pittsburgh, green screen class in Pittsburgh and she was, you know, in the class asking all the questions and you know, everything else. And within months she was doing green screens that I would have never even attempted. Like she was doing it with like little consumer cameras and handheld and in front of something and you know, and the keys weren't perfect and everything else, but she didn't, you know, but, but she was building compelling content and I, and I looked at it going, oh, you can't do it that way or that's not, that's the proper way.

[Leo Laporte]

Reflected poorly on your professionalism.

[Andy Inoko]

You know, she didn't have to prove anything. She didn't prove anything and she just ran with it. And. But I think that that was a lesson for me of like, I might want to, you know, experiment more.

[Alex Lindsay]

I just think that most, more than that, the stakes are just so much higher when you, there's a big difference between an app that you can on your own to seek out and install on the phone and an actual fundamental feature that you're promoting on the sides of buses. It really has to be on point and you never get to. You don't get that first impression twice. So you may as well. And as we've been talking about, we don't have a lot of experience with people who are wondering, gosh, how come my iPhone doesn't have all these AI features that are built into Claude and built into Gemini? So they got time to really ride this out. In the meantime, I'm very, very pleased and impressed that they are saying that we don't want to have a big wall divide between Apple devices that can do Apple intelligence and Apple devices that can't. This idea about the iPhone SE means that they're committed that every single device that they make is going to be able to do Apple intelligence. You're not going to be left behind because these phones, they last four, five, six years. Maybe in four years you will be absolutely cut adrift if you feel like you don't have AI features and your.

[Leo Laporte]

Phone that you bought Gemini on your Android device.

[Alex Lindsay]

Oh yeah, a lot. It's got, it's, it's about 4 or 5 AI. Yeah. And it's very good. It's very conversational.

[Leo Laporte]

Just came out. It's very good.

[Andy Inoko]

Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

You have to, as with all AI, you have to know what it's going to be good at, what it's not going to be good at. As usual, it's really, it's, it's bad at things that have an absolute hard yes or no, right or wrong answer. But it's great for conversations, it's great for research, it's great for. Of solving a problem and actually operating the phone via voice. I guess the best thing I can say about it is that I no longer wish that I had the Google Assistant back because it took a while for it to actually just be as good as what it replaced, but now it is.

[Leo Laporte]

Apple is starting to catch up in things like editing photo editing tools to Google and Samsung. Are they as good while you not.

[Alex Lindsay]

Really replacing objects is still really much hit or missing. Again, it's early. It's not like they've been pushing this out as a feature for the past two or three years as Google has, I think and hope that they'll catch up. Interestingly, do they not care?

[Leo Laporte]

I mean, does Apple have plenty of time or do people, are people going to start saying this is not up to snuff?

[Alex Lindsay]

Eventually they're going to go, hey Apple.

[Jason Snell]

No, I think we don't know because it, the question is what will AI become and will it be that Anybody, first off, Apple's platform is strong enough in so many markets that, I mean, you just mentioned Leo wiring perplexity up to your action button. Right? Like, love it. You can have AI assistance on that platform without it being Apple's own. And I never use Apple intelligence. Right. And it's okay. So that gives them a little bit of Runway. I think the other thing is just it's going to take time to see whether this is a thing that is everywhere and dominant and it could be enough to make people not never buy an iPhone again, which is what Apple is trying to fight as a threat or whether it turns out that people like some of the features that AI generates but that nobody in the long run is going to say I'm going to buy a phone based on what AI is in it. And we don't, I mean, we don't know. There are scenarios where Apple could get ridiculously behind here. Although I would argue again that the existence of third party competition to Google, you know, first off, because Google is a major AI competitor and they have a phone platform, the other phone platform is Apple's. So even if Apple is a little bit of a laggard, everybody who's a Google AI competitor is going to want access to the iPhone because it's, you know, it's the competition to Google. So I think Apple, I mean there are threats here. I don't think they're existential. It's like if Apple intelligence doesn't take off in a year, Apple is cooked. Is s. Silly. But there is a question of what the consumer intent is in the long run. Because I'm not sure as much hype as there is in Silicon Valley about AI. You know, I'm, I, I do not believe that a vast number of phone buyers today or in a year are going to say I need it for the AI. I just don't. And Apple's tried it too. Apple's tried to sell Apple intelligence and it hasn't really motivated sales. I think that people are motivated by what it can do for them. But I don't think that the tech industry has really demonstrated enough about what it actually can do for you. I mean, Alex does it, but like for regular people to be like, I gotta have AI in my phone. And even if we get there, I believe that if Apple isn't all the way there yet there, we'll have partners who will.

[Andy Inoko]

I have two or three screens dedicated to AI all day and I do not feel like I need Apple intelligence.

[Jason Snell]

Right.

[Andy Inoko]

You know, like I don't like, I don't feel like I have. Because the other thing is, is that I'm using Claude for one thing and midjourney for another and Runway for another. But the thing is, to me, it's like I'm using each specialty based on what I think it's good at or what I'm most comfortable using it for. And I don't know how I would pick one of them anyway. I do think that Apple Maps was a disaster when they came out, and many other things have been Apple's put out. They need time. So having people have it and having people interact with it and having Apple get to watch that and throw a billion dollars a year into figuring it out two years from now, three years from now, I think that makes sense for Apple. I don't think that it matters. I think it could take two or three years and no one would miss it. No one's going to miss. I mean, I don't know anybody that I've talked to that said. Well, I just wish Apple Intelligence could be. Other than when we're talking about on the show, no one talks to me about Apple Intelligence outside of the show.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, but what's funny is Apple does on its ads like crazy. Well, I know, but Apple thinks people care.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's still just huge opportunity. Remember that Apple's business is all about for good and for ill, making people stay inside the Apple ecosystem as much as possible. And imagine if they dropped the ball on Apple Photos and everybody was like, oh, you got to get on Google Photos, all the things they can do. Oh, can do searches. Oh, it gives you all this extra, extra storage and Apple Photos where it's just a place where you can back up your phone, your photos. So they have a very long Runway. They have a lot of time to work this out, but they gotta put some points on the board on a consistent basis. They don't want to lose that people's attention.

[Andy Inoko]

I've said this before. I think they did drop the ball on Apple Photos. And I'm still using it. Yeah, just begrudgingly. Because, like, what am I going to do? Like, am I really going to go out and rebuild? Like, this is the problem.

[Leo Laporte]

Did you ever use Lightroom? I mean, you're a pretty serious photographer.

[Andy Inoko]

Didn't you ever use Lightroom? I had Aperture for a long time. Feel bitter about that and so about that too. Yeah, I'm pretty salty about the Aperture thing, so. And then after Aperture, I kind of went into photos and that was it. Like, I just don't have time to like, I'm not as serious.

[Leo Laporte]

Are we all salty? I just want to. I'm just checking.

[Alex Lindsay]

It was such a great aperture.

[Leo Laporte]

Jason, are you salty? Jason?

[Jason Snell]

I never really liked it. I did use it, but I never.

[Alex Lindsay]

Really cared Salty as this chocolate pretzelio.

[Leo Laporte]

Three salty guys.

[Andy Inoko]

I'm as salty as a cow salt like about it, you know, like, you know, like it's like I. Yeah, it's so frustrating. But after that I never really took to anything else and I just ended up using.

[Leo Laporte]

Do you think the future of photo editing is AI? Google seems to think so, absolutely.

[Andy Inoko]

I think it's a big, I mean the reason, not the only reason, but probably 80% of the reason that I still have Photoshop and I'm still paying a subscription for Photoshop is the generative AI and it's not. I'm not making Mid Journey images in Photoshop. I am selecting something and saying get rid of this. And it gets rid of it behind a reflection, you know, seamlessly. Or I say, or I, or I, or I make. The biggest thing I do is I make an image a little bit bigger. Like I make the canvas bigger and I just tell. And I just, I don't even put something into it. I literally just hit the generate button and it goes and it just pops it out.

[Jason Snell]

It's amazing.

[Andy Inoko]

I mean I had a, I think I had a, an image where, you know, someone sent me a poster and I needed the it for the broadcast and there was a bunch of text on it and I just selected the text and said, remove text, boom, gone. Put it in the broadcast as a background, you know, and so, so it was, you know, that kind of stuff is so, so fast and easy. So. But I, but I don't, I don't need Photoshop to create do what Mid Journey does, which it doesn't do very well in my opinion.

[Alex Lindsay]

But go think, think a little deeper than that. It's not about necessarily generative AI and creative tools. It's about being able to say, hey Shlomo, lighten up this picture a little bit. And then understanding what you mean by that. Or make the. It's hard to pick up my daughter in this soccer photo. Can you make her a little bit more prominent? Or could you get rid of that big trash can in the background? All this sort of stuff you can do with just by expressing what you want it to do and it's doing a hell of a lot of AI lifting in the background that you don't know or don't care about. All you know is that now you have this beautiful picture of your daughter that is no longer blur, she's no longer motion blurred. She's now got portrait lighting on her. The background is blurred. So you can actually see her picked out from all the other girls that are in the background. That's where AI photos is going to have to come through because that's coming very soon.

[Leo Laporte]

And maybe this is a mistake in marketing, but Apple's computational photography, I mean certainly Apple is in the lead.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

In that.

[Andy Inoko]

Right.

[Jason Snell]

And they've been doing. And the other thing is they've been doing AI in Apple photos for years now. And they never called it AI. They called machine learning the magic wand that automatically rebalances all the settings and still puts the sliders in so you can edit it later. That's all machine learning based image analysis. They've got a bunch of controls that are not called detailed Photoshop controls. They're called light and brilliance and those are all actually composite features that are being slid around in the background so you don't have to worry about it. They, what they didn't do, I mean part of it is their philosophy, right, is they took a light touch because they worry that you could over artificialize a photo and so they, they try to not do as much of that. And, and their, their steadfast refusal to do a cleanup tool that was on the iPhone and the iPad. There was one on the Mac that was okay until Apple Intelligence is a frustration. But like Apple, Apple in photography is actually a place that they've been pushing for, you know, seven years at least now in terms of photos and in terms of the camera app.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, they should have said something like we were AI before it was cool.

[Andy Inoko]

They've said it. There's things that they, they talk about like, and they, that are neural, you know, the neural processors and everything else.

[Alex Lindsay]

And so they've been using that to frame that. Hey, we've actually been working on Apple Intelligence since 2017 when our machine learning photograph people in our photo group said wow. Read the, read Google's paper and said wow, this could be incredible. Let's, as we're designing neural hardware for our photo stuff, let's also make it so that will work great with these LLMs.

[Leo Laporte]

And I think Tommy Hermanston in our chat points out that Topaz has just released something called have you seen this project Starlight.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Here's an example of a NASA photo of the original on the left and the cleaned up Starlight version on the right. This is also AI Pretty dope.

[Alex Lindsay]

Imagine how incredible it's going to be when you go, finally you can go back into the photos that you took with your iPhone2, your iPhone3, you know, your original digital camera from like the early 2000s. And it's go back to all your photos and simply say, could you make this look like it's not crap? Like it's not a 640 by 480 thing that I got that was onto a floppy disk.

[Leo Laporte]

I've been using Imovie to make a photo tribute to Lisa's mom, my mother in law. And you know, they gave us a whole stack of photos. A lot of them are photos of a photo. In some cases they're photos of a photo on a computer screen.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

When you blow them up, they're horrible. But if I could maybe I should see if. Can you download this? Because that would really. I need something like this. And yes, I think in a few years that should be built into the iPhone and iphoto.

[Jason Snell]

Well, they already have. Since they bought pixelmator, they've already got super resolution.

[Leo Laporte]

That's right.

[Jason Snell]

Stuff that they have.

[Leo Laporte]

They rolled it out.

[Jason Snell]

It's just in pixelmator now. But pixelmator's got it good.

[Leo Laporte]

I'll play with it. Good.

[Alex Lindsay]

As an aside, the purchase is finalized. There was not an announcement. But now on pixelmill say, hey, now we're proudly part of the Apple family.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, I saw that. Yeah.

[Andy Inoko]

And if you're aware of the Vision Pro, you can sit there and just point on any photo that you have in your photo library. And it makes it dimensional like 3D. And it is amazing. Like you just like it was, you know, like I grew up always wanting to have the, you know, the, the little, you know, I can't think of the name little thing you go down between, but looking at little 3D photos, you know, and I'm amazed that I can just push on every photo I've ever taken. And I know that video is probably six months away or a year away.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, that's what this Topaz thing is for. Video. It's video AI6 they call it.

[Andy Inoko]

And I think that what Apple's doing is that making it 3D video from a 2D source, you know, like it's using. And because it's doing 3D pictures, it does 3D stills from a 2D source right now. And it's, it's doing it so you don't even need the stereo to take the picture. And it's, it's, it's amazing, you know, so it's, it's coming together, you know, like it's, you know, again, I think that these are the little things that do make a difference for me. And, and I will say, you know, I complain about the, the photos app, but being able to open up my, my, my camera, I take a picture and go, oh, get rid of that. I just push down on it and it's gone. Like it's just, you know, and I don't even say anything, I don't type anything. I just push on the item it selects. Oh, I know what you mean. And then I let go and it just disappears from the photo. And I found that it's been pretty seamless. So.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, well, I'll try photomator on those old blurry photos if you.

[Jason Snell]

And you know, the next few years are going to really push that forward too. Right. Like all this stuff is getting better so fast that the idea that you could take something that's old and I mean, I've already done that with some film scans and then you upgrade them and then you run them through spatial analysis and then they're in 3D on the vision Pro. You could just. It's all happening really fast.

[Andy Inoko]

Yeah, yeah. My grandfather was a geek and shot like family stuff in 16 millimeter in the 50s. So I'm trying to get, so I'm working on getting those films and having them scanned and then, and then put them into this just to see what happens because I think that it'll be amazing.

[Alex Lindsay]

I mean even just a couple of years ago, I was blown. I have to the water high watermark for astonishment still comes down to my favorite picture of me and my dad was just a quick selfie in my dad's kitchen because I got, I got an early like digital camera and I want to show them like how it worked by taking a selfie. This is before we, before we had a selfie, we knew what selfies were. You just turn the camera around, even if it was a film camera and it was such a beautiful natural reaction. He's smiling, I'm smiling. It's spontaneous. It's the expression that I associate with him when I think about him 10, 13 years later. But the thing is, because it was just a blind selfie, half of my face is cut off. And just to give, I think it was Adobe's tools, an impossible task. I just say, okay, fill in. I want to re crop this as an 8 by 10 and fill in the rest of the person on the left's face and I'll be damned. It wasn't 100% perfect, but it was close enough that with 20 to 30 minutes worth of work, nobody would have questioned it looked like me. They filled in the rest of my hat, the rest of my hair. It helped that my facial features were mostly in frame. It didn't have to invent a left eye. But I was like, you were supposed to fail miserably at that. And I was supposed to make fun of you. I wasn't supposed to be almost in tears, grateful that I have a nicely composed photo of my favorite photo of me and my dad. And that was two years ago. Good heavens.

[Leo Laporte]

Need to take a break. We'll be back. We have some more, including an exciting new feature on your Apple tv. Oh, never mind. But first, psych. Psych. I think you guys know where I was going with that one. First, a word from our sponsor, Zscaler, the leader in cloud security. Over the last few years, it's become really apparent that the billions and billions of dollars enterprises have spent on perimeter defenses, on firewalls and VPNs so that the employees can get in. And all that have not made us more secure. In fact, quite the opposite. Breaches are rising like crazy. 18% year over year increase in ransomware attacks. A record $75 million payout to ransomware in 2024. See, it turns out these traditional security tools aren't really protecting you like you'd like them to be. For one thing, the VPN expands your tax surface because you have public facing IPs and bad actors have something to latch onto. In fact, they're doing it faster and better than ever before thanks to AI. Plus, these VPNs struggle to inspect, as do the firewalls. Encrypted traffic at scale. What does that mean? Well, once a bad guy gets into your network, it's presumed he's a good guy, he's an employee. So lateral movement is you can access all your data, anything, every app, and that means the bad guy's going to be able to find your emails, find your customer information and exfiltrate it. They encrypt it and exfiltrate it, and your firewall can't see it, doesn't know what it is, and lets it out. So you're getting data loss via encrypted traffic and other leakage paths. And bad guys are just exploiting your traditional security infrastructure like crazy. They're using AI to outpace your defenses. Really, the time has come to rethink security. You can't let the bad actors Win the perimeter defenses are not enough. Those bad guys are getting through. They're innovating. They're exploiting your defenses. That's why you need Zscaler Zero Trust plus AI. So the key here is when you say Zscaler Zero Trust and AI zero Trust. It means just because somebody's in your network doesn't mean they can move around willy nilly. They can download stuff, exfiltrate stuff. No. Plus Zscaler hides your attack surface so the bad guys can't see your IP addresses in your apps. They're just invisible. And they can't attack what they can't see. So no more lateral movement. Your users are connected only to specific apps, not the entire network. Your every every request is continuously verified based on identity and context. If you don't have permission, you can't do it. If you're a bad guy, you just stymied, right? And it simplifies security management with AI powered automation. For instance, Zscaler Zero Trust plus AI analyzes half a trillion transactions every single day. And it uses AI to find the real threats in all those transactions. The needles in those haystacks. You couldn't do it without AI. Hackers cannot attack what they can't see. Protect your organization with Zscaler Zero Trust and AI. Learn [e-mail] Security that's Zscaler.com Security. We thank them so much for supporting Mac. Break Weekly. You guys knew exactly where I was going. I got all excited when I read this article on six colors that Apple and Netflix have finally made nice. And I was going to be seeing Netflix on my Apple tv.

[Jason Snell]

Was a sweet couple hours, wasn't it? It was a wonderful, pretty nice couple hours.

[Leo Laporte]

Couple hours. Netflix said, oops, I like your colors.

[Andy Inoko]

How do you create a whole feature? And then, well.

[Leo Laporte]

Joe Rosensteel, writing on Six Colors, wrote, netflix deeply regrets accidentally making Netflix a better product for its customers.

[Jason Snell]

But it's like, it's not like you.

[Andy Inoko]

Like ran into the ran.

[Alex Lindsay]

We thought we'd have a bunch of big laugh at your expense.

[Jason Snell]

Here's the thing. So the story is this is Apple TV TV app integration, which is they're the one streaming service that is missing where you can.

[Leo Laporte]

So when you start adding Apple tv, you can't find your Netflix stuff.

[Jason Snell]

And if you stop watching something halfway through, it shows it in Europe next and it shows you the next episode. And it's just really nice integration for everybody but Netflix. And to the point of it does seem a little bit fake. Like how could it Be just, oh, it was just a technical error. I actually had a code.

[Leo Laporte]

But they even have this screen, right?

[Jason Snell]

No. So this is it. So I heard from somebody on Bluesky, a guy named Mike Welch, who said, as someone who has written the code to implement this feature, there is no way it accidentally happens. And he speculated that they might have been planning to do some a B testing in the app about it. But I. It makes me think, and I thought this the moment that they yoinked it, that this is not. This does not strike me as being like a thing that happened all in error. It strikes me as being a thing that either they haven't signed all the contracts yet or they are planning a rollout and announcement of this and this wasn't it.

[Andy Inoko]

Or.

[Jason Snell]

And so. And so they rolled it back. But. But the more I hear about this, the less likely it is that this was, you know, a text file changed somewhere and magically this feature appeared. Because that's not how it works.

[Andy Inoko]

What it looked like to me, as someone who's been in the depths of many of these companies, is that a team probably in some meeting mentioned they were working on it and everyone said, okay, and then they did it. And then an executive somewhere way higher up said, what are we doing here? Why is this the case? Like, who did this? And they turn it off.

[Jason Snell]

I hear you, but the Apple Netflix data impasse has been like really high profile for quite a while. And these would people be people working in the TV app? So I have no, I don't believe that they built it just for fun and launched it. And then an executive got word about it. My guess is more that they were building it for a purpose and then they misconfigured something and launched it.

[Leo Laporte]

It was on their dev server and.

[Andy Inoko]

They actually, you know, the funny thing is, is that I realized that Netflix is so not present for me on a general basis because they're not in that app. Like, I don't really. Like, I go to Netflix every once in a while and I have to admit that because it's not in the rest of the ecosystem. Every month I go, do I watch. Do we watch enough Netflix to. To like stay subscribed? Because I just don't. And I realize it's partially because I can't search for it and I can't.

[Leo Laporte]

Figure out like, yeah, I think you're an outlier. Alex, I hate to tell you, but I watch Netflix all the time and there's a lot of stuff there. It's just very in inconvenient because I can't see it in my.

[Andy Inoko]

What are you?

[Leo Laporte]

My Apple tv. Oh, there's all sorts of good stuff on Netflix. I can't remember off the top of my head. I have to log into my grommet.

[Jason Snell]

Well, I just, I just canceled my Netflix after you did there since the beginning because. And it's a combination of. I don't think a lot of their programming is for me. They raise their prices again and again and again. But to Alex's point, I will say the moment that in those heady three hours where this was happening, I did have this thought of like, oh, you know, I would probably watch Netflix a lot more if it was properly integrated.

[Leo Laporte]

The Diplomat. Excellent.

[Jason Snell]

Love the Diplomat.

[Leo Laporte]

Highly recommend it. Night Agent. Yeah, first season was good. Second season is not as good, but it's there. Band of Brothers.

[Jason Snell]

It took us a while to get through the Diplomat because we would forget that we were watching it.

[Leo Laporte]

Right. So Alex is right to that point. It is bad for Netflix. Why is it this way? Is it Apple?

[Jason Snell]

Is it Netflix Net doesn't want Apple to know what its users are watching on Netflix. Is basically it. Netflix doesn't want to do sharing. That's part of it. Data sharing with Apple but the other part of it. And this is the part that bugs me. But I can see their point but I don't like it is philosophically Netflix would prefer that when you think of streaming you think of opening the Netflix app and seeing what is available and they as number one streamer. They don't want to be alongside Disney and Max and Peacock. They want to just have it all be Netflix and single handedly made F1.

[Leo Laporte]

A huge sport in the United States. Netflix coming next. Really good stuff on Netflix. Just because you don't watch it Alex, doesn't mean other people aren't. It's the number one stream.

[Andy Inoko]

Jason had the same. It was the last for me. Every time it the time to make a decision, which is what everybody does is when they raise the price you go am I really watching this? And the problem is is that I do use the Apple app so often that I the Diplomat I got halfway through the first season and then forgot that I was watching it. When I go to when I open it up. Like I don't know where. Like right now we're watching X Files I don't know where. Which is in HD again by the way in case people are wondering. I don't know where X Files is to be honest. Like I don't know what service it's On.

[Leo Laporte]

No, I don't either.

[Andy Inoko]

I just know that I go to the Apple tv. I go to Apple TV and I go, oh, that it says, do you want to watch the next episode? You know, And I go, okay. And it'll be sitting right next to Reacher and right next to the Pit, you know, and. Which are the things that I have a tendency to watch. And I see them pop up, but I don't have any sense.

[Leo Laporte]

I agree it hurts them, but it obviously doesn't hurt them enough since they are in fact the number one streaming provider and by a long, long shot.

[Jason Snell]

The other problem is that I think they feel they have leverage over Apple because they do share data with some other streamer boxes, just not with Apple. And I think it's an executive level. And there was a lot of penetration.

[Leo Laporte]

Of Apple TV versus, say, Roku.

[Jason Snell]

Well, it's not very big, the Apple TV hardware box. But keep in mind this would also integrate data sharing with the TV app on the iPhone and the iPad. Like, it's all kind, kind. But, but, you know, I would argue, and I think Alex would probably argue too, that it is in many ways the nicest of the streamer boxes. And although it is a small percentage, it is a, you know, it is going to be because it's indexed with Apple, it's going to be a, a wealthier set of users. It's people who care about their streamer box in order to buy a dedicated streamer box from Apple and pay that extra money. It's a pretty good audience that you would think that Netflix would want to serve. And I think that their idea that, like, well, no, just launch Netflix is not like. I mean, I missed what was a great British baking show when it came back. I missed it because it was on Netflix and I didn't see it in my up next queue. And like, I, I think it's bad for everyone. That's what frustrates me is there seems to be like a corporate policy going on here that is not about serving the customers. And I think it doesn't benefit Apple and it doesn't benefit Netflix. But, but here we are. Which is why I'm going to take away from this, that maybe it's going to change. It didn't change last week like we hoped, but maybe this means it is going to change because. Because it would be better for Netflix subscribers on Apple devices to have this be integrated with it. It just, it's. It's stupid that we.

[Leo Laporte]

Roku has 48% penetration in North America.

[Jason Snell]

Apple has 8 so in the last month I have bought the latest top of the line Roku box, the latest top of the line Google TV box and the latest top of the line Amazon Fire TV box to go with. And this is all because Mark Gurman at Bloomberg wrote a story where he referred to the Apple TV as a laggard because it hasn't gotten updates or something. And it's like my thought was wait a second, Apple's hardware is so over engineered for the boxes. What I'm going to tell you, I.

[Leo Laporte]

Don'T think this is widely known. This, this is a big issue YouTube tv and I pay 10 bucks a month for this, has 4k. It had the Super bowl in 4k. Its codec is incompatible with the Apple TV. You won't get their upscaled 4k on the Apple TV. You will get it on your Roku. That's not true Google tv.

[Jason Snell]

Are you sure that's not true Apple? That it's been about a year now that that codec is supported on tv.

[Leo Laporte]

So that should change.

[Jason Snell]

I watched the Super bowl in 4K on an Elk TV on YouTube TV. It's not, it's not true anymore. But my, my point being those, those.

[Leo Laporte]

Boxes, that's a big deal though, those.

[Jason Snell]

Boxes, there are a lot of those boxes out there. But you know what? The truth is that this market, the embedded video player market, it's primarily things that are in your TV and those are very slow and very bad.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, Samsung's probably the dominant player.

[Jason Snell]

Well, and Roku, there are a lot of Roku TVs out there too. And then if you buy a box, a lot of the streamers that get bought are super cheap. I bought the good ones and I, you know, I've got some, I've got some opinions. Roku is super generic. Amazon is really good, but so full of ads that it makes me curious every time I look at Google. And Google is pretty good, especially if you have YouTube TV because then the integration is pretty direct. But I would say in no way is Apple TV a laggard. I would argue that it's probably the best experience. Even though Apple has fallen asleep at the switch when it comes to TVOs and it's missing lots of things like supporting fast channels. Joe Rosensteel, who we talked about earlier, wrote a piece on six colors I think last week about how Apple has completely missed the boat on the fastest growing segment of streaming, which is live streaming channels with ads. They don't have a live guide of any kind except some sports stuff and it's a huge mistake that they need to get on board. But despite all of that, like that Apple TV box, it's really good. It's really fast, it works really well. There's so much to like about it. And so I think that, you know, whatever, 8% of the streaming box audience buying those things, it's a good product and Netflix should probably serve its customers on it.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's.

[Andy Inoko]

It's the BMW of, of doing this, you know, luxury car. You know, it's a luxury car experience. You know, it is definitely at not nearly the cost of a luxury BMW. So the. But I will say as someone who streams to these things, who has to look at the back end and look at what we can and can't do, it's somewhere between 5 and 10 times power more powerful than the next one down. Like, and it's like, it is just so much more horsepower there. And so when we want to send the highest bit rates, when we want to send the highest quality, when we want to send at most and vision, when we want to send all those things to a, to an endpoint, it's so much better than everything else. If they didn't upgrade it for a decade, they'd still be twice as good as the next one up. If they, if the other. If their competition updates every year.

[Leo Laporte]

Have you tried the. Or have you looked at the Nvidia box? I think that's a pretty darn good box with. It's got AI upscaling built in.

[Andy Inoko]

Yeah, I don't like the interface, very good price.

[Leo Laporte]

So I, yeah, I think that's a terrible interface. It's Android tv.

[Andy Inoko]

But I think that we, we forget that like the way to add value, the cheapest way to add value to a product is interface and training. We were just talking about this this morning, office hours is that when you have a bad interface, it doesn't matter. Like I, you know, microwaves have a bad interface. And so all I know how to do is time and start like, you know, because, because they have a horrible interface and no training, you know. And so the thing is, is that it doesn't matter whether your product can do something. If it's hard to get to the dial, then you're really just dealing with geeks, you know, like, you know, and so to get general people to use something at the, at its highest level, you need to build an interface that allows them to easily do that. And most of the industry doesn't get that like just, you know, they just don't get that interfaces are Important. I mean, you can see by when you look at their interface, you know, and the folks that care, you see great interfaces, they know that that matters, you know, and so, and so I think that that's the problem. The Nvidia shield is, is fine. I mean, it's fine. It works well. It's powerful.

[Leo Laporte]

Codec wise, is it. Does it give you everything you want?

[Andy Inoko]

Specs wise, it's not, it's still not as powerful as the Apple tv.

[Leo Laporte]

It's not.

[Andy Inoko]

So it's so, so you want.

[Leo Laporte]

Of course it's like three or four years old now, the current version.

[Andy Inoko]

Yeah. So, but it's, it's still, it's still not as powerful as the Apple TV.

[Leo Laporte]

But how old is the Apple TV though? The 4K Apple TV is a couple of years old too.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, but what, I mean, what else is it supposed to do? Like, I mean it's, it's so overpowered for.

[Andy Inoko]

It feels, it does feel like Apple. I mean it feels like Apple wants to do, be able to do some more in the future and, or, and you just feel like they're just not turning things on because it's like, why would you overbuild it to this degree? So, you know, that's the unknown is, is, is why they're not putting more into it. Like for instance, you know, Apple could easily, the newest Apple TV supports I believe, 2.1 HDMI or whatever. It could do 4K 120 and deliver content that we're streaming at 4K 120. And if they just flip that on for sports and decided to do MLS or MLB with 4K120 and build a pipeline for that. Well, they're now showing you something that you can't see anywhere else. And I think, and those are the kind of things that Apple could do. And then of course, it could be a great gaming platform if they were able to get games on it that people wanted to play. You know, like it's, you know, the arcade is fine, but I mean, I forgot about the arcade. Like when it came out, we played with it for a little while and then we were like, okay, there's no games here that are that much fun to play for a long time. So.

[Leo Laporte]

Will we see a new 27 inch mini LED backlit studio display? That's the rumor.

[Jason Snell]

And it feels right, feels right to me. It's basically timing. Mark Gurman said. I think, or maybe the display analyst Ross Young. But the idea is that the, that the, that there's no interest from Apple in In revising the Pro Display xdr, like that seems like a dead product. That it was a. And it was fine because it was too expensive and it was really inappropriate and it was just a weird product. Studio display, on the other hand, very popular. It's good, right? I mean, Alex mentioned the Mercedes earlier. Like studio display when it came out, and especially now. Like, it's too expensive. But it's an Apple product. It works exactly as you'd expect an Apple product to work. I have two of them. Like, it's good, but it's also showing its age. There are better backlighting techniques you could use. They need. It needs a better webcam. So doing a new version of that, maybe promotion as a good pairing for modern MacBook Pros. Modern Macs, like if they're coming out with a new Mac studio, good time to do it if it's ready. So, yeah, I think the studio display has actually been a success. The fact is there aren't a lot of Mac compatible monitors that give you the resolution that Apple expects in all of its devices. And there are a few now. But like, I think Apple learned its lesson last time it abandoned the monitor market, which is without Apple, to sort of plant the flag. It gets really thin on the ground for Apple users who are looking for external displays.

[Andy Inoko]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

And by the way, Alex, there's also Breaking Bad. There's the Crown, Adam Sandler's comedy hit. Love you, Ripley. Did you see Ripley? You would like Ripley because it's black and white and it was.

[Andy Inoko]

I saw the last Ripley. It makes me horribly uncomfortable.

[Leo Laporte]

No, no, no. This is a series.

[Andy Inoko]

I know. Well, I saw the movie and it made me. The storyline makes me so uncomfortable that. I don't know, it's much.

[Leo Laporte]

It's. It's really beautifully done. You should just look at it.

[Andy Inoko]

Look at it.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, you should just look at it. But you'd have to have a Netflix account to.

[Andy Inoko]

I have one. I mean, I have one right now. As I said, I haven't quit yet, but I'm.

[Leo Laporte]

I. American Primeval was. Was violent, but. But pretty good. I'm just looking at all the things I've watched. There's quite a bit of good stuff there.

[Alex Lindsay]

The problem is there's a lot of great stuff in the library. But how much time do I spend actually going through it? It's like at some point I'm with Jason Ak. I also canceled Netflix as soon as the new Wallace and Gromit film came out.

[Andy Inoko]

Like an outlier for having it.

[Alex Lindsay]

And it's like well, no, I'm not suggesting there's a big stampede, but I think that. I think that the tendency is for people who are in any way, like, budget conscious. And that does. That concludes people. If you find that. When was the last time that I found myself spending, like, two or three days watching stuff that. Watching a series on Netflix, I can wait until, like, a whole bunch of stuff sort of backs up and suddenly, great, I'll take another. I will take one month of Netflix or two months, long enough to watch the stuff that I wanted that's been backed up.

[Leo Laporte]

Really good. Black dub was amazing. Probably wouldn't have heard about that, but it was a really good series. Of course, Killing Eve. Who didn't love that? I can go on and on and on. The problem is there's so much good stuff on so many places.

[Jason Snell]

Andy pointed it out there, though, you're listing the catalog and like, I've seen all that stuff. Right. I've seen all that stuff. And if I was only subscribing to Netflix, I would dive deeper and maybe catch the stuff I missed. But if we're talking about what's coming out month in, month out, Netflix has chosen to, you know, do a lot of stuff that's kind of like in the middle. They haven't had a lot of big hits. They have a few. And whoever they're targeting, and they are targeting a huge audience worldwide, they are number one. They are television. Right. They're like network television was back in the day. So they are broadly programming to keep everybody on. They have their occasional hits that are enormous, like Squid Game, but also huge. You know, so. But. But I. I have to admit, I. Yeah, House of Cards was huge, but it was huge 15 years ago. If I wanted to watch it, I would have watched it. And I'm done now. Now when I look at what shows make me interested week in, week out that are new, that I want to see, Netflix shows have been almost never on my list. Occasionally something like the Diplomat pops out there. But when they start charging you $23 a month.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

To get the ad free, the base ad free plan or whatever. And they. And it previously was 20, and previously it was 18. They just keep ratcheting it up because they make so much money off their ad plan. That's. That's where I think Netflix is less appealing. They're, you know, they are tv. They're number one. They're playing it like that. But personally, just personally, I don't find their new shows that interesting. And their price is ridiculous.

[Andy Inoko]

So I find them competently written, but not great. Like, you know, and so it's tv.

[Jason Snell]

It's network tv.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Andy Inoko]

And the thing is, is that I. Is that. And I don't have time. I guess I feel like I don't have time for that. Like, I don't have time for. If I. If I feel like the dialogue isn't nailing it. Like, I'm watching the. I'm watching the Pit right now on, I guess Max.

[Jason Snell]

That's Max. Yeah, man.

[Andy Inoko]

Is it good? Like, it is great.

[Jason Snell]

Great.

[Andy Inoko]

Really good. Like, just really feels, you know, there's something new about it that is a new take on something that we've seen a thousand times. And that's why I tried to watch it.

[Leo Laporte]

But I don't want to watch another. A doctor. It's just show.

[Andy Inoko]

Like, every time you ask doctors, they're like, this is. This is what it's like, you know, and. And just what I need for.

[Leo Laporte]

But it's.

[Andy Inoko]

Anyway, I find life in an emergency room, you know, I really like it. I'm enjoying. I started watching paradise, which I. You know, I think my wife and I are watching paradise together, which is good. The. I would.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, White Lotus is back. I mean, come on now.

[Andy Inoko]

But I. But the thing is that for me, like, these. These shows that end every week, that I have to wait another week, like the old days. Yeah, I'm kind of over that.

[Leo Laporte]

But that's what Netflix pioneered, and Netflix dumps the whole thing every time.

[Andy Inoko]

Well, but the problem is, I don't even want to see a whole season. Like, my family, we pick. We pick an old show that we can watch every night or three or four nights a week for a long time. And right now, we started X Files, which means the rest of this year, that's what I'm watching. And they stopped making that 20 years ago, 25 years ago. And so the thing is. But I don't have to. Then I don't have to think about something particularly new. And my wife and I watch other things. My kids watch other things. I mean, we all have these other. Other. There's other things that we watch. But I don't find myself going to Netflix going, oh, I'm going to watch. Like, I. I felt like the. What was it? The Night Shift? I just felt like that wasn't very well written. Like, I just felt like it was. I feel like a lot of the Netflix stuff falls on old tropes, which is like, the Diplomat was pretty well return to my.

[Jason Snell]

Return to my original point, which is at this point, Netflix is not trying to program to be prestige TV like so many of the other streamers are. It's programming to be cbs. It's programming to be sort of down the middle, but for the whole world, not cba.

[Leo Laporte]

I think you guys, I think there's a lot of stuff.

[Jason Snell]

Well, I mean, there's a lot of stuff, but it's more middle of the road because they want to reach a wide audience, which they do. That's the thing is prestige TV we're talking about. Everybody else wants to be HBO and they want to be NBC. Like, and that they had way more viewers on NBC than they did on hbo. And, and Netflix is in that mirror was pretty amazing. And it's not. We're not. Leo, you're literally listing. Yes, yes, they have made shows on Netflix. But I'll just. But this. I. Okay, well, first off, I subscribed until a month ago or until like two weeks ago. And second, I, in case people who love Netflix are saying, oh, well, it's because you're a bunch of old guys and the, the youth, they love the Netflix. Both of my kids, I asked both of my kids if they wanted to keep our Netflix subscription because I have two people, two kids in their early 20s. I thought, well, they.

[Leo Laporte]

What do they like?

[Jason Snell]

They love Netflix. And both of them were like, meh, we don't need Netflix. So tell me they watch YouTube.

[Andy Inoko]

Probably pick one.

[Jason Snell]

No, they're watching every other streamer that I subscribe to.

[Andy Inoko]

Yeah, my, my kids are YouTube. YouTube TV and then, and then everything else. You know, like they, because they do watch some. They watch what it's like Jeopardy. On YouTube TV. Like, that's my, that's what they like to watch for whatever reason. An old Wheel of fortunes or whatever. But. Or not Wheel of Fortune, the one where they. Guess what people said. I don't remember what it is. But the. But outside of that, it's just YouTube and YouTube Premium is something that everybody notices in my family. If for some reason I changed my credit card and we had like a week of ads and that was the only one that everyone really noticed quickly. I forgot in the same time I lost Netflix for like six months. No one in the family noticed, you know, no one noticed that it was gone. And so I think Paramount, I think is doing pretty good work. You know, Paramount, I watch a lot of Paramount. If I was going to list them right now, outside of YouTube and YouTube TV, which is kind of a non negotiable in my family, it'd be Apple tv, Paramount, Max. Those are the ones that I feel like those are the three. And then maybe Disney are the three, four that I would feel like we would need to keep on for everyone to be happy, you know, But I think that Disney is maybe. And Netflix is definitely on the fifth of the five.

[Leo Laporte]

So we agree that Apple is gonna do a new studio display. We can move on.

[Jason Snell]

I don't know. I mean, that's what we were talking about remembering. Yeah. Lily Hammer, you know, that was a Netflix show.

[Leo Laporte]

Sure.

[Andy Inoko]

The, the one thing that I'm, I am interested to see is if they release a new laptop. I mean, I don't know if it's going to happen this week or there's room.

[Leo Laporte]

M5 laptop. There have been rumors.

[Jason Snell]

MacBook Air is what we're talking about.

[Alex Lindsay]

M4, I think Gurman said no later than March for the updated MacBook Air.

[Leo Laporte]

That's soon.

[Andy Inoko]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

All right.

[Andy Inoko]

And the, and the, the thing that people aren't paying attention to that we've run into for doing podcasts is whatever Apple's doing to those mics is, you know, supernatural.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. You mentioned that last week. Yeah.

[Andy Inoko]

And so we're looking for the air because I may start. We're sending mics out to people. I may just start sending them a laptop. Like, here's a laptop. People would like that. Open it up and start talking because it's just, it's so much less work, you know. So I'm really interested to see if they, if that upgrade comes in and if they make it any better than it already is. But the Last one, the M3, really took it to a different level.

[Leo Laporte]

Let's take a break. More to come. I have many more Netflix shows I can drop on you and I'll do that later, but keep on making a list. Our show today, brought to you by One Password, there's a name you've heard a lot lately. Do you. I got a rhetorical question because I know the answer, but I'll ask it. Do your end users always work on company owned devices? Sure they do. They never bring their phone or laptop in. They always use IT approved apps on those devices. Well, of course. Right. No. So how do you keep your company's data safe when it's sitting on all those unmanaged apps and devices? Well, 1Password's figured out a great answer to this question. It's called Extended Access Management. 1Password Extended Access Management helps you secure every sign in for every app on every device, every device because it solves the problems traditional IAM And MDM can't touch. Think of your company's security like the quad of a college campus. There are nice brick paths between the buildings, the company owned devices, the IT approved apps, the managed employee identities. And then there are the paths people actually use, the shortcuts worn through the grass that are actually the straightest line from point A to point B. Those are the unmanaged devices, the shadow IT apps, the non employee identities like contractors on your network. Most security tools just assume everybody's taken those happy brick paths. But of course many of the security problems occur on Those little shortcuts. 1Password Extended Access Management is the first security solution that brings all these unmanaged devices, all these shadow IT apps, these identities under your control and make sure that every user credential is strong and protected, every device is known and healthy, and every App is visible. 1Password is ISO 27001 certified with regular third party audits. It exceeds the standards set by various authorities and is a leader in security. 1Password Extended access management it's security for the way we actually work today. Now generally available to companies with Okta and Microsoft Entra and beta for Google Workspace customers. So right now, secure every app, every device, every identity, even the unmanaged ones at 1Password.com MacBreak all lowercase. That's one the number one P A S-S S W-O-R-D.com MacBreak we thank them so much for their support of MacBreak weekly. 1Password.com MacBreak use that address you support us to when you do that. So Apple apparently making many, many iPhone 16 Pros in India. Now China's not too happy about that. 9to5Mac reporting China's deliberately hampering iPhone production in India in three ways. Apple wants to boost its iPhone production in India to 25% in the next few years. But the Chinese government theory, I mean for obvious reasons, is not crazy about that. Two reports in the Financial Times say China appears to be making it hard for engineers to go to India. Financial Times says Beijing is tightening its grip on cutting edge Chinese technology, aiming to keep critical know how within its borders. Hey, don't we do that too? I think we do with euv. We don't let the Chinese have it. We don't let them have the latest Nvidia GPUs. Times goes on to say among the companies to be hit is Apple's main manufacturing partner Foxconn, which is of course based in. Well actually aren't they? Is Foxconn Taiwanese? Anyway, their major Factories are in China, but they would like to have more factories in India as well as other places. Chinese authorities also propose new export controls to keep the key battery technologies in country.

[Andy Inoko]

I mean, they want to keep a hold on it. They want to know that they can. And the problem is that China's doing all these things that scare the bejeebers out of all the people that are doing work there. And the United States is talking about tariffs and everything else. It's not a good place to do work. And so they're trying to make. And so as people are leaving, they're like, hey, how about we hang on to some of this work? And how do we make sure that we slow that down as much as possible?

[Leo Laporte]

But they're telling the legacy component manufacturers in China that they can't establish plants in India either. And, of course, that's one of the big advantages Foxconn China has, is all the suppliers are right there. Right.

[Andy Inoko]

Well, they also means that all those supplies are being flown in. So at any point in time, China could close the border, cut it off, and the Indian plant can't continue to move forward.

[Leo Laporte]

Forward.

[Andy Inoko]

So when it says they make them, they don't make them from the ground up. They assemble them there. Right. So that's the real challenge that China's trying to figure out a way to stay. Hang on to it. I'm not sure this is a small.

[Leo Laporte]

Component of a global trade war that is rapidly emerging that is going to make all sorts of things difficult, I think.

[Andy Inoko]

Well, and I think that the thing that hangs over all of this is that China keeps on making all these. These overtures to. In invading Taiwan. Like, if they weren't doing that, I think a lot of people, if. If they weren't worrying everybody that someday this is. All this dance is gonna end. Like, that's what. Because if China goes into Taiwan, like, everything ends. Like, you know, like, you know, the United States is not going to allow us to be importing stuff. Well, maybe they will now. I don't know. But. But the. But there's. It gets much tenser, much more tense if China goes and makes an actual attempt on Taiwan. But everyone's worried about that. And you can't move this pipeline over a year. So all these manufacturers are spending the next decade trying to diversify away from China to minimize the amount of exposure they have to the country. Regardless of the 10% tariffs and all the other stuff, it's China's threat against. It's a. Their attack on our information. They're trying to get information from us from every way, shape or form. I mean, at this point, I don't think it's safe to buy anything that's owned by a Chinese manufacturer that makes something that interacts with your information, like your personal information is probably not safe. And, and number two is they're threatening Taiwan all the time and all the seas around it. That's a huge destabilizer and that makes everybody, you know, want to not be there. You know, and it feels like, it feels like a really big unforced error. But we don't know what China's needs are. I mean, they're on a demographic implosion that will probably, you know, if they don't figure out something else to do, they're going to have their own problems.

[Leo Laporte]

Anyway, the good news is TikTok is back in the App Store.

[Andy Inoko]

It is back in the App Store. So there you go.

[Leo Laporte]

So you can install it again. For some reason, Google and Apple both were reassured by a letter they got from the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, saying the ban on TikTok wouldn't be immediately enforced. Oh, well, in that case, they put it on Thursday. They restored to the TikTok app in their respective stores.

[Andy Inoko]

I don't know how much, I mean, I don't think any of this really impacted anybody.

[Leo Laporte]

It's just weird because I mean, the cost to them, reason they pulled it down is a huge cost to them.

[Alex Lindsay]

Potentially $5,000 per download or per download.

[Leo Laporte]

Right. That's a significant penalty. So I understood why they pulled it down. I really don't understand why they put it back. Because this letter is not exactly saying, oh, don't worry, you're indemnified, nothing's going to happen to you. They say we're not going to do anything to enforce it immediately.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, that mean, that's, that reminds me of something that I've read about how Vladimir Putin works, which is that, you know what? We are not going to go ahead and take bribes. Senior officials, you're our guy. You're going to work great.

[Leo Laporte]

It's okay.

[Alex Lindsay]

But then that means that, oh, by the way, if we ever want to get rid of you, we will simply charge you with taking bribes. Not that I think it's like the Godfather thing, but it's like normally should.

[Leo Laporte]

I ever need your services at some time, and that may never come, and that time may never come.

[Alex Lindsay]

I mean, normally a multi trillion dollar corporation would like something more than hey, I, I, I wrote you a little love note saying that pinky swear, we're not going to prosecute you.

[Leo Laporte]

I have to think there, there was more.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, exactly.

[Leo Laporte]

Then that. Yeah. Something in the background than this letter from Pam Bondi. I just don't, I don't feel like that's sufficient to reassure Apple's lawyers who did not rush to put it back in the store. When the President put this, you know, the 75 day. Hold on.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jason Snell]

They must have gotten some reassurances. But you're right, it's just a letter, a love letter from Pam Bondi, and you can take it for what it's worth.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Jason Snell]

But I think the calculation there is. They've got the money, if it really came to that, and they've got a letter now that they could show to somebody. She said, we did, you know, we were reassured or whatever. But also there's the counterbalance of making the administration angry at you. If you don't do it, it.

[Leo Laporte]

So is that really, Is that the, the, the stick. I mean, we know what the carrot is. Is that the stick is like, if you don't put it back, we may not. We not.

[Jason Snell]

You know, everything that they've done that all the tech companies have done is we do not want to be on the wrong side of the Trump administration because. And, and you know what? It's, it is symbiotic, too, because, you know, I keep saying this, but, like, these are great American corporations and it would be hard, I would think, for an American president to, you know, disfavor an American corporation over foreign competition. But that said, you know, they, they don't want to. They know that they could be in trouble because there's all sorts of investigations going on. So this is, I think they, they are treading lightly. And so they, they didn't. Probably what happened is somebody in the administration was like, why have Google and Apple not put, put TikTok back on the store? And they're like, well, they're worried about this. Well, Pam, write him a letter. And here we are. But then they feel like they need to do it now.

[Alex Lindsay]

But they do have a really big stick within Brendan Carr. So even before he was sworn in as a commissioner, he basically. Exactly. He basically, again, his big demon tweet about how you're all part of this censorship cabal, tech cabal. And essentially saying that, by the way, that we have. We don't. As chairman of the fcc, the FCC does not need any special laws or anything to basically ruin your entire day because section 230 basically says that we need you. All you have to do is have a good faith effort that you're moderating your forums and your publications in the interest of the public. Basically, all I have to do is say that you're not doing that in good faith. And suddenly, if you want to be sued by everybody, including the president, for $20 billion for defamation, that's going to happen.

[Leo Laporte]

So.

[Alex Lindsay]

So it's a very scary situation. I would love these people to. I would love these CEOs to take a firmer stand. However, I do appreciate that they probably have to. It's probably like being any country in 1938, 1939, saying, let's not start a skirmish because in two or three years we might have to fight an entire war. Let's make sure, let's save all of our warfare for when we actually have to fight.

[Leo Laporte]

I would hate to be a CEO right now. It's just the uncertainty is palpable. And I don't know how you run your company. You just do the best you can. I mean, it cooks amazing. Yeah, very.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Tread lightly. Tread very carefully. Yep.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah.

[Andy Inoko]

I mean, it's life in a banana republic. When I'm working overseas, you're just paying attention to who's running the country and what are the rules that they decided on for this week. And you have to just dance with whatever those rules are. But that's. It's unfortunately not that uncommon in the rest of the world. It's just that we as Americans haven't had to experience that anytime recently in most of our lifetimes. You know, so that's the hard part.

[Leo Laporte]

We had an illusion about the rule of law or something. Apple is finally letting you merge two Apple IDs. Well, that's nice. This has always been kind of a thorn in people's side that if you have an Apple ID and you want another Apple id, how can you move the two together?

[Jason Snell]

A lot of people in the early days of the App Store had an account that they used to buy stuff.

[Leo Laporte]

I do separate from my iCloud account.

[Jason Snell]

Multiple iCloud accounts to do other things. And Apple has let you log into the App Store and other places separately from your iCloud login in order to facilitate this. And it's a huge problem because you end up in very. My friend Stephen Hackett was in the position where he, he was like, he had storage on the one account, but it wasn't in his family. And then his family needed more storage and he fell down this whole rabbit hole. I think he ended up putting that, that old account in his family, in his Icloud family as a fake person. This is better, right? This. The idea here is that you can basically take account one and transfer all of its purchases. And there's a bunch of caveats, but in the end, and you can take all of those purchases and stuff from account one and push them into account two.

[Leo Laporte]

Should I do this? I mean, right now I have a itunes account. All my music is under that and I have an icloud account, all my TV shows, all that stuff under the. So I have two separate accounts. I guess it'd be nice to merge them. Why did I do that in the first place? When you set up a new Mac, it gives you the chance to. To do that. Is that going away?

[Jason Snell]

Well, I wonder if this is step one of a larger process that makes Apple no longer, at some point, allow you to have a different Apple account assigned to your purchases of apps versus your iCloud account. I do wonder if the way that this. Because they could have built this tool five years ago, 10 years ago, and they probably should have, but they waited till now. And I don't think they've been working on it for 10 years. I think it's more likely that they finally have a motivation for it and maybe it's this to slowly, over the next few years, kind of push everybody to get, you know, all their purchase onto a single account.

[Leo Laporte]

You cannot do this, by the way, if you're rushing to your apples in the eu, the United Kingdom or India for some reason, because. Reasons, yeah. Migrate purchases from one Apple account to another Apple account. If you're an Apple account is used only for making purchases. Yes. These purchases can be migrated to the primary Apple account to consolidate them. All right. There are some caveats. You have to be signed in by both. Make sure the secondary account isn't a member of the family sharing group. But it is. Right. Because I share my address.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah. You have to uncouple it from your family and then merge it in.

[Leo Laporte]

What's going to happen to Lisa when I do that? Is she not going to have access to all the family shared apps?

[Jason Snell]

Correct. Although she could log in with that account to get them. But then she'd lose her apps that are on her account. But what you do is you do it in. In, you know, one fell. It's like shutting off the power to change some wiring. You. You would pull it out, all of the things would break and then you'd run the migration and it would all come into your account and be good then.

[Leo Laporte]

And then eventually I could say to her, okay, now you're in my family, but just don't use that old account anymore.

[Jason Snell]

Right. Because now, now all that stuff would be in your account and therefore in your family group and would come in that way. That's the idea. Idea.

[Leo Laporte]

So reluctant to do this.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, well, I would say, actually I would say don't do it unless you have a reason. There are people who have reasons who get frustrated by this. And like, like I said, my friend Stephen is a good example of that. But if you're, if everything is working fine, just leave it. But it's almost like, you know, you know, if you need this, you know, if you're like, you've been frustrated by this kind of confusing setup. But I do wonder if in the next few years Apple will start nudging people this way and saying, well, I really. You should only have one Apple ID on a device. And you know that that may happen, but right now it's, it's optional.

[Alex Lindsay]

Some people are on, are on social media saying that they tried it and, and basically they've lost access to a whole bunch of stuff for at least 90 days while Apple works through a support ticket. So yeah, just make, just make sure, go the support document, go step by step by step and make sure that like, like Jason said, don't do it just for the hell of it. Do it because it will solve a problem problem that's been stymieing you for several years.

[Jason Snell]

It also has a bunch of limitations. Like, you know, you need to not be actively using Apple music with it. You need to be, you need to not have any ongoing subscriptions. You need to cancel all your subscriptions. Oh, and let them. And then, and then resubscribe on the new account. Like there's all of these limitations to it that are very complicated. So yeah, don't do it on a whim.

[Leo Laporte]

Force me to.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, but I mean this is, this is, I think a value of a show like this is to say, look, this exists. It's an option. You may need it in the future, in which case now you know it exists. If you have been feeling this way for a while now, you wish this was something you could do, you can now do it, but don't do it just for fun. Right? Like it's not fun. Don't do it.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, definitely read the Apple support document because there are a whole bunch of caveats. I mean, just a whole lot of them. And I think already I see a few stumbling blocks. My, my Apple one account is on my icloud account. Not on my music TV show account apps account, which is probably part of the problem, But I use TestFlight on one of them.

[Jason Snell]

Oh yeah, A lot of developers reporting that. One of the things this does is it takes you out of. If you use that for test flight, it takes you out of all of those test flights. They all break. And you can't just re up from the interior location. You have to get a new link from the developer. And it turns out, at least for now, they may fix this because this was a. Maybe it was a bug. But like, if you tried to get your old link to go back in and sign in, it would say, sorry, you're already on this test flight, even though it was your old account and not your new account. So they would have to generate what's called a public link and send that to you and then you could be added back to the test flight. A lot of developers really angry about this feature because it broke a lot of people. People's test flights.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. This is why, like when I or anybody else like, think, oh God, this is such an obvious thing that Apple should let me do. Why don't they let me do it? Sometimes it's because it's strategic, sometimes it's because they don't care, and sometimes it's because, for reasons beyond our fathoming, doing this simple thing, because they didn't think about this 14 years ago when they set something up and they included some sort of a library. Oh my God, is that terrible?

[Jason Snell]

There's so much technical debt here. Right? Like, there's obviously huge amounts of technical debt about the whole Apple account infrastructure and the App Store infrastructure. I'm sure that when Apple set up itunes with music purchases, which is where this all started with the DRM rap music purchases, they built the whole thing that became the foundation of the App Store. I'm sure at that moment they were not conceiving that what they were building would ultimately have to honor and support all of Apple's services that would be a thousand times bigger than what it was at the time for 20 years, 25 years. Right. Like, and so it's all that tech debt that's sitting there. And you can see it. That's the thing I think is most fascinating about this story, is all those caveats. There is a detailed technical reason why every one of those caveats is there, and you don't want to know the reason, because it is a. It is a database format or it's a legal contract about the DRM key that is used, that is with the vendor of the app or the movie or whatever. Like there's a whole like you don't want to know but you can look at that list and see oh, like Andy said, this is why they haven't done it before because it's not how, how hard could it be? You could feature in a month. It's like no, it's really hard.

[Andy Inoko]

I, I have problems when it gets confused between my Mac and me.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah.

[Andy Inoko]

I mean you're the one that changed it. Like, like I've been using the same thing for you know or our iCloud mobile me.

[Leo Laporte]

Remember that? Oh man. Mobile.

[Andy Inoko]

So you know, why did this happen.

[Leo Laporte]

In the first place? How was I allowed to have two Apple accounts?

[Jason Snell]

Because the account you were using for purchases was not necessarily your account. There were a lot of people who did this where it was like then you set up an icloud account or you had a mobile Me account.

[Leo Laporte]

Smart.

[Jason Snell]

A lot of them was you had a mobile Me account and then you had an account attached to your email address. Also at one, at some point you could just sign up as a screen name and they've undone that recently. But like so you end up in this position where you've got like oh here's my email address for this but I already signed up for mobile me with a, you know, jsnell.com and now you've got the two and then 15 years passes and here we are.

[Leo Laporte]

You forgot why you did it in the first place.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

One of the accounts is my. Is my regular email. One of the accounts is a Mac email. What a mess. I'm not going to touch it but I do think the day is coming when Apple's going to say oh by the way you can't do this anymore. And then I'm going to be sad. Very, very sad. Who is Matt? Is it Gemmill or Gemmel you were writing about this Gemmel. He's a author horror.

[Jason Snell]

He's a former computer programmer and he does a bunch of stuff now including write books and still does some computer stuff stuff in Scotland and he wrote a piece about how he was going. He spent the last few years as iPad only and he went back to the Mac and what I like about.

[Leo Laporte]

8 1/2 years he's been using an iPad as his full time computer really.

[Jason Snell]

Does add to the.

[Alex Lindsay]

And serving as engineer of the enterprise.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. I can't take much more of this.

[Leo Laporte]

Captain in recent years we got an emergency. He use shared household M2 MacBook Air. So for so some reason he decided he does not. Even after eight and a half years, he's going back to Matt.

[Jason Snell]

So what I like about this is so many of these stories have appeared and they're always like angry and, and, and they're like no, the iPad is terrible and all that. And everybody goes, see, I told you, whatever battle they're, they want to fight at that moment. And what Matt's story is really good about is I enjoy, I don't agree with everything Matt wrote, but I really like the fact that he's really clear eyed about what's bad about the iPad and what's bad about the Mac.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Jason Snell]

Because he's kind of in this neutral space where he's able to look at the Mac now. He's, he's a longtime Mac user, but not for eight years and sees all the things about it that has somebody who used an iPad for eight years he now looks at and instead of taking it for granted is like, well that's just what the Mac is like. He's like, no, that's dumb. Why does it do it that way? But in the end he decided that there were too many things that he wanted to do and he really wanted like a desktop setup with a big screen and stage manager. Doesn't really do a very good job there. And it's not really great at multitasking. And that's what drove me.

[Leo Laporte]

I can't believe he's writing python ruvi and JavaScript code on his iPad.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, you can do it. You can do a lot. But I think that he. Anyway, it's, I actually liked it more not for why he went back to the Mac, but, but once he got there, the way he was able to define like things about the Mac and PCs in general, desktop computers in general, that as an iPad user he now looks at and thinks this is so primitive. Why do we do it this way? But I just like if you're a computer nerd like we are, I think it's a really cool perspective that I hadn't seen about deep into the iPad and what it is good for and what it can do and also then deep back into the Mac and having a different perspective about it. It's just a good, it's not at all what you would expect from a piece like this. It's long, it's thoughtful, it is balanced and it's smart.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, that's why it's important to be ecumenical about these things.

[Leo Laporte]

Yes, I agree.

[Alex Lindsay]

I mean if you, if you're an iPhone User Try Android. Try Android for a couple of days or try Mac. User Try Windows or Linux for a couple of days. After the first rash subsides, you will find out that you'll. You won't. You won't wish that you. You won't want to switch out of Mac. Mac, probably, but you will say, damn, it's so easy to do this on this platform. Why can't I do this on my iPhone? Why can't I do this on my Mac? And for the iPad, I mean, we've been having this conversation as a community about, oh, I can use my. My iPad's as good as a computer. Particularly after Apple decided to have a line of commercials saying that essentially the iPad should be treated like a computer.

[Leo Laporte]

What's a computer, Daddy?

[Alex Lindsay]

I mean, it's just. It's just a different type. As much as I'm hoping for some sort of reunification between multitouch and macOS, I appreciate the fact that the iPad is still excellent at what it does. The Mac is still excellent at what it does, and they don't necessarily have to process it.

[Leo Laporte]

Never, as they say in Scotland, shall the twain meet. You take the high road and I'll take the low road, he says. Like many people of my background and nationality, I have a bit of a Calvinist streak. I tried not to use things or enjoy things because of how I'd feel if they were taken away from me later. That's a very Celtic kind of attitude towards life. It's like, I'm not gonna like this because I. As soon as I do, they're gonna take it away from me. Now I won't. You know, it's interesting. We talked a couple of weeks ago about Tapestry Icon Factory's new kind of new and improved RSS reader. And weirdly, because I moved all my news feeds into it, I've been using my iPad a lot more. It is now my preferred device for the kind of news gathering I do for the shows that plus Raindrop have made, thanks to you, Andy, have made a very nice pair. And it's really changed my workflow a little bit.

[Alex Lindsay]

I'm really glad I'm in a position that I can actually have both. Because if I'm going to New York for three or four days, like, unless I need video, unless I need to do a podcast with video, it's like, there's no. The Mac is not only overkill, it's not fit for purpose. For all the things I want to do for three or four days, like including three and a half hours on a train, including doing some work in a coffee shop. And the fact that it complements the Mac so well, it justifies the amount of money I spend on it.

[Leo Laporte]

It's worth having both. I mean, I would hate to try to use Emacs and Commonlist on an iPad. Yeah, you know, that's my preferred coding platform and it's, you know, you gotta have a PC for that.

[Alex Lindsay]

And again, Mac, there are a lot of positive things about the Apple ecosystem as right now, right in front of me, I've got my MacBook Pro on the table, which is running the, running the zoom. And on top of that, in a little on a stand above it, I've got my iPad Pro essentially running as an external display. All the different ways that. And it's not a special thing, it's not a special app. It's not, oh, thank God it's working right now. It's just what the iPad does for me. And again, you know that I'm not the sort of person who can or wants to spend money frivolously. But when I said, you know what, when the iPad went into M1, the same CPU as the Max, I said, you know what? I think I've got 1200, $1300 for like a really, really good iPad. Given that I was already a really large iPad user and it's absolutely paid off everything that I hoped it would be, it has been, been.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, yeah, I agree with you, Jason. This is a really good piece to read just because of the pros and cons from somebody who's completely ecumenical. He says, for instance, the iPad slow, which I, you know, I Never really put two and two together. He has an M4 iPad Pro. It shouldn't be slower, but he says Macs are much quicker in terms of the responsiveness of every part of the interface and the interactions.

[Jason Snell]

Right. He says there's a lot of animation in the iPad interfaces. There's a lot of tap and hold kind of things that you have to do because it's a touch first interface. Whereas the Mac, you know, you can do a lot of keyboard shortcuts or very quick click and it knows that you're clicking or you're. Or right clicking and the iPad has to wait and see.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, I'm faster on the Mac.

[Jason Snell]

It's not.

[Leo Laporte]

The iPad is slower than the Mac. I'm, it's, you're faster on a Mac for many things.

[Jason Snell]

But I found it really amusing that he's, he was taken aback when he went to the Mac about like every Download. He does it says, do you want to let me download it from this website? He got all those warning dialogues that we been plagued with for the last few years in the Mac. And he's like, what is going on? Right? Like, and, and because for him it was new, basically. And that's an interesting, funny.

[Leo Laporte]

That is a different perspective. Yeah, we've, we, we're the frogs in the boiling water. He's the frog that jumped in while.

[Jason Snell]

The pot was, While the pot was hot. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And I also like, I mean, I actually, even though he's writing his kind of exit interview from the iPad, like, he does make it clear, like he's not doing it because he says you can't do write a book or design things or program on the iPad because he did all those things. And you can say, I prefer not to. But like, I like that. What Matt says is any argument that you can't do these things on the iPad is not true because he did them. He just has decided for various reasons that the Mac is a better place for him right now. And he even says at one point, like, I'm a different man than I was eight and a half years ago. I have kids in school and like, like I, I'm. I'm just a different person and I have different priorities. And that's that ecumenical view, I think too, which is like the right tool for the right person at the right moment. And that's why this is a special kind of piece, because it's not just, I hate the iPad and I'm switching back to the Mac. It's not, it's not done in anger or anything. It really is just sort of done at a remove and with some wisdom. And Matt's a good writer, so yeah, it's for people who think about this stuff. It's a fun, it's a fun read.

[Leo Laporte]

He points out Max Decay in a way that iPads generally don't.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, more maintenance required.

[Leo Laporte]

A lot more maintenance. Yeah.

[Andy Inoko]

My, I was downstairs, my daughter has the Original Mac, the 13 inch iPad Pro or whatever that I bought when it first came out and she's still watching YouTube on it. I mean, that's the challenge I think for Apple though is that, is that you do have, you know, and on the other side of that, my son just built a piece from scratch for me.

[Leo Laporte]

And in fact, on this most recent trip, I did not bring a Mac. I brought the iPad Pro and was fine is because I could do that main. And I think this is probably true of Everybody that one main thing that I have to do every day, which for me is check news feeds and bookmark them for the shows, worked so well on the iPad. I didn't need the Mac. Now one thing I did miss is my high end mail program on the Mac. I didn't have anything comparable on the iPad. So you know, there's pros and cons.

[Alex Lindsay]

And frankly my dependence on my iPad with my MacBook has meant that it's such a big drawback when there is an app that is not triple cross platform. My daily word processor is Ulysses. And I love the fact that doesn't matter if I start or continue a project on my Mac on my iPad, it's all synced via icloud. But I really wish I owned an iPhone so that I could use Ulysses on the iPhone. Not to start and finish projects, but oh, I want to add this to this project. And because there's nothing like that for Android, that's one of the points in favor of switching back to iPhone and I hate that.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Inoko]

I mean, I know that for me, notes is such a. I think people never look at note, like think about how powerful notes are. But for me, notes means that everything's everywhere. I'm in a meeting with someone, I open up my phone, I give it a good title and I sit there and I can sit there on my phone, I can type it on my computer and all of it's all integrated together. And I think that that is the thing, that ecosystem is really important. But I find myself, I have, you know, on my desk I have 5 or 6 Macs and 2 iPads and you know, all kinds of other stuff. And I do find what we've been talking about. I just switch gears all the time. Like I'm just, you know, the iPad is tactile. That's what I really use it for is tactile stuff. And then the stuff that Apple hides, we were talking about this in keynote. Like Apple hides features that are only available on the iPad, like if you want to. Like I was showing my son how to animate stuff on, on. And you can do it with keyframes or you can just drag something around on your iPad and do it. And I do think that it is slower. There's definitely. There's so many things to do on my Mac. I would never think about doing my PC but on my iPad. But I think that the stuff I do on my iPad I would never do on my Mac. I don't find them to be. I guess it's never occurred to me that I would do one or the other. When I go traveling, I have an iPad and a laptop and I just make a decision about which one I'm opening based on my behavior.

[Leo Laporte]

I think that's the ideal situation and for people who can afford it, it's probably the best way to go. But I was surprised. The iPad made a pretty good companion for our trip.

[Jason Snell]

I've traveled, I mean a little bit less now, but there was a long period there where I only ever traveled with an iPad if I could help it and not a MacBook Air. And I just took a trip this weekend. I went to LA for a few days and I just took my iPad Pro and I actually brought the magic keyboard just in case I needed something came up and I needed to write something or something which I used it once and then the rest of the time I just had it in the regular cover.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, see, I have a keyboard, I use the keyboard case. So it really is basically a MacBook Air.

[Jason Snell]

It's a laptop at that point.

[Leo Laporte]

It's a laptop. Completely different OS. Yeah. Is there a good iPad? I use MailMate on Mac and I know that for a lot of people it looks like a 20 year old program, but the power is really great under the hood. What do you guys use for email on your iPads?

[Jason Snell]

Apple Mail. For me it's the only place I use Apple mail is on iOS. I use mimestream on the Mac but.

[Leo Laporte]

Mimestream looks pretty cool if you use.

[Jason Snell]

Gmail and Mac Mimestream's the best. It's great. But otherwise I'm using Apple Mail.

[Andy Inoko]

Unfortunately, I have to admit I don't travel enough. So for me I have Apple Mail and I just, I'm not very responsive when I'm traveling. Like I'm traveling, you can get a hold of me if you know my text, you know, like I'm super responsive when I'm on my phone and I just tell people, hey, I'm traveling and I might get back to you for a little couple days. And so I don't. But I don't travel enough that matters.

[Leo Laporte]

The reason I use Mailman, I find for mail, the only way mail is useful to me is if I have a lot of rules that do a lot of pre filtering on the mail to make sure I don't miss the important stuff and I can find the stuff that's not important easily. And so I don't know if there's anything that could do that on the iPad.

[Andy Inoko]

One of my complaints with Mail itself is that there's no way to give Apple feedback. Like, for instance, if I have an Exchange server and someone else has an Exchange server and they send me an email and I have any kind of filter, like, move these into a folder. Apple Mail deletes the data. It literally just wipes it out. On the way in, it says, I got a mail. Like, literally, I have to check the email on my phone, but on my computer, it's for years, it's been this way, five years. But there's no way for me to tell Apple that other than the show, because there's no feedback on mail going, hey, by the way, your Exchange servers aren't getting along and it's deleting my emails. It's as if they didn't exist. People were saying, you didn't read my email and I didn't get it. And so the. And Apple. And it's just Apple Mail and it's just on the Mac and it's just if you put a folder where you take the Exchange and put it into a folder. So then I stopped using filters, and that's why I'm not very responsible.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Andy Inoko]

But the idea of going to another mail client, I'm just like, oh, I got so many accounts and so many things. And, like, the idea of doing it is I think about it and then I go back to what I'm doing.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. I mean, I probably could do the filtering that I do. I moved off Gmail to fast mail many years ago, so I would love to use my mail because it looks really great. But the filtering that I do, I just don't have any. I don't know what I can. Maybe I can. I don't know. Maybe I do it all on the fast server side.

[Andy Inoko]

I just. I fundamentally don't like email, so.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, I don't either. You used to say, don't call me, email me.

[Andy Inoko]

Now I just say, you can text me. If you don't have a text, like, but definitely don't call me. Like, you know, text me and ask if we can have a conversation. Like a. Are you free right now? Like, I'm definitely in that. That genera. I'm not that generation. But that mode of, like, no one. Like, are you really calling me out of nowhere?

[Leo Laporte]

I know. I agree. Really do that. My own daughter calls me and I said, why don't you text me ahead of time? I can't. My own daughter. I say, text me.

[Jason Snell]

She's.

[Leo Laporte]

You'd think she's a millennial, that she would know how to do that. But no, she says, I don't like to text. I want to call you.

[Andy Inoko]

I'm fine with people talking. I just want to know when they're calling.

[Leo Laporte]

So, yeah, just text me ahead of time, that's all. All right, we're gonna do the Vision Pro thing in a bit. So. By the way, John Ashley taking the week off. Is he on vacation? Is, is that what happened? Anthony? Is he going somewhere? He's not, he's not under the weather, he's just on vacation.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Good. I'm glad. Our guys, I think. Anthony, how many vacation days do you have accrued? Our guys won't take vacations. I'm pretty sure I'm, you're way over. Lisa keeps saying, Anthony, take a vacation.

[Andy Inoko]

I, I, I got, I got a.

[Alex Lindsay]

Week and a couple.

[Leo Laporte]

I like it when our guys take vacations. So Anthony Nielsen filling in for John Ashley this week. So I'm warning him, get the Vision Pro sound because we're going to play the Vision Pro theme in a moment. But first, a word from a sponsor, a dear friend. MacBreak Weekly brought to you by, literally brought to you by Cash Fly. I just did Matt Levine's podcast, I hope that comes out out, I think it's supposed to come out this month. And he asked, you know, we talked about how we met and all that and he is the founder of Cash Fly. He came to me almost 20 years ago when we were kind of in a crisis I could not figure out. We had hundreds of thousands of people downloading our various podcasts and I couldn't figure out how to do it. I had, I was borrowing bandwidth from AOL radio. If you, you'll believe that I was using BitTorrent. We were just like cobbling together all these solutions and Matt came to me and said, let us handle it. We can do it all for you. And they have. And I love CashFly. For over 20 years, CashFly has held the track record for high performing, ultra reliable content delivery. They serve over 5,000 companies. One of the reasons we love them, they're all over the world, 80 different countries. And you know, they have been so great for us for almost two decades now. They're the only CDN built for throughput ultra low latency video streaming. They can deliver video to over a million concurrent users with less than a second latency. If, if you're a gaming company, you'll love lightning fast gaming, delivers downloads faster, zero lag, glitches or outages. If you deliver images on the net, you'll love their Mobile content optimization. It's automatic. It will optimize your images so your site loads faster no matter what size screen, no matter what size device. And you don't even have to think about it. The thing that made a big difference to us is the flexible month to month billing. We didn't know, you know, what our bandwidth was going to look like from week one to week two and there were spikes all over the place. So it was great. They were very flexible with us. And then once we figured it out out and once you figure it out, because this is this, they'll do this for you too. You'll get discounts for fixed terms. The whole point was you could design your own contract. When you switch to Cash Fly and they're always adding new features. For instance, they just added a managed object storage. They have a new object storage solution designed to increase speed and reliability to industry leading levels. Because the hardware get this is based entirely on NVMe, which makes it really well suited to users who have a large number of small objects. Of course, still completely S3 compatible, it will easily integrate into your cash fly Moss S3 or any other tool set you've designed. There are no this. I Love this. Unlike S3, there are no egress or ingress costs. You just pay a flat volume fee. They just added a new pop. A new point of presence in Austria in Vienna, which is great for us. Our central European listeners should see significant improvements in latency and average transfer speed. Now, if you're a reseller, you will love the new features added to the reseller portal. You can now be classified as a reseller. Have numerous full accounts under your reseller account, each of which can operate independently, but the billing stays centralized. You'll like all the new features. Check that out. Cash Fly. They deliver rich media content up to 158% faster than other major CDNs. And and we've been doing this for a long time. They allow you to shield your site content in their cloud. All our content goes directly to them. Which means we have a 100% cash hit ratio. No slowdowns for for a cash miss. Everything's already there. And with Cash Flies Elite managed packages, you really do get the VIP treatment we really have. Your dedicated account manager will be with you from day one, ensuring a smooth implementation and reliable 24. 7 Support when you need it. The whole story of how Matt and I met and how he saved us is on that podcast. I'll let you know when it comes out. Meanwhile, you can learn how you can get your first month [e-mail] twit. I know you've heard me say it for almost 20 years now. Bandwidth for Mac Break Weekly is provided by CashFly at C-A-C-H-E-F-L-Y.com TWIT. Thank you, Cash Fly. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And now, ladies and gentlemen, it's time for the Vision Pro.

[Jason Snell]

What do you see?

[Leo Laporte]

What do you know? It's time to talk to Vision Pro. The NBA Apple Vision Pro app Now has a 3D tabletop view. You ever want to have Stephen Curry and LeBron on your table? Now you can.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, this is a tabletop kit which is a thing that Apple rolled out a little while ago and the NBA app got updated to use it.

[Leo Laporte]

They're so cute.

[Jason Snell]

Put objects on a surface.

[Leo Laporte]

Basically little tiny 8 foot tall people playing on my table. Have you tried it?

[Jason Snell]

I have not tried this one yet. Haven't had a chance.

[Leo Laporte]

I think that's, that's cool. Here's a little footage.

[Jason Snell]

This is like that F1 app you talked about. That was the sort of like concept of how you could do a sporting event in a, in a 3D space. So you put this so you can.

[Leo Laporte]

Feel like you're, you're actually in the, in the, in the bad seats way up at the top of the arena looking down.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, but you can, yeah, you can place it. Well, you place it higher or you lean down or whatever you want to do and it, it syncs with the audio of the broadcast.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, there is, according to Upload VR who has this story, a half second delay between the live stream and the representation. Yeah, I mean you expect a little bit of that. Tabletop is currently available for a few games per night. The NBA plans to make it available for all League Pass games next season. You do need a league pass application that's at $15 a month. But if you're a fan, you've got that.

[Jason Snell]

We saw baseball do this too. All the leagues are now thing where they've got cameras everywhere and they are 3D plotting and logging every single move that every single athlete makes. And this is one of the things you can do with it is you can then pipe that into a, A model and represent the actual action and animate it right on the field. Which is like the MLB app didn't have players I think last year. I wouldn't be surprised if it does this year. But it had like ball trajectories and things like that. And like this is. Yeah, this is where it's all going.

[Leo Laporte]

If they. If. If F1's coming back in March, if they brought this laps app back with a tabletop racetrack, I would literally go out and spend $3,500 on a vision Pro. Crazy as that sounds, but what a way to watch the race.

[Jason Snell]

I mean, that's what we've been saying about Vision Pro is. All it really takes is some amazing killer app, and you will get a class of person who will just buy it because they want the NBA courtside immersive or live Broadway theater or whatever, or F1.

[Leo Laporte]

Here's a better video of the. Of the NBA.

[Andy Inoko]

And one of the things is. Is just like with the F1, being able to see things at a different angle oftentimes, like right now, the angle that they're. That we're showing here is. Okay, it's something you could have in the theater. One of the things that we found when we were shooting, I was shooting some NBA stuff, we found that we could get way more vertical, and you wouldn't see the jumbotron the way you think you would. And so you were almost over. Right over top of the over court, and you could see the plays way better. You can understand what was happening.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Andy Inoko]

So when you see it right from above, you suddenly go, oh, I see. I understand what. And we get that a little bit with football because we can get up so high with the. You know, and so that makes sense. And so suddenly you understand like, oh, this is what this is. This is how they're blocking, or this is what the screen looks like. And this is what. Especially if you have an expert there that's drawing on it and talking about it. But the point is, is that you can see those angles in a way that you could. You can get angles from these kinds of things without, you know, in ways that you could never get unless you had access to the catwalks.

[Alex Lindsay]

And also the really big deal is the ability of the viewer to look at what they want to look at. Because sometimes, like, you don't. Especially with a game like basketball, where you think that it's like, okay, it's just pan left, pan right, pan left, pan right. But maybe your particular area of interest is what about the people who are at the. Who are at the middle of the court, who are just basically waiting for the ball to move, to move to the other side for the dunk to go? If you can actually take a look at that and make sure that you're seeing what you want to do, baseball is going to be so much huger for that. Because every time I see live baseball, there are times when I'm not necessarily following the ball. It's like, I want to see what that third baseman is setting up for, or I want to see, like, where the left fielder is playing. Because, like you say, oh, God, he came in a little bit, and now he's, like, shifting a little bit. Okay. Something. He anticipates this back batter to go to left field and then for this other thing to happen. Whereas if you're just watching tv, it's like, again, the pitcher batter duel is always engrossing. But sometimes you just. Your attention is someplace else.

[Andy Inoko]

The part of it. Part of it's also controlling the narrative. You know, one of the problems with football, for instance, with American football, is that there's a penalty every. Every play. There's a couple. There's probably five or six penalties every play, and the refs are deciding which ones are egregious enough that they're gonna. It's. It's all subject. It's all subjective. It's not like, what were they holding? Half holding. They're always, you know, they're always holding.

[Leo Laporte]

Is it Kansas City? Oh, then we won't call it. Well, but.

[Andy Inoko]

But, you know, like, it's. It's like, you know, there's certain players, like, you know, like, as a Steeler fan, you're like, well, TJ Watt gets held every play, otherwise he'd get a sack every other play. Right. And so. And then we'll take. Take all the fun out of the game. And so. And so. But for me, I would just watch. I would just want a camera on TG Watt, and then I would just complain on Twitter, you know?

[Leo Laporte]

And, like, you would know.

[Andy Inoko]

Yeah, like, because I would know. And if you let people watch things too closely, they'll understand that. And. And then you have to try to explain to them, like, hey, we can't call every.

[Leo Laporte]

Do they have this for other sports? Can you do it in baseball? Is there.

[Andy Inoko]

These are harder. The basketball works really well for this. I. This R D has been going on for a long time. Basketball works really well because it's the right distance, you know, so it's. The court is small enough that it's large enough that you don't get so close to people. You see how the resolution of the 3D, but it's. It's large, and it's small enough that you can get your arms around it. As far as digitization, the problem with baseball and football and even hockey to some degree. But hockey gets into that. It could do what you're doing in basketball as well. But with baseball and football, the fields are so big. Trying to digitize that it's coming, but it's more difficult than. And it's more messy than basketball, you know, football. The problem is there's a lot of intersection between the players. In a way, there's some intersection between the players in basketball, but not nearly at the same level as football. So it's just those occlusions of capture makes it much harder to capture.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, that's why baseball's perfect. The players hardly interact at all.

[Andy Inoko]

Well, it is, except that they're really small on a big field. So the thing is, there's this. Basketball sits in this kind of happy space.

[Leo Laporte]

It's perfect.

[Andy Inoko]

If you do boxing, you really want to use pure video because like dimensional video, like immersive video or whatever looks great in MMA and boxing and wrestling, because you're close enough that all that, you know, the 3D feel really feels 3D. And as you go bigger, then these other ones work better. So it just depends.

[Leo Laporte]

Right? Right. Let's see. Did Apple have a press briefing on the Vision Pro? The their 9 to 5 max. Thought they were going to have one on Friday. But you would know, Jason.

[Jason Snell]

I wouldn't know.

[Alex Lindsay]

No, I didn't see any mention of it.

[Jason Snell]

I'd say. I'd say Mark Gurman. Mark Gurman seemed to have a really detailed report about what's going on with Vision Proud Intelligence. And if people were briefed, somebody, I guess, talked to Mark Gurman. I don't know, being counterproductive, but it.

[Leo Laporte]

Was a full Sunday slate, wasn't it? Of his power on newsletter. I was trying to bookmark it and I realized I can't pick the one thing that this is about.

[Andy Inoko]

I would love to see. I think he talked a little bit about the idea of making the guest mode a little bit better, which I think would be huge. I've given up trying to show people the Vision Pro. It's just too many clicks and too many things and trying to get them to the right apps. What happens? Right now, it's all or nothing. No apps or all your apps. Apps. The problem is I got tons of apps I can't just expose. Unless Jason may know something I don't know. But I can't expose the eight apps that I think you should, you know, like, I want you to go in as a guest and here are the eight apps that you should play with in the order that I want you to play them, you know, and so that you understand what the headset can do. And that's not a doable thing.

[Leo Laporte]

There was some speculation that Apple might be allowing third parties to sell a Vision Pro. Did anything come of that? That.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. So someone found an app that basically seems to be like a standalone app version of a demo fit and use that discovery to speculate that maybe big box stores are going to get it, maybe third parties are going to get it again. They've got stock, they got to move it. So maybe at this point they realize they know enough about the setup process and the tryout process that they can let someone who does not have an Apple badge actually lead the demonstrations.

[Leo Laporte]

All right. And Civ 7 on the vision Pro.

[Alex Lindsay]

Oh God. I put that in because. So it's the most beautiful tabletop, like looking VR game I've ever seen. This is the sort of thing where if it wouldn't be worth $3,500 to buy a Vision Pro, he is using.

[Leo Laporte]

A. I should point out, a meta. Corporate quest.

[Alex Lindsay]

Exactly. It's not. So they had, they had a release video that's coming out like in a month or two and it's only available for like meta quest. But that's like, oh, God. Why is this not available for Vision Pro? Because this is again, the sort of thing where it would help me to. I would be not only inspired to get a Vision Pro, it would be. I would be inspired to like cultivate friends who also have Vision Pro. So we could play this.

[Jason Snell]

Are you.

[Leo Laporte]

So you're a civ fan?

[Alex Lindsay]

I like the game. I've never really gotten into it, but it's like, that's the sort. It's like, I like Settlers of Catan, but I love the idea of having.

[Leo Laporte]

A live board game rather than.

[Alex Lindsay]

But the idea of having this like complicated terrain that sort of manifests in front of you.

[Leo Laporte]

It's pretty cool.

[Alex Lindsay]

Little things hitting each other. It'd be like, oh, that looks like fun.

[Leo Laporte]

I think it would be better in VR. When Civ 7 came out last week, I played it for, you know, a couple of days. It's okay. I mean, I'm not a civ kind of guy, but it would be kind of cool in VR. It might be kind of really neat to be able to look at my people click on their little heads.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah. Tabletop. I'm remembering like back in the old days I played. There was Bungie game called Myth.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, loved Myth.

[Jason Snell]

That was basically like warriors on a field, armies on a field. And you had to, like, walk them around. And I was thinking games like that would be fantastic in tabletop mode on something like a Vision Pro, because you could have a whole battlefield. It's like somebody who paints miniatures and does war games, except it's a video game and they move. Right. That's really interesting. Those are all fun potential applications, I will say. There's just this. There's a tabletop game for Vision Pro that currently exists, and it's nothing interesting. Right. It's like Battleship and a couple other hearts and stuff like that. But I'll tell you this. Once those objects get put in your space in augmented reality, it's amazing how real they look like. You forget that they're not really there. And that means there's potential for games like this to be played in tabletop modes.

[Leo Laporte]

Do you remember Jerry Ellsworth? She used to come on the show quite a bit. She started a company called Tilt 5. The whole idea was you would wear these augmented reality spectacles and then you'd have tabletop gaming. She was so cool. I don't know if it. It took off. Did you hit. You had a set of them, didn't you, Anthony? The Tilt file.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

You were trying to get rid of it, as I remember. Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

I think we gave it to one of the.

[Leo Laporte]

Somebody get it. One of the fans in the studio, but.

[Jason Snell]

Oh, I mean, it was a little.

[Leo Laporte]

Still, it's like there were some issues, but, like, the premise was good. It was the same idea of this. You know, it was a dedicated tabletop gaming thing. You had to have, though. It was weird. A special tablecloth that you would use and you'd wear these glasses.

[Alex Lindsay]

It was just a little projector lenses or. Yeah, glasses with projectors.

[Leo Laporte]

And it'd bounce it back to your.

[Jason Snell]

Into your eyes.

[Leo Laporte]

It's just a little too awkward. I think Vision Pro will get us there at some point.

[Andy Inoko]

There's moments in all of these, you know, there's games that you go, oh, this would be great if they did more of this. Like, you know, obviously Robo Recall call on the Quest or on Oculus, when it came out, the HTC One, where you had the little arrows that you shot at. I get sore firing at all these little folks that are trying to run at you and everything else, and you feel like, oh, this is the future. But then you just don't see more app. You don't see more games like that. That's the problem is really getting it all in one place and then having enough of them that people Feel like it's necessary.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. All right, that's our. I think that's it. Right. Anything else to say? Is there any new. Anything, Any. Where's the camera? Is the Ursa out yet? Is it coming soon? Where do we stand?

[Andy Inoko]

It is rumored to be before nab. Okay, so we're hoping to nab. I mean, it doesn't sound like a lot of people will get them. I mean, I'm hoping to get mine by August. August, you know, so the. But I think that, you know, nab. We hear the. Usually what happens with Black Magic is whatever they have announced throughout the year before gets delivered by nab because they don't want to stand in the booth and explain why it's not there. So I think that there's a lot of pressure to have it done or have some of them done before then. So I don't think we don't expect to see a lot of stuff there, but I think that. I do think it's going to create a huge flow of content. I mean, there's a lot of people that I know that are. I mean, all of us are on the list. Like, everybody I know has put $10,000 down is on the list and trying to figure out, like, when anybody who's done any VR, this is the camera, you know, and so they're all hungry to get the camera and start shooting. And so. So we'll see what happens before. Before add an ab. And then next, over the summer, I think we'll see. Probably see footage from it, maybe some footage at nab, and then a bunch of footage. Probably wwc.

[Leo Laporte]

Good. And that's the.

[Jason Snell]

No, no, no. I mean, I don't think we caught it all. Like what. What German is saying is that There's a Vision OS 2.4 with Apple Intelligence. So finally bring Apple Intelligence to the platform with 2.4, which is expected, he says, as early as April, but that there could be a beta as early as this week. Week with the usual stuff that you'd expect from Apple Intelligence and an app for spatial content on the device, whatever that means. But that's like a new showcase app for spatial stuff on the device. And yeah, as we mentioned, the revamped guest mode, whatever that means, but there's plenty of opportunity for improvement there. So we were talking about the anniversary of the Vision Pro a couple weeks ago, and one of the things I said is, you got to give them credit. It's not moving as fast in certain areas as we would like, but the Vision Pro's gotten appreciably better with software updates over the last year. And this is a really good sign that there's another one coming that's going to add more stuff in. And the fact that it was the platform that was left out of those Apple intelligent announcements in June, it's getting it a little late, but it's getting it in the cycle that everybody else got Apple intelligence. So. So like they're pushing the ball forward and we'll have to see, you know, how they implement all of this stuff and whether it's actually useful or not. But I like that they're working on it and I like that some of the stuff that Mark Ehrman's reporting on here suggests that they're working on the areas that we all know they need to put work into. So that's a good sign.

[Leo Laporte]

Anybody, should I call it?

[Andy Inoko]

That's it.

[Jason Snell]

That's now, you know, we're done talking.

[Andy Inoko]

The Vision Pro.

[Leo Laporte]

All right, little break and then your picks of the week. My friends, Alex Lindsey, Jason Snell, Andy and Otko. You're watching Mac Break Weekly. We're so glad you're here.

[Jason Snell]

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[Leo Laporte]

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[Jason Snell]

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[Leo Laporte]

Many of you watching live. It says zero people watching live, but I'm sure that's not sure that's undercounted. If you are watching live on one of our eight platforms, YouTube, Twitch, X.com TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook Kick. Oh, and let's not forget our Club Twit members watching in Discord. It's great to have you. Oh, I see, 500, was it 900? No, that's the episode number. Well, I, I don't know how many people watching live. Usually it's around a thousand people. Most people watch the show after the fact because it's a podcast. You can download it, watch it at your leisure on your device or on YouTube in places or on our website. If, if you are a member of the club, you get a special version of it. You get the ad free version, which is a very nice thing to have. You also get access to the club Twit Discord where you can watch live and chat with other people watching. But of course the Club Twit Discord continues 24 7. So there's always, always a great conversation waiting for you people to hang out with. Good friends await and we have special events in our club. Things like Stacy's Book Club, which is coming up on the 27th. Micah's crafting corner. That was. Did we do that already this month or is it coming up? I feel like it's coming up tomorrow for some reason. Yes, tomorrow it is tomorrow. All right. That's always a kind of a fun chill hang, as the kids say. We do the photo thing with Chris Marquard in there. Yeah. 6pm Pacific tomorrow. Micah's Crafting Corner. Stacy's Book Club. I'm quickly reading those. Beyond the Wall. Very good book. Really fun. We're gonna have a lot of fun talking about it. Our next photo time is March 6th. Bold is the word of the, of the week, of the month. All of this for seven bucks a month. It seems like a pretty good deal if you're not yet a member of the club. And we would really love it if you would please go to Twit TV Club Twit and join. We'd love to have you. Twit TV Club Twit Pick of the week time. Andy Inoco, kick it off for us.

[Alex Lindsay]

I was looking at a piece of software that I'm not really ready to talk about yet. So instead I'm going to recommend like one of these Buy it for life sort of things. This is one of the.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, the Tom Bin bag.

[Alex Lindsay]

Ah yes, Tom Bin Synapse.

[Leo Laporte]

I bought one you recommended this many years ago. I still have mine and I wanted.

[Alex Lindsay]

And I thought it was, I thought it's valuable because I, I think that I recommended it when I first Got it. They said they actually, they actually sent me one to try out. And it was one of those terrible, terrible situations where it's like, I love it. This is perfect. And now I have to buy one for my own because I'm really not allowed to accept something for my personal use. I gave it, I gave it away. But this one, it's been, I've been using it for I think something close to 10 years now. And look at this thing. The straps are not fraying or not pulling out anywhere. There is very, very little wear and tear on this. And I use this all the time. This one, it's available in several different sizes, but the Recommendation of the 25 specifically is, is that this is like the perfect size for again like two or three or four days in New York City when I'm traveling on an airplane. Perfect carry on size. It's also perfect for when I'm walking to the market. I can basically put nearly a week's worth of groceries in there. The straps are beautifully curved and implemented so that it feels super, super comfortable on your back. Has a waist strap, has a chest strap strap so you can hang things, hang things off of it. The only thing that might turn off some people and it turned off me at the very first time is that it doesn't really have any organization inside. It does have a couple straps. So again, if you've got clothes inside there, it'll strap it down. But. And has an inside pocket here and it's got an inside laptop pocket, but it doesn't have like a million pockets for, oh, this is for your pencils and this is, is a pocket that holds your CD wallet. But the thing is, what it does have is large size pockets that you can really, really set up exactly the way you want. And by the time you have this for like a few weeks or maybe a month, you will figure out exactly what each one of these things is specific for. And to be honest, it's much, much better for me to organize it by, by having in individual pouches, individual bags that I've sourced from here and there and everywhere and basically pack it up. That way it unzips all the way to the bottom so that when you are packing for a long trip, you can pack it nicely from the very bottom to the very top. But mostly I just want to say that this is just, it's not a cheap, obviously it's not cheaply made and it's not cheap. This version of the 25 is $250, which was the most I'D ever. Mostly at that point, the only time I'd bought. I don't think I bought backpacks. I simply, like, would speak at conferences and use the free backpack they would give me as part of the speaker thing. But the fact that I've been using this every week, sometimes every day, and I can't see a single piece of damage on this, it seems like this thing is going to last. Last absolutely until 10 years after I die. This really is a buy it for life thing. And if you don't need something that's as big as this, they do make it in other sizes. They do make it in, like, day pack sort of sizes and. But they also make it in a range of colors. Highest recommendation. Again, it's rare that you have a situation where I can Recommend Something again 10 years later, and I cannot fault it at all. I'm not going to buy another one because this one is still in perfect shape. Shape. I just absolutely love it.

[Leo Laporte]

So.

[Alex Lindsay]

Highest recommendation. Tom BIN Synapse line of backpacks.

[Leo Laporte]

Tom BI H N if you're looking for it on the Internet. And yeah, I've had mine for ever since you recommended yours. So, yeah, 10 years or something. Yeah. Thank you.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. Every. I pack this every week for my trip here to the library with all that my podcasting stuff, and it feels like I'm aware of how heavy this backpack is, but it doesn't feel that way. It's just beautifully balanced.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't remember it costing so much back in the day.

[Alex Lindsay]

Now it's 10 years ago.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, it was a long time ago. I'm just logging in now to see what I bought and when. Jason Snell, Pick of the week.

[Jason Snell]

Well, inspired by Andy, I just took a trip with a new backpack that I bought because likewise, I used to use. I had a Brent Haven backpack that I got at a conference, and I used it forever. And I even bought an identical one on ebay when it was dying and then used that forever. And I thought, you know What? Maybe after 20 years, you should buy yourself a backpack guy.

[Leo Laporte]

So I did.

[Jason Snell]

Mine is a little bit different. It is the Bellroy Transit backpack, and they also have one, the work pack. That sounds fancy. It's really nice. It's got a separate exterior padded enclosure for your laptop and or iPad. I can travel in that without any trouble. There's also a little smaller enclosure in that padded space that will fit a small E reader if you want to go that way. There's a zipper pocket for your sunglasses right on top, which is completely Unnecessary, but fun. And then the bulk of the space is a very large space that is shaped in a really nice way where you could essentially pack for a few days with your clothes and your bathroom bag and all of that in this separate space away from your computer. And so that's where I can pack for a trip, a short. Like a weekend trip, and not even bring a carry on. And then of course, on the other side. Side, just as with Andy's backpack, there's a couple different mesh bag enclosures that you can put other bags in or just put loose stuff in. Air pods are a good one for up here. And then I just love the extra clever stuff. So there's a. There's a whole front document pocket here, place to put pens, place to put your wallet, place to put your id, maybe your phone when you're going through security. And then tucked in on the back on the side. My old backpack had a. Had a pocket sticking off of it where you could put a water bottle or a can of soda or something like that. That. And this doesn't have that. And it made me sad until I realized there's a secret compartment right in the back in which you can slide that water bottle and either leave it unzipped, sticking out, or you can a. A shorter one. You can put it in there and. And zip it right up. And there's even a secret tag location where you can fold their tag over. And there's a. There. The Bellroy tag is itself a pocket into which you can slide an Air pod or not an AirPod, and you can slide an airtag. So they have a.

[Leo Laporte]

And it's $80 less than the top bin bag.

[Jason Snell]

Is it better, Is it a better value than Andy's bag? I don't know because I haven't seen Andy's bag except on this very show. But if you're looking for a. What I like about it, they have a smaller one that's actually really nice if you're not packing that much stuff. But this one is versatile enough that you could go for, you know, three or four days with your computer and your clothes and stuff. And.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, this one is more expensive. That's the transit backpack plus $319.

[Jason Snell]

Mine. Mine is the 179 transit work pack. And the Bellroy bags are also very nice, just like the Tom bins are. And I think what Andy and I are trying to say here is treat yourself to a good backpack and stop using that backpack that you got in 2003. Okay? Get a nice one they're modern. They got lots of good features. Do it. That's all.

[Leo Laporte]

My recommendation is the Tumi backpack, which I've had for ages. It's what I carry with me on every trip, including that trip to the rock show. I didn't put any rocks in it. I don't know which model I have, but these are even more expensive than the Bellroy and the Tom Bin. But I have a kind of a thing for packs, and the Toomey's are quite nice.

[Andy Inoko]

Somehow I ended up on the bottom of the cost list.

[Leo Laporte]

Yep, you are the cheapest thing, at least today. Holy cow. Wow. Wow.

[Andy Inoko]

This is. This is the tactical 511.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, wait a minute. We're all doing backpacks?

[Andy Inoko]

I figured. Well, I figured I had something else, but I was like.

[Leo Laporte]

This is a tactical backpack. Oh, it says.

[Andy Inoko]

Yeah, it's got little, like, Velcro thing. For another $8, you can order this on Amazon.

[Leo Laporte]

Can you get it? Say, FBI or police?

[Andy Inoko]

Mine says Pixel Core as the old Pixel Core stack sticker.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, look at that.

[Andy Inoko]

These were our standard issue. So when you were hired at Pixel Core, we just handed you one of these bags and put your name on it and stuff like that. Or like, okay, here, you got to put your name on it because. And then we. I also put it on the handle because we would have, like, eight of them stacked together. But, you know, the big thing is tons and tons of pockets on the inside. This one's almost. It's got. You can put. You can add webbing to the outside this. These straps, which I put tripod. A tripod in to. And so I just hang. I hang a tripod when I'm doing it when I'm out and about, and it's almost indestructible. That backpack has been on six continents, so. So it's. It's. It's been just thrown around for many years, and it seems to have survived. But the big thing is having all the little pockets. I know where everything is. And all the. You know, it's like. I don't know. There's like, 25 pockets built into it. It's kind of like a Scotty vest, but a bag and. So what are you gonna say, Andy?

[Alex Lindsay]

I was just gonna say, hey, I love 511. I'm actually wearing my 5.11 tactical pants, my tactics, my favorite utility pants. But the only thing I really. That I wish that my bin bag had was at least a section of that webbing that your backpack has, because it's like a Mole like tactical webbing so that you can actually buy a third party pouch and put it on the outside. So if there is something you want to have quick access to from the outside, you can quickly just add it and customize it the way you want.

[Andy Inoko]

And then it's got this soft area on the back. This is actually where I put my laptop. I can put my laptop and my, my iPad in here. So it's right against my back.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Andy Inoko]

And then that was mine too.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Andy Inoko]

And then it fits, it fits my. And it fits this. This is the bag that my headset goes in and that goes. Goes very nice. And so it. All of those things just kind of thump into the bag. I used to want to have all these compartments, but I mean for my, you know, all the soft compartments. But I found that once I could put it into my back, right behind my back, it was easier to manage that way.

[Alex Lindsay]

So, yeah, I mean, what you pay just quickly. What you pay for is comfort. The difference in not just durability, but the way, again, the way these straps on this bag are laid out. I almost, if I pack this correctly, I'm aware of the weight, but it's not dragging me down. And that's, I think, the difference between $100 backpack and a $250 or $300.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm sure this was a very expensive backpack, but it's also very comfortable and it has my name on it, but I don't have my last name, just the first name on mine. And Andy, you'll be happy to see you recommended some time ago these little portable lights.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yes.

[Leo Laporte]

And I have this attached to my backpack in case the plane flips over and I need to get my. Make my way out of it. Never. Never. Yes. If it's upside down, this comes in great handy. And if, you know, if you want people to find you, you can have it be a flasher. You recommended those some time ago and I bought a bunch of them. Yeah, yeah. This is. I. This, this has been all around the world with me. So I guess this is also a.

[Alex Lindsay]

And it doesn't. And I mean we're. Humans are weird creatures. It's like the more you use it, the more you. My traveling companion. It's like I've. I've tossed this on the, on the beds of a hundred different hotel rooms, being exhausted through a hundred different adventures on many different continents. It's like I would, if, if this thing ever did break down, I would be. My instinct would be to replace it immediately, but I would say maybe There is somebody I could send this to that could fix it. I don't care if it looks ugly. I just want my. My. I just want my backpack with all that. My. With wear and tear on it.

[Leo Laporte]

I think this ended up being mine because it had so many pouches. But also, I like leather, and this is a nice brown leather thing. I mean, just. It just looks nice and feels nice. Anyway, I didn't know it was gonna be backpack week. I had to run down the hall.

[Jason Snell]

Figure.

[Andy Inoko]

We took it.

[Alex Lindsay]

I'm an influencer and a thought.

[Jason Snell]

Good idea.

[Leo Laporte]

Look, you are a thought.

[Jason Snell]

When I said yes to being on this show every week, the one thing that I gave me pause was, was, does that mean I have to do a pick of the week every single week? It's a lot of weeks in the year. There's a lot of things to pick. So Andy has a good idea, and I'm like, oh, great. Backpack time. Let's do it.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, why not?

[Jason Snell]

Why not?

[Leo Laporte]

I have certainly purchased many of Andy's recommendations, including that bag.

[Alex Lindsay]

Can I also add that if you're doubting the power of each of our recommendations, realize that, like, every one of us had this thing nearby handy.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, that's true.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's still being used every single day. We didn't have to go and run to the basement and go into a closet to find out where we stored it. It's there because. No, this is what we carried into the office or whatever today.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, I just. I literally just took mine to Tucson with me, and everywhere I go, it goes with me. It's my carry on that's important. A guy has to have a carry on on. Mr. Andy Naka, when are you going to be on GBH next?

[Alex Lindsay]

I was supposed to be on Thursday. I got bumped to Monday. So Monday, 1pm Go to wgbhnews.org to stream it live or later.

[Leo Laporte]

Lovely. So nice to see you, Andrew. Alex Lindsay is at Office Hours Global. Always a lot of fun. Every morning, learn about every kind of media production and on and on. It's just incredible.

[Andy Inoko]

Seven days a week.

[Leo Laporte]

Seven days a week. There's also the. The YouTube channel, which is Office Hours.

[Andy Inoko]

Global, and the records of five days a week. On the weekends, we still meet. We just don't stream it. And then we also have. We have evenings, Mondays and Thursday evenings, and we're already scheduling Tuesdays and Wednesday evenings are on the way, but I won't. I'm. I'm not on those shows.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, good. You don't have to be there for everything.

[Andy Inoko]

I'm not I'm on the Monday the Monday night show show up relatively often for and it's it's just a little each one of them's like we're using different technology to do the show and we're also it's usually a slightly different format. So we're kind of constantly playing with the ideas.

[Leo Laporte]

I think actually I won the backpack wars. I was just looking at the Tumi.

[Andy Inoko]

Prices and for the high one. Yeah, exactly.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

They, they do have a mall presence that they got to pay for. So.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Wow. I didn't realize I'm sure when I bought it it wasn't $1,500. Mr. Jason Snell6colors.com It's a must read if you are into the Mac or just into great writing and people. Your last update with Mike Hurley before his paternity.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah I've got like eight weeks of guest hosts coming in for upgrade because Mike is having Mike and his wife are having a baby next week.

[Leo Laporte]

So but you Apple draft which is.

[Jason Snell]

Always a fun we did a draft this time because we don't know exactly what's going to be announced and when. That is a fun game we play where we try to predict what's going to happen. And this time the solution is it's things that will happen between now and when Mike returns from paternity leave. So we have basically an eight week window. So we were predicting like not just the iPhone SE but maybe there'll be a MacBook Air, maybe there'll be a new Apple home product product. Who knows. And, and it's a funny time frame of of eight weeks. So we'll see what happens. But it was a nice way to send him off to talk about when is all the things he'll miss.

[Leo Laporte]

Is the baby due this week or.

[Jason Snell]

Baby do I think end of this week beginning and next? I think so. He's but he's off as of the end of this week.

[Leo Laporte]

Thank you Mr. Snell.

[Jason Snell]

Thank you.

[Leo Laporte]

Thank you Mr. Notco. Thank you Mr. Lindsay and thanks to all of you for being here. We do Mac break Weekly every Tuesday 11:00am Pacific 2:00pm Eastern Time 1900 UTC. Of course you can watch it live but really why you've got a you're a busy person. You should just download it. You can go to our website, Twitter, tv, mbw. There's audio and video versions there if you can. I always recommending the video version. I just saw blog post by somebody who said if you're a podcaster and you're not doing video. You're really missing the boat. We've been doing video since like 2009. I mean, I guess we were a little ahead of the game. In fact, actually, Alex, you started Mac Break as a video podcast.

[Andy Inoko]

We started doing Twit. I remember we recorded it at the, at. At those bars and it was a bar and the first one was recorded in. It doesn't exist anymore. It was the. A bar in Larkspur Landing. Remember we.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh yeah.

[Andy Inoko]

It was like in the, in the. Wherever you came in. And that was fun.

[Leo Laporte]

We did one at the Apple Store. I told Leo where everybody got hacked.

[Andy Inoko]

Like, yeah, we can edit it all together. And then I spent. I had to pull an all nighter to get figure out how to do it. I was like, multicam. I've never done multicam before.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, those were the days. We figured it out. Now it's all just zoom, right?

[Andy Inoko]

Yeah, yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Ecamm and zoom.

[Andy Inoko]

A lot easier than all those XL2s.

[Leo Laporte]

But lots of people like to listen. You know, the guy said even if you're in the car, download the video version. You can listen but you'll always have the video. That's a good point. You can go and refer to it and you could see my flying toasters on my original Mac Classic. Thank you, Jammer B. You could see that it's leet time right now. You could see the Mac Break. You know, there's all sorts of stuff you can see on this show, including our beat up old backpacks. Yeah, lots of them.

[Andy Inoko]

Backpacks.

[Leo Laporte]

But if, if you don't want to download them from the website, there is a video channel at YouTube. There's a link there at the website. Twitter TV MBW. Best way to do it it though subscribe in your favorite podcast player and you'll get it automatically the minute it's available. Course club members get special ad free versions as well. Join the club. We'd love to have you. Thank you everybody for being here. It is my sad duty however, to say you got to get back to work because break time is over. Bye bye. Stay on top of tech trends without the time sink Twitter TV's short form podcasts are built for busy leaders like you, delivering essential insights in minutes. Hands On Mac and Hands On Windows provide quick tips for Mac and PC while Hands On Tech quickly addresses common tech challenges to keep your operations running smoothly. If your conference room needs an upgrade, Home Theater Geeks explores the best screen and sound systems. And if you like watching the shows, join Club Twit to get full video access and ad free versions and more. Get technology that Matters on your schedule. Download our short format shows now at TWiT TV or your favorite podcast player.