MacBreak Weekly 961: Put A Handle On It

Summary

MacBreak Weekly 961: Put A Handle On It
Released on February 26, 2025
Host: Leo Laporte | Panelists: Andy Ihnatko, Jason Snell, Alex Lindsay

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Introduction

In Episode 961 of MacBreak Weekly titled "Put A Handle On It," host Leo Laporte and his panelists—Andy Ihnatko, Jason Snell, and Alex Lindsay—delve into some of the most pressing topics in the Apple ecosystem. From the unveiling of Apple's new iPhone 16e to significant policy shifts regarding encryption and a substantial investment promise to the U.S., the panel provides insightful analysis and lively discussion.

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**1. Apple's New iPhone 16e: A Shift Away from the Budget Market

The episode opens with an in-depth discussion about Apple's latest release, the iPhone 16e. Mark Gurman's report indicates that Apple is stepping back from producing budget smartphones with this model, pricing it at $600—$170 more than its predecessor, the SE.

Key Points:

• Pricing and Market Positioning:
  Andy Ihnatko expresses mixed feelings about the 16e's pricing, noting, "I'm trying to figure exactly who the 16e is for, and I haven't decided yet what it is" (01:32). The panelists compare the value offered by Android competitors at similar price points, suggesting that Android phones may offer more features for the money.

• Technical Specifications and Cost-Cutting Measures:
  Jason Snell highlights that the iPhone 16e is constructed using "various old parts and one new part," emphasizing Apple's move to maintain its profit margins: "Apple is just not going to turn down their traditional profit margin on hardware" (05:05).

• Target Markets and Global Strategy:
  The discussion touches upon Apple's strategy to compete in markets like China with mid-level phones that offer Apple’s prestige at a lower cost. Alex Lindsay questions the actual sales figures, given that many consumers receive phone upgrades through carrier plans, making out-of-pocket purchases less common: "I do whatever. It is on the... I was just like, oh, I really need a little more RAM or I need a little bit more of that" (04:52).

Notable Quote:
Leo Laporte summarizes the panel's sentiment: "The 16 is the base case. The 16E is a sub-brand below it and beneath it. And that's just what it is now" (07:05).

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**2. Apple's Stance on Encryption and the UK Investigatory Powers Act

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to Apple's response to the UK's Investigatory Powers Act (often referred to as the Snoopers’ Charter). The UK government had reportedly requested that Apple provide keys to access encrypted data globally, a demand Apple has refused.

Key Points:

• Discontinuation of Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the UK:
  Andy Ihnatko notes, "Apple has announced no more ADP for the UK," suggesting compliance only in a limited and regulated manner: "They have to have the keys... they have to basically show the paperwork to Apple and put a... it's no longer a secret" (41:57).

• Implications for User Privacy:
  The panel discusses the impact on users who rely on iCloud backups for their data. With ADP turned off, iCloud data becomes accessible to UK law enforcement upon proper legal request, though end-to-end encryption for services like Messages remains intact: "Apple has access to everything stored in the iCloud. Unless you turn ADP on" (50:37).

• Apple’s Legal and Ethical Position:
  The discussion underscores Apple's commitment to user privacy, even at the cost of easing certain protections in specific regions: "Apple does not want to be under the thumb of Qualcomm... it's a convergence of wanting to go to an OLED Face ID platform and having Apple intelligence that makes the bill of materials way higher" (08:17).

Notable Quote:
Jason Snell provides clarity on Apple's compliance: "Apple is saying we are not going to provide a backdoor key to everything that's encrypted. We're just going to put that door back open and not let people in the UK close it" (60:23).

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**3. Apple’s $500 Billion Investment Promise to the U.S.

Amidst geopolitical tensions and challenges related to tariffs, Apple has pledged to invest over half a trillion dollars in the United States over the next four years. This commitment is aimed at job creation, primarily focusing on research and development, silicon engineering, and AI and machine learning sectors.

Key Points:

• Scope of Investment:
  The investment includes contributions to data centers, corporate facilities, and Apple TV productions across 20 states: "The $500 billion commit includes Apple's work with thousands of suppliers across all 50 states. Direct employment, Apple intelligence infrastructure, data centers, corporate facilities, Apple TV productions in 20 states" (74:23).

• Economic and Political Implications:
  Andy Ihnatko expresses skepticism regarding the authenticity and allocation of the funds: "It's more about optics. It's showing your work that you are a legitimate American company who invests in America" (69:55). The panel debates whether this investment is genuine or primarily a public relations maneuver to align with governmental expectations.

• Manufacturing Shifts and Challenges:
  Alex Lindsay discusses Apple's ongoing efforts to shift manufacturing out of China to countries like India and Vietnam, highlighting the complexities and long-term nature of such transitions: "It's a 20-year problem. It's not like we won't be using... it's, it's a 20-year problem" (75:30).

Notable Quote:
Leo Laporte highlights the government's role in influencing corporate investments: "Good on the US Government for putting pressure on Apple to re-home this stuff" (74:23).

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**4. Vision Pro and MacBook Air M4 Updates

The panel briefly touches upon upcoming hardware releases, including the anticipated M4 MacBook Air and updates to the Vision Pro headset.

Key Points:

• MacBook Air M4:
  Stocks for the MacBook Air M4 are dwindling, indicating its imminent release in March: "We're at the end of the month... it makes sense" (95:29).

• Vision Pro Enhancements:
  Discussions revolve around new features and updates in the Vision Pro ecosystem, including improved guest access and spatial gallery functionalities: "They did add a new Arctic surfing video. Is it good? It did have some issues with wide shots feeling 2D, but immersion remains strong with close-up views" (102:50).

Notable Quote:
Jason Snell remarks on the incremental advancements: "Every year there's a cadence though? Like they're opposite ends of the year or opposite halves of the year" (95:47).

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**5. Other Highlights

• Steve Jobs’ 70th Birthday:
  The panel commemorates Steve Jobs’ 70th birthday, reflecting on his enduring legacy and Apple’s tribute through internal communications and potential commemorative coins: "Tim Cook posted something nice on Twitter, a very nice portrait of Steve. 'Steve saw the world not just as it was, but as it could be...'" (123:20).

• Security Concerns with Pegasus Spyware:
  Apple revealed that its systems can detect Pegasus spyware in approximately half of the infected devices, leading to discussions about the credibility and effectiveness of third-party detection apps: "Iverify sells a $1 app that lets you scan your phone. Is it credible? I didn't know how to process this one myself" (65:09).

• App Recommendations:
  The panelists recommend tools like John Siracusa’s Hyperspace for managing duplicate files and Frame for enhancing screenshot presentations, emphasizing their utility and seamless integration with macOS: "Hyperspace scans your files, finds duplicates, and removes them while leaving them in place" (127:12).

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Conclusion

Episode 961 of MacBreak Weekly offers a comprehensive exploration of Apple's strategic shifts in hardware offerings, privacy policies, and economic commitments. The panel provides a balanced view, highlighting both the potential benefits and the challenges these moves present to consumers and the broader tech landscape. As Apple continues to navigate complex global markets and regulatory environments, its decisions will undoubtedly shape the future of its product lineup and its relationship with users worldwide.

Final Notable Quote:
Leo Laporte encapsulates the essence of the panel's discussion: "This is Apple saying we do not want to provide a backdoor key to everything that's encrypted. We're just going to put that door back open and not let people in the UK close it" (50:37).

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Note: For a more immersive experience and detailed discussions, listeners are encouraged to tune into MacBreak Weekly Episode 961.

Transcript

[Leo Laporte]

It's time for Mac Break Weekly. Andy Inocco, Alex Lindsey, Jason Snell, they're all here. Great show coming up for you. Yes, we'll talk about the new iPhone 16e, the replacement for the SE pros and cons. We'll also mark the birthday of Steve Jobs. He would have been 70 years old yesterday. And we'll talk about Apple's half trillion dollar promise. All that and a lot more coming up next on MacBreak Weekly. Podcasts you love from people you Trust. This is TWiT. This is Mac Break Weekly. Episode 961, recorded Tuesday, February 25, 2025. Put a handle on it. It's time for Mac Break Weekly, the show. We cover the latest Apple news with our esteemed peerless panel of Apple prognosticators. Andy Inako is here from GBH in Boston. Hello, Andrew.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Hello. It's. I'm, I'm wearing like it's. We, we, we are, we are like that scene in the wizard of Oz where all of like the munchkins that they're not sure it's safe yet, but they're kind of coming out a little bit. And that's what New England is like today because it's 51 degrees and we're like, we are going to go out without long underwear, but with long pants. But we're going to dare to go out in a long sleeve shirt without a jack and Hope that at 4:00 it doesn't drop down to 20 degrees.

[Leo Laporte]

We're out of the woods.

[Andy Ihnatko]

We've been lied to before.

[Leo Laporte]

We're out of the winter. Nice to see you, Andrew. Jason snell, also here. 6colors.com Ladies and gentlemen.

[Jason Snell]

Indeed, many colors. Yes.

[Leo Laporte]

The man behind the Incomparables and a proud winner of an Oscar.

[Jason Snell]

It looks like that's an Macworld Eddie Award and I didn't win it. I gave them out. So I got to take an extra. It fell off the back of a.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Truck on my way out for safekeeping here.

[Jason Snell]

You know what I'msite backup talking about? Yes, indeed. I bestowed so many of them that I thought it would be only right. It's good. I appreciate being called peerless. I think that's because our peers all left and we are the ones that are.

[Leo Laporte]

There are no peers.

[Jason Snell]

But that's okay. It's okay. It's good to be here also in the 50s here. But you know, it's California, so that's every day.

[Leo Laporte]

That's chilly actually.

[Jason Snell]

Literally every day.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

Hard to find a day at my house. Where it's not in the 50s at some point.

[Leo Laporte]

Also in Northern California, hiding in his Fortress of Solitude, Mr. Alex Lindsay of office hours.

[Alex Lindsay]

How are we approaching? I think we're Gonna hit near 70 today here in.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, we've had some balmy weather, haven't.

[Alex Lindsay]

We, Next couple days.

[Jason Snell]

Weird.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. I don't. My daughter and I both enjoy cold weather, so we're kind of like the end of the good. The good times are gone.

[Leo Laporte]

It's funny, we're talking about the weather like old friends who have nothing to say to one another.

[Jason Snell]

You know, Mike Hurley on the Upgrade podcast, he had to make a segment called Snell Talk where we talk about something other than the weather that is suggested by a listener, because otherwise it always going to be the weather. So we're steering out into the skid. Steer into the skid. Right. There's a new iPhone.

[Leo Laporte]

There's. Yeah, you know, there is a story, kind of. There is a story.

[Andy Ihnatko]

You could go, it's being sold as an iPhone. That's.

[Jason Snell]

It's made from various old parts and one new part and sold as a new iPhone. Yes.

[Leo Laporte]

Bloomberg Mr. Mark Gurman says Apple is abandoning the smartphone budget market with a 16E. It's true. It's $600, $179. $170 more than the old SE.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah, I'm trying, I keep trying to figure out how I feel about that. I think. I think what I've landed on after a week is that it's okay that it's a damn shame, but it's okay that Apple is no longer making a budget phone. The 16 is definitely just simply the least expensive iPhone in the lineup. I'm sure we'll talk about it, but it's also like, yikes. I mean, I don't know. I've been spending the past few days comparing what, $600 in an iPhone. 16e will give you ver. What $600 in a Google phone or Google Pixel phone or a Samsung phone or a nothing phone. And Android will give you. They're, they're, they're much bigger. You get a lot more value in, in the. On the Android side of the fence, even if you don't want to go as low as 3 or $400. And I just, I'm just trying to figure out exactly who the 16e is for, and I haven't decided yet what it is.

[Alex Lindsay]

I guess my question, My question also is, though, is how many people now I buy the phone. Like, I just buy the phone and then I trade Them in I do whatever. Like a lot of the carriers are giving you the phone, I mean all the way up to a 16 pro with you know, with your membership. So I don't know, I think part of this whole thing is that a lot of people are eligible for upgrades or they're getting them with their service. And so I'm not sure that the number. I don't know how many people are paying for that in cash. Again I pay for mine in cash but I don't know how many people.

[Jason Snell]

Do that in different countries. It can be different. But like I think, you know, here's this is going to be terrible because it's nuanced but Ben Thompson at strategically did I know on the Internet garbage.

[Leo Laporte]

Can talk about the weather instead please.

[Jason Snell]

And what Ben Thompson at Stratachary pointed out like he did, he looked at iPhone SE prices using, you know, basically taking inflation out of it, right. So that you could either real, real cost. And you think that he's winding up to say see it's actually about the same. It's not, it's still a price increase. It's just not as much of one as you know, the 40% price increase makes it look like a lot. But I will say I think a couple of things are going on here. One is Apple really wanted to move their entire phone line to the essentially seven year old iPhone X platform where you've got OLED, you've got the notch. So it's really is the iPhone 10, you've got Face ID instead of making Touch ID they, they've had that on the production line for a long time. But it's probably more expensive than the old face or old touch ID and a non OLED display was. And there's that and then there's Apple intelligence which love it or not. Like Apple has decided all of its new models have to have Apple intelligence.

[Leo Laporte]

I think that's the reason.

[Jason Snell]

And so you put, I think you put those two things together and the bill of materials for this thing is way higher than the old SE was. And you know what, Apple is just, they're not going to turn down their traditional profit margin on hardware. They're just not. And so here we are. It does create an interesting kind of like you know, 5996-997998-99999 kind of price spread on new on iPhones that Apple is currently selling. But and the other thing Ben Thompson pointed out is if you look we've all Been feeling like the SE was a good way for Apple to have an entry into selling a new phone. In some markets that do not have the buying power of the big industrialized nations, the evidence is not as strong on that count. And this may also be Apple sort of admitting that these are the phones that Apple sells, are the phones that are in this class and they don't sell a, you know, a $420 phone is not really what Apple's entire game is.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah, two questions. I was talking to.

[Leo Laporte]

Two questions. Hold on. Is this an example of Apple preparing ahead of time for incoming tariffs? Like they want to build the tariff in.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I can't imagine that they would have done that three years ago.

[Leo Laporte]

I think that they avoided tariffs three years ago though.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah, well, but I think that this is.

[Leo Laporte]

You think they'll avoid them this time?

[Andy Ihnatko]

I just think that this is more of a world phone. I was talking to another analyst a few days ago who was developing the theory that one, it's not a single market phone by any means, but part of the mandate of the 16e was we have to have a phone that will compete in China where we have, where they have amazing, not cheap, not necessarily cheap phones, but mid level phones. And so that this, if it's okay, it's okay for Apple to be the, hey, you want to buy if you thought you wanted by a Huawei phone, but for even a hundred dollars less, you can get the prestige of this wonderful luxury brand.

[Leo Laporte]

Right. So they don't have to worry about that.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, I mean Apple could reprice it later if they really need to. But I think that that's one of the things. That's why they call it money. I would say, I would say it's.

[Leo Laporte]

A little bit here.

[Jason Snell]

Right. I would say, you know, instead of. That's why they call it money. I would say that's why they have the profit margins. That's like they can afford some fluctuation and they do that. They talk a lot about how they get hit by foreign exchange a lot. Tariffs is not foreign exchange, but it's a similar kind of idea cost that can happen. And that, I mean honestly that is one of the things they do with having their margins where they are, is they don't have to float the prices internationally as much as you might think that they do. I'm sure if they got hit by tariffs they would figure out a way to deal with it. I don't think that's the story here. I think that this is the convergence of wanting to go to an OLED face ID platform where I think that hardware is more expensive. Even now, I think it's more expensive than what was on that model. And having to do Apple intelligence because they want like, yeah, they have to. They don't want to sell a phone to people who might at this price point, you know, buy it for five years and say, yeah, but this doesn't have all of the stuff we've just been advertising to you for the last.

[Leo Laporte]

There are some concessions, there are some things missing. But let me get to the second question, then we'll talk about what's missing. Second question is, do they not still sell older iPhones at a lower cost? Are those off the.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Not really. Yeah, they're all.

[Leo Laporte]

That's it in the US, just the.

[Jason Snell]

15, which is $100 more than this.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, so there's nothing cheaper than this?

[Jason Snell]

No, the 14 was at this price point, I believe. Or was at the 100 up price point and they've replaced the 14. I was talking to my colleague Dan Moran about this last week and he suggested it's possible that they're even literally using the production line for the 14 to make this. Right. You just flip it over because they were selling new 14s even though it's a 2 year old phone and they are still selling new 15s and that's how they get that 100 up price point. So with no Apple intelligence support, which is kind of weird, but yeah, yeah, you got to do what you got to do. So I think the other thing, the.

[Leo Laporte]

Benefit is that these look like binned A18 chips. In other words, A18s that were made for the Pro but didn't pass muster.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Because one of their cores isn't working. So you can sell it as a minus one core cpu.

[Leo Laporte]

So, and this happens all the time in manufacture, you have, you test the chips that come off the wafer and if they are not up to snuff, you put them in different bins capable depending on their capabilities. And in this case, Apple doesn't really have a place to put binned chips. So maybe this gives them a way to sell. Maybe they have a bunch of A18s without the fourth core GPU.

[Alex Lindsay]

I think Apple doesn't really talk about what's in the Apple TVs, right?

[Leo Laporte]

Well, yeah, exactly. Yeah, they're convenient.

[Alex Lindsay]

That's the bottom bin.

[Jason Snell]

It's all part of their plan too, Right. Like, I mean, the story about the silicon. We can talk about this a little later with the one new thing that's in this phone but part of the Apple Silicon plan all along is Apple knows where they're going to use those chips. They know what models they're going to go in. And I think at this point they know where they're going to use the Bend versions of those chips do. And they've got a whole little strategy of this will go in the Pro phone and this will go in the non pro and this will go in the E, and this will go in an Apple TV or an iPad. And they have this kind of plan about where all of those chips, including the ones that are tossed in the bin, are going to go.

[Leo Laporte]

So they did discontinue the SE. Right. So that's gone.

[Jason Snell]

It's gone. And the 14. Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Interesting.

[Andy Ihnatko]

That is a little bit heartbreaking. $430 for an iPhone to get you in the door. Either to get you in the door or to make sure that everyone in your family can use the same services, the same content, the same phone controls. I thought that was pretty, a pretty important thing.

[Leo Laporte]

But you've obviously said that, Alex, that, you know, the kids get the cheaper iPhones. What a family do is there's no cheap iPhone anymore.

[Alex Lindsay]

Well, I think that some of the math might also be that they look at what you end up buying because whatever the base price is, you go in and go, oh, it's 4, 449. And that gets you in the door, as Andy said. But then you. But by the time you go, oh, I really need a little more RAM or I need a little bit more of that, they're seeing better best. Yeah, yeah. So they, so I think that they oftentimes find that people aren't buying that, that lowest cost one. And if they are, oftentimes they're shifting over to lower, even lower cost Android phones.

[Leo Laporte]

So there are two things gone now from the Apple lineup. One is the home button. There are no Apple iPhones that have home buttons anymore, which is unfortunate.

[Alex Lindsay]

I really, I still like the home. I still like the fingerprint better than the eye, than the facial condition. Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

And actually I really use the fingerprint on the iPad mini. In fact, when I need to use my password manager, I prefer to use the mini because I can use a fingerprint instead of especially in bed at night going like this. And the thing is, I was wearing.

[Andy Ihnatko]

This hair, make me raise my head.

[Leo Laporte]

And it didn't know who I was.

[Jason Snell]

So it, you know, whoa, where'd Leo go?

[Andy Ihnatko]

Someone broke into the studio with, with Leo's credentials.

[Leo Laporte]

You see, you see, Even you don't know who the hell I am when I wear that? So I miss that. And the lightning. This. There's no more. The only thing with lightnings. Are they still selling the. I know. There's nothing with the lightning anymore, right?

[Jason Snell]

No, no, no. I think that's it.

[Leo Laporte]

Throw out all your lightning cables, kids. You don't need them anymore. Unless you got some old AirPods or something.

[Andy Ihnatko]

And there's a third one, Although in a technicality, the iPhone 14 was the last iPhone, pretty much the last device Apple was making that was sold in a project Red configuration.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, that's sad. I love those red phones.

[Andy Ihnatko]

It's not.

[Leo Laporte]

So the.

[Andy Ihnatko]

The project Red line is not completely done. You can still buy a Project Red iPhone 14 case, but.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

Oh, well, it may come back. Who knows? It may be. You know, I love what they said about. About the 16 in terms of the colors. It says so much about Apple's attitude toward this. It's like, yeah, look. IPhone 15 comes in lots of colors. IPhone 16, lots and lots of colors. Oh, the 16e. Well, you can get it in black or white.

[Leo Laporte]

Is that it? Really?

[Jason Snell]

You want color, you got to pay, buddy. Color. Gotta pay.

[Leo Laporte]

Wow.

[Alex Lindsay]

Simplify the line. It probably also looks at what the vast majority of people. They're aiming for the middle. I bet you it's. I bet you they're hitting 90% of the market.

[Leo Laporte]

Unobjectionable, black and white.

[Jason Snell]

Uninteresting, but unobjectionable.

[Leo Laporte]

Any color you want, as long as it's black or white.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Throw case on it.

[Jason Snell]

Not colors.

[Alex Lindsay]

I oscillate myself between dark gray and black.

[Leo Laporte]

Those are the two.

[Alex Lindsay]

The two that I generally buy.

[Leo Laporte]

So, yeah, actually, what color? I don't even know because I have a case. It's that green thing.

[Andy Ihnatko]

There was one time that I bought, like, you know what it was like? It was that winter in New England where it was absolutely. We were getting dumped with snow every three days. It was never ending. And, like, sometime around January, I said, you know what? I need a little color and some bright. I'm gonna get a pink phone case. I got this lovely pink, like, phone case, and I loved it until I was taking pictures with it. And the. The.

[Jason Snell]

The.

[Andy Ihnatko]

The. The pink. If there's any kind of a reflection, like in a shot, it will show up in that reflect. So that's why. That's why it's. It has to be a black case.

[Leo Laporte]

I have the same problem with this hat, actually. I. I don't understand why.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Who are you? He got back in lockdown.

[Leo Laporte]

Lockdown I got this on vacation.

[Andy Ihnatko]

That does look like. That checks out. That does look like a hat that's on vacation.

[Leo Laporte]

For people who are listening, it's. I don't know. How would you describe.

[Jason Snell]

It's a very stylish One of the.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Pope's Swiss Guards clubbing later that night.

[Leo Laporte]

It looks like AI designed. This is what it looks like. It's an AI watermelon. So what do we lose in the 16e? It doesn't have. It does have the. Interestingly has the action button, doesn't it? But it doesn't have the camera button.

[Jason Snell]

Right. No camera control.

[Leo Laporte]

But it doesn't have no Dynamic island.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, no dynamic island. You lost no ultra wideband. No magsafe it charging is that the.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Charging is lower when it does. It does, it does use charging.

[Jason Snell]

Charging.

[Andy Ihnatko]

It's only at what, seven watts or.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, seven and a half watts.

[Jason Snell]

Again, it's very kind of an. A six or seven year old iPhone in some ways. Right. Where they're using kind of the older charging, the pre mag safe kind of stuff. And those are places where they are, you know, cutting corners. Honestly, it's cutting costs. Or there are specific engineering challenges that they just decided not to bother fixing because they were trying to cut costs.

[Leo Laporte]

This is a cut no Millimeter Wave, which is not a big loss, which is fun. Live in Philadelphia, three blocks from them.

[Andy Ihnatko]

And that was almost certainly a cost because it's no longer using Qualcomm's modem chips. Qualcomm basically owns Millimeter Wave.

[Leo Laporte]

Now we get to custom silicon because this is the debut of the C1 modem chip. Apple's been trying to get out from under Qualcomm's chips and licenses for some time.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, more than a decade. And it's been six years since they bought Intel's modem business. But that wasn't the start of it. They were already. They actually settled their lawsuits with Qualcomm about two months before they bought the modem business from Intel. It's kind of funny coming up six years ago, but they were working on it before then and struggling. And then they decided that they would get an infusion of talent and some intellectual property from intel. And then, you know, again, almost six years pass and here is the C1. But now that it's here, this is the start of something very interesting because you know, one of Apple's goals is to control all the key parts of its products. And I would say that if your number one product is a cell phone, then maybe the cellular Modem is an important part of that and you know, it's a first go and we'll see how it goes. But in the long run, this could be potentially interesting because as with all the Apple Silicon chips, Apple gets to design this, these things as they go specifically for Apple software, specifically for Apple's hardware. They know what hardware is going to be used where that's been the Playbook for Apple Silicon. And they're also working on WI Fi and Bluetooth chips. So there's a lot that they're trying to integrate of their own stuff here. And that could have benefit. Yeah.

[Andy Ihnatko]

And this wasn't just a middle finger towards Qualcomm. It would have been, it would have been justified just because Apple does not want to be under the thumb of Qualcomm. But Johnny Sruji had an interview at least did some answer some questions from Reuters that were very interesting. One of them pointing out that because of that, because it has the ability, they can design it the way they design all Apple silicon, ie, to work for this specific use case, for this specific thing. They can do things like extend battery life by figuring out that, okay, I know what app is trying to use the modem, I can tailor its performance before this particular use case because I know that I don't have to go high gain, I don't have to really blast things through. The user will never know the difference. And also, I know we've had our hearts broken so many damn times, but the idea of integrating the modem chip into the SOC and essentially the idea of, oh, so maybe there'll be an Apple silicon like M4 or M5 in a MacBook that will have a modem built in. So we could have a MacBook that has some cellular broadband maybe someday. So yeah, there's a lot of potential there and a lot of things that will actually help out the user other than battery life, are we worried about.

[Leo Laporte]

Or is Apple worried about still having to pay Qualcomm license fees? That's unknown, right, with the new modem?

[Jason Snell]

Well, I mean, they settled, but they do have patent fees. I mean, I like how Andy said it's not just because they hate Qualcomm. I mean, they hate Qualcomm. But that's not just the only reason you do this. It will get them out from under having to buy parts from Qualcomm. Patents do expire. So over time, the cost of paying Qualcomm for stuff is going to be less and less. And presumably they've got their own patents that they picked up from intel that they're doing as they go here. And so you may end up seeing a kind of an agreement at some point where Apple and Qualcomm agree not to pay each other or something like that. But you know, but Andy's absolutely right about the benefits are now Johnny Surroogee talking about how, oh well now we can prioritize because we know what the, you know, the quality of service basically. We know what process, you know, what processes is most important. Important. I mean, I'm sure Qualcomm has stuff like that too. But this goes to the heart of it, which is Qualcomm, whatever their chip features are, are for a wide audience, right? It's for everybody who might buy that chip. And maybe if they do some OS specific integration, it's probably going to be for Android because most of their customers are running Android and not iOS. And so if you're Apple, like I'm not convinced that that's not a feature of Qualcomm's chips, but it's probably not the way Apple would do it, the way Apple wants to handle it. And if you're Apple, you' just, it's just like when they were where there were Intel Macs. Like you're just a customer. Even if you're an important customer, you're buying a product off a shelf that is not built for you. It's built for lots of people. And when you bring it in house, it's only built for you and it's only for your products and your operating system. And fundamentally, even if Qualcomm is the best in the world at this, which I think they are right now, at least there is benefit to being Apple and saying if it's not in our priority list and if our products don't need it, it's not going in our modem because we don't care and Qualcomm can't do that.

[Alex Lindsay]

Well, and also, you know, almost nobody should do this by the way, unless you're Apple, unless you have the hardware, the engine.

[Leo Laporte]

Apple even failed at first.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, Apple's Apple failed, Intel failed. Apple bought Intel's business and then six years passed. Right? It's hard.

[Alex Lindsay]

What they're doing is really hard. But I do think that Tim, at some point in some one of the earnings calls mentioned, like you could hear, they just view everything outside of their own chips as legacy. I think they called it legacy components is what he called it. And so you can tell that they're kind of interested in every chip that they don't make or design that's sitting on the iPhone right now eventually ends up in. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if five years from now or 10 years from now, there's just a piece of silicon that is your phone that just goes in. The whole. What the phone does every year is just this thing that they completely control.

[Jason Snell]

Unless there's radio interference issues or something. But otherwise, I think absolutely, they just want a package that is an Apple package that has your entire device in.

[Alex Lindsay]

It, which is less expensive, more stable, you know, like it has all kinds, you know, faster, more efficient. Like all. They get all the things out of not having to go back to the board, back to the board, back to the board, back to the board to do things. And so. And there's just nobody. And again, it gives them a place where there's nobody else that can really do that. Because Apple, you know, they, they're the Krups arms of, of phone making. Where they remember though, they don't actually.

[Leo Laporte]

Make the chips and they have a problem with TSMC at this point being in Taiwan at this point.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

You know, funny, I think maybe some of these chips, the WI fi chip and maybe even the cellular chip will ultimately be on legacy nodes, which is like, yeah, built in Arizona on the large. They don't need it all to be down at 3nm. And then they do the thing where they put it in a package and they build it in so it becomes Alex's single widget. But it's actually coming from different boundaries. I mean, yeah, we could always say, well, what about tsmc? That's the truth is Apple's whole business is. What about China and tsmc? Yeah, that's. That's a fundamental thing. But yeah, I think to Alex and Andrew's points to like, just to reiterate, Apple doesn't necessarily have to beat Qualcomm at its own game. It can, I think, given the track record. You have to say Apple silicon people are really good and they're probably going to do a good job with this. But even if they're just sort of level with Qualcomm or even a half step behind because they're building bespoke chips for their own OS and hardware, there are going to be so many benefits that you simply can't get because Qualcomm's not going to make a custom chip for Apple and do exactly what Apple wants because why would they? That doesn't make business sense for them. But Apple can do that.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. And Many times Apple is a step behind a lot of things, but it's the ecosystem that they've built out that all the things working together that make up for that, that step and over time they often catch up. It's one of those things like whether it's maps or other things, they start behind and then you just see them slowly just spend money. They just outspend you all the time. To get to that other point.

[Leo Laporte]

Do we have any benchmarks yet or is it.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah, Geekbench results have come out. So it does have one fewer, one fewer CPU.

[Jason Snell]

GPU.

[Andy Ihnatko]

GPU. So in graphics intensive stuff, I think it's something 17%. I've got it in the notes here.

[Jason Snell]

But no cellular benchmarks I think yet, right?

[Andy Ihnatko]

Not yet, no. Yeah, all they've done, the benchmarks just also confirm like some of the internals.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, and they're not official benchmarks, those are leaked geek bench benchmarks.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Right.

[Leo Laporte]

We're still waiting for. I don't know who does benchmarks anymore. Non's gone. Tom's hardware. Do you trust them?

[Jason Snell]

Some of us, yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Somebody. Will you do them please, when they come out?

[Jason Snell]

I mean, yeah, I'm about to go on vacation, so like you to smell you later, everybody. But maybe I'm sure. I mean running Geek Bench isn't hard and I'll tell you, as somebody who has had prerelease hardware, I don't for this, but I've had pre release hardware and I get mad when the Geek Bench numbers come out. Just like I was mad last week about Mark Gurman's report about the iPhone 16e. Because I got that briefing to everybody. Or no, not that one, the Vision Pro one. And like I knew all those things too. And somebody just talked. Well, it's very maddening when you do all your benchmark work and then somebody just, just forgets to check the box that says don't upload this to Geek Bench. And there it is on Geek Bench because those numbers are generally exactly right. Those are real numbers.

[Leo Laporte]

So you could. So if I look at Geek Bench, those are, those are reliable.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, but I mean we don't know it is what it is. I mean the fact is every A series processor that exists behaves exactly like every other A series processor. And the only difference here is it's down a GPU core from the iPhone 16. So the GPU numbers will be whatever 20%.

[Leo Laporte]

But we, but we want to know what the cellular data rates are. That's the real.

[Jason Snell]

And we don't know that. Although Apple talked Confidently about. I mean I feel, I feel it's worth predicting that there will be some sort of a faux scandal about this because I actually, if I, if I had to do a specific. Because everything that Apple does remember that.

[Leo Laporte]

Is the real scandal that Apple had to slow down the Qualcomm modem because the intel modems and some of its phones were so slow that they made the other ones look bad too good. Right.

[Jason Snell]

People were treasure hunting the right iPhone.

[Leo Laporte]

You don't want the intel modem chip.

[Alex Lindsay]

Oh boy.

[Jason Snell]

That's why it's in the 16e. That's why the C1 is in the 16e is because it is the. If it ends up being scandalous that the C1 performance is below the performance of the Qualcomm chips and the higher end iPhones, which may very well be the case. Yeah, it will be for sure. What's going to happen is Apple's just going to say well yeah, it's by, by the more expensive phone if you want faster cellular. And so they can't do this, this with the mainline iPhone yet because that would be really scandalous. But for now it's safe for them to do this. But there will be something like that. And I bet you even Apple already knows what it's going to be because they made choices in the design process and they know, they know the profile of their modem. So they're going to know what's weird about it and somebody will discover it and there'll be a blog post and then it'll be like another blog post that copies that blog post. You know how the Internet works today. And it's, it'll, they'll fix a gate to it and see one gate, I don't know. And then we'll all move on because.

[Leo Laporte]

Actually the scoop would be if it were as fast as the high end Qualcomm, that would be quite a scoop. That would be a story.

[Jason Snell]

I think even Johnny, even Johnny Struji and Mark Gurman in his reporting on this says, you know, the C1's a step behind, but that's okay. The C2 gets close to Qualcomm and then they're hoping that the C3 will actually be competitive or ahead of, of Qualcomm. But that's a few years out. Right. But I, you know, it may be, I think it's next fall that he's suggesting, which would probably be a, that they would actually put this in the mainline iPhone. The rumor is that that thin iPhone we've been talking about might get the C1. But again, here's what it's an outlier.

[Leo Laporte]

Here's what Ming Chi Kuo is saying on X. Following Qualcomm, Broadcom's WI Fi chips will also be replaced by Apple's in house chips at a faster pace. My latest industry survey indicates that the new second half 2025 iPhone 17 models, ones coming out this fall, will have Apple in house wi fi chips versus only the slim iPhone 17 which will have the C1 modem chip. So that implies a C2 in the higher end iPhone 17.

[Jason Snell]

No, I think Qualcomm has disclosed that the Apple will still be providing a lot of Qualcomm modems this year.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, that tells you that this C1 is not as fast, right?

[Andy Ihnatko]

I think so, yeah. I don't know. There was also some reporting or people who think that, that the modems in the 16 in the. In the 17 series are going to be Mediatek modems and don't know they.

[Leo Laporte]

When they're. When they're at home. Huh.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah, I mean they, so they could both things can be true. They can still be using Qualcomm modems for the rest of the iPhone 15 line and the iPhone 16 line. I would not have thought, I would not have imagined that. But yeah, I mean the, the idea of them moving towards making their own Wi fi chips, being slower about rolling out C1, their mod chips throughout the entire line, that says something about their confidence if this is true in their Wi fi system than in their, their modem system. I think we're once, once these things actually ship, I'm sure we're going to see some early, a lot of people really hammering them trying to figure out where its weaknesses are. Like what, what situations can it handle is. Are there any bands where yes, it can technically handle it, but it's really not very good at it or it will absolutely burn through the battery trying to maintain a connection. And that's state. And that's also not to say that there won't be an update to the firmware to the OS that basically fine tunes battery performance. Fine tunes modem performance to basically take all that information they get from these first few million beta testers and use it to really lock down what the design of the C1 should have been and what the design of the C2 should be.

[Leo Laporte]

We shouldn't ignore the loss of the UWB chip in the 16. That's a big deal because of home automation. We were talking about this on Twitter. Jennifer Pattison twee said there's locks coming along for Apple HomeKit that use UWB. You won't be able to use those with the 16e.

[Jason Snell]

Right. And a lot of car locks. And of course, Airtag Precision is using UWB as well as the finding each other using two iPhones that have UWB where I did that football game with my wife where I was able to find where she was using the UWB, and I was like, okay, she's right down there, 40ft away, you know, And. And so, yeah, this is the uwb. It's a little thing, but I do think it means that there are lots of asterisks on this phone. Right? A lot of, like, well, you can get this, but that one phone doesn't have it. Mag Safe is an example where it's like, you could say, oh, the iPhone 16 family has all these accessories, except all the MagSafe ones don't work with the 16e. It is. I mean, it's. It's. Obviously Apple doesn't care. And I think that this is the same attitude about when we talk about Apple pencil having, like, too many pencils in too many confusing places and all of that. And, like, you know, Apple would like everything to be crystal clear in its product lines, but if push comes to shove and the alternative is hurting the product margins, well, I think it Also. Messy is fine.

[Alex Lindsay]

I think. I think it's also that Apple, you know, it's the same. You know, the reason that the. The reason the CD is 72 minutes long is because someone walked into a Sony executive and they said, how long should the CD be? And he said, I want this. This Mozart. Yeah, I'm sorry. Beethoven's fifth. I want that to fit on the cd. And that's how big the CD was. I think when you look at these things, you know, like, it could have been. It could have been twice as long if you picked the longer thing or twice as short. But the. I think in this case, you know, you go to the executives and go, how much? You know, someone in marketing or. Or whatever says, this is the number. You know, it's. It's 599 or 699 or 499 or 899.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

And everyone sharpens their pencils and they just make decisions about what are the things that we think people make decisions. You know, why are they buying it? Why are they buying the software?

[Leo Laporte]

So explain why it's the 16E, not the SE. Maybe they're thinking, we're probably going to update this more than every four years?

[Andy Ihnatko]

Every two years.

[Jason Snell]

That's my guess. But yeah, something like that.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I mean that's what Pixel Google does with a Pixel phone. That's what Samsung does. That's what.

[Leo Laporte]

Even with their A series Pixel phones. Yeah.

[Andy Ihnatko]

And they.

[Leo Laporte]

Meaning that those are yearly, right?

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah, exactly. They do the major updates for the Pixel. They do the major updates in now August, but every spring they come out with the A series. As a matter of fact, the Pixel 9a is supposed to be coming out sometime in the next couple of weeks and will probably be 499. If they only recently changed their prices from 450 to 499, it's going to be. The thing is, the thing that I don't think the 16e is weird or is a bad phone. It's just that I look at the list of things that are, have been left off of it and it doesn't, it really does seem like a phone that they took things off of as opposed to they designed this to be the Anker phone, the bottom of the chain in a certain line. When you look at the Pixel 9a, when you look at even the Samsung's 24 series, the 2 series phones, they look like they were holistically designed. As we've got X amount of dollars, we got to hit this price point point, let's build a holistically well designed phone. Whereas for the 16e, it does feel like here are the Legos that we have available. So there's going to be a bunch of walls that have some weird red bricks in it. We can't, we can't do anything about that. The fact that they doesn't even have thread support again seems like an odd omission. And I wonder if there was an engineering reason why they couldn't do that.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, or a chip that there was a cheaper chip. I mean, you're absolutely right. There's a reason this is the 16E and not the 16 is that it's not the. I mean the 16 is the base case. The 16E is a sub, you know, sub brand below it and beneath it. And that, that's just what it is now. And they obviously had a price to hit. Probably something like we got to make this phone for $420 of bill of materials. And they, you know, and they're like, well, what about uwb? And they're like, nope, that puts us over the line. It's like that's in Apollo 13 where they're trying to figure out how to be under the power budget, I mean. And I think it is interesting to know why they. Which ones they chose to throw over. Although I don't think we can definitely say it's because they don't care about those things, because it's not just the cost of the part, it's the cost of putting that part in the phone. And they might have said, well, we could put the MagSafe stuff in there, but if we do that, it's got to be aligned in a certain way. And then we're going to have to redesign this other part that we're reusing from some other phone. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, don't do it. And some of that. Sometimes I think that's what goes into this stuff, too.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah. Is anybody surprised that they didn't just go with, hey, we've got. It's got. It's got a great camera. Here are the features of the camera. It seemed weird that they have to say, oh, no, no, no. It. You think. It seems. Just because there's only one hole doesn't mean that there aren't two lenses there. It has a magical, mystical telephoto lens built into it. Trust us.

[Jason Snell]

And it's been two years they've been saying that same thing, though, right? Because it's that center crop on the 48 megapixel sensor. So, yeah, I mean, they're trying to make lemonade, right?

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah. But this. This phone has one hole. My old phone had two holes or sometimes even three holes.

[Jason Snell]

But what is a hole inside a hole, but just a hole hole? Andy, can you.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Can you hold a hole and no hole in both hands at the same time?

[Leo Laporte]

When a hole is not a hole, but a half. Let us take a little break and we will contemplate that.

[Jason Snell]

Good, good time for a break.

[Leo Laporte]

Good time to think. And then when we return, the answer. Or not.

[Jason Snell]

No. Oh, no, you're right. Leave him with a cliffhanger, Leo. Leave him with a cliffhanger.

[Alex Lindsay]

Do not.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Do not. Do not tip the vessel of wisdom.

[Leo Laporte]

Jason, you're watching MacBreak weekly. Andy, Jason and Alex, the old buddies unite every week, every Tuesday, to talk Apple. Our show today, brought to you by our good friends at Bitwarden, the trusted leader in passwords. But not just passwords. Passkey management. They do such a great job. And secrets. I really want to plug the passkey management because as an individual user, I use passkeys a lot. And at first, of course, I was storing them on my iPhone, which meant when I was somewhere else, I had to go running from my iPhone and make the passkey work, et cetera. It should ideally be everywhere, right? If you make a passkey. Well, with Bit Warden, your passkeys are everywhere. Bit Warden is on your phone, on your desktop, everywhere. And I really like that. With over 10 million users in 180 countries and 50,000 business customers worldwide, Bitwarden's entered the year as the essential security solution for organizations of all sizes. I bet you didn't know that, did you? Maybe you did if you use Bitwarden in your business. Consistently ranked number one in user satisfaction by G2. Recognized as a leader in software reviews, data Quadrant, Bit Warden continues to protect businesses worldwide. One of the things I love about Bit Warden, because they're open source, they're always getting better. They're always, you know, there's contributions, they're always adding features. For instance, maybe you've been using the Bit Warden app on your iPhone or your Android device. They have now updated it to be native. I didn't know they weren't. I thought they were quite good. But you will notice the difference. The native mobile apps on iOS and Android mean you get faster load times, the functionality is improved. It's of course all the widgets and everything are platform specific, so it's a much better user experience. But also you get deeper hardware integration, which means Bitwarden on your iPhone and Android phone now work flawlessly with biometric authentication, multi device support, and on and on and on. Bitwarden has also strengthened its password manager. I love this. Now this is something maybe more for business and enterprise and IT departments. I don't know if you use ssh. If you do, the most secure way to use it is not with a password, but with public keys. Well, Bitwarden has updated its password manager with SSH support. This really fixes a critical security problem. 90% of authorized SSH keys in large organizations go unused. This update centralizes. I love this. You know, I used to have a like 10 step process to generate a key and then put it on the server and so forth. Now it's all centralized. Cryptographic key management is in Bitwarden, enabling not only secure storage and import, but generation of SSH keys directly within the Bit Warden vault, which is where you want them, not in your GitHub commits, which happens so often. Enhance workflows for developers and IT professionals. If you know, you know, right? What sets Bitwarden apart? It prioritizes simplicity. It's easy to set up in your business. In fact, if you're using Another password manager. They support importing almost instantly from password management solutions. If you're curious, they are open source. That means you can inspect the code anytime. And of course they have regular audits from third party experts and they publish every word of those audits. So you know exactly what's going on. Your business deserves an effective solution for enhanced online security. See for yourself. Get started today with Bit Warden's free trial of a teams or enterprise plan. And I always want to emphasize this. It's free forever for individuals. You can even as an individual, host your vault if you want. Because it's open source. Right? Bitwarden.com Twitter I know you use a password manager and I'm glad you do. But if you have friends or family, as I do, as almost everybody does, that don't tell them about bitwarden. It's free pop. Bitwarden.com twit b I t w a r dash dash e n bitwarden.com twit we thank him so much their support for Mac Break Weekly. I am a happy Bit Warden user and have been for a couple of years now. Really love it. So is Steve Gibson. We just, we think it's the best on Vigo with MacBreak weekly, there is no answer to the koan. That's the answer.

[Jason Snell]

One hand clapping yes.

[Leo Laporte]

What is that sound?

[Jason Snell]

It's the sound of the hole in the hole. So this is a good show. We're having a good show today.

[Leo Laporte]

What the uk. All right, let's talk about it. You remember that the UK Investigatory Powers Act, AKA the Snoopers Charter, had apparently been used. By the way, this is all inside scoop from Bloomberg and others because it's never, never revealed. Right. It's supposed to be secret, but apparently they sent an order to the folks at Apple saying, saying you must provide us with keys to people who use advanced data encryption, not only in the UK but worldwide. Which is obviously a bridge too far. We were wondering what Apple's response would be. Apple has announced no more ADP for the uk, which by the way, confirms that they must have gotten the note right. I guess the story was true. True, duh.

[Andy Ihnatko]

It is. It is slightly good news because that means. Because if they, if they had complied or been forced to comply, that means that people could have had their data seized basically at the whim of the UK without being informed that this is what has happened.

[Leo Laporte]

And not just that people. Not just British citizens, but anybody.

[Andy Ihnatko]

No, exactly. Exactly. But what this means, the. This means that although it's a step backwards because now end to end encryption in icloud is, backups is no longer an option for anybody in the uk. It does mean that they're back at. If they want to get access to the icloud data they have to have a court, they have to do something through the courts. They have to basically show the paperwork to Apple and basically put a. It's no longer a secret that they can't actually talk about or disclose to their users. So if we're looking for something good to say about this and this and realize that Apple is absolutely happy to do all this, that there was another story that I didn't put in the notes because it was a little bit, I don't know, it was just, it was just really funny. Someone who, a, a burglary ring who was targeting professional athletes got, got identified and arrested because they were, because they were taking pictures of themselves. Hey look, we got so and so's jewelry and, and basically was backed up to their icloud. And after, after they were suspected the police said hi Apple, could we get like their, their icloud photos? Apple said let me see the paperwork. Great.

[Leo Laporte]

Sure.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Here you go.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. And that's germane because it proves if you ever had any doubts and we've seen this over and over again, that Apple does have the keys to the icloud stuff.

[Andy Ihnatko]

And they're always, and they're willing to work with law enforcement. They don't have an antagonistic. The only times they have an antagonistic relationship with the FBI or any other law enforcement is when they do things like what the FBI did a few years ago or what the UK did. Basically saying install a backdoor in secure in your security so that we can access and bypass encryption. At which point your security. At which point Apple says there is no such thing as a backdoor that does not compromise security of the entire device for everybody. We absolutely will not do that.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Now I think it's pretty clear that this does not answer the UK's request because they wanted access to everybody's stuff. Not like worldwide, your worldwide. It just means that you know, and they're still doing business in the uk, which means presumably they still, you know, have to respond to uk.

[Jason Snell]

So this is my question is what happens next? And we don't know the attitude inside the UK government. Right. But I do.

[Leo Laporte]

It may be a face saving point.

[Jason Snell]

Exactly right. Like what they're doing is saying okay, what we're going to do is. And they're not. There's been a lot of hype about this where people have been saying, oh, God, Apple, Apple put in a back door. It's like, no, they, they used to have the front door open and then they said, you can close it if you want. And now they said in the uk, you can't close it. Right. Like that. That's. This is an existing hole that's been used for a long time.

[Leo Laporte]

We've also pointed out that a lot of people, including everybody in this panel, don't use.

[Jason Snell]

Don't even use it. Yeah, yeah. But I think you're right about saying, is there, is there a face saving? This is one of those politics things is, does this allow the UK to kind of declare victory?

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Jason Snell]

Even though they're not getting everything that's in the law? Because the risk is if they push Apple on this and say, no, you need a backdoor, it needs to be everybody worldwide, and if not, you're going to be in violation of our law. They risk a bigger confrontation with Apple. And I know, as ludicrous as this is to think about it, but, like, I don't know if they win that one. I don't know if Keir Starmer wants to risk having Apple say, how many employees do we have in the UK and all those people at Battersea and everybody who uses an iPhone and a MacBook in the UK and how do you feel about being the government that because you're overreaching with your. Your snooping is going to lose Apple for the entire uk? Honestly, if I'm Keir Starmer, I go to whoever has been asking for all this and I say, keep it quiet, shut up, stop doing this. We are at a good status quo, but we live in a weird world where you never know what might happen. But I just, I feel like, like that is such a broad overreach to say we want all your information everywhere in the world. If they call Apple on that point, I mean, Apple said in this statement that, like, we will not make a backdoor. We will never make a backdoor, period.

[Alex Lindsay]

Right. And I think that's going to be interesting. I mean, combined with the promise of $500 billion of investment, whether it was booked earlier or not, you know, I think that some of the pushing that's happened both in the UK and the EU may find larger resistance. I think Apple's positioning itself well to get some air power to get everybody off their backs. I think that on top of what Jason said, I think that they may not want to take this any further anyway. There's no reason to get into a fight that they don't have to with the US Government. That is probably not going to look as kindly on this stuff as the last one.

[Andy Ihnatko]

There was already some saber rattling about it where bas. The Senate was basically sending a letter, as I forres, saying that this is. You're basically trying to. You're basically demanding access to the private information of Americans. We will not tolerate this. This is a cyber attack. Put this aside with Trump's rattling about how we don't. All of your. All of your rules to protect, quote, quote, unquote, protect data in the EU and the UK for your citizens are a direct attack on United States technology companies. We will not tolerate that either. This is, again, pick your battles, go back home, regroup, have a tea, go watch Paddington 2, and then come back and decide what you really want and how you can get it.

[Leo Laporte]

Jason, Tim Cook addressed this at the shareholders meeting yesterday. Yes.

[Jason Snell]

Oh, I don't know about that. I'm not a shareholder. I know that they talked about their DEI stuff, but I didn't see anything about this specifically.

[Leo Laporte]

I thought you. Wait a minute. I was giving you a softball question that wasn't such a soft. Is it? Somebody quoted it says Jason Snell. As the legal landscape around this issue evolves, we may need to make some changes to comply. But our North Star of dignity and respect for everyone and our work to end that.

[Jason Snell]

That's about the dei.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, that's dei. Oh, I thought it was about UK encryption.

[Jason Snell]

And that's from the BBC article.

[Leo Laporte]

You know what? It could do double duty. It could do double duty. I think their statement on it will never waver.

[Jason Snell]

Their statement that they released that said we not do a backdoor, you know, we never will, I think is how it ends, is the statement that they've made on the matter. And I think that's probably all they'll say. It makes it, as Andy pointed out, a hell of a canary if they ever change that. But I'd say they know what they're getting into when they make a statement like that. And I think that. I think that that is them saying to the UK government, you know, try us if you want to push this further. And, you know, if the US government, the EU as well, like any other government, is going to look at this and be like, no, you do not get access. Access our people's data.

[Leo Laporte]

But it's a victory. It's a victory for the uk. It means you can't use ADP in the UK so that the cloud keys are available to every law enforcement agency. In the uk, Right, because they're by the five eyes. So it's not a victory for Apple, it's a victory for the uk. It's Apple caving.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's the keys that no one's using are now back in.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, at least you say no one's using it, none of us are. But I would imagine if you are a disadvantage, if you're a political activist, if you're a politician, if you're a member of the CIA, you use adp. The sad thing is I was about to turn it on. Now I know it's just gonna put a big bright star on my forehead and maybe it's not next. It's not the, it's not the UK government, it's the US government who says, good, we'd like Apple to turn off ADP in the US as well.

[Jason Snell]

I think that's inevitable. But.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying. So this is a victory for the uk, Not Apple, Apple. This is Apple caving in.

[Jason Snell]

I think it's not. I think it's Apple reverting and trying to pick its battles and trying to again, get. Letting everybody sort of. I mean, Apple is not declaring victory. Apple's statement is not a positive one. They're grumpy about it. But I think that you can overreact to this and say, oh, Apple caved, it's terrible. But like Apple literally said, we're not going to do what the law says in terms of giving a backdoor key to everything that's encrypted. We're not going to do that. We're just going to. We're going to put that door back open and not let people in the UK close it. And, and that is partially a regression. It's true, but.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, I think, I mean, Apple's assuming that most people don't know what our listeners now know, which is that Apple has access to everything stored in the icloud. Unless you turn ADP on.

[Jason Snell]

Well, it's not everything.

[Leo Laporte]

We'll hand it over.

[Jason Snell]

It's not everything. But it is not messages, right?

[Leo Laporte]

Messages are still.

[Jason Snell]

Well, no, no, because your messages back.

[Leo Laporte]

They'Re stored in the clear.

[Jason Snell]

If you do an icloud backup, your mess are available. And that's the key hole for all of this is icloud backup. Apple keeps the key so that if you lose your device and you don't know your password, Apple can reset and give you access to your stuff. But as a result, if a law enforcement agent can come to Apple and says we want that terrorists phone backup, including their messages, they can get it via their icloud backup. Now I should also say for people who are really in, you know, want, want this to be private and don't want Apple to have it, you can do a computer backup of your phone that is encrypted that you control and Apple doesn't have the key to. But if you want to do a cloud backup on Apple servers, all of that stuff is subpoena able basically.

[Leo Laporte]

And it chiefly catches those bozos who stole the sport figures watch, you know, Travis Kelsey's watch because Travis was on the road. Those guys are morons and they got caught because they posted their selfies in the icloud. But I think it's widespread misunderstanding that that stuff's not encrypted in icloud and Apple will hand it over.

[Alex Lindsay]

I mean if you're doing anything sensitive you should not be using icloud. And that's been the. I mean you shouldn't be putting things in the cloud if you are doing sensitive things like you know, whether that's good or bad or whatever. The amount of data.

[Leo Laporte]

Can I turn off icloud completely on an iPhone? Can I like prevent it from uploading to the cloud?

[Andy Ihnatko]

You still need to have an Apple ID but you don't have sync to icloud.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay, yeah, so you can.

[Andy Ihnatko]

And the. And if you don't sync to icloud all the services like passwords. 95Mac had compiled a reassuring list of. Here are all the things that Apple does that uses end to end encryption. Again, apps that aren't affected by this, things like health data, journal data, messages in icloud payment information, maps, stuff like that. So again when I say it's, it's not a win on any level. But I do like the fact that instead of having high. Instead of law enforcement having their own set of keys to icloud and being able to walk in, check out whatever they want. Not necessarily. Again we don't, we don't because this order was secret. For all we know they did want a door that they themselves could open and walk in. They wanted a tool for harvesting data. It's oak. It's not as bad as. It's not as bad if they have to again convince a court that yes, we need access to this data. Here are the reasons why. And there's paperwork that basically creates a trail that everybody can then backtrack and follow as opposed to. We are very concerned about these non white people who have been hanging out near this Place where people are kind of upset about brown people. So we just want to paw through their photos just to make sure they're not taking pictures of switch boxes or whatever ever. Because things, the things that seemed ridiculous maybe 8 or 9 years ago don't really seem quite so ridiculous.

[Leo Laporte]

So despite all of Apple's protestations, your stuff is private, etc. Etc. Well everyone should understand if you're using.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Ipad, we always must comply with the local laws and regulations of the countries in which we operate.

[Alex Lindsay]

They have on the line and the.

[Jason Snell]

Whole for messages and, and, and your, you know, your messages conversations, the hole is the backup. So if you can't have that advanced privacy protection turned on, if you turn off your phone backup then your messages are end to end encrypted.

[Alex Lindsay]

Apple doesn't have the other person does the same thing. Right. Because it's on there.

[Leo Laporte]

Well that's the problem. Yeah. Are you communicating with somebody who's using icloud? So never mind.

[Jason Snell]

And this is the problem. And I know I said this a couple weeks ago but like, okay, so you signal. But I'm telling you it feels to me like every government in the world is gradually going to make.

[Leo Laporte]

That's right.

[Jason Snell]

Any large enough company that sticks out is providing an end to end encrypted service. It's going to make them not.

[Leo Laporte]

You know what we don't know. We don't know if the United States has sent a similar national security letter to Apple. We don't know if the UK has not sent a similar letter to signal. We don't know that because that stuff's all intentionally kept secret. So here's the thing. Don't turn on ADP because that's a saying. Hey, over here. And it's very likely that I shouldn't have done that. I put myself out of focus. Hey, over, over here. No, over here. And furthermore, that's okay.

[Andy Ihnatko]

The facial recognition software from the NSA won't be able to identify you.

[Leo Laporte]

Leo's decided to stay slightly out of the.

[Andy Ihnatko]

You're already wearing your pattern disruptive shirts.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh yeah, the hat helps, the hat help.

[Andy Ihnatko]

You can't get your barrel a distance so.

[Leo Laporte]

And furthermore, you know, you need to, if you want privacy, you need to stop putting stuff, you need to take.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Control of privacy on your own, on your own level and not simply trust that flicking a switch on a piece of software that came pre installed on your, on your, on your hardware is going to do it for you.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

And it's a little disingenuous to say, well we've turned it off for the uk so there. Because the UK still has as asked for access to people in the US as well. Well, right.

[Alex Lindsay]

But again, I think that it's. I don't think Apple's ever claimed that they're protecting your icloud. You know, that's not been one of the things the, when they added this feature, this is when this started to move down the path. Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

This was their response to what they knew was going to start happening.

[Alex Lindsay]

Right. What they have always said is, we're not going to give you the keys to the phone. Like we don't have, you know, we're not breaking into the phone for you, we're not going to build something so you can get in. But that's always been their line and, and I think that taking this out is saying, hey, there was a safety belt that the UK actually had a scissors to cut and we're just going to take away the safety belt. So you know that you're not like, don't drive more carefully because that safety belt isn't actually there, it could have been cut. And so I think that the thing is that if you. And the problem really is. And the crazy part of this is it's easy to say, I mean, these intelligence agencies are always like, if we don't have all the data, something goes wrong. It's not going to be our fault because we did everything we could. But they have so much data. They have so much data about you and it is so hard. Like, sure, you hide your stuff in signal or whatever, but they have every phone, every connection that it's made to other phones. They have who you stood by, everyone around you. They have how you were standing when you were standing next to them. If you have two phones in your pocket, one burner and one regular, one, one, they've attached both of them to you like, you know, like, it's not like, you know, as soon as you walk and you move, they both, they can. The accelerometers will tell them exactly where they're where. You know, there's two people, there's the same person holding two phones. Now both those phones belong together. You know, all of this data is something that they have. They, that all these intelligence agencies all have now. And what they're talking about is, I mean, something that, yeah, sure, the photos are good for trials, but when it comes to terrorists, trials aren't nearly as is important. So them gathering data, getting the photos is nice, but the data that they're fighting over here is good for csam and it's good for other things like that. But for terrorism, it's not nearly as valuable as all the stuff that they already have. And it's almost impossible to avoid giving to them.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, don't carry a cell phone, that's for sure.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, exactly.

[Leo Laporte]

That's problem number one. What's the first thing Jason Bourne does when the scared woman gets in the car? He takes her phone and throws it out the window. Come on.

[Alex Lindsay]

Pull the battery out and smash it.

[Leo Laporte]

I was watching the Jackal. Day of the Jackal. Throws the phone out the window. You know, actually there was a great show. I can't remember who it was. He was being chased and he threw the phone onto a truck that was going the other way so that they would chase the truck. Now that's using technology. Yeah, that's using it the right way.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, that was. I saw that and it was a recent show. I can't think of it.

[Leo Laporte]

It was the Agency or something. I think it was the Agency. Great show. So just, just a point which is despite, you know, UK demands, Apple refuses. No, no, this is not.

[Jason Snell]

But that's not right. No. If Apple had caved, truly caved, what Apple would have done is not said anything.

[Leo Laporte]

It's not say anything.

[Jason Snell]

And give them the key. Inserted a key that they control in everybody who's got their data protection product.

[Leo Laporte]

True.

[Jason Snell]

So that they could read it. Because that's what the UK demands.

[Leo Laporte]

You're right.

[Jason Snell]

They could have built a whole system to do what the UK wanted and instead what they did is they turned off a feature for some users that effectively gives the UK what they want in country for the people who currently have it on, they'll be, they'll have to turn it off.

[Leo Laporte]

Do you think Cash Patel, the new director of the FDA FBI has not sent in a similar request to Apple?

[Jason Snell]

I mean, we'll find out because I know he has.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't know for a fact. I'm pretty sure he has.

[Jason Snell]

This is. Look, the whole advanced data protection thing is the canary. Right. Because it's literally a system built where Apple doesn't have the key. It is Apple saying, this is the one part of our entire cloud infrastructure where we have a key. Why don't we make an optional add on feature where we don't have the key? Because. And what they're trying to do is forestall laws like this one that say, say you have to have a key. They're like. Or because it used to be if you have a key, you have to.

[Leo Laporte]

Let Us see it and they're not really forestalling it. They're just doing a canary.

[Jason Snell]

So they throw the key out the window like a phone for Jason Bourne, and they're like, no, look, we don't have the key. The problem is if they make it the law that they have to have the key, what do they do then? And so that's where we are. But like, so this is the whole product may be a canary where if it just starts going dark in various.

[Leo Laporte]

Countries, I think that's probably likely.

[Jason Snell]

That's why.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, that's depressing.

[Alex Lindsay]

It puts them in a position to be able to tell you without telling you that if they say we've stopped.

[Leo Laporte]

Doing the United States, if Apple and Google pull a signal from the Play Store from their stores, which I imagine we're going to see in the next year, it's possible, I wouldn't be surprised.

[Jason Snell]

Or Signal removes itself from app stores in countries where it's been made.

[Leo Laporte]

Meredith Whitaker, their CEO, says they would do that. I hope she backs it up with action. I mean, I. Why would the UK send this to Apple and not to Google and to Signal and to every Microsoft and everybody else? I imagine they did. These things are secret, remember, they're not supposed to be revealed. It's only thanks to some good journalism that we even know that this happened. And you're right, it's a canary. Because Apple announced, okay, we're pulling adp.

[Andy Ihnatko]

And also another thing, that's if you want cause for optimism, it's not because a reporter just dug and dug and dug and turned this up. It's because some people on the inside were absolutely aghast and angry about this and that was going to leak for sure. So we can hope that in a country like ours, which are very much noted for very rambunctious citizens, that if something similar were to happen, that it would be leaked out somewhere. But the optimism conjecture.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, it's a good story. Interesting story. I hope that you will all take the moral of that story to heart. Let's take a break. More to come in just a bit. You're watching Mac Break Weekly. Andy Inoco, Jason Snell, Alex Lindsay. This episode of MacBreak Weekly, brought to you by Stash. Saving and investing can feel impossible. But with Stash, it's not just a reality. It's easy. Stash isn't just an investing app. It's a registered investment advisor that combines automated investing with dependable financial strategies to help you reach your goals faster. They'll provide you with personalized advice on what to invest in based on your goals or if you want to just sit back and watch your money go to work, you can opt into their award winning expert managed portfolio that picks stocks for you. Stash has helped millions of Americans reach their financial goals and starts at just $3 per month. Don't let your savings sit around, make it work harder for you. Go to get.stash.com max break to see how you can receive $25 toward your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures. That's get.stash.com MacBreak paid non client endorsement not representative of all clients and not a guarantee Investment advisory services offered by Stash Investments LLC and SEC Registered Investment Advisor Investing involves risk offer is subject to T's and C's. Apple has announced, kind of in the same vein, that it is not not able to detect Pegasus spyware in 1/2 of phones. I don't understand why it's just half. Explain that to me. Pegasus is the spyware used by nation states for the most part for zero click attacks on iPhones. In other words, you wouldn't know it's installed. You wouldn't have to do anything explicit to install. Sends you a message and then they're in. Apple has of course tried to thwart this and in fact it's even notified people maybe you've received it with notifications saying you know, we have detect. What did it say? It's there are there are attacks on your phone. We think maybe it's insecure, something like that. I've seen them. It sent warnings to iPhone users in a hundred companies, 100 countries last summer. However, a new report from Iverify says that's not 100%. They can only detect it in around half of the devices. Now this is a little bit self serving because iverify sells a $1 app that lets you scan your phone. Is it credible?

[Andy Ihnatko]

I didn't know how to process this one myself because, because you could cut and paste this and put it on that company's website and it would read like an ad almost. On the one hand, if they're doing something that's in their own best interest, on the other hand they would know if they were writing software that can detect this they would probably be familiar with this sort of stuff.

[Leo Laporte]

They say 18,000 people downloaded Iverify Basic, it's a dollar and scanned their devices and they detected 11 new cases of Pegasus and disease. The fact that it's is it just a dollar flat fee that seems like they're not really Trying to make a lot of money out of this.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah, that's another good point.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I mean, if you're being attacked by Pegasus spyware, it's not like someone who's trying to get out your crypto wallet or anything like that. It really is. You are the target of a nation state who probably would very much like to silence you one way or another. So that means that the direness and importance of having this warning is in inverse proportion to the number of iPhone users who actually will require this kind of a scan on their phone. But yeah, I mean, if I were on that list, I would definitely be downloading this app after reading this.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. And it is 99 cent one time purchase, so it's not like 100 bucks a month. Yeah. So they say, in other words, that we were able to find new infections that Apple did not know about. In half the cases they said the targets had not received threat notifications from Apple.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah. And it's very explicit. Apple detected that you are being targeted by a mercenary spyware attack that is trying to remotely compromise the iPhone associated with your Apple id. The attack is likely targeting you specifically because of who you are or what you do. Although it's never possible to achieve absolute certainty when detecting such attacks, Apple has high confidence in this warning. Please take it seriously.

[Leo Laporte]

Yes.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I'm talking about something that you don't want Apple intelligence to try to summarize that it's.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, I just, I just paid a buck for the. For the app. Let's see if I. Let's see if I. Pegasus on here, it does have a notification system. They have a Pro app, so maybe that's. But let's. So they're ready to scan. Run a scan that detects device integrity. For the Pro app, you'd pay more for continuous monitoring, I guess, but if you at least just want to scan. So it looks like I don't have Pegasus installed. Whoopee.

[Jason Snell]

There's always tomorrow.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, I mean, I guess you have to take this with a grain of salt. This is a company that makes money on this saying that it's detected more infections than Apple.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Still, it's again, it's like when there's one of those news stories about, hey, my Apple watch detected afib and saved my life. It's like all you have to be is one of those 1% of the 1% or the 1% that it actually gives you information that might again, in this case save your life to say, you know what? Glad I spent that dollar. I don't. I'M glad that. I'm glad that I came across that news item. I'm glad I listened to Mac break that day.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. All right. I guess we should probably talk about Apple. Apple's half trillion dollar promise. That's a lot of money. It's the same amount of money that a OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank have promised to spend for their Stargate AI investment. Apple has promised the Trump administration in the wake of tariff threats to invest more than half a trillion dollars in the US over the next four years. 20,000 jobs will be created, the vast majority focused on R and D, silicon engineering, software development, AI and machine learning. Probably stuff Apple would be doing anyway.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah, that's what a lot of the financial reporters are basically saying that after looking at this is basically money that they have either already committed or were definitely going to be spending. Another analyst looked at this and said that the rate at which Apple has been spending in the past and their needs for the future. Some of these numbers are absolutely insane and they're kind of doubting. They're basically claiming Hollywood bookkeeping of a sort that yeah, they're obviously putting a lot of money into the economy. And this is another opportunity for Apple to mention how much they pay in taxes and how many people they employ. We are the good $3 trillion tech company that controls everything. We're not the one of the bad trillion dollar tech companies that controls everything. This is pr.

[Leo Laporte]

This is diplomatic pr. This is. Yes, yeah, more handling of the President.

[Jason Snell]

It's not just. It is the handling of the United States government. And I say that because if you would like, you can call up on Apple's website the press release from January 2018 that says Apple accelerates US investment and job creation $350 billion contribution. And the press release from 2021 when there was a different president, that was Apple commits $430 billion in US investments over five years, including a new North Carolina campus which by the way, way has not been built yet and is on hold, although they say they're going to build it eventually. And that's the thing is, look, they are managing their relationship with the U.S. government. They want to let whoever's in charge in the U.S. government say, oh, Apple is a good American company that isn't just doing everything overseas. They are spending money in America. And yeah, a lot of this is stuff that they would already be doing, but some of it probably isn't right.

[Leo Laporte]

It sounds like some of it step up. If they promised Biden 430 billion.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, it's an extra 70 billion.

[Leo Laporte]

It's another 70 billion over four years.

[Jason Snell]

The question is, how has their behavior changed? I think the answer is they know now that politically they need to spend a little bit more money in the US So they are.

[Leo Laporte]

And that's good. That's what, that's what the whole point of the tariffs was. Yeah, I mean, to encourage companies to do it in the US it is.

[Jason Snell]

So it is part pr. But I think that like, you know, some of it is probably like, yeah, we'll build a factory there. Because now we've calculated that the money we would send Bill, say building that factory somewhere else is not worth it given the scrutiny that we're under. But a lot of this is just, again, there are, there are a lot of kind of lazy stories that are like, well, of course this is just sucking up to Trump and like, it is. But it's bigger than that because they did this with Biden too. It has to do with the, the fact that our big American tech companies that stand astride the world like a colossus suddenly became like a target of people in politics who said, we got to regulate those guys. We got to, you know, even though there are big companies, we still got to regulate them because they're big tech and they're bad. And this is Apple's way of saying, oh, no, no, no, no, we're, look how good we are. And if you look at those press releases, you will see them, they will list the app economy. They'll talk about independent software developers are part of the app economy and how much they contribute. And they will list states. They will, they'll say, we've got a server farm in Oregon and another one in North Carolina and we just opened a new campus in Texas and we got this in Nevada that is like the Apollo program having a at least one parts supplier in every single congressional district.

[Leo Laporte]

Right, like that is exactly.

[Jason Snell]

Check.

[Leo Laporte]

So here's the paragraph from the press release. The $500 billion commit includes Apple's work with thousands of suppliers across all 50 states. Direct employment, Apple intelligence infrastructure, data centers, corporate facilities, Apple TV productions in 20 states. Apple remains one of the largest U.S. taxpayers, having paid more than 75 billion in U.S. taxes over the past five years. $19 billion in 2024 alone. But you know what? I also have to say good on the US Government for putting pressure on Apple to re home this stuff.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Right? No, this is why I personally, and I'm only speaking for myself here, this is why I find this concerning and galling that, yeah, I Mean this, this company Apple is not going to make any money unless they are investing in their own company. And that also means investing in resources in the United States. And it's also been in their best interests no matter who won the would have won the election in January to get as much manufacturing out of China as possible. Mostly they're putting that in India. The congratulations. They're manufacturing I think 25% of the iPhone 16 and 16 ES this year and next. But the thing is they're also adding credibility to the Trump administration. We heard about this first not from Apple, but from Apple from Air Force One. Trump basically saying oh yeah, I had a really great meeting with Tim Cook. We're talking about the tariffs. They decided they're going to do this and because of my guidance, because of whatever he put a post on Trump Social on Truth Social, all caps of course. Apple has just announced a record $500 billion investment in the United States of America. The reason? Faith in what we are doing without which they wouldn't be investing. 10 cents. Thank you.

[Leo Laporte]

That we strong armed the hell out of them. But either way, I mean I would rather see Apple spend the money in the US than India. I know we have listeners in India who might feel otherwise but speaking as an American for an American company, why not? It's good.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I'll end this. My part.

[Leo Laporte]

Unless they're, unless it's B.S. unless it's just, it's wallpaper.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I just, I just think that when you invite an administration to use yourself, use the company for PR purposes to basically create credibility where otherwise there might not be much for or not yet yet for tariffs and for whatever strong arming golden age of America stuff that Trump is pushing. I feel as though that means that Tim Cook is in some has to be held responsible partly for co signing on the policies of that administration.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, let me ask you this.

[Andy Ihnatko]

That's all I'm saying.

[Leo Laporte]

Is there any negative to Apple investing and moving as much as it can out of China into the United States?

[Alex Lindsay]

I don't think it's moving out of China into the United States. It's moving out of China into Vietnam and India and Brazil and other places like that. The kind of stuff that they're talking.

[Leo Laporte]

About, wouldn't it be better if they moved to the U.S. it can't.

[Alex Lindsay]

Like we don't have the capacity to do what, what we're doing in China. Like we don't have. We do not have.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, let's make it that. How do we solve that?

[Alex Lindsay]

That's a, that's a 20 year problem. Like it is not like we won't be using.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Biden was doing that was with the CHIPS act. We're trying, trying to achieve that as well.

[Alex Lindsay]

It is but it's a 20 year problem. Like that's at best 20 years and we won't even be using these phones. I don't even know what Apple be doing when, when you, you're able to get hundreds of thousands, thousands of, of tech. The, the tech that's required to do these is hundreds of thousands of people being trained to do something that we've given up on. You know and so like we're trying to go, we're trying to you know, do this hard curve. I agree that we need to have you know, more of that skill set but I don't think that that's really coming back. Like it's not. I agree it's you know and, and it's a very rare, these are in the United States. These are rare skills. And most of those skills actually sit in, from what I understand most of them sit in the defense industry because that's the stuff that has to be done here. So, so the Raytheons, the, the you know those types have these really, really fine machinists and so on and so forth. But, but outside of that most of it is. Those are really expensive projects that have, you know, that, that pay, that pay what it takes to have an American work on it. You know. And, and it's, and, but even then it's a rare skill, you know, to have those kinds of being able to use those kind of tooling. And so I think that, that, I think that's the challenge really. I don't think that they can bring, they should be bringing. We should find things that people should be doing here. It's not like we can't invest in people being productive. But I don't think that trying to build phones is going to be one of those. I mean because the phone will have to cost twice, twice as much and we again the amount of training that it would require is, makes you know, a trip to the moon look like a walk in the park. Like, you know, it is an incredible, it would have to be a new near space launch of work and there's no guarantee that we would win. There's no guarantee that they would pay off.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, it's good that we're doing it in Houston, right. They're building a quarter million square foot server manufacturing facility. Wait a minute, Apple doesn't make servers.

[Jason Snell]

They do for private cloud computer. It's their own servers that they're building themselves. And actually, I saw somebody say, that's an interesting angle, which is maybe, maybe they feel more comfortable making servers. Remember, we have all those rumors and stories that were never really proven about, like China inserting spy hardware inside of server builds. Yeah, well, you build it yourself in the United States. Maybe you feel better about that too. By the way, I think Apple's a. Yeah, Apple's a global company, but it doesn't hurt. I think this might have changed their trajectory a little bit, but I think more of this is about optics. That it got to be the point where people were like, oh, Apple, all they do is. They're not really Americans. All they do is make their phones in China. And first off, it misses the fact that the vast majority of Apple's engineering is happening in Cupertino.

[Leo Laporte]

Not even Apple kind of Apple admits that there's a problem by saying designed in California.

[Jason Snell]

Well, yeah, but at the same time, I think the perception was Apple's not really an American company. Apple's actually doing everything in China. And so part of the PR here is just to say that's not true, that we have lots of stuff that we do in China and I. And it's true. And I. Or in California and in the rest of the United. United States. And that's true too. It's a global company, but. But it's fighting against this perception that it has abandoned the United States. And that's not true either. To Alex's point. I think they do a lot in the United States, but there are limits to what they're able to do here since they're completing any globalized world now. If globalization vanishes in the next 20 years, well, everything's going to be real different then. But for now, this is where we are.

[Alex Lindsay]

And the things that come back to the United States are highly automated. Like, that's what I mean, that's what you're going to see more of is when they. These big investments will be in R and D and it'll be in building things where there's a lot of machines doing those things, you know, doing as much as they. They can to do it. It's not going to be hiring the same number of people in the United States that are working overseas right now. That's not. That's not a viable solution. And so I know that people want it to be, but it just isn't.

[Leo Laporte]

Look, here's a picture of an Apple employee getting trained to use advanced EU Vehic equipment.

[Jason Snell]

Everybody's happy.

[Leo Laporte]

I like it that he's, you know, he's American because he's wearing his baseball cap backwards.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah. Are they severed or are those just regular people?

[Leo Laporte]

This definitely looks like the severed floor. I don't know. Might just be me, you know. Oh, hey, isn't that great? He's wearing AirPods, Max. How many AirPods, Max, you think are worn in factories around the world? That's a very expensive headphone for ear protection. Anyway. Anyway, I love it. These are clearly staged, right? I mean, maybe they aren't. Maybe those are real Apple employees, not actors dressed in black T shirts. Anyway, and again, I want to support it. Everybody knows I'm not the biggest fan of the President right now, but I am in favor of American companies. However, we have have to convince them. Moving more manufacturing and jobs here. I think that's a good thing for our country. Yes.

[Andy Ihnatko]

All I'll say is that I don't like the idea that this is apparently mostly smoke and mirrors. It wasn't.

[Leo Laporte]

That's what worries me. It has to be genuine.

[Andy Ihnatko]

You know, we couldn't have done this under Biden, but under Trump, these opportunities, and also, of course, putting a little pressure on us, which the government is sometimes required to do, to make us do the right thing thing, essentially. I don't think anything has really changed. But again, once you. I would be saying the exact same thing if this were. If this were Biden, the Biden White.

[Jason Snell]

House, which it was in 2021 when.

[Andy Ihnatko]

They did this, then if this were the Kamala Harris White House who was tweeting out, hey, we. We could. We managed to convince Tim Cook to do this, I would be saying, no, you didn't. And now Tim is an Apple is allowing the themselves to be exploited to legitimize someone who's trying to put over some very, very sour.

[Leo Laporte]

Because that was in the White House.

[Jason Snell]

Say this press release gets released if Kamala Harris is the president too.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, of course.

[Jason Snell]

Good on him.

[Leo Laporte]

Move it. And maybe don't make it smoke and mirrors. Maybe make some jobs here. Wouldn't that be a good idea?

[Alex Lindsay]

Apple's made a couple jobs here. Like, it's not. It's not like that. They haven't hired anybody in the United States.

[Leo Laporte]

No, I agree. I understand.

[Alex Lindsay]

I think.

[Jason Snell]

I believe this is more like showing.

[Alex Lindsay]

Your work of the country.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, Just the five things you did last week.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, but it is. It's showing your work. It's saying, yeah, we are here. Here we are. It's not necessarily like, I mean, Donald Trump is going to say, oh, well, I talked to Tim Apple and he said 500 billion. And so I look at me and he did in fact say that. But from Apple's perspective, they're just like, look, look at us, we continue to invest in America. And they're just kind of like plowing forward. So it's a press release where they're not saying thank you so much to the government that people, they're letting them take credit if they want to, but this is more like showing their work that you. Yes, we are a legitimate, you know, American company who invests in America.

[Andy Ihnatko]

And speaking of showing their work, at least, again, for things I've been saying that might sound nasty against Apple at least Tim, personally and on behalf of Apple, not as a personal statement, has been standing behind the DEI initiatives that Apple has been, has been pushing through. They're not backing down. Other companies are having to. Well, we have to close these offices and we have to change this officer from a DEI officer to a personnel officer. But even during the shareholders vote, the shareholders meeting, which again, some group basically put it on the shareholders agenda that we vote for Apple to basically get rid of DEI initiatives. Tim, it was voted down by shareholders, as everyone thought they would. They said, our strength has always come from hiring the very best people and then providing a culture of collaboration, one where people with diverse backgrounds and perspectives come together to innovate and create something magical for our users. We will continue to work together to create a culture of belonging where everyone can do their best work and will remain committed to the values that have always made us who we are. And we've the only stick of butter they gave. The Trump administration was basically saying, again, quoting here, we've never had quotas or targets at Apple and as the legal landscape around these issues evolves, we might have to change. We may need to make some changes to comply, which is fair. If they can't, if they basically really can't sell anything to the government while still having an actual officer that has the initials DEI in it, it's a loss. I would love to see them fight it. Absolutely. To the, to the last beach, to the last stone, to the last, last person. But I don't see a huge difference. So long as they are still protecting their people, so long as they're still creating a. Create a place of actual diversity and inclusion and safety for everybody. Change the name of a title from DEI to Human Human Resource Manager Pre Potentate is a small change. Again, I would love to see them again fight all the way down to the mattresses on this. But I appreciate that if something has been made illegal in the United States of America and is no longer, they're no longer capable of doing it, that is a much bigger ask than simply saying, no, we're not going to do it, than standing that firm.

[Jason Snell]

And I think that's why he said we'll retain our values regardless of having to adjust based on laws, we're going to retain our values. And, and that those are our values. It's funny, you mentioned all the companies that just sort of like, oh yeah, let's sweep all that stuff away. It's almost as if those companies never really believed in it and this is a great opportunity for them to get rid of it. And I say what you will about Tim Cook and Apple, I do think they believe it.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah. And, and that, and that doesn't denigrate the efforts at Google and elsewhere. It's always a long, long discussion. And the weather, the political and the commercial and the social weather allows the people who are arguing for DEI in 2016-2015-2018-2020 to win the argument and win supporters and to win the day. And sometimes the weather changes and they have to try to get the exact same things done, their same priorities, the same values, without using language that will simply set people off. I hate that this is the reality we live in, but that's the reality we live in. But again, but you're absolutely right. Bravo to Apple. For even they didn't have. Tim didn't have to say anything. This was, this was a stupid request to cease DEI efforts question that was put on the, on the shareholder ballot. Again, there's a, there's a conservative group that's been putting that on shareholder ballots everywhere. They could have just basically saying, okay, you're rude. Yes, we don't have to respond to this at all. The fact that he made a clear statement saying, yeah, we don't, we're not going to back down from this. This is a core value that we don't feel as any need to get rid of that something they didn't have to do and the fact they did it, they absolutely should get credit for.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, I guess we've covered that story. So let me go back to the story we were talking about. Apparently Tim Cook was at the White House on Thursday and according to the president, he told him he was gonna stop two plants in Mexico and will build products in the US instead. Dead. Now, Apple did not announce that. That wasn't in the press release. Is that credible? Is that something Apple was doing anyway or is that made up? We don't know.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Doesn't sound like it. There was a fact checker that I read yesterday that basically was trying, trying to figure out what Trump could have been talking about.

[Leo Laporte]

Bloomberg says it's not clear what manufacturing facilities source referencing.

[Andy Ihnatko]

They source parts from a couple. Some companies in Mexico, and that was part of the.

[Leo Laporte]

Foxconn has a manufacturing presence in Mexico, but it's planning to expand its footprint there anyway.

[Alex Lindsay]

I mean, oftentimes these quotes are not acclimated to reality.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, it's just made up. Trump told reporters later Friday he and Cook met at length. He's going to start building, Trump said, very big numbers. You have to speak to him because I don't remember. I assume they're going to announce it at some point. Representative for Apple did not respond to request for comment. So I don't know. I don't know.

[Jason Snell]

I mean, I gotta say, though, this is, this is how you manage the President of the United States.

[Leo Laporte]

Give him a win.

[Jason Snell]

Tim Cook is, is. He's good at this. He was good at this the last time. He's good at this. He's not going to be perfect and we're not going to love everything about it, but, like, he sees some existential threats for Apple in being perceived as being an enemy of the United States. They don't want to be that. They want to be a good example. And this is, this is where you say, look at all these things that we're doing. And then when the president just blurts out like, oh, I talked to Tim and it's great, and they're gonna do a bunch of great stuff like, that's not bad for Apple. You may not like it.

[Alex Lindsay]

And the soft thing is the next thing is gonna be, you know, Tim, Tim's having conversations and going, you know, it's crazy that the Europeans are telling us what to do. Like, that's an insane thing, you know, like, like that's a, you know, and, and it puts them in a much bigger position to, to have Trump start to. We see that than we see, like, when we. Three or four weeks from now. This is the seed for the conversation that occurs next. That would not happen because he'd let him dangle if they didn't make the announcement.

[Jason Snell]

He'll also be at that Houston factory when that first server rolls off the assembly line.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Right, but that too is an ethical question for Apple. Again, it's a boilerplate. And again, understandable diplomatic language. When they are told by China or another country to take all VPN apps off of the App Store. They have to comply, comply with the laws and regulations in the countries they operate in. But when it comes to, we're going to try to use our influence with this administration to use the diplomatic might, the economic might and maybe even the military might of the United States government to tell the UK and tell the EU that, yeah, we're not going to pay any of the fines that you levy against us out Apple for not opening up our App Store. We're not going to make changes to our hardware or our software as required by your laws. We are going to ignore all of your laws because we've got a big guy who can basically wave a big stick at you that I don't know.

[Alex Lindsay]

I don't know if they're going to happen.

[Andy Ihnatko]

That's an ethical issue.

[Alex Lindsay]

I don't think they're going to ignore them. They're just going to tell them to back off. And the issue is that Spotify and all those companies are using their political, political, their political engine to, to create those laws in the first place. Like, you know, they didn't come up with them. The European Union did not come up with these on their own. Like, you know, these are, these are local, these are their companies, you know, telling them that you have to defend us from those companies. This is all a proxy battle between these companies of, of where they, where they are. And I think that we probably should be, should be properly jaded in the conversation.

[Andy Ihnatko]

We disagree on this point and that's all whole thing.

[Leo Laporte]

Let's take a break. When we come back, I could talk about severance. That would be fun. I don't know. We'll find something. You're watching.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I swear I sent you that email.

[Leo Laporte]

Sorry, I got your five points. I fed it to AI and it can't make heads or tails. That's the thing that scares me is the idea that AI could decide who to hire and fire. That's. Isn't that exact what we were worried about.

[Jason Snell]

I mean, the hiring is already happening, right? That part's already happening.

[Leo Laporte]

AI hiring.

[Alex Lindsay]

Oh yeah. Like when you really, when you put your resume in, there's a, you know, there's, there's AI that's going to look at your resume, make a bunch of decisions. The HR won't see 90, 90 to 95% of the, of the people who apply to a job because the AI goes through and just sorts out all the things that, that are not.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh yeah, that's, that's an issue, isn't it?

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, so, so it's, it's already. And people talk, people talk about gaming, the building, your resumes in certain ways. I don't know if it's.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, really?

[Alex Lindsay]

But, but it's, but it's all making sure you put the things in that it's looking for, that kind of thing.

[Andy Ihnatko]

My name is Poindexter. Q. No. People call me Drop Tables.

[Leo Laporte]

Little Johnny Drop Tables. Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

Mine is hard. Yeah, exactly.

[Leo Laporte]

Let's take a little tiny break. Alex, Lindsay, Andy and Ako Jason Snell freeze in that position. And we will return momentarily with MacBreak Weekly, our show brought to you by Zscaler this week, the leader in cloud security. This is a really interesting proposition. I think you probably know you may even run a company that is defending itself with perimeter defenses, right? Enterprises have spent billions of dollars on firewalls to protect, you know, protect the walls. And then of course, you have to have VPNs as to let people in so they can work. But the breaches haven't stopped all of these billions we've spent on perimeter defenses. 18% year over year increase in ransomware attacks. A $75 million record payout in 2024. The problem is that traditional security tools, tools don't prevent bad guys from getting in. They actually give them ways to get in with those VPNs. They expand your attack service because you have to have public facing IPs that are exploited by bad actors. And oh, incidentally, they are using AI to generate attacks faster than ever. And then of course, once a bad guy's inside your network, they've penetrated those perimeter defenses. They're free to wander and look for all the places you backup data, all those embarrassing emails, all of that private customer information. And then they exfiltrate it through the firewall, which struggles to inspect that encrypted traffic at scale. So basically, you're almost setting them up for success. Hackers are exploiting traditional security infrastructure structure. And again, they're using AI to outpace your defenses. We've got to do better. It's time to rethink your security. Don't let bad actors win. They're innovating, they're exploiting your defenses. They're taking advantage of what you're doing. No, but now there's zscaler. Zero Trust plus AI. It stops attackers by hiding that attack surface, making apps and IPs invisible. And because it's Zero Trust, it eliminates lateral movement. Users can only connect to the specific apps they're explicitly allowed to and Zscaler continuously verifies every request based on identity and context. It also simplifies security management because it gives you AI powered automation. That's where the AI comes in. And of course they have to use AI because Zscaler is analyzing half a trillion daily transactions they're looking for. Most of them are legit, but they're looking for the ones that, that aren't so they can give you a heads up about the threats that are incoming. Bottom line, hackers can't attack what they can't see. Protect your organization with Zscaler zero trust plus AI. Learn [e-mail] Security we thank them so much for their support of Mac Break Weekly. And you support us when you use that address. Zscaler.com Security Security. All right, all right, all right. Let's move on to less difficult problems here. I don't know what those would be. MacBook Air stocks dwindling, confirming a imminent, according to Mark Gurman, release of an M4 MacBook Air. Yes. We said last week, March, right? Yeah, that's imminent. We're at the end of the month.

[Jason Snell]

March is itself imminent now. Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Yes. It comes in like a lion and then sells M4 MacBook Airs.

[Jason Snell]

Yep.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay. Nothing more to say. We don't have any better date than that.

[Jason Snell]

It could be March 30th. We don't seem to have any, any idea exactly when, but it's coming. And this is. All the signs point to it, but it makes sense. Right.

[Alex Lindsay]

Question about the air, Jason. I think you've had both sitting around. Have you tested the mics at all between the two?

[Leo Laporte]

Because there's, you're all into these new mics, aren't you?

[Alex Lindsay]

Well, we're looking pretty closely and it's that there is the. Because what we're looking at right now is we have a problem with Michael Krasny show of people remotely using their computers. They're very good writers, very good host, very good, but they're not techie. And even sending mics sometimes is problematic. And so we were like, why don't we just send them a laptop? But in the marketing, of course, it says studio mics for the MacBook Pro and they say air for. I mean in the air, it's like high quality beam forming or whatever. But it's not the same. Like it doesn't. And I don't know if you've tested that to see, you know, oh, this generation.

[Jason Snell]

I'm not sure if I have, but I believe the 15 inch air is a Little bit better. It's got some more features than the 13. My guess is that the Pro is going to get you better sound. But it's been a little while.

[Alex Lindsay]

I'll know later.

[Jason Snell]

It is. I mean, I recorded a couple of podcasts with people where it's been very clear that they were on the laptop mic and it used to be a showstopper. Like I can't record on the laptop mic. And in these last couple of MacBook Pro generations. I mean, because Apple started talking about studio quality microphones back with the last Intel MacBook Pro.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

And it was like, I'm gonna stop you there because I do this for a living and it's not. And they're like, well, you know, it's kind of like what does studio mean now? I feel like they're actually. It's like the boy who cried Wolf. I feel like they're actually kind of getting there now where you could talk into a laptop and actually send.

[Alex Lindsay]

We had a problem where we had someone with a. With an M3 MacBook Pro that sounded better on the MacBook Pro than they did on the. On the MV7. And the reason for that was they just couldn't find a place to put the MV7 on the desk. Right. And so it was too far away and everything else. And then they just. And then when they turned it off and they started talking to us, I was like, what are you using right now? And they're like, oh, this is just the mic on the. And that's when the wheel started turning of like it's not a disaster like in post, we can fluff up especially for recording double ending, which is what we do. So with a, you know, relatively good record and because we're sending the laptop out, we can put our own software on a record like aiff, like it's not even like compressed, you know, so we get even better, you know, we can control.

[Jason Snell]

I'll make you a deal. I will. When the M4 Air comes out. Because I don't think I have an M3 here anymore. When the M4 Air comes Out, I will do some mic testing just for you, Alex versus the M4 MacBook Pro and we will see.

[Leo Laporte]

When are we going to get an M5 MacBook Pro. Is that image or fall? So this wouldn't be a bad time to buy a MacBook Air M4. Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

When it comes out. If you're in the market for an air, they seem to want to update them every year with the new M chip to come.

[Leo Laporte]

Every year there's a cadence though, right? Like they're opposite ends of the year or opposite halves of the year.

[Jason Snell]

It sure seems like that, that the spring is for the MacBook Air and the fall is for the MacBook Pro for now.

[Alex Lindsay]

And do we think, do we see kind of a TikTok where the one version is a bigger jump than the other? I mean, obviously M1 was a huge jump, but the other ones have been a little more incremental from the, you know, from.

[Jason Snell]

It's hard to say, I think in part because the, all the drama around the 3 nanometer process where they did the M3, which was a big jump in a lot of ways, but it was also that 3 nanometer process and then the M4, they were kind of like, it was a smaller jump in a lot of ways, but they were going to a more sustainable process. So it's hard to say. And also varies within the chip models, I believe like the M3, the mid range chip, the, the, the Pro did not gain as fast as the Max did that they, they sort of separated those and so we don't have enough, I would say, to, to know the pattern because I think the chaos of that 3 nanometer transition they had to do twice is kind of like washed some confusion into it. We're still looking for a pattern there, but it looks like so far what I would say is don't think of it as monolithic because not only are the multiple chip models, but there's like the multiple parts that are inside that package. And sometimes the GPU cores get faster and other times the CPU cores are what gets faster and other times it's the neural engine that gets faster or there are more of them. And it looks like basically if you think about Apple's chip from the outside, it's like 1234, but it's actually like 10 different things. And they push them all forward. You know, they do push them all forward, but maybe at different rates year to year. So it can really vary.

[Alex Lindsay]

I mean the problem really is, I think for Apple eventually with this and the same problem with the iPad, is that the M1, even though for 90% of the market, the M1 still probably does what it needs to do as fast as it needs to do it. You know, we use M1s for like 8 gig M1s for office hours and we have 8 up to 8 1080p videos coming out of one computer and it's just like, do you know it's like a 50, 50%, 45% something like that. Like, it's not even pushing hard.

[Jason Snell]

If the MacBook Air M2 that is currently for sale is not the best value you have ever gotten for a Mac, it's that 699M1 at Walmart. Like, yeah, and that's Apple's. I mean, we talked about it here. That's Apple's biggest problem, is that the Apple Silicon Macs are so good that you don't really need to replace them because they're so great even now.

[Alex Lindsay]

I mean, and even. I think that's still the problem. And I think, again, this comes back to software development and who you engage and so on and so forth. You know, I think I talked about last week, my kids are still using their. They. I bought them a pro, you know, the Pro First Pro iPad at 13 inches. They still use those. Like, they still. They're still running and they still. And the problem is that almost all iPad software does not push hard enough to move it forward. Like, you don't feel any difference between an older. I have my two iPad pros that I use as interfaces at this point. I mean, I still use them for other things. I pick them up and go take them somewhere, but a lot of times they're sitting here as interface controls. I don't feel like I need to get a new one. I'm kind of like, I don't know, there'll be some feature now. What's interesting is that I do feel it on the Vision Pro. I can feel the Vision Pro getting. Getting pushed. There's some of the hardware, some of the stuff that the. Some of the stuff that I am downloading or working with people when they get aggressive about it, I do feel it hitting the ceiling as far as how hard it can go.

[Leo Laporte]

You make me feel that we should have a Vision Pro segment. And yet.

[Alex Lindsay]

Can we? Can we, Uncle Leo?

[Leo Laporte]

Well, okay, let's do it. It's time for the extremely short Vision Pro segment. What do you see? What do you know?

[Jason Snell]

It's time to talk to Vision Pro.

[Leo Laporte]

I hope that was immersive, sufficiently immersive for you Vision Pro watchers. They did add a new Arctic surfing video. Is it good?

[Alex Lindsay]

It's okay.

[Leo Laporte]

Do you like to surf in the Arctic? Seems cold.

[Jason Snell]

It's.

[Alex Lindsay]

It looks cold. I mean, I, I think it.

[Leo Laporte]

It.

[Alex Lindsay]

I'm still in the zone of. It works really, really well from 5 to 20ft and doesn't feel that great. Doesn't. It doesn't feel bad. But the wide shots, the high shots, the, the. All the other stuff, I'm Kind of like, well, that feels like 2D. Like, it doesn't feel like anything. Like, I don't. I'm like, yeah, but when you get close, you're like, whoa.

[Jason Snell]

It's not. I. What I. What I'm learning now is that the. When they're doing the wide shots, what works is that it's immersive. Right. Like, I love those shots of the snowy Norwegian, you know, bay where those people are surfing, because I was completely just immersed in that scenery. And so there's that travelog element. Yeah. There's no 3D effect there really to speak of, but it doesn't really matter because it's so immersive. And then. Yeah, when you get closer in and you're seeing those people, that is a different effect. But I thought that was a good one. I thought that was a great example of, you know, don't watch it when you're feeling a little cold because it's chilly. They're surfing.

[Alex Lindsay]

There's a show where a woman just comes right out, walks out in her bathing suit and walks right into the water. Into the water where there's snow. And I was like, that's not right.

[Jason Snell]

Did you.

[Leo Laporte]

Does it feel colder because it's in a Vision Pro?

[Jason Snell]

No, because the Vision Pro keeps you warm. It's blowing warm air on your forehead the whole time. Did we talk about the rodeo one? Because I just wanted to mention.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, no, we did.

[Jason Snell]

One is hilarious because although it's, you know, big rodeo bulls and, like, it's very exciting, it shows you the limits of Apple doing this because. And Alex knows what I'm about to say here, he's going to have experienced this, undoubtedly, which is they follow a rodeo bull rider and we meet him and his family and all of these things. And it's leading up to the big moment at this rodeo in Utah where he's going to go out there and he's on the bull for like 2, 10 of a second, and he. He gets thrown and that's it.

[Leo Laporte]

And they picked the wrong guy.

[Jason Snell]

It shows you that, like, they're like, it doesn't matter. We're still doing this video. We put a lot. Brought these.

[Leo Laporte]

I always am impressed when documentaries pick the person who gets the gold medal. Like, oh, they must have shot everybody. Right? And then they took throughout the.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

Like, we did. We did. We pixel corded battlebots quite a few times. And that's what we did, is we picked the top 10.

[Leo Laporte]

Shoot them all.

[Alex Lindsay]

We shot them all.

[Leo Laporte]

And then you have a nice Documentary. You won't believe it. He was a long shot, but he went all the way.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Leo Laporte]

And we talked to his mom.

[Alex Lindsay]

So, you know, I think that the other problem is that it's a little soft. It just didn't feel like the wider shots felt like they were a little soft. Again, when they're really close, it. It feels really good. But it's. But that was the, the only thing that I, you know, it's nice that they're putting stuff out. I think a lot of us are really excited to see what happens when people get the camera. You know, that's the big thing everyone keeps on talking about.

[Leo Laporte]

That's going to be shift.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

With the new, with that new beta. I guess we haven't talked about this, Right. Because there was just the German report, but German didn't get it all. That new spatial gallery that is. That is not in the beta yet, but will be. But it's going to. They've already announced that it's going to be in the Vision OS 2.4 beta is interesting because that is a gallery to promote spatial content, not immersive content. And so it's like 3D image images, 3D videos, panoramas, which aren't even 3D, but they are cool in the Vision Pro. And it's. It's basically a curated app run by Apple that will point to content from Apple and elsewhere. And the question is just how much of that is going to be cool 3D content like, like videos and how. Like they showed a still of Jason Siegel on the set of Shrinking. And I'm like, is that your whole content is a picture of Jason Siegel? That's 3D, but like, I don't care. And so, but, but what, what it's. What's interesting is they know that those things are cool on the Vision Pro. And it's fascinating to watch over this last year as Apple has tried to sort of like, go, oh, oh, people like that. We should make a thing to do that well.

[Alex Lindsay]

And so I did feel like the spatial was not something they thought was going to be that big of a deal. It was like a little experimentation, but it's definitely more.

[Leo Laporte]

You could go all the way around. Siegel.

[Andy Ihnatko]

He is quite, quite a lemon drop. Let me just, Let me just. Let's just put that out.

[Jason Snell]

It would be more fun if that was a. If that was a spatial video behind the scenes. Right. Where we could. Where we could watch that. But they're trying. And there's. And they updated the guest mode. Seems like it's going to be way better. Again, not in the first beta where you're going to be able to. It used to be you had to like put it on yourself and put it in guest mode and all that. Now your friend could just put it on in guest mode and then it slides up on your phone or your iPad and you can say, yes, give them guest mode access, let them use these apps and then you can actually even tap and it will do the automatic kind of workflow to push a, an airplay session to your phone or our iPad so you can see what they're seeing like. And that's clearly customer feedback.

[Alex Lindsay]

Right? I mean, a lot of times we just stop. I just stopped. It was so complicated. Especially when you have a lot of apps. I just want to show you the six apps that you should look at. You know, exactly. There's five or six apps that I want to show, but now I've got, I've got, you know, 50 or 60 apps on there. I can't like, okay, now go over one more and then go back to this one and everything else. Else is. Has been pretty painful. And I just stopped. I was like, okay, it's enough. I can't.

[Leo Laporte]

24 is going to be a big update. Apple Intelligent. This is all coming out in April. Apple Intelligence first of beta just dropped last week. Right. Writing Tools, Image Playground, Genmoji. Oh, that's exciting.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah. Well, I mean, Spatial Gallery, they were behind, right. It was like Apple, Apple. Apple announced Apple Intelligence but said no Vision Pro essentially. And now it's like actually in this cycle it is getting Apple Intelligence as well as everything else. Plus they done that Spatial Gallery. Plus there's a Vision Pro app for the iPhone which will let you. I mean you. It'll auto download or auto appear. I guess if you have a Vision Pro, you can also just add it from the App Store if you want. But it's going to have, you know, marketing stuff in it. About here are some things you should get. But you'll also be able to set downloads of media and of apps to go to your device so that they're there when you put it on, which is good. I mean, that's what I use that for the meta Quest. It's a nice feature to have. And then the improved guest access. So, you know, gradually they. I mean, not a few months. Every few months there are more features that make the Vision Pro better. It's good that they're doing that.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. My guess is, is that the Spatial Gallery will be at least in beta. By April 7th. Yeah, I'm going to call that day because that's the first day of nab. And I think that, you know, that's when you're going to want to talk about it with video professionals and talk about that. I'm hoping that they find a better display for some of the spatial video in the sense that that blur thing that they do around the outside edge is not necessary and not desirable and it kind of ruins the experience. And so, you know, like the. And I've gotten kind of sensitive to it because Stream Voodoo doesn't do that. So the videos that I send to someone from Stream Voodoo doesn't, you know, they're nice, they're edge to edge and they look perfectly fine. I'm like, I don't understand what Apple's doing with the software soft edge thing, you know, but I don't, I don't appreciate it and I also don't like the fact that the only time I can hear immersive audio is with. If I put it into immersive mode with that horrible soft edge. Like, I just. The edge doesn't. I don't know, I don't know how it was designed and I don't know why it's still there. Like, it's just, it's a complete waste of time and it's, it's a detractor and you can't do it with any of Apple's tools. You can't watch a video that you shot as big as you'd like it without having that blur on the outside edge and it's just super annoying.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I was surprised that Spatial Gallery had to wait this long to actually appear. I mean, almost Most of the 3D systems I've used going back to cardboard, they know that one of the things you're going to want to mess around with is I want the 3D experience of enjoying certain content. Here is a very rich app and a very good environment for actually collecting all that stuff and experimenting, experiencing it. And it just seemed kind of weird that that wasn't a priority for the initial release.

[Alex Lindsay]

Well, I think that some of it is because they're putting up other people's stuff. So with Apple, sometimes the issue is when it comes to Spatial Gallery. I mean, because you have a spatial gallery that comes with it, which is photos. Right. But for other people's Spatial Gallery, I think that Apple gets into permissions and privacy and figuring out what it is and how are we going to control it and what is it going to look like and you know, all that stuff, I think, takes Apple. It takes Apple specifically a very long time to figure out the ins and outs of privacy, appropriateness, safety procedures, you know, security. All those things become a thing. I will say, as someone who's been taking panoramas with their phone and has and owns a couple Thetas, that all that history has paid off.

[Leo Laporte]

Yep.

[Alex Lindsay]

Because when I open up photos, I've got 800 images that I already can just sit there and jump into.

[Jason Snell]

And they're 2D, but they're spectacular. So I'm glad they put them in the gallery.

[Alex Lindsay]

I can't wait until. I mean, when you look at the conversion, it's not perfect, but the conversion on many of those where you just now press down on a image and say, oh, I want that image to be spatial. Their conversion of 2D to 3D, spectacular.

[Jason Snell]

It really is portrait mode finally paying off for them because they're using, I think, the same technology for that. Yeah. Vision Pro right now is a combination of them struggling to. Like, they're not the most high. The most high priority platform. So it's. Some stuff just is slower or late to arrive, like Apple Intelligence. And then also you just distinctly get the sense that they are coming out from under a whole bunch of dogma that was put on them by people early in the process about it's got to have this and it's got to have this. I was reminded of this because there was another. I forget where it was now, but it was another quote from, I think Johnny I've. Or one of his people, where they're. Where they were talking again about how fundamentally we didn't want. I was offended by VR headsets and we didn't want to cut people off. And it led them down this whole path of having those cameras on the inside and generating 3D eyes that go on the outside and all of that. And there are other features like that in the Vision Pro that I do think the people who are on the team now know exactly what this product is, but I think they're still kind of digging out from initial assumptions in the building of the product back before, before it shipped that aren't right. And they probably. Those people probably knew weren't right, but they were baked in and they're kind of like chipping away at some of that stuff.

[Alex Lindsay]

I think that. But I also think that. That they're finding what this is. Why they had to build the headset was that they're finding what works rather than. There's a certain amount that you can. In the lab you can say, this is how people are going to use it. And then they use it in a different way. Like I. One of the reasons that I really got into Ambisonic recording was because it really makes a difference in the headset. Like, when I'm watching something I really want to hear, I find myself wanting to hear air around me, me, you know, where I hear a little bit of the environment. And it did not occur to me that that was going to be as important as it has become for me. And I wouldn't know that if I hadn't been shooting and recording and putting it together to figure it out.

[Jason Snell]

Anything else I just said in our discord? Leo enjoys the sick, but very much. It's restful, it's peaceful.

[Leo Laporte]

Anything else you want to talk about?

[Andy Ihnatko]

I enjoy the dancing.

[Jason Snell]

It's just a good. I mean, to wrap it up, it's nice that there's another beta with more features in Vision Pro because it needs them. Right. It's obviously the whole complaint about it. I think the number one complaint, other than the price is does Apple care? And they're moving not necessarily as fast as we would like, but they keep moving. Like, there's always more Vision Pro stuff and it continues again and we'll see what happens at wwc. But it's good stuff that they're. That they're working on now.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I'll just say that I just want them to do a image playground that can create 3D images or 3D options, objects that you can then just basically play with and say, oh, give them a. Give them a hat. Like, okay, now I want them holding a golf club.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, yeah, we should say. I mean, that's actually one of those good points, which is the Apple Intelligence that's in there is just the 2D Apple intelligence from all the other Apple devices. It's not like they're like, aha, now Image Playground has depth. I mean, it should, but it doesn't. And that's just because they imported the existing iPad. Apple Intelligence.

[Alex Lindsay]

The other thing, though, to look at.

[Leo Laporte]

3D generation app that Anthony Nielsen talked me into buying this morning. Pika. This took the still of me in the hat and made it a video. And it's almost 3D. None of this is a still. This is not well.

[Alex Lindsay]

And the 3D stuff's coming. There's a program called I think Shapey or Shapely that you can give it a text prompt and it'll give you a 3D model. Model. Or what I do is I'll give it. I'll have mid journey render an object over a plain white background and then take it into shape. I think it's shape E or shapely. I take it into there and I tell it to become. Make that an object and it will make it. If I make a character, I say make that object running and it'll be running, you know, like it's so the 3D and it comes out as like an FBX. I mean I could take it into Unreal Engine, you know, like so it's so, so those tools are coming. They're obviously much more complicated. But when you look at a lot of what AI is generating, it has a 3D space. It doesn't know that it's in a 3D space, but it is a 3D space. It's building 3D objects with geometry. And Apple's is way more simplified and much more. It feels like we're only a small step from them taking those simplified objects that they use for Genmoji and the playground ground and turning those into 3D. So I don't, I don't think it's that far away for Apple to do that. I wouldn't even be surprised if we saw that at wwdc.

[Leo Laporte]

Feels like such a dead end technology to me. But that's just fun to watch. And that's the Vision Pro segment.

[Alex Lindsay]

Now you see, now you know, we're done talking.

[Leo Laporte]

The Vision Pro.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Zazu pits. What else? Deep cut.

[Jason Snell]

Deep cut.

[Leo Laporte]

Excellent.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Turner Classic Movies is in the house.

[Leo Laporte]

Apple is going to enhance its intelligence with Gemini. It already has chat GPT and now apparently according to Apple Insider, Gemini is on its way. That's the Google AI.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah. So smart to cover all the bases.

[Jason Snell]

People.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah, people. People have their favorites and there's no front runner right now for esoteric reasons or because I can't subscribe to four $20 a month AI services. This is just the one that I choose to chose to subscribe to.

[Jason Snell]

It looks like this comes from somebody named Aaron Paris who is a code sleuth who dug this up. And then 9 to 5 Mac reported on it.

[Alex Lindsay]

Oh yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

And it's basically like this is the third generation version.

[Jason Snell]

You know me, Leo. I like to go back.

[Leo Laporte]

Thank you. No, I do too. I'm with you 100%.

[Jason Snell]

So this is. They basically they have a thing that's like a textbook.

[Leo Laporte]

Isn't this funny? Aaron works for Mac Rumors. So Mac rumors to 9 to 5 to Apple Insider.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Okay, I have to keep peeling the interesting thing.

[Jason Snell]

So this is basically a configuration file that Says yes, we are going to get you to choose. This is the worst kept secret in some ways because literally at WWE Apple well they didn't but they, it was that thing where they were like chatgpt and then later they said oh of course in the future it will work with others like maybe Gemini who knows it's like to name one of them instead of just say who knows who to read the like to say for example Google Gemini to name it is very unusual for Apple and I think that was the wink right. Like we told ChatGPT they would go first but who knows what might wink follow in the future Like Google Gemini. Yeah it makes sense Shadow giving people choice and I would say it benefits Apple to say you know what these, these various world knowledge tech spots are, are commodities. Almost like pick your poison, we don't care, we'll integrate with all of them. I think that's a good thing for Apple to do too right look good for customers, good for Apple.

[Andy Ihnatko]

They can't, they can't own AI at this point. They can't even make a play towards laying the groundwork for owning AI. You may as well make the iPhone the most AI compliant Catholic device out there. Just like you know Apple earlier on said we can't. We're not going to basically own wi FI networks, we're just going to make hardware. Hardware that is the most easy to use with wi fi everywhere.

[Alex Lindsay]

So yeah, well and I think that again I think that early early days, you know all these external services are 90% of the solution. If Apple is successful five years from now they're 10% of the solution and Apple has to figure out how to that's a gradient that Apple can choose to do. But the good news is is that once it's really working well there they can go at the pace that they want to.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah. Speaking of things that were dug out of look by looking at the code 9 to 5 Mac was looking at the code for the developer 1 beta of 18.4 and saw that the list of device categories iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, reality, homepods, whatever. Now there is a new type of device in that list called home that these things were. So yet another piece of suggestion that we are going to see a friendly home Herbie type robot that listens to.

[Jason Snell]

You when you're sad or a square iPad screen. One of those.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah, one of those Innovation is on a gradient list.

[Jason Snell]

Didn't German say that it actually is going to require 18:4 and so they have to get 18:4 to across the finish line before they can ship the product. So that would make home. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's just Apple home. Maybe that's what it's called. I don't know.

[Alex Lindsay]

I mean, and I think that Apple, I mean, I do think that the cameras and everything else make, make a lot of sense, especially cameras, because you're sitting there like you can kind of try to integrate with them. But Apple building, they know a lot about cameras. So being able to build something you feel is totally tied into the network, I think might make sense.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah. Face ID in a, in a mobile form or in a household form, it'd be very interesting.

[Alex Lindsay]

There's a lot that they could do, you know, like they could, you know, and yeah, much more accurate face ID to just walk up and open your door, you know, that kind of thing.

[Leo Laporte]

Steve Jobs would have been, Sad to say, 70 years old a couple of days ago. His Monday Birthday's on the 24th. Oh, so yesterday. Yeah, 70. Didn't make it. Died at what, 51?

[Andy Ihnatko]

56.

[Leo Laporte]

56. Okay. Steve Jobs archive has published a new footage of. Well, I guess this isn't that new. This came out in July of last year. So where is the new thing that.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Well, there's a couple things California has nominated Steve Jobs for. There's a new series of $1 coins from the US Mint. And California wants Steve Jobs to be the face of the American Innovation Coin. So in general circulation, the governor has a nice little post about how the nomination or how that's what he wants to do. No knowledge about what the design would be. But I hope they don't use the book cover photo because it's kind of played out. Also, it's one of the least humanistic photos of Steve that are out there. There are a lot of photos of Steve that are just charming as hell, where you see the light in his eyes, not the laser beams from his eyes. And the biography photo was a little bit laser beamy.

[Leo Laporte]

They published on the occasion of his 70th birthday, an internal Apple employee communications meeting held in 2007, which the archive, which [e-mail] says was the first use of make something wonderful. So, you know, I'll leave this to you to watch the whole thing, but I think that's pretty cool that they posted that video from an internal company for some reason. I can't play it back. It must be my own machine, but worth seeing. Steve Jobs Archive.

[Andy Ihnatko]

And Tim Cook posted something nice on Twitter, a very nice portrait of Steve. Steve saw the world not just as it was, but as it could be. His vision continues to inspire us to push boundaries and create the future. Today, on his 70th birthday, we honor his legacy and his enduring impact. Nicely done.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, that's, that's really sweet. Let me pull up that photo. Yeah, it's a nice photo. That's probably in the same photo shoot that the Walter Isaacson cover looks like it. Yeah.

[Andy Ihnatko]

You know, again, warmth and light as opposed to laser beams. It's. He could do both.

[Leo Laporte]

They just really. They just turn down the key light. That's all. Turn it up and you get laser beams. I think that's enough for today. Let's get to. Oh, I should mention that Automatic has re released beeper now combining text.com so all of its messaging. Beeper member was the app that was trying to put Apple messages on Android thwarted by Apple some years ago. Automatic, the company behind WordPress bought them in 2023 and I guess they now have a new version of their messaging app Reno named Beeper. It used to be text.com and I guess messages is in there. I'm not sure how that works. I'll have to download it and see. You may have to have a Mac running it or something like that. It's in iOS test flight or there is a desktop version as well. The new beeper, Mac OS, iPhone, iPad, there's an intel version. There's also Android, Windows, Chrome OS and Linux versions. That's probably who it's mostly useful for is people running those horrible other operating systems not running a Mac. We're going to take a little break. When we come back, your picks of the week, gentlemen. And I have one thanks to John Syracusa.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I knew someone would take it. I was leaving. I thought for sure Jason would have it.

[Jason Snell]

Well, I should let Leo beat me.

[Leo Laporte]

I should let you have it because he is your buddy. I don't know though if I have you used it. I'm using it right now. I'm using it as I speak but we'll talk about that in a moment. I just want to remind everybody that this show is on the air thanks to the generous support of our club twit members and to invite you to join the club. We really appreciate the folks who have because it makes a big difference in our bottom line. We are ad supported and it's wonderful. Advertisers cover about 95% of our costs. You guys cover the other 5% and honestly, if it weren't for you, we'd have to make it up somewhere else. We've closed our studio, we laid off people, we cut shows. I don't we're right down to the bone. I don't know where else we would cut. So thank goodness for the club. And incidentally, we're not asking you for a handout. We give you some value for your seven bucks a month. Yeah, that's all it is, $7 a month. Of course, because you're a supporter, you get ad free versions of all the shows. You get additional shows we don't do anywhere else. For instance, Stacy's Book Club coming up on Thursday. We stream that live thanks to the club members. But after the fact, you have to go to the club Twit plus feed. We will be talking about Micaiah Johnson's sci fi thriller those beyond the Wall. You also can watch our photo time coming up March 6th. Chris Marquardt again, the assignment is the word Bold. Micah's Crafting Corner. Plus a lot of other things go on in the club, including our fabulous club Twit Discord, which is a great hang not just when the shows are on, but all the time. We quite enjoy our club and I think you will too. Find out more at Twit TV Club Twit. And thanks in advance. I'd love to see you in the Discord.

[Jason Snell]

Hey prime members, Are you tired of ads interfering with your favorite podcasts?

[Leo Laporte]

Good news.

[Jason Snell]

With Amazon Music you have access to the largest catalog of ad free top podcasts included with your prime membership. To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free or go to Amazon.com/freepodcasts that's Amazon.com/freepodcast to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads.

[Leo Laporte]

And now a next level moment from ATT Business. Say you've sent out a gigantic shipment of pillows and they need to be there in time for International Sleep day. You've got ATT 5G so you're fully confident, but the vendor isn't responding and International Sleep Day is tomorrow. Luckily, AT&T 5G lets you deal with any issues with ease so the pillows will get delivered and everyone can sleep soundly, especially you. AT&T5G requires a compatible plan and device coverage not available everywhere. Learn [e-mail] 5G Network I will do my pick of the week just because I have been running it. Jason, you want to explain John Syracuse.

[Jason Snell]

John Siracusa of the Accidental Tech Podcast. And of course he used to write the giant book length Reviews of Mac OS 10 for the first decade plus of Mac OS 10's run. He was a web developer for many, many, many years. Quit his job because podcasting let him do that, which is kind of amazing. And now he has released several esoteric Mac apps, the latest of which I think is his biggest chance to be a crowd pleaser. It's called Hyperspace. And what it does, and believe it or not, it does this. This is not just hype, it is actually true. It finds duplicate files on your Mac's hard drive and removes the duplicates while leaving them in place.

[Leo Laporte]

To understand how this works, you have to understand how APFS and other modern file systems work. There's something called a soft link and a hard link. A soft link is an alias. We all know about aliases. And you wouldn't say any space deleting aliases, but hard links are links to the inode. And this is what you get, by the way, when you say, duplicate the.

[Jason Snell]

File in the finder, it duplicates instantly, even if it's a giant file, because.

[Leo Laporte]

All the time, because it's not copying the file data all the way over, it's making a link back to the inode.

[Jason Snell]

Right. It used to be in file systems on the Mac that it would just make a full duplicate and write that to disk. And now it doesn't. It knows it's on disk and you can have multiple points, pointers at the same data. And what it, I believe it's called copy on. Right. So the idea there is if you've got a giant picture that you're going to open in Photoshop and you've got two copies of them and they're using, you know, one, you know, let's say, I don't know, 100 megabytes of data and you open this picture, 100 megabytes, it could be much larger than that. But let's say it's a small picture and then you edit it and then you save it. When you save it, that that is now using new data because it can't double up the data. But initially it's only using it in one place. Now, the problem is that sometimes you'll get files on your disk that have come in from different paths, but they're the same file and they are taking up 2x3x5x. Sometimes there are shockingly a large number of duplicates on your drive.

[Leo Laporte]

I have on my home directory on this MacBook 3,000 of these.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Seven gigabytes worth.

[Jason Snell]

I know where a lot of them are. And a lot of listeners may find this too, is I, I found that a lot of mine came from zip archives from like GitHub projects or other projects like that where the, the, the zip archive doesn't have the ability to do this. They've got different directory trees with the same files in them. And anyway, what hyperspace does is it scans your, your files, it finds the duplicates and what it does is rather than letting them all take up space, they all share, it converts them so that they all share. Share one of space.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

And so you could, if you've got a thousand 1k files you will then have. Instead of 1000k you'll have 1k or meg or gig or whatever it is because they can all share that same space and it doesn't. From the outside it looks no different. If you edit the file, nothing bad happens. It will just update it and then that will be using its own space. But there's a lot. And Leo just found it and I found it on my system system too. A lot of completely unnecessary duplication.

[Leo Laporte]

And where is this coming from? This is a mistake in the way Apple's handling these.

[Jason Snell]

No, I think, I think it's downloads. I honestly, I think a lot of this comes from downloads and installs that are inefficient because, you know, but for.

[Leo Laporte]

A long time I've been, I've been downloading to the temp folder where it gets erased periodically for that very reason.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, that's not bad. That's not bad. Yeah. I had like a keyboard driver and what it did was it installed, installed all the different supported drivers in their directory files. Yeah. There's a view item after you scan and you can view the wifi.

[Leo Laporte]

Purchase it to do that.

[Jason Snell]

No, I think, yeah, I guess I haven't purchased. Yeah, you should be able to. Yeah, so, so maybe, maybe it's not going to let you view them until you purchase it. So it's got an interesting business model. You can just make a one time purchase for an amount of time if you want to solve this once and then forget about it. Or you can subscribe if you want to keep it forever. But I think a lot of people will probably say, oh, you know, I'll, I'll buy it for a month and run it and then I won't worry about it anymore because it sort of solves your problem. But if you're, you might be surprised at how much space you might save. And it's very clever that he lets you scan it so you know how much space you might save.

[Leo Laporte]

Nice job.

[Jason Snell]

Your drive's got to have APFs. So if you've got a. A, you know, RAID or something like my. I have a big server with a RAID and it's. And it's running HFS plus and it won't work with that. It's got to be apf.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Can I also. Can I also say that if you. If you've ever met. If you know John Syracuse, it is. It was. It is such a John Syracuse app because he knows that the, the. The trick that is that's performing is somewhat technical and might not. Will probably not be familiar to people who just want to free up some space. So there are buttons you can press that will just give pages and pages of signature. John Syracuse highly explanation. Highly readable and understandable explanation.

[Jason Snell]

Absolutely.

[Andy Ihnatko]

What it's doing a. He's human enough to know that people are going to worry about, wow, is it actually going to be like deleting files that it thinks are duplicates but are not on and on? It's like, no. I want to reassure. I want to make sure I know what people might be thinking. I know what might scare them. I want to reassure them and I also want to educate them, which is 40% of what I love about John Sir Crease.

[Leo Laporte]

Only 40%. Okay.

[Andy Ihnatko]

There are a lot of things to love about John Sir Crisa.

[Leo Laporte]

He has some settings that you can say, I don't want you to do it with easy file types. If you're a photographer, maybe you don't want to do that and so forth, but you do have to Pay for reclamation. $10 a month, $19 a year, $50 for a lifetime. A lifetime of enjoyment. So thank you, Jason, for making it easy for me to do my pickup a week.

[Jason Snell]

I. I'm happy to. I'm happy to assist supplement.

[Leo Laporte]

What is your. What is so you. I forced.

[Jason Snell]

I also to.

[Leo Laporte]

To go to an alternate. What is your alternate?

[Jason Snell]

It's. It's called Framus. It just came out. It's also on the Mac App Store. It is. It is a screenshot utility. It will take your screenshots from devices and frame them. So like, if you have an iPhone screenshot, it will put an iPhone around it. There are other utilities that do this. What I really like about Frame is it's Mac only, but it's drag and drop and it's pretty seamless. So like. And there. Although there are some other. There's a. There's a. There's some other apps out there that are good and that are coming along as well. This one has gotten faster to the Holy Grail, which is if I have three shots of an iPhone that I want to run horizontally across in a single image. I can drag three screenshots in and it makes an image with three of them. You can adjust how far apart the iPhones are. It's iPhone, Mac, iPad, Apple watch, any device, it will put a frame around it. So instead of just a bare screenshot, it's that screen on the device it's running on. And of course it's got generic frames and then you can also pay and then you get specific frames. So you can say, I want this to be on a gold iPhone 16 Pro Max and it'll do it. And then you can, you can just output those images and use them everywhere. And I know this is sort of esoteric, but if you're a developer or a journalist or anybody else who is posting these kind of screenshots, it looks so much nicer to put it in the context of the device instead of it just being a bare screenshot and frame. It's got, you know, it's pretty bare bones. But the fact that it can build multi device screenshots right out of the box, man, that's what I want. Because, you know, iPhones are tall. If I write about iPhone software, I kind of want to put two or three iPhones across so that I can have it be wide and fit on my website better. So yeah, Framis, it's brand new, it's infamous.

[Alex Lindsay]

I don't know how many people need it, but I just bought it.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, I bought it.

[Alex Lindsay]

Anybody who knows what that the pain of, I agree. I put frames on all kinds of things, but I've got all these weird ways of doing it. And I was like, somebody just does that.

[Jason Snell]

It supports shortcuts, which means you can automate the heck out of this thing too and use keyboard shortcuts or just a finder shortcut to say, you know, take these and build me a screenshot and it'll just do it. There are some other great utilities out there. There's a share shot that does this across iPhone, iPad and Mac, but it doesn't do multiple images yet. And that's where Framis like really because it's a Mac first, it's, it's drag and drop. So you literally just drag them in and, and see them in place. And it's just, it's really well done. So this is from the guy who did, I want to say Dark Noise.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Darknoise llc. You're right.

[Jason Snell]

This is his new app and it's, it's really nice. So Alex and I have bought it.

[Leo Laporte]

You know what I like. And this is, it includes the John's app as well. These are little utilities that you could probably write up and make. And people are just making them and they have a place to sell them, which I think is great. That's what the App Store allows. Right?

[Alex Lindsay]

I think what I really like are apps that just do the thing. They do the one thing. They're not a bunch of things. They do this one thing. They do it really well. It costs 3.99 or in this case, 20 bucks. But for the kind of, I think it has to be more because there's not as many of us that would need, need it. Right. So we're a more vertical market. For the people that need it, it's immediately like, yeah, take my money. You know, and for everyone else, they'd be like, if you're going, huh? Well, that's, it may not be the right one, but as soon as you have a presentation or an article or.

[Jason Snell]

A video, an app like Syracuse too, like that is, that is deep down file system stuff. And it's in the Mac App Store. I think that's kind of impressive. I, I, when he started talking about it, I thought, there's no way this is going to get approved. There's no way. It doesn't file. And the only limitation is that it won't scan things that will scan. It won't remove duplicates from files that don't belong to your user. You have to be the owner of those files. So there are some, and he is walled off some like system files and stuff where he's like, I'm not going to break your system, not even accidentally. I'm not going to do it. But, but still, it's in the Mac App Store and it's, it's doing all this.

[Leo Laporte]

So I paid the 10 bucks for the one month thing so I can run around to all my Macs and do it. And a lot of this is media for me, is media files, book files.

[Jason Snell]

Well, those are going to be big files too.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. That's why it's 91 gigabytes and then.

[Jason Snell]

The dupes just are gone and you get 91 gigabytes back. Pretty.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, let's hope you're right, because I am about to delete a lot of stuff.

[Jason Snell]

Do it. He was in beta a long time, for the longest time, it wouldn't do anything. You get to the end and it'd be like, nope, not yet. And then he pushed a beta version that would let you Remove one. It's like, you just get one. You just get one. Try it out. But everybody seems to have had a good experience within the beta and now it's out.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Dan stutters in our YouTube says it also shows the power of Xcode. And I think that's true. You've got a free development environment or relatively inexpensive development environment, plus a really good way to, you know, you don't have to package it, put it in a box, get Ingram to carry it. You just put it on the App Store.

[Jason Snell]

And this was a power stuff. This was for John, and it's in his blog post. He says it's the first app that he's done entirely using the SwiftUI development cycle.

[Leo Laporte]

Nice.

[Jason Snell]

He's used Swift and SwiftUI before, but this is entirely using that SwiftUI approach. And that's also, you know, it's fun for John, but it's also really interesting that he. He got to step through that.

[Leo Laporte]

Love it. Love it. And so there's two. Let's see. Alex Lindsey, what do you got?

[Alex Lindsay]

I'm both ahead and behind in this whole, like, transition, which is what we call 2110. And for those of. This is going to be a geeky recommendation is to take a look at this. I started testing this hardware and I think that, you know, I've been like, oh, I don't know if I want to get into this. And now I'm getting pretty close. So I'm. I have some test units from blackmagic right now that, that I've been playing with. I got to send them back sometime soon, but. But I'm gonna probably end up. This is what happens is they send them to me and then you buy them. Then I'm like, can I buy this one?

[Leo Laporte]

They're not.

[Alex Lindsay]

No, no, you can send this one back. You can buy one from the store. So that's always what happens for me. So. So anyway, this is a. This is a router like we had before and now Leo, you've had big routers and you had 40 by 40. This is actually. It has just Ethernet in the back.

[Leo Laporte]

It's a tiny little router.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's a tiny little rack, but it's 48 in and 48 out.

[Leo Laporte]

But it only has 16 ethernet ports. How do it work?

[Alex Lindsay]

10 gigs, three gigs each. So for 3G. So here's the converter.

[Leo Laporte]

So you need two boxes.

[Alex Lindsay]

Well, it depends on, you know, what's happening is a lot of the cameras and all their stuff is going to be supporting 2110. So eventually you don't need any converters. But if you have old SDI stuff, basically this is three in and three out. So this is three signals in, three signals out, and that just turns into Ethernet. So imagine being able to. And what's. What's happening now is they're building cameras with just Ethernet.

[Leo Laporte]

So you need one of these boxes for each three each camera.

[Alex Lindsay]

For three cameras.

[Leo Laporte]

For each three cameras. I mean. Yeah, right.

[Alex Lindsay]

Three and three out. Okay. But eventually the camera.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm trying to add up the bill here.

[Alex Lindsay]

I'm sorry, right now. But the thing is, is this is three.

[Leo Laporte]

The Alex's is this.

[Alex Lindsay]

Well, so you plug three cameras in here, right? And this is $595. The big thing is that switch that I just showed you is like $2,700. It's like a quarter or less of what any other switch in the industry. This is what's been holding this technology up was because the switch was expensive, you know, like, how do you manage all, you know, 360 gig back, but backplane, you know. And so we had to do some stuff where I have to do it, I have to send three signals. It turned out to be three. I was just lucky that three signals hundreds of feet away and then have them pop out on the other end as sdi. And so I started testing these and then I was like, hey, if you got one of those switches around, why don't you send one of those over too? Because we were just doing them point to point. Because I can just plug these in, connect them directly to each other, and let them talk to each other. But you're just. I now, you know, I've been very, very slow to give up sdi. This is like my warm blanket of when you plug it in, it works. And I'm seeing this and I think that we're going to suddenly see more and more of this. Like, I just got an Ethernet. And you know, NDI has been around for a long time, but NDI is a little squirrely. You know, it's doing a lot of things on the network. It's talking a lot. This is what they're building new trucks with this kind of technology. And blackmagic is kind of making it more available. And so testing this, I think I was just like, oh, I could just have a bunch of these in 16 ethernet cables. But it's ethernet. Like, we're not terminating SDI. We're not like, it's just ethernet. It's just 10 gig ethernet that you're plugging into these ports.

[Leo Laporte]

That's wild.

[Alex Lindsay]

And you can take those and they've got these big hundred gig. They have 100 gig connections so that you can connect them to each other. And anybody who's ever had to connect multiple routers, what happens is you take some of your ins and some of your output outs and there's this weird trade off that you have to do that's really ugly. And this is going to be a lot more seamless. So it's worth it. For those of you who are in production, who are watching this, 2110, I think is. It's been around. It's not like it's brand new, but I think it's very much becoming. The switch only started shipping a couple weeks ago, I think maybe a couple months ago. Like it's pretty new. And it was what we were all waiting for. Like, you can't. Doesn't matter whether we have all the other pieces if we don't have that. And you can get little single ones that are much less expensive, that are just like one sdi. So you could attach it to each camera kind of thing. This is just what?

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, yeah, you can get a single. Okay.

[Alex Lindsay]

And then you can get hdmi. So you have Ethernet. You put a Little Ethernet to 2110 to HDMI, you plug it onto the back of your monitor and you just plug an Ethernet into it. And then HDMI from that router to your monitor or to whatever else you want to put it in. So it just means that everything becomes Ethernet. And it's not just that. This means that, you know, 2110 brings all kinds of new audio tools and video because these are all now just data. Like it's.

[Leo Laporte]

So 2110 is a standard.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, yeah, it's a SMPTE standard now.

[Leo Laporte]

It's a SMPTE standard for Ethernet video. No.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, IP based video.

[Leo Laporte]

IP based video. Okay.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it doesn't have to be Ethernet, but it's.

[Leo Laporte]

It's, yeah, ip, I understand. Sure.

[Alex Lindsay]

And we've talked about it as being the future of some of this for quite some time, but I think this is the first time I've really sat down and gone, okay, could I actually use this and start plugging stuff in and moving stuff around? Now I just look at my copper going, oh, like my sdi. And I was like, I don't need no.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. If we were building a new studio, we would clearly not use sdi.

[Alex Lindsay]

But I would have said two months ago, if you're building a new studio to use sdi.

[Leo Laporte]

Now, are you.

[Alex Lindsay]

Like, I would or whatever.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

But. But it's been. Literally, that's why I was excited about it. It's just that it's. It's happening.

[Leo Laporte]

So with Dante, you've got IP audio, and with 2110, you've got IP video.

[Alex Lindsay]

And technically, 2110 can carry audio as well. But Dante is the way that we. The. The big thing about Dante is it just works like it. Across a network. It works. And. And technically, also, Dante does video as well, so it's very complicated. But. But the. I mean.

[Leo Laporte]

I mean, does it do 21, though?

[Alex Lindsay]

It doesn't. No. It's their own. Their own thing. So. So. So the. And then, of course, you got NDI and everything else, and NDI has been very convenient. A lot of people have used it. Tricasters use a lot of that, so on and so forth. But it's one of those things that if you're not a network engineer and you get yourself into ndi, this is kind of setting this up. Like, you don't have to be a network engineer to understand how to get your cameras to talk to each other. And. And so it's. That's the.

[Leo Laporte]

Now I just use zoom, and I don't need any of that.

[Alex Lindsay]

Exactly.

[Leo Laporte]

But for those of us who still have to get too complicated for me.

[Alex Lindsay]

I mean, you know, the big thing for us is that, like, getting, like. I'm doing all these runs right now, where I have to go hundreds and hundreds of feet that maybe thousands of feet, and being able to.

[Leo Laporte]

How many cameras on some of your bigger projects would you have on.

[Alex Lindsay]

On the. The larger projects that I've done, I don't think I've done anything with more than 20, you know, like 20 cameras is. Is where we start to go, oh, that's a lot of cameras.

[Leo Laporte]

You know, it's like NFL level.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

Oh, no, no, we're not close to NFL level.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, no.

[Alex Lindsay]

Really? No, no. There are a lot more cameras than us, so. Yeah, I. I don't know how many, but I think it's. It's in the. I think that they're, you know, 40 to 60 cameras for most NFL games. I don't know exactly what the number is, but. But the. But, yeah. So it's. It's a lot. It's a lot of cameras.

[Leo Laporte]

Nice black magic design. Again. Again, they're doing it again. The 2110 converter and the big ethernet switch, which somehow manages to turn 16 ethernet ports into 48 cameras.

[Alex Lindsay]

Well, and the thing that we're all Trying to figure out now is also like blackmagic has this new camera that we keep talking about and how it's. We hope to see one by nab. So we're hoping at NAB see cameras sitting there like at least a month model that we can get close to and kind of figure out how big it's going to be for.

[Leo Laporte]

It's going to be exciting. It's going to be really exciting.

[Alex Lindsay]

We're hoping to see it soon.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Thank you, Alex, Andy and Ako. Pick of the week.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Great pick this week. A lot of you are probably familiar with the BBC radio show Desert Island Discs. It's been on for decades. They interview somebody at length about basically their entire careers, their entire lives. And over the course of this they get to pick. Imagine that you're going to be stranded on a desert island, but you can plan ahead. Which eight records would you take with you? And at the end you also get to pick a book and one luxury item which is fun. But mostly you're walking. They're walking through their lives and careers and talking about these eight pieces of music they've picked. This week the guest is Sir Johnny.

[Leo Laporte]

I've former who likes Banana Rama. Turns out.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Okay, I will say. Okay, so he's Gen X. He's about my age. I, I approve of almost every track. Banana Rama, maybe not because this is a Gen X list of bangers. You, you do have the Police. You do have.

[Leo Laporte]

It's really an interesting mix.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Simple Minds. You do have you two the High.

[Leo Laporte]

You do have Harry I Singing in the Rain now.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah, this is the best one because this is his, his, his, his little boy when he was like four or five, he just like saw the movie. Start singing. He tells the story about how. He tells, he tells a story about how like, you know, oh, it was wonderful. It was so cute. And then suddenly he realized that, wait a minute, I've got an iPhone in my pocket. I can record this and talk about how great it was that like, I would not otherwise have like set up recording session for him.

[Leo Laporte]

But the fact that the product plugin. Well done.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Well, okay, but, but okay, you can't be cynical when you hear this because it is freaking adorable. Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Did he play it?

[Andy Ihnatko]

Excuse me.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, he played it. Yeah.

[Andy Ihnatko]

If you, if you. Here's, here's the deal. Here's why you want to listen to it on streaming it from the BBC.co.uk site. If you stream it this week while it's still being on the radio, you can hear the entire 52 minute program with all of the music. If you miss that, it'll be released as a podcast. You'll get the entire interview, but no music.

[Leo Laporte]

They don't pay the license fee after broadcast.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Well, again, to give it away to like, you're not, you're not, not going to get the rights to like, give away copies of a YouTube song. So that's not going to, that's not going to work. But. And the interview itself is wonderful. I mean, any one of us, and a lot of people who are here who are listening to this have probably read a lot of interviews with Jony. I've. I learned a lot of stuff that I hadn't heard before. And he just continues to impress you. One section, he's talking about the creation of the first imac and the circumstances under which it was created. But he was also talking, talking about like the handle. And to me, I just thought that, well, yeah, I mean, they put a handle on it because it's a throwback to the original Mac, which also had a handle to it. But he's, but he says, he says, well, this is a time when people were still thinking about computers as though they were just glorified typewriters. They're still very scared by it. And I love it when a designer explains thinking that makes you see something and understand something in a new way. I don't like when design designers talk as though their heads are up their butts by saying, but there's a reason why we used pine instead of white pine. It's like he's talking about, well, in this, in this case, where people are intimidated by computers, if we put a big handle on it and it's got, it's white and it's contrasting with the rest of it, when people walk up to it, there's something that they immediately understand about it that, oh, this is a handle. This is where I pick it up and carry it. And that helps to break down the intimidation of the users. That, like, wow, that makes complete sense. That does not sound like bs. When I understand something about design I did not understand before, the whole conversation.

[Leo Laporte]

Should do that to AI. If we put a handle on it, would people kind of get it more? You think?

[Andy Ihnatko]

Put a handle on it, Put a handle on it. It makes anything portable.

[Leo Laporte]

This thing has a handle on it. The imac button, the Mac, original Mac behind me has a handle on it.

[Alex Lindsay]

We have a show name.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Put a handle on. I'm already scrolling up.

[Leo Laporte]

You understand why I repeated it now? I guess I'm not putting One over on you, Alex. Lindsay.

[Alex Lindsay]

I. I just needed to get to work, that's all.

[Leo Laporte]

I. All right, thank you very much, Andy Anako, GBH Wednesday coming up.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I was just on yesterday talking about a lot of political stuff that related to tech. So you can go to wgbh.org wg db, wgbh news to stream it. I'm going to be on a couple times in March, but I haven't got my schedule yet.

[Leo Laporte]

But always made me this week when I worked in radio on the east coast, that the FCC decided that W, which has triple the syllables of or more than that, double U of any other letter in the Alphabet. Give me a break. I was so happy when I moved back out West.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I will never stop being amused by the. By the appropriateness of a NERDYDY acronym like WWW, where the acronym is actually more syllables than the actual thing itself.

[Leo Laporte]

Nine syllables. Yeah. WYBC have just killed me every time. That's why, by the way, they dropped the W. I think on gbh, it's just.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah, it's just gbh.

[Leo Laporte]

Right. Alex Lindsay. Office hours, global Q and A's continue.

[Alex Lindsay]

They continue Every single morning. 7:00am Pacific Stand standard Time. We. We answer questions. That's what we do. And there and every day. You think that today's going to be the day after. 1800 times in a row every day, including Sundays and holidays, that we won't get any questions. But it just doesn't.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, there's always questions.

[Alex Lindsay]

There's always another 25.

[Leo Laporte]

I never. I did 19 years of the tech guy. There's always questions.

[Alex Lindsay]

There's always questions. It's a. When people are like, how do you do it? You're like, questions like, don't try to make something up.

[Leo Laporte]

So much easier.

[Alex Lindsay]

Something.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, so much easier. And what's coming up on Gray Matter?

[Alex Lindsay]

I don't. We just shifted who was going to talk. So I'm not sure who's coming up next.

[Leo Laporte]

But. But go to Graymatter show and you'll.

[Alex Lindsay]

Show and you'll see the schedule. Yeah, absolutely.

[Leo Laporte]

Thank you, Alex. Get to work. Get to work, buddy. Jason snell [e-mail] his [e-mail] Jason, I actually have a question for you. I have reclaimed 97.01 gigabytes thanks to John Syracuse's hyperspace. But what's this switch allow for? Fun.

[Jason Snell]

The fun is when you're done. It has confetti.

[Leo Laporte]

I missed the confetti. Damn it. I was doing a show.

[Jason Snell]

That's what the fun is. During the beta process. One of the notes was added fun and then the next beta was added more fun.

[Leo Laporte]

Thank you Jason. Sixcolors.com everybody must subscribe and participate and watch all your shows because there's so many great ones.

[Jason Snell]

They don't need to watch all of them. Some of them will do. Just some of them would be fine.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, that's all.

[Jason Snell]

I I had a good upgrade this week with Mike Hurley had a baby. So Casey List from the Accidental Tech Podcast was my guest this week and I'm going to have guest hosts for the next two months. So that'll be fun. It'll be fun.

[Leo Laporte]

Casey.

[Jason Snell]

Smart work for me.

[Leo Laporte]

That sounds like a great show. Thank you Jason, Alex, Andy. Thanks to all of you who joined us. Thanks especially to our club members. We really appreciate you do we do Mac Break Weekly every Tuesday 11am Pacific, 2pm Eastern Time. That's 1900 UTC and I tell you those times because you can't actually watch us do it live. You don't need to, but you know some small percentage of the audience likes to be there when it's happening. So we can watch you in chat. That's nice for us. Get some interactivity. We are streaming live on Discord for our club members, but also YouTube, Twitch, X.com, tikTok Kick, LinkedIn and Facebook. So pick your favorite fascist site and watch us live after the fact. You can join us on the non fascist Twit TV mbw, download audio or video there. There's a link there to the YouTube channel. Great for sharing clips with other people which helps us spread the word. So thanks in advance. Best way to subscribe though of course it's free. Get the podcast in your favorite podcast client and you'll get it automatically so you'll always have it the minute we're done. Thanks to John Ashley, our producer back from his his time off. Great to have you John. Thanks to all of you for joining. We'll see you next time. Now it is my sad and solemn duty to tell you get back to work because break time is over. Buh. Bye. And now a next level moment from AT&T business. Say you've sent out a gigantic shipment of pillows and they need to be there in time for International Sleep day. You've got AT and T5G so you're fully confident, but the vendor isn't responding and International Sleep Day is tomorrow. Luckily AT&T5G lets you deal with any issues with ease so the pillows will get delivered and everyone can sleep soundly. Especially you. AT&T 5G requires a compatible plan and device. Coverage not available everywhere. Learn [e-mail] 5G Network.