MacBreak Weekly 974: Lyle, Who?

Summary

MacBreak Weekly 974: Lyle, Who? Released on May 27, 2025 | Host: TWiT

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Introduction

In episode 974 of MacBreak Weekly, hosted by Leo Laporte, the panel dives deep into the tumultuous relationship between Apple and Elon Musk, explores the complexities of iPhone manufacturing amidst new tariffs, and discusses significant developments in the App Store policies. Joined by Jason Snell of Six Colors, Andy Ihnatko of The Library, and Alex Lindsay from Officehours Global, the conversation is both insightful and engaging, offering listeners a comprehensive overview of the latest Apple-centric news.

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Elon Musk's Attempt to Blackmail Apple Over Satellite Internet

Timestamp: [00:30 – 03:31]

The episode kicks off with an exclusive story revealing that Apple had ambitions to become an Internet Service Provider by launching thousands of satellites with Boeing's assistance. This plan hit a roadblock when Elon Musk approached Apple with a lucrative offer:

Leo Laporte: "Elon came to Apple and said... SpaceX agrees to exclusively provide satellite connectivity to iPhones for 18 months for a mere $5 billion upfront. After that, Apple would pay $1 billion a year for Starlink."

However, Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, reportedly rejected Musk's proposition within a tight 72-hour deadline, citing unpreparedness:

Alex Lindsay: "I think we just don't think we can make time that fast."

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Impact of Rejected Offer and Potential Tariffs on iPhones

Timestamp: [05:01 – 08:20]

Following the rejection, tensions between Apple and Musk escalated, leading to speculative discussions about potential political repercussions. The New York Times highlighted that the President threatened a 25% tariff on iPhones not manufactured in the U.S., linking it to Tim Cook's declined invitation to Saudi Arabia:

Jason Snell: "The New York Times said the reason for the 25% tariff... is that the President had invited Tim Cook... and Tim Cook, we don't know about. Politely declined."

Industry experts like John Gruber argue that manufacturing iPhones in the U.S. would be economically unfeasible, citing higher costs compared to production in India or China:

Jason Snell: "It's cheaper to take a 25% tariff and make the phones in India than it would ever be to make them in the United States."

Apple's strong brand and customer loyalty provide them leverage, as raising iPhone prices could directly tie the costs to governmental policies rather than Apple itself:

Jason Snell: "If Apple raises phone prices, everybody knows who's at fault. It's Trump's."

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Apple vs. Epic Games: Fortnite Returns to the App Store

Timestamp: [37:30 – 43:07]

Transitioning to legal battles, the panel discusses Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers' ruling favoring Epic Games, leading to Fortnite's reinstatement on the iOS App Store. This decision compels Apple to allow alternative payment methods outside its lucrative 30% commission structure. Developers like David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) expressed their support for Epic's stance, emphasizing the importance of maintaining direct customer relationships:

Jason Snell: "As Alex has made this point a lot, Apple does provide a lot of things that make it convenient for developers and for users."

However, adoption has been slow, with major developers like Spotify seeing mixed results in transitioning to alternative payment systems:

Jason Snell: "The jury still allowed us to for smaller big brands are going to make out on this small brands."

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Jony Ive and OpenAI Partnership: Skepticism Amidst Excitement

Timestamp: [46:18 – 63:02]

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to speculating about former Apple Chief Design Officer Jony Ive's collaboration with OpenAI. The duo released a promotional video showcasing potential AI-driven hardware, sparking a mix of excitement and skepticism among the panel:

Alex Lindsay: "Unless they see something that... what they might do after a couple months or never come."

Jason Snell expresses doubt regarding the product's authenticity and functionality:

Jason Snell: "It feels like a smokescreen. I'm really dubious that this is anything that shouldn't be viewed with the highest level of skepticism."

The panel critiques the promotional video's authenticity, likening it to overhyped narratives without tangible products:

Jason Snell: "It's thick with BS. It's just like, it's just really thick with BS here."

Despite the skepticism, there's acknowledgment of the allure and potential of such high-profile partnerships if executed correctly.

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Age Verification Laws in Texas and Apple's Response

Timestamp: [28:56 – 31:35]

Addressing regulatory challenges, Alex Lindsay discusses Texas' new law requiring App Stores to verify user ages, prompting swift action from Apple. The company proposed an API-based solution to maintain user privacy while complying with state regulations:

Jason Snell: "Apple says that they built a system that's more private than what you're asking us to do."

The panel highlights the broader implications, noting that with multiple states considering similar laws, federal legislation might be inevitable to streamline compliance efforts.

Andy Ihnatko: "There's also an advantage to the companies because now they only have to lobby one legislative body instead of 50."

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Smartwatches and the Evolving Wearable Market

Timestamp: [93:00 – 102:22]

Shifting to wearable technology, the hosts discuss the competitive landscape of smartwatches. Xiaomi has overtaken Apple as the leading global vendor in the wearable band market, growing its share by 44% compared to Apple's 5%:

Andy Ihnatko: "Apple lost the number one position to Xiaomi worldwide."

While Apple Watches continue to be praised for their integration and design, competitors are gaining ground with affordability and diverse features. The panel debates the future of smartwatches, considering user preferences and technological advancements.

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Vision Pro and Apple's Push into Smart Glasses

Timestamp: [102:03 – 123:16]

The conversation then turns to Apple's ambitious foray into augmented reality with the Vision Pro and potential smart glasses. The panel expresses cautious optimism, acknowledging Apple's knack for elegant design but questioning the practicality and necessity of such devices in the current market landscape.

Andy Ihnatko: "For Apple to make smart glasses... it seems like the easiest thing in the world for them to do and do successfully."

There is skepticism about the true innovation behind these products, with some viewing them as iterations rather than groundbreaking advancements. Nonetheless, anticipation remains high for Apple's official announcements and releases.

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App Store Fraud Prevention and Apple’s Gatekeeping

Timestamp: [84:14 – 87:17]

Towards the end, the panel touches on Apple's efforts in combating fraud within the App Store. Apple claims to have prevented over $9 billion in fraud over the past five years, including the termination of 146,000 developer accounts:

Leo Laporte: "Apple has stopped 4.6 million attempts to install or launch apps illicitly outside the App Store."

However, critics argue that similar claims by other payment processors like Stripe suggest that Apple’s narrative is part of broader industry efforts to combat fraud, rather than unique achievements.

Jason Snell: "Apple only wants to talk about how much fraud they've stopped, but Stripe does the same."

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Conclusion

As the episode wraps up, the hosts emphasize the ongoing challenges Apple faces in maintaining its ecosystem amidst regulatory pressures, competitive markets, and evolving technological demands. They underline the importance of balancing innovation with practical implementation to sustain Apple's market dominance.

Alex Lindsay: "Apple still has time and they still could do stuff that would be very hard to compete with in the future."

With insightful discussions and expert opinions, MacBreak Weekly 974: Lyle, Who? offers a nuanced perspective on Apple's current landscape, leaving listeners informed and engaged.

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Notable Quotes

• Leo Laporte [00:30]: "Elon tried to blackmail Apple. Wait a minute. What happened to me?"

• Jason Snell [03:37]: "The failed deal added tension to Apple's relationship with Musk, who has spent the ensuing years tangling with the iPhone maker on a range of issues."

• John Gruber [08:32 (Paraphrased)]: "It's cheaper to take a 25% tariff and make the phones in India than it would ever be to make them in the United States."

• Andy Ihnatko [16:42]: "Chaos always benefits the despot."

• Alex Lindsay [17:22]: "Tim Cook made a conscious decision knowing the costs of standing firm."

• Jason Snell [43:07]: "Apple has plenty to compete on here. They don't have to outlaw outside stuff."

• Alex Lindsay [44:26]: "I'm not willing to pay $5 a month for six years later."

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Further Reading and Links

• Six Colors – Jason Snell's in-depth Apple analysis.
• The Library – Andy Ihnatko's tech insights.
• Officehours Global – Alex Lindsay's tech expertise.
• StoryBlock – Sponsor mentioned in the episode.

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Stay Connected:

Subscribe to MacBreak Weekly on your favorite podcast platform or watch the live stream on YouTube. For more exclusive content and community discussions, consider joining Club TWiT.

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This summary captures the essence of episode 974, highlighting key discussions and insights shared by the panel. Whether you're an Apple enthusiast or a tech aficionado, this episode offers valuable perspectives on the latest industry developments.

Transcript

[Leo Laporte]

It's time for Mac Break Weekly. Alex, Andy and Jason all in the house. We're going to talk about Apple and Epic Making. Making nice. And now the Fortnite is in the iOS store. Tim Cook's no good, very bad week has continued to get worse and worse and why Apple probably won't be talking about AI in a couple of weeks. All of that more coming up next on MacBreak Weekly. Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is Twit. This is Mac break weekly, episode 974, recorded Tuesday, May 27, 2025. Lyle who. It's time for Mac Break Weekly. Yes, indeed. The show where we talk about the latest Apple news all up and down this great fruited plain with Mr. Jason Snell of sixcolors. Com. Hello, Jason.

[Jason Snell]

Hello, Leo. It's good to be here.

[Leo Laporte]

Yes, welcome. Also with us, Andy Anako of the Library.

[Andy Ihnatko]

That's fine. I like that. Anato of the Library.

[Leo Laporte]

Library man. Soon to have a website. Any minute now. And of course, from officehours Global, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Alex Lindsay.

[Alex Lindsay]

Hello. Hello.

[Leo Laporte]

Hello. How are you, sir?

[Alex Lindsay]

I'm doing quite well. Doing quite well.

[Leo Laporte]

So turns out Elon tried to blackmail Apple. Wait a minute. What happened to me?

[Jason Snell]

I don't know.

[Leo Laporte]

Am I, am I in the wind?

[Jason Snell]

I'm in the witness. Oh, now you show my face.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I didn't. I thought, I thought that he was on the outset of the administration. I didn't think he still had access to that kind of.

[Jason Snell]

This is all part of our plan, all part of our plan to take a secret plan to take over the show from Leo. We're very gradually phasing him out. That was, that was step one.

[Leo Laporte]

So this from the information, in an exclusive, exclusive story, before Apple decided to go with Global Star for its SOS satellite network, it had ambitions, according to the information, it had ambitions of becoming an Internet service provider. And it was all going to be by launching. There they are fighting it out in space. It was all going to be by launching satellites, thousands of them, with the help of Boeing. That might have been their first mistake. And then you would have on your phone, you would have Apple Internet. Plus you could put a little doohickey in the window because of course a phone needs line of sight to satellites. Little doohickey in the window. And you could have Internet from Apple too. Elon got wind of this and apparently came to Apple and said, here's the pitch. See if you would go for this. SpaceX agrees to exclusively provide satellite connectivity to iPhones. For 18 months for a mere $5 billion up front. After that, after that period of exclusivity. 18 months. Apple pays a billion dollars a year for Starlink. But Apple, here's. That was the carrot. Here's the shtick. If you don't come to terms with me, I will announce a similar satellite feature on my own that could work with iPhones. And I give you. And I think this must have been the thing that cheesed off Tim Cook. 72 hours to decide.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Pew.

[Leo Laporte]

Pew. Tim rejected the offer, Elon, But I'm sure.

[Alex Lindsay]

I'm sure it was in a very nice way. Elon, I. I think. I just don't think we can get our. Our act together in 72 hours.

[Leo Laporte]

That's probably. We're not ready.

[Alex Lindsay]

Probably a little bit of a southern draw. Yeah, I don't think we can make time that fast.

[Jason Snell]

Elon, this is Tim Wall, Eagles.

[Leo Laporte]

Good morning.

[Jason Snell]

Good morning.

[Leo Laporte]

Good morning, Elon. Elon did keep. Was true to his word. He did start a competitor with T Mobile, which I can now use on my iPhone. In fact, I was visiting a friend who had no cellular signal in his knife manufacturing, and all of a sudden said, you want to make a call with Starlink, I'm T Mobile. You can use Starlink. I didn't, because I think it cost you. I can't remember what the deal was. I had signed up for it, but I forgot what the deal was. So I should have, though, because then I could report back anyway. This seems credible. I mean, it's. The information's exclusive. So, you know, Wayne Ma is very good at getting those inside stories. They say, according to five people with knowledge, two people with direct knowledge of the deal. The failed deal added tension to Apple's relationship with Musk, who has spent the ensuing years tangling with the iPhone maker on a range of issues. Do you think Elon might have gone put a little birdie in the presidency here and said, you know, Apple didn't show up in Saudi Arabia?

[Alex Lindsay]

I think, I think that really, it just had to do with that Apple not showing up in Saudi Arabia. I don't think Elon did.

[Leo Laporte]

That's the Time story. Well, we don't know. Yeah, probably that's the Times story right into Elon's evil plans.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, I think Elon was already on his way out. And I think that Trump is, you know, he is. What did you do for me? Not even yesterday or in the last 10 seconds. And so, so I think that, you know, he, you know, Tim Cook turned down the opportunity to go to Saudi Arabia from the president, and he pays the price immediately. That's kind of the transactional nature of.

[Leo Laporte]

The New York Times said the reason for the 25% or threatened 25% tariff on iPhones not made in the US is that the President had invited Tim Cook to join him. Jensen Huang and others, Elon, as well, in Saudi Arabia. And Tim Cook, we don't know about. Politely declined. I'm sure it was polite. And I did mention last week that the President said, Jensen in. In Saudi Arabia. Jensen Wong is here. Tim Cook is not.

[Jason Snell]

Yep.

[Leo Laporte]

So there's a little credibility there. I don't know what more to say about. Have we Talked about the 25% on this show?

[Andy Ihnatko]

No, not yet. No.

[Leo Laporte]

So John Gruber had an excellent take, which is now backed up by everybody, which is it's cheaper to take a 25% tariff and make the phones in India than it would ever be to make them in the United States.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah. Ming Chi Kuo said something along those same lines a few days ago.

[Leo Laporte]

It doesn't, It's. It doesn't make mathematical sense. Nevertheless, it is a significant, you know, cost increase on the iPhone.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah. And CNBC interviewed, like, a Trump advisor who said that, hey, we're not here. We're not trying to hurt Apple. And in the same interview said, but we expect them to absorb the cost and not pass any of the tariffs onto the consumer.

[Leo Laporte]

Could Apple. I mean, their margins are pretty good.

[Jason Snell]

Not that good.

[Alex Lindsay]

Not that good. Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, they have like, 30 or 40% margin, right? They could. They could.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Would they settle for 10 or 12%, though?

[Leo Laporte]

Well, maybe not settle, but the. The president's putting the screws to him.

[Jason Snell]

I don't think it's gonna. I don't think it's gonna get to that point. And I think. I know that you think President of the United States, he's got all the leverage, but the. Apple has leverage here because if Apple raises phone prices, everybody knows who's at fault.

[Leo Laporte]

Right?

[Jason Snell]

Right. And we know that. We saw with inflation, like, people don't react really well to prices going way up. And they blame. I mean, honestly, they blame the government anyway, regardless of whether it's at fault for what's going on. So I think that that is Apple's leverage is if it's a $2,000 iPhone this fall, who do you think it's. Whose fault is it? It's Trump's. That's the bottom line, period. So that's their. That's their side of it. I think the question is Again, it's always a negotiation. That is, if there's anything we've learned about Donald Trump is everything is a negotiation. Everything is a deal that allows him to declare some sort of victory. And so the question is, what can Apple do? Because. Because of reality. Right? Because of reality that they're not going to be bringing the whole iPhone supply chain to the, to the U.S. not this year, not in five years.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, you know why?

[Jason Snell]

Ten years.

[Leo Laporte]

American women don't have the tiny finger.

[Jason Snell]

The tiny fingers.

[Leo Laporte]

Chinese women.

[Jason Snell]

Oh, boy. There's so much, there's so much here that I don't want to talk about.

[Leo Laporte]

Explain this really quickly, otherwise I'm going to get email. Here's John Gruber's really dug in on this one. He was mad at Trip Mickels terrible New York Times story which, which basically didn't just say, hey, there's no way Apple's ever going to make an iPhone in the United States. But went to a bunch of analysts who said, well, you could, but it would cost more. No, you couldn't. And then Tripp said something weird about young Chinese women have small fingers. And that's the reason you have to make the iPhone in China. This, of course, is not only racist.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

But pretty appalling. And the New York Times has refused. Gruber says, I didn't really talk too much about it because I thought, oh, they'll take that out of the article pretty quick.

[Jason Snell]

No, no, no. And I think, I think their defense is this is the way that people involved in Chinese manufacturing talk about this. But I have a theory here, which is this is code for child labor. That that's what this really is. It's really.

[Leo Laporte]

But is there child labor making iPhones?

[Jason Snell]

I don't know. You tell me. There's not supposed to be. But like young women make with small fingers making iPhones, if that's even a thing. It sounds to me like what they're really saying is 8 year olds. We have very young people.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I don't think Apple, I don't think Apple is around with that. Ye manufacturers maybe, but Apple, well, Apple.

[Leo Laporte]

Apple has definitely tried not to do a lot of every way possible.

[Jason Snell]

But there's also the cultural thing here, which is this is probably a way of talking about this that may have been true when there was more child labor in the factory than there is now. And they still talk that way. It is bizarre and baffling. And, and, and look, I mean, the real question here is what, what deal do you make with Trump? Because the leverage Apple has is if we don't make a deal, if, you know iPhones are going to go up and they're going to blame you. Right? Like, bottom line, they're going to blame you. And yeah, I know that that's like declaring war on, on the government, but the war has been declared in a way. So the question is, how do we de. Escalate that?

[Leo Laporte]

How, if you're allowed child labor in the United States, could we make the iPhone here? I'm just asking.

[Alex Lindsay]

No, no. Okay.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay.

[Alex Lindsay]

Let's just take this down. The amount of infrastructure that it would be required to build. To build what?

[Leo Laporte]

Take 10 years to build that factory.

[Alex Lindsay]

At least a decade so that you could make it for three times the cost. You know, like, like there's no part of that math that makes any sense. It is just the dumbest idea. And it's not the dumbest idea that that could be said recently, but it's pretty close. I mean, it's, it is just. It's someone who just doesn't know anything. Everything looks simple to people who don't know anything about it. And, and it is. Okay, well, they just move it to the United States is just. I think it's not to mention supply.

[Leo Laporte]

Chain or, or it is.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

No, because if they had to import.

[Leo Laporte]

All the parts still from China at.

[Alex Lindsay]

And even if they didn't, it's just that there's all these little companies that all. Even the Indian ones that are there are getting a huge number of the components from China.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying is that they would have to personnel from China here, so you'd still get a tariff from China. Leo, you import the phone from India, you only have that one 25%.

[Jason Snell]

Leo, you have a. You had a good piece in our show notes. That is Andrew Ross Sorkin and New York Times Dealbook writing a piece that was basically like how do they build an on an off ramp to placate Trump? That was the story.

[Leo Laporte]

That's the real question.

[Jason Snell]

And he, he made it is the real story here. Because what, what Trump wants is he wants to keep putting the screws to Apple to make Apple increasingly commit to doing things in the US because it makes him look like a victor who changed the behavior of one of the biggest companies in the world. And what, what Andrew Ross Sorkin did was contact a bunch of supply chain experts who are not people, who talk about the size of people's fingers and instead have. This is a good writer at the New York Times. Yeah, I said it. Not, not Not a bad writer at the New York Times who doesn't know what he's talking about about almost anything anyway. Yeah, I have it in for Trip Mickle. So what he suggests is you take it in pieces, right? Like, I mean, there's probably a way to create an assembly plant in the next three years in the US and take. And start thinking modularly about the iPhone and assembling parts of it outside in various other countries, importing the parts at a lower, you know, some sort of reduced tariff rate and then assembling. And I mean, the joke I made is you make it in two parts, you snap them together and put them in the box in the US and you say assembled in the US but it would be more complex than that. But like it's not something that.

[Leo Laporte]

With logic plant in the first year.

[Jason Snell]

For the Mac Pro. Yeah, exactly. So it's not something that's logical. You wouldn't actually want to do it this way, but it would add a little expense and allow you to say, we're assembling this in the US and honestly, I know that sounds like an end around, around Trump, but like, I think that, that there is some legitimate view in the White House that things like having a packaging plant, having an assembly plant, those are American jobs. So their argument would be, yeah, I know it's a little less efficient and I know it's not assembling the whole thing, but it's Apple bringing some factory jobs back to America. It allows them to declare victory and it allows this to de. Escalate.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. And it could be, I mean, if Apple spends billion on it, it would, it's, it, it would be fine. Apple wouldn't make out on that. And, and Trump would get it. You know, they could say we're spending a, we're spending a billion dollars on a factory in Phoenix and we're going to build it. And the thing is, is that if they said that it would take, they could announce it, they could dedicate, they could have people doing surveys they could be doing. It'll take two or three years to get the concrete for the floor poured right to, to do this right. And then they could just turn it into something else down the road.

[Leo Laporte]

Tim. Tim Cook. Thanks to Bite for Byte Joe. In our chat room, he says if you look at the US you could have a meeting of tooling engineers and I'm not sure we could fill a room China, you could fill multiple football fields. It hasn't been that it's cheap labor for a long time. It's the expertise, the precisions, the advanced tooling, those are the things, the little fingers.

[Andy Ihnatko]

The famous story about sourcing a screw when you need one in an hour and a half.

[Alex Lindsay]

And the problem is the only place these engineers exist now is the defense industry because it has to be made in the United States. States. And so there are ton, there are more probably than he's saying that are available but they all work for Raytheon and they all work for other companies like that because that's the only place that needs everything to be built in the United States.

[Leo Laporte]

And I imagine a fighter jet is more high margin than an iPhone.

[Jason Snell]

So I think this is leverage for Tim Cook though. That quote is a Tim Cook quote. And I think that it is counter to the old argument which is you can't bring these jobs back to the US because nobody in the US is going to be able to work even at minimum wage is going to be able to work the way you could afford to pay people insurance, China. And what this quote is saying is well actually that is becoming less the case and instead it's about the know how at mechanized factories that are these assembly plants. And it's all complicated. I think the, the argument would be that that's something that although we don't, we aren't capable of doing it that the United States could be capable of doing if you worked at it for a couple of decades. And so I think that that becomes part of his core argument to the White House is let's start down the path of getting that kind of knowledge. Now the problem is a lot of that also comes from training. And we, we live in a world where the administration is kind of at war with the entire concept of higher ed and things like that. So it's complicated, but they could do it.

[Alex Lindsay]

But I mean I think the other thing that Apple could do is say hey, we're building this, this plant. We're going to spend $1 billion on it. We're also committing $100 million to machining education in high schools, you know, Votech program that buys a bunch of precision machines. We're going to partner with a couple companies that have these machinists and everything else.

[Jason Snell]

And it's a decade long investment and.

[Alex Lindsay]

It'S, and it's a, we're going to spend a billion dollars on this and another billion dollars on that. You get an announcement. It, you know, and, and, and it would be really great by the way for kids to be able to play with.

[Leo Laporte]

I have to point out one thing, all of this makes Sense, but you have an autocrat in power who is not predictable.

[Jason Snell]

It's true. It's not predictable.

[Leo Laporte]

Something you should do. Whether it will work is an unknown.

[Jason Snell]

Right. Not predictable and not based in reality. Right. Because he clearly believes that Apple could just, out of the snap of the fingers, assemble them. And so you can try to use logic, but all you can do is try.

[Andy Ihnatko]

One of the biggest problems in dealing with Trump is that sometimes he says things because the little bird in his mouth told him to say certain things. And the rest of the administration is like, he said, what now? What do we have to defend now? And I think so part of the problem of responding to that is that am I going to. Am I going to divert billions of dollars in company resources to something that he's going to simply retract or walk back on a week later? It's, it's. Well, and I think. And chaos always benefits the despot.

[Alex Lindsay]

And I think that what Tim is, Tim Cook is pretty good at is just doing A good CEO on a large company is just doing math. They're like, if I'm going to lose $12 billion, but I could spend a billion dollars to get out of it, then I'll just spend the billion dollars. Doesn't matter whether it's right or wrong. They're just like, the math is there, right? And so I could see Apple and it's not gonna be the only thing that they're asked of. I think that the big thing that. I think that the line that Tim drew there, which is gonna be a hard one for Apple to manage, is that he's like, I don't wanna keep showing up like a puppy dog. Like, I don't wanna, you know, and I think that that's where he just.

[Leo Laporte]

That was a mistake.

[Alex Lindsay]

Well, it may have been a mistake, but at some point I think it didn't work out.

[Andy Ihnatko]

It was a logical choice that it.

[Alex Lindsay]

Was a. I, I think that he probably made it conscious to, there's going to be blowback and he's going to have to figure out what that blowback, how to manage that blowback. But I think that at some point Tim was like, I'm just not willing to keep standing next, you know, standing next to this, you know, and, and I think that that. So I think that he made a. What potentially is a moral choice on his part of. I'm just not going to keep on saying this is okay. Like, it's one thing. It's, it's one thing to go to a Texas factory. It's another thing to go to Saudi Arabia, you know, with the president stand there and you know, it's also. So remember, for a CEO, I know the other CEOs went, but they're all looking at the same thing. This is a very transactional and vindictive president and you're gonna pay a price if you say no. And I think Tim. I don't think Tim made a mistake. I think he consciously said no, knowing that that's gonna be the cost for the decision that he thinks is right.

[Leo Laporte]

If you're a shareholder, that might upset you.

[Alex Lindsay]

It might. But it's also a branding issue for Apple. Like, at some point you get into this if the it's only gonn.

[Leo Laporte]

Can Apple survive four years?

[Alex Lindsay]

Oh, yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Unless Donald Jr. Who wants to run now? Unless it's a dynasty. That's Tim's nightmare, by the way. He woke up with a cold sweat this morning, I'm sure.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, so. So I think that. But I think that again, I think that he made that decision. I think Apple. There's a way to say a bunch of stuff that. And again, I think it'd be great to have more machining training in high schools. I wish my son had access to it right now.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Can I say parenthetically that this is one of the. You're talking about abusive relationships when Trump doesn't get what he wants. Just do Google search on Trump and Harvard.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Although I want one of the things.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Okay, go ahead.

[Leo Laporte]

IS took $100 million from Harvard and said, I'm giving it to trade schools.

[Andy Ihnatko]

That's what I was about to say.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

Right. So I think Apple's saying we're going to give $100 million or a billion dollars to trade schools, to not just trade schools, but programs that might of. You know, programs that could be inside of high schools and other things like that. It'd be. I mean, part of the reason that we're in this pickle is because high schools K through 12, started pushing liberal arts, you know, liberal arts colleges as opposed to trades, you know, and that happened four decades ago. Like, you know, like it's that. And so we slowly just stopped training. You know, I went. When I grew up, I was in metal shop and wood shop and, you know, and all these other things. And, you know, we all knew how to weld. We all knew how to do all those things.

[Leo Laporte]

Did you go into welding, Alex?

[Alex Lindsay]

Oh, yeah.

[Jason Snell]

Oh, yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

I made a lot of cool things with. Well, you got it. I mean, it's little smiles you make.

[Leo Laporte]

Is that a Career that you would have.

[Alex Lindsay]

Oh, no.

[Jason Snell]

Going into welding. Who did it?

[Alex Lindsay]

I haven't go into welding.

[Jason Snell]

Welded and all of that.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, I, I, I have people who went to, but I know I have friends that I grew up with that, that learned how to weld in, in high school, got certified right out of high school, and they're making six figures. I mean, you know, none of those.

[Leo Laporte]

Jobs, though, are going to be assembling iPhones on a factory floor.

[Jason Snell]

But keep, keep in mind that the robots do a lot of the assembly now. And so a lot of it is.

[Alex Lindsay]

F. Trying to replace almost all of the inexpensive Chinese workers with robots.

[Leo Laporte]

I mean, you think Chinese girls have small fingers, those robots?

[Jason Snell]

Let me tell you about robots.

[Alex Lindsay]

Let me tell you about robots. So, you know, the problem is bringing this stuff back isn't, is bringing. Every year it's bringing less labor back to the United States because even Foxconn is trying to get rid of literally every worker they can get rid of in China. Like, you know, with the, with the automation. And every year there's a couple spots, I read an article about this a couple months ago. There's a couple spots every year that are gone. You know, they just keep on. We figured out how to do that with a machine, you know, so.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, there we have it, ladies and gentlemen, the state of play in the United States of America. It's gotta be.

[Jason Snell]

It's a mess.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, it's a little bit challenging. A little bit challenging. By the way, somebody in the YouTube chat, some more on the YouTube chat is saying, well, you know, those big Ivy League schools do have an anti Semitism problem. I just want to tell you, I went to Yale. There's no anti Semitism problem in higher education in the United States. There may be a lot of students who feel, and I think justifiably, that Israel is committing genocide in Palestine and Gaza. That's not anti Semitism. That may be anti Netanyahu, that may be, you know, anti Israeli leadership, but it's no more anti Semitic to say that than it is to say, you know, I'm not a fan of Donald Trump, is anti American. Now that I just wanted to double down so that I get all the emails out of the way at once.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Okay, I agree.

[Jason Snell]

It's a very sneaky thing to sort of conflate all of Judaism with the government policies of Israel. There are plenty of Jews who are against it too, including half of, you know, including most of my wife's family.

[Leo Laporte]

So I used to go to a regular seder, not in the. What is. I can't remember the name of the thing that they read. They said, and prayer for our Palestinian brothers. I mean, it's not a universal belief of Judaism and it's shameful that this has been conflated. And I'm glad Harvard's fighting the good fight. I hope they win. That's all I can say. Again, you send your emails to me. Don't, don't bother those guys. I'll be glad to entertain all thoughts. [e-mail] and then I will, I do warn you, read them on the air. Just warn you. I won't name names. I'll just, I'll just mock you on the air. All right, so is there anything more to say? By the way, Trump does say Samsung too, by the way. Oh, so it's not just Apple. Wouldn't it be amazing if smartphones in America cost twice as much than any other country in the world? That'd be interesting. Would we all get Motorola phones?

[Andy Ihnatko]

It is a golden age, to be sure.

[Leo Laporte]

What would?

[Alex Lindsay]

Well, it just becomes cheaper to fly, go to Canada, buy it, buy a.

[Leo Laporte]

Phone and come back. In fact, that's what people have done for years.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I mean, start selling bandoliers to help you smuggle phones taped around your waist.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, I had friends in Africa that would, they'd buy iPhones here, fly to Rwanda with 10 of them and sell them and pay off the flight, like, because people would buy it because you couldn't even buy them there. It wasn't a tariff.

[Leo Laporte]

There was. Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

And, and so, you know, it's used.

[Leo Laporte]

To do that with Levi's in the, in the back, in the day, behind the iron curtain.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I mean, let's just hope this doesn't bite Apple in the butt. I mean, Apple doesn't have a, doesn't have a phone for less than $600 now. And there are lots of really good Android phones for under $500. And so people who are price sensitive, who are like, I don't care, even with the two year plan, even if whatever offers I can get, I can't afford a $600 phone. I can't afford an $800 phone. This is the phone. This is the amount of money I have to spend on a phone that has to do xyz. What are other phones other than the iPhone that can do XYZ that have a half decent camera and there are a lot of them out there.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. That may be the real threat to Tim Cook. Right. Is opening people's eyes to the alternatives. 51% of their revenue is the iPhone. And there's no credible replacement on the Horizon. Maybe in 10 years we'll be talking glasses, but right now, that's the iPhone.

[Andy Ihnatko]

If I see one more headline that says, oh, the, oh, the smartphone is doomed, like, okay, is it now?

[Leo Laporte]

Someday it will be someday, not today.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I mean, when whatever creature inherits the earth after us has the kind of claws that cannot operate a touchscreen, then they're going to have to start to build something that they can use. Bespoke.

[Leo Laporte]

We've talked, talked about this. Those meta array bands require a phone. And I would imagine that at least for a while, any eyewear from Apple or Meta or Google will require a phone, as in your pocket.

[Andy Ihnatko]

There's a reason why there are a lot of really great smartwatches out there. And there are some people that say, hey, now, I leave my phone at home some of the time because my smartphone does so much. But none of them are saying, hey, I gave away all my phones. I don't need a phone anymore. Because the smartwatch is perfectly fine for watching videos on TikTok and it's perfect fine for engaging in long, long message strings on WhatsApp, or messages for taking pictures.

[Jason Snell]

It's really bad at taking pictures, let me tell you.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. There is, though, a precedent. I mean, I think younger people don't necessarily feel like they need a laptop anymore. They've got their. They like, they have their phone, right?

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, to a certain degree. Although even they're dealing. You know, my, both of my kids are in their 20s now, men speaking now, and they have laptops and they use them for laptop things. Right. I mean, they live on their phones. It's absolutely tr. But they use their laptops for laptop stuff. There's, I mean, because it's convenient to have a physical keyboard and a big screen, I'd say that their laptops are more functional and purpose built. Like everybody's got what their primary device is. Right. And my primary device is probably my iPad. Honestly, my daughter's primary device. And for work it's a Mac. My daughter's primary device is her phone, there's no doubt about it. But she does a lot of stuff on her laptop. She just. That's the laptop stuff. So I think it's just a matter of the balance shifting. But, you know, I, I've talked to a lot of people who are, you know, younger people who, they're like, yeah, oh, it's all about my phone. And then they get a job or whatever and they're like, well, I gotta have a laptop. I gotta have a computer for that. Because that's not a. Like their social lives. And being a kid, you could do that on a phone, but it's a lot harder to do the rest of the.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, I think that it also on the kind of level of social media and so on and so forth that they're doing about, about how tied they are to it. Like my kids don't. At first I didn't let them use social media and then now it's more free but they don't use it. They missed whatever that, that adoption time was and as a result they just don't spend a lot of time on their phones. And but my, you know, my son has, I don't know, four or five PCs that are in various forms of being built. Like they're sitting in his, in his room. And. And my daughter mostly is iPad. And so I think it depends.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, I gave, it's funny, my daughter for a long time, she's 32, resisted the iPad. In fact, she's an Android user. But I gave her, I forced her, I gave her an iPad for her birthday and she loves it. But I also gave her a keyboard and a pencil. So she's basically got a laptop. One more problem, one more. Many more problems for Tim Cook. One more is in Texas where a law passed requiring app stores to verify user ages. Tim Cook called Governor Abbott to stop. You know, say please, please don't sign that.

[Jason Snell]

Hey Abbott.

[Leo Laporte]

Hey, Abbott. Do not sign it. You know, our own Steve Gibson had a really great suggestion. I wish Apple would implement this and maybe these laws, because it's not just Texas, maybe these laws will kind of force Apple and Google to do the same, which is as part of parental controls. Let parents say, this is my age, whether, you know, emotional or physical of my kid on the kids.

[Jason Snell]

Apple's doing that. So Apple, Apple announced a feature that's going to have an API that lets you, you know, Apple, because Apple knows or the parents can put in the actual birth date of the, of the child. So Apple knows that age and what Apple wants everybody to do. And this is why I think there's probably an argument here for a federal regulation about this because a lot of states are doing this and it's getting really complicated. What Apple wants do is use this API where an app developer can say, hey, what's the age range of the person using this app? And you can pass that on. And Apple says that that's more private than passing a birthday or having you put all of your documents in somewhere and that way it can say, well this, you know, whatever range of ages that this child is and that can get passed on. And that's Apple sort of saying, we built a system that's more private than what you're asking us to do. Please don't make it it so that we have to start collecting and passing along all this personal data. Let's find another, you know, system that solves this problem. Apple's not saying don't solve the problem. Apple's saying we have a patchwork of laws that is there are more and more patches and a lot of them have unintended consequences that are bad for the privacy of children on the Internet. Like the last thing you want to do is disclose more personal data about children on the Internet, but that these laws often inadvertently do that in the name of protecting them. So you know, the problem is again, you know, you've got states, states that want to do this and, and the tech companies can wave their arms but like if the states want to do it, they're just going to do it.

[Leo Laporte]

Abbott has not signed it, but as the Wall Street Journal points out, the law was passed with a veto proof majority.

[Jason Snell]

Right.

[Leo Laporte]

Utah has such a law. Now nine other states are considering such a law. It would be. So first of all, well, the government taking this out of the hands of the parents is wrong. It's up to the parents. Apple giving parents that capability and an API so that apps could then check seems like such a nice simple solution. Does it require a federal law? I guess it does. To override these state laws?

[Jason Snell]

Yeah. That's the thing that ends up happening in a lot of these cases for good and for ill is you end up with states passing all these more restrictive, less restrictive. And finally there's some company that's like, it is so much overhead to police this in 50 different states just in the US help us. And that often will lead to federal legislation that is invariably stricter than some states and much looser than others. And that's just sort of how it works. But at least it's uniform.

[Andy Ihnatko]

There's also an advantage to the companies because now they only have to lobby one legislative body instead of 50. So that's, that's another reason why there are positive reasons why companies would love to have a federal law. They, they really do legitimately want clarity. They also would like to like only have to work one ref.

[Leo Laporte]

I think the tech CEOs though did miss a bet if they just all bought enough Trump coin They could have just swarmed him at the event and said, Please, Mr. President, don't kill us.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I don't know. See, I don't know. I think everyone. They would have been just so logie and tired after that lush, rich, expansive banquet of a meal that they were provided for their $500,000 or whatever they was.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, my God. All right, we've annoyed enough people now. Actually, I doubt any of them are still listening. We're gonna take a little break, come back with more. It is Andy Inocco in the library in an unnamed location. Sure, go right ahead. Avoid responsibility. It is always will. Officehours Global. Alex Lindsey. He's in his studio. Where? Well, well, somewhere in Northern California and probably right next door to Jason Snell, who is in his.

[Jason Snell]

No, down the street. Down the street. I don't think Alex is on my block, but yeah, down the street.

[Leo Laporte]

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[Jason Snell]

See her after class.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, see her after class.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Poor Lyle.

[Leo Laporte]

Poor Lyle, the intern who was our cover child last week.

[Jason Snell]

They can't find him. That's what happened. Lyle is gone. They don't know where he is.

[Leo Laporte]

He ran.

[Andy Ihnatko]

He was put into the wicker Man. Yep, problem solved.

[Leo Laporte]

Apple literally within a day of that writ, said, okay, fine. And Fortnite is back in the store and running is expected. In fact, I talked to a parent who said, yes, my 13 year old immediately said, I want Fortnite on my iPhone and I want it now. Okay, so that's solved.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah, it's just going to get harder and harder for Apple to walk this back. I mean they're going to continue to fight this. But Spotify filed an amicus brief for the court saying that claiming on their end that hey, look, as soon as we were able to not work with these restrictions, our subscriptions went way up. And there's going to be more and more pressure from all fronts, particularly from users if they were to, if God were to reach down from heaven above with his, her or its finger and bless Apple right in the middle of the smack dab in the center of that spaceship campus and grant them a victory, would they be able to tell all their customers, all their users of iPhones good news. We're making it more complicated now to subscribe to Spotify and to buy books on Kindle and all kinds of other things. You're welcome. Wait.

[Leo Laporte]

Crickets. And I'm sure Apple is pleased to hear that David Hahnemeyer Hansen is happy. DHH, the creator with 37 signals of hey said he posted it last week. Hey is finally for sale on the iPhone. You may remember their kerfuffle, the battle with Apple over, as he says it, their gangster attempt to extort 30% of our hey revenues. He said it wasn't even just the revenue really. We wanted to have a relationship with our customers. Hey is an email calendar system from 37 signals. And he said we just wanted to be able to respond directly to customers instead of having to do it, you know, through Apple. It's just as much about retaining that direct customer relationship so we can help folks with refunds. So they don't tie their billing for a multi platform email system to a single manufacturer.

[Jason Snell]

Okay.

[Alex Lindsay]

I mean like, like what do. What, what people want is they, they want the leads like they want all the, they want everybody's contact information when they're, when they're buying stuff. Like if they want, if, if I want to give him that information, I can that in the, in the app, but I didn't give it to him because I don't want to.

[Leo Laporte]

Well actually he's got your email. It's an. No, but I'm saying it's alexey.com I mean he knows that.

[Alex Lindsay]

I understand. Like the thing, but the thing is, is that what most people want is they, they want to make sure that at every transaction they get that information as opposed to only the people who want to provide it. You know, and that's the, that's the part that I think we'll see how it goes. I mean there's been some obviously Spotify is doing great. Other folks that have been posting some their experiences of some of the tests have seen 25 to 45% drops on the number of conversions they're getting when they say you got to go outside the App Store. So it'll be. I think the jury still allowed us to for smaller big brands are going to make out on this small brands. It'll be interesting to see how they do because I think that they what.

[Leo Laporte]

A journey and what a needless torching of the developer relationship from Apple's side. We've always been happy to pay out Apple for hosting our application on the App Store, as all developers have always needed to do via the $99 a year developer fee. But being forced to hand over 30% of the business as well as the direct customer relationship was always an unacceptable overreach. He writes. Now that that's been arrested by Judge Rogers, they're going to be able to offer it directly on iOS.

[Jason Snell]

I think this whole thing actually kind of of proves and disproves Alex's point simultaneously, which is kind of fun, right? Because on the one hand we are seeing apps that didn't previously do commerce on inside apps. It do that now, right? Like that is almost everything that's been changed in the US App Store has been people who basically said we're not going to play, we can't play, we refuse to do this including 37 signals. But so that's the kind of like see Alex, look, there is change happening that is probably good for the user. However, I also have to say, See Alex, nobody else seems to be rushing into this except the one who refused and stayed on the outside. And I think that's a really interesting dynamic that the, the companies that were like, either they like Amazon with the Kindle app where they're like we can't, we just can't do it. It doesn't make any sense that it would eat all of the, you know, book transaction that we take would just go to Apple so we're not going it or it's somebody like DHH saying, you know, we're just going to abstain. You're going to have to go and sign up on our website because we want to own the customer relationship and not give 30% away. And both of those are important. But what I haven't seen is a huge rush by everybody else and I think that speaks to the strength of Apple's you know, in app purchase system and how easy it is to use. And I, you know, my argument is always that Apple's got plenty to compete on here. They don't have to outlaw outside stuff. Because I think that a lot of developers would be like, well, no, I'm not going to. I get, I get value out of being in the app with Apple. So it's interesting. Well, obviously this will change and it's us only, so that probably factors into it as well. But I think it's an interesting dynamic on both.

[Leo Laporte]

DHH actually writes, I'm sure many small developers will continue to consider IAP to avoid having to worry about international taxes or even direct customer service. No one is taking that away from Apple, Apple or those developers. But the court has ordered them to make it optional to have an alternative project. That's fair.

[Jason Snell]

The worst person in the world says something you agree with.

[Leo Laporte]

I know, I know.

[Andy Ihnatko]

He didn't mean you, Alex.

[Leo Laporte]

We meant dhh. I agree. He's not the worst person in the world.

[Jason Snell]

No, but he's not great. He's not great. Don't like that guy. I don't really like the Epic guy that much either, but Tim Sweeney either.

[Leo Laporte]

I agree. But you know, and I'm not a hate customer.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, but I mean this, this goes. And Alex has made this point a lot. Hi Alex. That, that Apple does provide a lot of things that make it convenient for developers and for users. And I think that that is, you know, whether it's, whether they deserve to be 100% exclusive. Nobody else can even compete is the argument that we have. But like, I think that you, you gotta cite the fact that it's really convenient for the user and the developer to use Apple system. That, that, that is undeniable.

[Alex Lindsay]

And again, I think that it also depends on the kind of purchase. You know, I think that for me, like, I will not subscribe outside of the Apple Store because I, you know, at this point I've got a handful of subscriptions that are, that are like Netflix.

[Jason Snell]

Right.

[Alex Lindsay]

And even that my family, my, my daughter's arguing for me to keep Netflix. So. Because I don't watch it. And so there's a handful of things that are out there. I've decided no more like, you know, if you want to do a subscription with me, it's got to be somewhere I can see it. Like, I just, I can't. I don't want to go through my credit card figuring out what, what have I forgotten that I subscribed to. I'm not going to do that, you know, like. And so I think that as a user I've just decided if you give me a subscription that I'm going to have to leave the store for. And what I'm hoping is, is that Apple is going to give us in the store. I think, I think one of Apple's reactions, and as a user I'd prefer it is to allow me to, at the preference level, sort by payment type, subscription one time purchase in app purchase, external store, and I can just flip it off so I don't see any of those. And I think Apple can put those four in there. They can't put one in there. They can't say inside store and outside store. But if they put the four different ones in there, I'm not interested in. Because I'm not that interested in subscriptions either anymore. I'm done. Too many subscriptions, too many little death by a thousand cuts. And so and I looked back on it and I realized the real drop for me of going to the Apple Store was really subscriptions in the sense that I used to go looking for apps to just buy like, oh, I'm going to buy that app. But now I look at every app by the yearly cost of whatever that they're asking for in that subscription and go, I'm not paying whatever. I'm paying $42 or $98 for it. Is this app really worth that? And the answer is often no. And so then as a result I just don't explore as much as I used to because everything. And that's Apple's fault. Apple pushed everybody to subscription. Like this is great because it' for their model but I definitely don't want to subscribe outside of it because it's just, I don't know, I find that I'm paying $5 a month like six months, six years later and I'm not willing to do that anymore.

[Leo Laporte]

I loved your piece. Jason Snell, Sam and Johnny and skepticism. We've all been commenting on this weird engagement video from Jony I've and Sam Altman.

[Jason Snell]

This is two billionaires having coffee in.

[Andy Ihnatko]

An empty cafe where they registered.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. So Sam Altman, of course founder of OpenAI went to Jony I've and said, you know, because Johnny said we're going to, we're working on. My development team is working on an AI device. That's all he said. Sam said, you know, I like your idea so much. I want to give you six and a half billion billion dollars in stock for it. Which incidentally, as Mike Elgin pointed out on Sunday dilutes OpenAI stock, which makes it easier to convert to a nonprofit. But never mind that. Johnny, what do you got? And so they made this kind of creepy, weird video and website. What does Johnny have anything?

[Alex Lindsay]

I don't. It'll be really interesting to see. I mean, obviously I think that the thought is it's going to be something that is connected to your. That he walks around with you with a camera. The question is that if Apple puts cameras into the AirPods, you know, and it's more personal and does a lot of those things somewhere in the future, like how do people really want something else doing that?

[Leo Laporte]

Jason, I like your prediction that it'll be more like the Humane AI pin or the AI pendant, which I ordered. But they're embarrassed to be associated with those products. So they're gonna wait a little longer.

[Jason Snell]

To let the stink clear. Yeah, to let the stink waft away a little bit. The Johnny I've even said to Mark, Mark Gurman in Bloomberg because clearly Gurman had this story and they told him to hold it and they'd give him some interesting first person quotes.

[Leo Laporte]

Was it tit for tat?

[Jason Snell]

I think I suspected that's what went on there. But he said he referred to the AI pin especially as a, you know, bad product. Right. Like you, you know that they hate the fact that there are a bunch of companies that have tried this to make AI accessories and they've been crappy and they've kind of stung up the, the public perception of that category and now they're kind of waiting for the stink to clear. I think that that's what's going on. I have a hard time believing this isn't something that looks a lot like that Humane pin or the pendant. And they may dress it up or change it or have a spin on it. But like, again, unless they see something that if all. With all my racking of my brain and looking at this category, I can't see it. I have a hard time seeing what this product is that isn't something that we've already seen a different take on doesn't mean it couldn't succeed. But it faces all the same problems, including the fact that probably the most logical place to run this stuff from is the thing with the battery and the high speed connection and the powerful processor that you have in your pocket, which is your smartphone. And what Humane ran into is that you had to have a separate cellular plan and it had a lot of battery problems and all of these issues. But if you're making what essentially is a phone accessory, then it, it makes you ask the question, how is this better than using my smartwatch, using my smartphone, using my AirPods, using my Meta Ray Bans? How, how, how does this piece of hardware differ in a way that, that makes it something that is more. And I just, I think it's a tough nut to crack. Now maybe Johnny and I mean he clearly got the band back together. It's a lot of his favorite people.

[Leo Laporte]

Evan Hanke is on the team, right?

[Jason Snell]

Evans. Evans Hanke is there. There are a lot of people, mostly designers that were mentioned by name, which I think is a problem because, because designers aren't engineers and designers aren't product people. They aren't, they're designers. They are part of the product process, but they work with other people to craft a product vision. I would argue that Jony I've's best work by far in his career came when he had Steve Jobs to tell him no. And after Steve Jobs was gone.

[Leo Laporte]

Butterfly keyboard.

[Jason Snell]

Nobody could tell him no anymore. And I think that Apple suffered because nobody was there who was going to tell Sir Johnny I've no about anything. And he is running the show here with him his lieutenants. And I was surprised at how many people were like, oh, here we go. This is going to change everything. It's that tech hype cycle that we're so used to. And I couldn't help but look at it and think, oh my God, it's two of the most overhyped things in the last decade. Jony I've and Sam Altman and OpenAI and I look at them together and it's like, and I'm not an AI skeptic in the sense that I think that there's useful stuff in AI as well as it being horribly overhyped. I think both of those things are true. But the, the hype was so thick here with nothing tangible and they're playing around with a category that we've already looked at. All of us have talked about these category, this category of an AI accessory and like it's really a tough nut to crack. And they're like rolling in and saying, you know, look, geniuses, we're going to do it. And I just, it feels, I don't know, it's bs that's basically what I came down on. It's just, it's just, it's really thick with BS here.

[Andy Ihnatko]

It's absolute. And that video was also very calculated. It was basically, it was like an Oprah network sort of interview sort of thing where cozy and familiar and not intimidating the way that AI sometimes saw as really intimidating. He actually said, he said the partnership is not being, I'm reading from a New York Times article being led not by a fiscal imperative but from a place of building products that quote, benefit humanity. And okay, that's, that's always a very, very alarm bell should go off because that either means that someone is lying their butt off about the reason why they're doing something or they don't know what they're talking about or they're being a very, very genuine about what they want to do. But the thing is it's kind of like talking to an artist who says I want to create art that makes people feel that's not how you make great art. That's how you make really, really cringy sort of like teenage art that you don't want to put in a place.

[Jason Snell]

Where people can see.

[Leo Laporte]

Is it fair to say it could.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Be a very small thing? Is it can be a very, very simple thing? It doesn't have to be this revolutionary thing. I mean we've been talking about this for a long, long time. If all they did was was have a pendant with or something that you can even just stick in your pocket like a pen that had a camera so that an AI can see a microphone that's very, very tuned to your voice that can isolate and shut out all the other information that's coming at it, except for things that you're actually saying to it. And that was just a very high speed conduit between this device and your phone. Have a small amount of AI on board just so that it can discern from stuff that it needs to communicate to your phone and stuff that doesn't need to communicate to your phone. That's all this really has to be to be an interesting product. Whether it's a revolutionary product or not is something that we will know no sooner than 14 months after it's released.

[Leo Laporte]

Is it fair to say that none of you agree with Mark Gurman's headline Jony Ives Open AI Deal puts pressure on Apple to Find the Next big Thing.

[Jason Snell]

No more than usual narrative. Such a tired narrative. I mean he's just running the same stuff out there. I really respect Mark Gurman as a reporter, but as an analyst his analysis tends to be come on, do something. And like, I mean I get it, but is there pressure? I guess there's pressure cuz it's like your ex is now dating somebody new and you're like oh boy. But I Mean, I don't think Apple.

[Leo Laporte]

Was kind of happy to get rid of Johnny.

[Jason Snell]

Oh yeah, I mean clearly. And they did the whole thing where like oh we'll work with him on future product projects and then walked right away like come on. It was, it was, it was very clear. And not to say that Johnny with.

[Andy Ihnatko]

This new position, no one reports to him, that's how important he is.

[Alex Lindsay]

Well, and I think, I think that he, he, he saw Steve Jobs as an equal or you know, or, or plus or minus. He did not see other people at Apple as equals.

[Jason Snell]

Yes.

[Alex Lindsay]

And as a result that, that, that created a dynamic that just was unworkable at Apple.

[Jason Snell]

He's legendary. He's Sir Johnny. I've and, and, and Apple, honestly in that era Apple wasn't willing to anger him or I mean they were desperate to keep him and put him out in the front because remember the narrative back then was without Steve Jobs, Apple is probably doomed. And so Apple did, I think the prudent thing which is wheel out Johnny, give him more power and just say look, look, the magic is still here. But the truth is he no longer had anybody who as you said, Alex was a true partner who could push back, who could say no. And I've been, you know, I've worked with lots of designers over the years. I love them. Designers are amazing. The best products come out of a real back and forth and some real challenging and I don't believe, believe that after Steve was gone that there was anybody at Apple who was capable of, or willing or had the power to challenge Johnny. And I think Johnny was also a little bit bored because now he was just iterating on the stuff that he had done in the 2000s and at some point he was kind of like looking for other stuff to do and you know, maybe he's got it now, he's got it back. He's got partners who are going to tell him no. But it sounds like he surrounded him with his people.

[Alex Lindsay]

Well, it doesn't even sound like he gave up. He still has his other at his other thing like love from him. Six and a half billion dollars of, of reason to pay attention to them. You know, like that's what it feels like because he still has another company. Like it's not like he's working for them full time.

[Leo Laporte]

How can I get six and a half billion dollars and keep my, and keep my day?

[Alex Lindsay]

You gotta, you gotta, you gotta design the ipod.

[Jason Snell]

You gotta, you gotta, yeah, you gotta be Johnny. I afraid and that's it does feel I Mean, I said Apple carted him out to give them credibility after Steve died. I mean there's a real vibe of that from this too. Is is how does Sam Altman and sort of like create a glow around OpenAI a little bit? Well, one way you do it is you spend a lot of money on Jony. I've and wheel him out and say look at these amazing people that we've got working here. But again, are they in a configuration that will lead to success? And I'm not saying that they won't. I'm saying I'm really dubious of it for like, look, you mentioned my piece at the top of this segment, Leo. I spent two days before I wrote that because I didn't want to do the knee jerk thing after I watched that video was say, wow, wow, this is a load of crap. And so I thought about it and I thought about it and I tried to think about it from all these different angles. It's fine. To each their own. And after two days I was like, I still feel the same way. Long list of reasons why this is just kind of a smokescreen. And then I'm really dubious, no matter how many talented people are at IO working with OpenAI on this product, I just, I'm really dubious that this is anything that shouldn't be viewed with like the highest level of skepticism up until the moment when they ship it and then we see what it is.

[Alex Lindsay]

And it also really felt like just as a person who produces videos almost exactly like that one. Not I didn't obviously didn't work on that one but, but, but produce ones that are very similar to this. It really felt like we're going to spend six and a half billion dollars. We got to sell this hard. Yeah, we got to sell this connection. Whatever it takes, whatever. Like I love by the way, if you ever have those kind of things, I'm really good at those. So yeah, just let like, I don't usually pub my work here.

[Leo Laporte]

Deflection video.

[Jason Snell]

They got Davis Guggenheim to direct this right on.

[Alex Lindsay]

High quality, high quality production. Sky's the limit on the budget. We're going to take over a bar. We're going to put a bunch of extras in there. We're going to, you know, like we're going to do it all.

[Leo Laporte]

It's by the way, apparently, did you see the SSA video? SF Standard shooting on the street said everybody was extras.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, SF Standard did, which is a great up and coming website covering San Francisco news has a piece where they deconstructed it And. And, you know, they show all of those, like, very casual things about Johnny and Sam walking downstairs where you can see all the different extras. Like, he's over here and now he's over there, and now he's walking this way. Now he's walking that way. Because it looks like a documentary, but it's. It's a phony documentary.

[Alex Lindsay]

And the problem is, is that doing this without actors, these. These guys are great. They're brilliant people. They're very good at what they do, but they're not actors. And there was. And what it does is when you do that, that it feels very gooey. It's just like, you know, like, actors sell some. They sell. They sell something that a regular person doesn't sell without a lot of practice and without figuring out how to really create that. Where. Where am I coming from? There's no context to this. There's no backstory. There's no, like. And so the thing is that they're just given a script and they kind of go through it.

[Jason Snell]

It's like, oh, hi, Johnny.

[Andy Ihnatko]

It always feels.

[Alex Lindsay]

It always feels so gooey when you do this. And. And so it's. So I'm ruining my chance of ever getting anyone listening to the show.

[Leo Laporte]

Davis Guggenheim really direct.

[Jason Snell]

Davis Guggenheim apparently directed it.

[Leo Laporte]

And I was the director of An Inconvenient Truth. He's a documentarian.

[Jason Snell]

And. And Alex certainly noticed this. I noticed this. That one of the weird things about this is their conversation at the. At the bar. Bar, having their espresso, like, at several points. It feels like there is an invisible interviewer there, there, who's been cut out of the whole video. So, like, you have them say things where it's very clear they're, like, responding to something, but the something isn't there anymore. It's. It gets really uncanny and really strange, which, again, you know, it's easy to pick apart the video, but I feel like it says a lot that they made a bespoke web page that does all sorts of effects when you scroll and they embedded this video. And, you know, pardon me for saying so, but it feels very Jony. I've. And I would say in the worst way possible. Modern Johnny I've. Where everything's a little extra. Like they're trying too hard.

[Leo Laporte]

It did.

[Jason Snell]

Look.

[Leo Laporte]

I mean, look at this. It looks like a wedding announcement. I mean, it's. It's really kind of weird.

[Jason Snell]

Well, yeah, it's a birth announcement. It's Joni.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Andy Ihnatko]

It's like these are two incredibly rich, incredibly powerful people. But no, they're just Joanie and Sam hanging out.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah. At the start, you gotta admire the fact that they have quotes down at the bottom with little share links so that you can get those quickly popped up.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh yeah, share that. So I can put that up social.

[Jason Snell]

Get that. Hit the socials with that.

[Leo Laporte]

Actually you want.

[Andy Ihnatko]

AI is scary. So you gotta, you gotta counter that if you got, if you got six point. If you got six plus billion dollars to spend on this new company, you got enough money to basically try to start off on the foot where. No, no, no, we're not like the rest of them. We're trying to. We're only in this to help people.

[Alex Lindsay]

There was somewhere in the conversation when they were making this, they were like, we gotta change the narrative. Someone said that somewhere. Like, we're gonna have to change the narrative about AI and about this thing. And then I'm sure that came up somewhere.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm still by way the, the way. Kudos to y' all for watching the video. I couldn't, I didn't watch the whole.

[Alex Lindsay]

Thing, I will admit. I watched the first. I watched the first like two minutes and I was like, oh, I got it. And then I skipped through it and I looked at it.

[Leo Laporte]

I watched just the. Yeah, them walking camera angles like Thanos. Somebody said Johnny walked through the crowd like Santa Thanos going for the.

[Alex Lindsay]

The big stone. There's a lot of strut going on there. That was a. That was a lot of like.

[Leo Laporte]

So credit to you, Jason, for watching the video and waiting two days before coming to the same conclusion. We all came to ye. I liked Mike Elgin's theory though. I thought that was really interesting. This is really more about diluting OpenAI stock that, you know, it's diluting non profit and imaginary money. It's. It's monopoly money.

[Jason Snell]

It's monopoly money.

[Alex Lindsay]

Right.

[Leo Laporte]

So that there may have been a motive, that this was all misdirection, you know?

[Alex Lindsay]

Well, and it could be you would build a video like this to really sell the idea that there's actually some there, that otherwise someone would say this might be fraud. Like, you're right. You're. You know, if you just did it, if they just ran a press release and said, we're giving Johnny I've six and a half billion doll dollars. There'd be stockholder issues. You know, this is always coming together.

[Jason Snell]

Truly what it is is they decided to speculatively work together with a, with a new company to work on this hardware product. And after it had been going on for like a Year. This isn't new. Right. It was a report of. They were working on this. They decided to bring it in house. And so what they did is they made a transaction involving open Air stock. So essentially it is. It is not money. It is basically like, like you are now getting a piece of OpenAI in exchange for having, you know, laid the foundation for our hardware product, whatever it might be. And you know what, if it all goes south, then there's nothing there. It all kind of starts to evaporate.

[Leo Laporte]

But it is, it's funny and it does, it does.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's funny money, but it does dilute everybody.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Like, everybody.

[Leo Laporte]

That's the whole point.

[Alex Lindsay]

But open. Everybody in OpenAI must be like, really, like, who put money into it?

[Jason Snell]

Like, sorry, Johnny needs his money.

[Leo Laporte]

Johnny.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Particularly if you were working on working your butt off at OpenAI for years and years and years.

[Leo Laporte]

It's like, okay, well, that's who the video maybe really was for, was the actual shareholders.

[Jason Snell]

I think the video is for Apple. You want to hear my theory here? Arch enemy of OpenAI is Google. Google runs Android. Google and Samsung are tight. It basically try to get into Android. I know it's open and all that, but, like, the home field advantage is true. Google is all in on Gemini Eye. You're OpenAI and you're like, well, there's Apple, right? Apple's over here and they already have a little bit of it. And if you notice in that video, I don't know if you saw this before you noped out of it, Leo, but like Sam says stuff like, we're not. I love my MacBook Pro, you're going to still have your MacBook Pro. And they're like, they're, they're almost trying to say, we're building a third device that is not your phone or your laptop. It's another thing. They all work together. And part of me thinks this is actually them sort of saying, don't worry, Apple, we're not here to destroy you. We're your buddy. Which if I'm Apple, I feel a little threatened. But at the same time, there is an argument to be made that every other AI company ought to be cozying up to Apple because the smartphone is going to be at the center of this. Let's be clear, for the foreseeable future, the smartphone is going to be at the center. It's got power, it's got a connection. Connection to the Internet. Like, there's so many reasons that the smartphone is going to be at the heart of this. Well, if that's True. And you've got two choices and one of them is a company that's all in on its own AI model and the other is a company that is struggling to build its AI model. Who's your buddy? Well, Apple's your buddy.

[Leo Laporte]

Sam Altman did this with Microsoft, didn't he? In fact, it's like the meme Sam Altman's got his arm around the Microsoft girl, but he's looking over his shoulder at the Apple girl because he's kind of done with Microsoft, Microsoft's kind of done with him.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, they're kind of doing their own thing too.

[Leo Laporte]

So.

[Alex Lindsay]

I think that Microsoft there was that whole like the chaos with Sam Altman last year and they were like, hey, let's get it all back together. But then there was got to be some meetings internally. Like we need another plan.

[Leo Laporte]

Microsoft's backup. Absolutely, absolutely. Hey, you mentioned how nice a website it is. This completely off camera track. I just want to mention Rick Rubin, who's kind of a wild fella, has done with Anthropic, a website called the Way of Code, the timeless art of vibe coding. It's the dao to jing. It's beautiful JavaScript site. It's the Dao to jing for vibe coding. And if you haven't seen it, it's wild. I mean it's just a wild site. So I just thought I'd pass.

[Alex Lindsay]

I think that they're, that they're also fighting off Claude in the in the Sense or Anthropic because you know, right now Chat GPT is tied in pretty tightly with Xcode. But, but the, there's a rumor that Anthropic is being used internally at, at Apple.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, that you know, it's the best coding platform by far, by far right.

[Alex Lindsay]

Now, despite what, and who knows what will happen in you know, a week and a half, you know, like, or two weeks or whatever.

[Leo Laporte]

So there was some good stuff in the Mark Gurman newsletter on Sunday. We'll talk about Solarium in just a moment. You're watching Mac Break Weekly with Andy Inacco, Alex Lindsey and the wonderful Jason Snell. Real quick, I know Alex, you don't like subscriptions, but maybe this would be one subscription you'd consider seven bucks a month to join Club Twit. You get a lot of benefit out of Club Twitter. Of course the seven bucks a month supports us. It's about 25% of our operating expenses right now, which is really great. It means we can continue on with the shows we're doing like this. Do New stuff in the club. You get not only ad free versions of all those shows, you get the stuff that's going on in the club. Twit Discord. Right now, a fist fight between those three. But if you want to join us, join the club Twit Discord. Look, you can get your very own Pokemon Go card. Or no. Is that magic? The gathering. I don't know. Anyway, we are doing a bunch of events. Events. Our AI user group is Friday of next week. That's a fun thing we do every month. I mentioned before and I'll mention it again if you want to see our keynote coverage. Micah and I will be doing the WWDC keynote, but because of takedown threats from Apple, we are going to do it in the club only. So you need to be a club member to watch that. You can either watch it live, we'll stream it live, or after the fact on the Twit plus feedback. But you got to be a club member. There's also the camera show is coming up with Chris Marquardt next week and Micah's crafting corner in a couple of weeks. And Stacy's recording in progress and. What? Hello? And the recording in progress. All of that for a mere seven bucks a month. I think you're getting a good deal right there. Look at that. That's great. Thank you. Pretty fly. Find out more at Twitt TV Club Twit. And we thank you in advance. Is. Is Alex back? Not yet. We're gonna wait for Alex. He was.

[Alex Lindsay]

Oh, he is back. I just dropped out for a second. I'm. I. I'm prepping for my pick of the week and I'm sorry for the recording in progress.

[Jason Snell]

It's part of the pick.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't mind. I don't mind. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying Big Wireless way too much.

[Jason Snell]

Please, for the love of everything good.

[Leo Laporte]

And everything this world, stop with Mint.

[Jason Snell]

You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying.

[Leo Laporte]

No judgments.

[Alex Lindsay]

But that's weird.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try.

[Andy Ihnatko]

@Mintmobile.Com Switch upfront payment of $45 for.

[Jason Snell]

3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month. Required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full [e-mail] hey, it's Ryan Seacrest.

[Leo Laporte]

For Albertsons and safeway now through June 17th. Shop in store or online for your favorite personal care items and save 5 doll. Spend $15 or more. Stock up on items like Dove Body Wash Degree Motion Sense Deodorant, Tresemme Hairspray, Dove Shampoo, Dove Bar Soap, Dove Men's Body and face Wash and Dollar Shave Club blades. And save $5 when you spend $15 or more. Hurry in before these deals are gone. Offer ends June 17. Promotions may vary. Restrictions apply. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details. So what is Solarium? This is a Mark Gurman rumor. It is the company's Apple's new software interface, named after glass rooms that allow in sunlight. According to Mark, we've heard about this for a while, this new Vision Pro redesign. We just now have a name.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah. And his piece, the big things that he's advancing here are that it will come in some degree to Apple TV and Vision, oh, OS and Watch os, the ones where it's less of a huge deal, but it will still come there. I think it's very clear that what Apple is doing with Solarium is it's a design system meant to roll out across all of their OSes. And I think, again, fundamentally, I don't think that's a bad thing. I think that the problem with a lot of OSes has been they've all been sort of like split off of one another and developed separately. And then Apple tries to jiggle jam designs and features and functionality from one in the other and you end up with a bad fit. So having a system that knows, and it doesn't necessarily mean that the Mac's gonna look like an iPhone, it means you design one system for all your devices, knowing what all your devices are, that could be a really good thing. It's all down to the execution. But what he's saying here is, yeah, it would seem like Vision Pro, you know, the Vision OS was already kind of inspired by what they were working on. You'd think that they wouldn't be changing changes, but obviously it's evolved since then. So there will be some changes and there will be some things that even though the watch just got redesigned, there will be some changes there. I don't think they're going to be huge. I think that's why Mark Gurman didn't know about them until this week. But I think that they'll, they'll still happen and that this is obviously going to be a big talking point at WWDC is, is whatever this new look and feel is.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, that's one other thing Mark says, He says there probably won't be much earth shattering AI news, which is a little bit surprising.

[Alex Lindsay]

They want to stay away from that hot potato. I mean I'm sure they'll talk about it. If they talk about it, it'll probably be integration with other folks. I think that they may. Unless they have something really impressive, they.

[Leo Laporte]

Don'T have much problem. Isn't it?

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, that's the, that's the challenge.

[Leo Laporte]

They got nothing. They got that image thing. Image playground. That's about it. Genmoji.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah. They got, they got to mention something. I mean, I mean I think they're showing integration. I think they need. Huh.

[Alex Lindsay]

I think what a lot of us want to see is integration. Like we don't. We're not. When you see people on Twitter with.

[Leo Laporte]

Other AIs you mean.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

Like I want to see, you know, Claude inside of Xcode and I want to see, you know, chat GPT easier to use in different places and I want to like. I'm much more interested in that than anything that Apple has to say about what they're going to do themselves. I'm fine with them saying that we'll do something in 2026 or 2027 but right now what I want is the ones that I'm using currently. I just want them to be easier to use use inside the. Inside the apps that I use.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. It's funny because Microsoft and Google had their keynotes, their developer conferences last week and it was all AI, all the time. It was about agentic AI A2A. It feels almost like Apple's getting lapped.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah, I don't think that's a wrong observation. Especially Gemini's keynote at Google I O last week was so. It was such a nicely tailored story, start to finish. It was cohesive. There weren't any digressions into. Here is some isolated research of something that might or might not ever appear in any product sometime between a month from now and never. It was really the story about we spent all this time building Gemini and now here is how Gemini, either explicitly or implicitly here is how Gemini is part of the root of pretty much everything that we're showing off today. They showed off stuff that was ready today. When they showed off stuff that was not going to be ready until the future. They gave a good timeframe for when it was going to. When people could expect it. There was really only one or two things in which it had that sort of open ended thing but they really were hammering the point of Here is something that is available. Here's things that we shipped in AI this year. Here are things that we're shipping today. Here's Things that we're going to be shipping by the end of the summer. They have products to ship and, and they are definitely taking care of business right now. Apple isn't. As we've been discussing for the past couple of months, Apple's not necessarily in a situation where they're not like Google, they're not in the business of providing services. So the more that Google can present that, hey, we've got all these services that we're providing that will get people engaged with us as users and also developers will want to pay money for our services. As developers and as producers, Apple's in a position where we just have to make sure that we don't turn the iPhone into a nicely designed jewel piece of Tiffany hardware that is not as good at running software as all the other stuff that's out there. And as Alex said, so long as they can promise integration with whatever it is that Google is doing, whatever it is that OpenAI is doing, whatever it is that the other companies are doing, they'll probably work out to be okay. But they can't just basically spend Google I O basically saying that AI doesn't matter, doesn't matter that we don't do anything natively on device, doesn't matter that there's nothing. All that stuff that we said last year doesn't matter because we can take another year, we can take another five years for it. They at least have to say that we are aware that there is a difficulty and we are addressing it. We've adjusted our timetable, we've adjusted our plan, but we still have a timetable and we still have a plan, even though if we're not going to share it in as much detail as we did last year because we really wish we hadn't.

[Leo Laporte]

The big story of Google I O and Microsoft build was agentic AI. AI that goes out and then talks to other AIs or other websites, brings stuff in, maybe makes appointments for you is what are the odds that Apple will have anything along that lines? Nothing.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Zero.

[Jason Snell]

Well, I mean unless they partner the stuff that they didn't ship was some, was, you could argue agentic in a way. Right. The idea that they were going to have a system that could look at your content context and look at and, and basically look at the intents that allow you to control your apps and move through steps to allow you to perform things. But they didn't ship it. And are they going to even mention it? We'll see. We'll see what?

[Leo Laporte]

Here's a crazy thought. What if Apple thinks you know, maybe this whole AI thing is hype. Why don't we be the anti AI company? Any chance of that?

[Jason Snell]

I think more likely they'll just, you know, one way to hedge is just partner with AI companies, right and say we're going to really open it up and you can do whatever you want with any of these things. Good luck. And then like they could do that, they could do that. But I don't know. I think, I think we're still in the. You better be hedging your bets about I and I still let people, not let people turn it off.

[Alex Lindsay]

There's a, I still think that there is a long term advantage that Apple has by building the hardware and building the, the operating system and having a privacy first kind of process that what they've outlined in the last WWC is still a very valid way to go in the long term term. In the short term they have to figure out, you know, how do, how do we people just use the AI that exists right now a little bit more easily. They need that pressure valve has to be opened a lot more than it has been. But I think in the long term it's hard to compete with a company if they're able to get their wits about them and they don't keep on chasing, you know, the today and they look down the path having a company that is going to offset a lot of that work, a lot of the work off to the individual device. Device which is easier when you design the chip. So, so it's, you know, so there's a lot that they can do over many years that is harder to do with a couple companies cobbling together that aren't as interested in privacy, that aren't, you know, doesn't. They don't have the same lock on their users. So I think that Apple still has time and they still could do stuff that would be, that could be very hard to compete with in the future. But I don't think it's going to be tomorrow or next week or July.

[Andy Ihnatko]

They do have to make sure they don't lose like the younger generation of users if the younger generation is used to, not necessarily not even using AI to cheat at school, but things like Notebook. Notebook LM is the things that I keep reading from like students about how they use it. Again not to do their homework for them but to help them study and to organize the stuff that they're trying to assimilate. The great thing about NotebookLM is that Google doesn't care if you use it on an iPad, on an iPhone or on an Android device or on whatever. But Apple has to make sure that they tell this generation of kids who are growing up with AI tools the way that Gen X grew up with word processing and later on with the Internet and then the next generation grew up with mobile devices. They have to make sure that Apple's communicating to them that we are not a second class citizen when it comes to delivering AI. We will be whatever it is that you want to do with your device that you've experienced expected. After spelling spending so much of your developmental years using AIs, you will be able to definitely use it with us. Don't be tempted by Android devices again.

[Alex Lindsay]

The thing is that for the most part, at least the way my kids are using it, I don't know if anything that Google's doing would change the way that they're operating. I mean they're still using these tools on their phone or on their computer. And so it's not like they, I think you'd be 100% right if, if they, if suddenly we weren't able to use any AI on our, on our Mac or on our, on our laptop. But, but we're using Google. The problem for Google is, is that if we get excited about ChatGPT, we just stop using Google Search. That's a, that's an existential threat. I don't think that that, that existential threat exists in the same way for Apple. Where I have, you know, people are pretty locked in to what they're where they're, where they are. It's, you know, they're not, they're not. I think an average Apple user is not very, it would take a lot to get them to pry them out of the Apple ecosystem because they've got so much invested in right now.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I mean for people our age and people the previous generation or two. But when you have people who are 11 and 12 years old who are using the phones that were given to them by their parents, it's very, very, I think it's possible. I'm not saying that this is the death knell for Apple. I'm saying that it's possible for them to have a different point of view before they, they've got that brand loyalty locked in before they've got the mindset of it's going to cost me so much money and so much effort to switch away from this platform. I think that they are an open book. And like I said, Google wins no matter what device you happen to use. Their platforms are because they're selling services to developers, they're selling services to video creators and to filmmakers and everybody. So that kind of blunts the thing. The, the netherworld in between are the features that only work really, really well when they're on device, features when they're things that have full access to an operating system, that have full access to system APIs. When we're talking about agentic sort of things, things that can't necessarily always all be done by going out to the web and seeking tools there. When we're talking about things like, hey, I want you to make sure that you turn off my WI Fi hotspot every time that I leave the house, but turn it back on again if I'm in any one of these three locations and then have an AI just come back with, okay, I've done all that for you. If you ever want to turn this off, go here and flip the switch and this little routine will be turned off for you. Once that becomes something that people expect and hope for, that's when Apple has to make sure they deliver. But as you say, and as we all pretty much agree, Apple has a few years before that becomes completely relevant as opposed to a nice thing to have that some people will notice if it's missing.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, we'll find out a week from Monday, June 9th. Dub Dub. What about German saying that there will be a new home pot at the.

[Alex Lindsay]

End of the year?

[Leo Laporte]

Is that credible?

[Jason Snell]

If it's from German, I think it's credible. I think that makes. If he says there's new stuff coming, I believe him because that's his best.

[Leo Laporte]

That's his thing.

[Jason Snell]

Best thing, that's his thing.

[Leo Laporte]

Are we excited about that? Is this the one with the Army?

[Jason Snell]

It's unclear to me what this is.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Well, it wasn't a big hunk of his newsletter. I did like what he was basically saying. Excuse me. His information seemed to line up with, seemed to line up with reality, which is that Apple has decided that this square screened home center device that works with HomeKit and stuff like that, it's enough of a priority that they're perfectly fine to cut features from it. If these features like Apple intelligence and other things and maybe the robot arm are preventing it from shipping this year, shipping in time for the holidays, buying season this year. That makes perfect sense. That's something that you totally imagine Apple doing saying that, look, people don't know that we were planning on having this device do that. We can basically add that via software update. Just like with the Apple Watch, just like with so many other devices. Where we'll add as long as we get the hardware working to the standard that we want, as long as the hardware that we release in 2025 is capable, capable of a software update that we want in 2026 and 2027. Why delay it another year if we think that the moment is right now? So who knows?

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, I would like to replace my homepods because they're really kind of funky and I don't like them with something that works.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah, am I unique in that? I wouldn't mind replacing my Google Nest speakers because they're like I have a Nest Max.

[Leo Laporte]

I still use.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I do too. They're great, they're great speakers. But just a couple months ago I was really like doing some household inventory and looking at like what my network like. And as, as periodically you really need to take a look at what your home and office infrastructure is and decide hey, am I, am I, is this out of, is this no longer doing the job that I wanted to do? And I realized that you know what if I just bought like $80 Bluetooth speakers, like they would probably do like, like 2024, 2025 era Bluetooth speakers would probably do for what I want. I want these like smart speakers to do. They would probably do as good a job or better because now they all communicate with each other. You can set groups so that you can get like multi room working just fine. They work via Bluetooth so they're easy as hell to connect to and to disconnect from. And this isn't a Google podcast, but oh my God. The obvious things that you should be able to do with these speakers that you can't do like gee, I've got a Google TV dongle and it's running the Google TV operating system and it's running the YouTube app and it's connecting as a speaker output to, to these Google Nest speakers. Why can't I have a stereo pair working? Connecting to this. Why am I limited to just one speaker at a time? So yeah, I mean I would be very, very open to if Apple came out with something that was useful and wasn't like piggy about. Oh, Spotify. Good news. We just released a tool that will help you transfer all of your Spotify playlist to Apple music, which you'll be much happier with, particularly with the speaker. Particularly because we don't really Spotify Spotify at all. Not really. Well, I mean, hey, you'll be happier this way.

[Leo Laporte]

I should, I should have mentioned this in the. We were talking about Judge Rogers because I think this press release from Apple was aimed at Judge Rogers. Apple has, the App Store has stopped more than $9 billion in fraud in the last five years. So there.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Judge Rogers, I suppose you would rather have all that fraud happening as an.

[Jason Snell]

Interesting point of view as, as a point that, that our, our pal Craig Hockenberry from the Icon Icon Factory made. He did a several posts about this on Mastodon, and one of them was just now do Stripe. Because those volumes Stripe has saved so much more of. They can make those claims too, about how much fraud that they've saved. But Apple doesn't want to talk about that. Apple only wants to talk about how much that if you use the App Store, you're safe from these transactions. But like there's fraud on the App Store, there's fraud and Stripe, they all work against it. I don't know what they're proving here, but you're right. I think that this is them reinforcing their, their narrative about how safe they are and how seriously they take.

[Leo Laporte]

Last year, Apple terminated more than 146,000 developer accounts over fraud concerns. Several hundred of them were all on the same day and rejected an additional 139,000 developer enrollments. They rejected 711 million customer account creators. Wow.

[Andy Ihnatko]

That's basically so basically they want credit for doing their job.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Okay.

[Leo Laporte]

Deactivated 129 million customer accounts last year. So what's the account? What is the criterion for rejecting your account creation? Oh, you look suspicious.

[Andy Ihnatko]

She signed your email. Kind of shifty like.

[Leo Laporte]

Shifty like they got ways.

[Jason Snell]

They got ways.

[Leo Laporte]

I guess they do. That's interesting that they have. I mean, 711 million last year. Apple works to protect risky software distributed by pirate storefronts. You wouldn't want pirate storefronts.

[Jason Snell]

Why do those exist?

[Leo Laporte]

From reaching users. 10,000 illegitimate apps on pirate storefronts detected and blocked. Last month, Apple stopped 4.6 million attempts to install or launch apps distributed illicitly outside the App Store or approved third party marketplaces, which you have to approve in the eu. So we can't say anything about that. All right, well, you know, it's true. I guess you're right. That's a good point though. Or Craig Hockenberry's point's well taken. That that's the job. Everybody does. And MasterCard have done the same. Right.

[Jason Snell]

If you look at what the, what Stripe deals with, you know, they're doing 100 billion in savings instead of 7 billion. Right. Like because of volume. It's not. I mean, again, this is just Apple doing Something that, that helps them serve their needs by pointing out that they are doing what is essentially due diligence and that they're not. You know that part. This could be underlined. This is what you pay us for, right?

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, that's fair. This episode brought to you by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In fact, if you ask me, the whole Internet's brought to you by the EFF. 35 years, the electronic Frontier foundation has been fighting to make sure that when you go online, your rights go with you. Eff, I owe him a big debt of gratitude. They rescued our podcast and every podcast from patent trolls. They helped encrypt the web to protect your privacy. They prevail in lawsuits against government secrecy and surveillance. These are the good guys and they have a podcast, how to Fix the Internet. It's all about what happens if we win the fight and get things right online. And it's a great listen. The fight for digital rights, it's bigger and more urgent than ever. EFF is member supported. I'm a member. You should be a member. The more members they have, the stronger they can fight in state houses, courthouses, and on the streets. Season six of how to Fix the Internet started May 7th. [e-mail] podcast and while you're there, join the EFF. They're the good guys.

[Jason Snell]

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[Andy Ihnatko]

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[Leo Laporte]

Whatever your passion project is, you can.

[Jason Snell]

Set it up with Bluehost with their 30 day money back guarantee.

[Andy Ihnatko]

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[Jason Snell]

Head to bluehost.com that's B L U E H O S T.com to start now.

[Leo Laporte]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and safeway. Now through June 17th. Shop in store or online for your favorite personal care Items and save $5 when you spend $15 or more. Stock up on items like Dove Body Wash, Degree Motion Sense Deodorant, Tresma Hairspray, Dove Shampoo, Dove Bar Soap, Dove Men's Body and face Wash and Dollar Shave Club blades. And save $5 when you spend $15 or more. Hurry in before these deals are gone. Off rents June 17. Promotions may vary. Restrictions apply. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details. Tap to pay is now rolling out. You can attempt fraud in Eight new countries. Countries. All of a sudden, right now we're talking Belgium, Croatia. Oh, these are all. Interestingly, these are using other payment platforms because they're in the eu, aren't they? Cyprus, Denmark, Greece. My POS probably doesn't mean the same thing in Greece that it does everywhere else. Iceland, Luxembourg and Malta. Many of the payment solutions are the same in these countries. Viva's everywhere they. That kind of thing. But still, that's good. That's good. Tap to pay is the thing where you don't need a stripe dongle or a special iPad app. You could just tap your two phones together, hand over money. All right, have. I haven't used it yet. Are you seeing that more and more. Do you go to a lot of farmers markets, that kind of thing?

[Jason Snell]

Sure. I mean, the pandemic pushed a lot of people out of cash and into tap to pay.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, I do tap to pay on the, you know, on the terminals, the stripe terminals and so forth. But this is phone to phone.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jason Snell]

No, some of the. Some of the people. Yeah, I mean, some of the people in my farmers market, this is what they use now. They basically.

[Leo Laporte]

Sure.

[Jason Snell]

They hold out their phone. I mean, so it's still a business transaction, but yes, for sure.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. I think probably at the, like, the San Rafael farmers market, which I was just at over the weekend, probably half were using.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, interesting.

[Alex Lindsay]

Half of the half were using the phone and the other half were using some kind of square. And then. Then that was half of the ones that were using it. And then there's like three or four that are.

[Leo Laporte]

Castellan, it's Jackson shipped that little dongle that he had made in a makerspace that plugged into the headphone. This is how long ago it was the headphone jack of the iPhone, and you could swipe the card through it. That felt like a revolution. We've come so far since then and.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Realize the reason why he did it that way was to get around the matrix for iPhone approvals. That's like they got around an app store or an Apple bureaucracy thing, and that basically launched off a pretty serious revolution. But it also goes to show, it's sometimes hard to as good and as superior as, like, tap to tap Phone to phone. Tap to pay would be. God, like in my charming seaside New England colonial village that gets all turkey tourists.

[Leo Laporte]

We have.

[Andy Ihnatko]

We get. We get. We have. We have a food truck night, like once a month in the nice weather. And the number of times where the food trucks are like, they're using. They're not Using any type of a tap to pay it is literally launch this app, scan this barcode, use this. Really, really cumbersome. I mean it's a common app, but it's like, it's not like tap validate good. It's like, okay, I mean, I, I try to convince. I, I have to talk to these people who are trying to Selling me, Selling me a beautiful cupcake that. Look, I, I swear to God, I, I talk about technology like on the radio and on TV and stuff. I know this stuff. Okay. Is it. Do I have to. What do I do here? And so, I mean, sometimes, sometimes it's hard to convince the organizations that we have a system that seems to work. We seem to get paid, we seem to sell off, sell all of our cupcakes. But nonetheless, like, even though there's a, there's an upgrade that they can do. There's too much friction. Friction. As far as they're.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, I don't blame them. If they're selling them all, then you know exactly nothing.

[Andy Ihnatko]

The tip is you got. You absolutely don't. If I know that dessert comes last, but buy the cupcakes first. The truck, they have these really. I, I can't even talk.

[Leo Laporte]

Do they have clam cakes there?

[Andy Ihnatko]

There's usually, usually there's a barbecue truck is usually the best you can get. You get your Dells. There's us. There's a truck that.

[Leo Laporte]

Dell's Lemonade. Yay.

[Andy Ihnatko]

There's a truck that does a really good hearty seafood seafood chowder. There's no. They're technically not clam cakes, but we ate at the restaurant that had really good clam cakes. So if you want, we did get.

[Leo Laporte]

Some food in that place. They were fabulous.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Also fright. Next time there's a, there's a clam shack, like at the very end.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, I like clam shacks.

[Andy Ihnatko]

That's really. If you're not buying, if you're, if you're not eating your seafood out of a styrofoam container on a picnic table behind the place where you bought it from. It's not the. It's be okay seafood, but it's probably not going to be great.

[Leo Laporte]

I am a clam check connoisseur, I.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Must say, and I Nothing like a.

[Leo Laporte]

You got to go up north.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Nothing like a big container of fried whole clam bellies.

[Leo Laporte]

It's like there. You got to go up north. Go to Dune Brothers there and they're fantastic. Highly recommend them next time.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Beware the red tide. But as long as there's no Red Tide. You're good.

[Leo Laporte]

I think they come from Portugal. The Dunes. The Dungeon Brothers. Yeah, it's really good because they go to Portugal every summer. Every winter rather because you can't sell clams in the summer. I'm in the winter. You have to sell them in the summer. Global wearable band market is up 13% according to Canales. But Xiaomi is the number one global band. We're talking watch bands?

[Andy Ihnatko]

No. What smart watches. Canalis had a new report that basically saying that the market for smartwatches is up by 12 or 13% but they Apple lost the number one position to.

[Leo Laporte]

So they're calling the watches bands because you wear them down. Okay, but top wearable band vendors Q1 2025 Xiaomi up 44% Apple up 5% Huawei up 36% Samsung which has a pretty credible watch. Do you wear the Samsung watch? 74% Garmin.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I have one but as we said before I do I just can't get to the smartwatch.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh that's right. You're Mr. Casio, aren't you? Yeah, but.

[Andy Ihnatko]

But it's to be fair, I mean it's not unexpected. Apple hasn't had the sort hasn't had the sort of update to the Apple watch in the past couple years that.

[Leo Laporte]

Compelled people to swap out. Aren't they better? I mean they're just better than any other smartwatch.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Well it depends. I mean for integrate you can't beat Apple watches integration with your iPhone.

[Leo Laporte]

You have an.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah, I mean Google's been doing a lot of work with wear OS to make it more universal but you can't beat the idea of we're building a phone specifically to work great with the operating systems of both of these devices. I mean I have to say that the updates to wear OS that they showed off a couple of weeks ago the pre keynote to the keynote at Google I o make it look pretty damn hot. It's like I like like I do prefer a circular smartwatch face to the square one and they've made some changes to the user interface language that really shows it off nicely but that's supposedly according to Gurman like another thing that Apple's going to be rolling out sometime soon anyway. A new again not necessarily a revamp or rewrite of the user interface user experience but at least an updating of it. I do think that it feels the Apple watch it looks great.

[Leo Laporte]

Great.

[Andy Ihnatko]

But it really does look like the typical problem of hey I've got a square screen, let's fill it with Crap. As opposed to the elegance of we only have a small piece of real estate. Let's only communicate the most minimal, useful atom molecule of information that we can in this, that's appropriate to this circumstance.

[Jason Snell]

The beauty of the Apple watch is you can make it as minimal or as non minimal as you want. Both people can be satisfied with that. You can, I don't, I don't use the, whatever that is, the modular that's got all the different things in it. It's like, I love it. And this is the thing. We get what we can choose. We can all choose. I will say the one thing about this story is this is a misleading story because this Canalis has lumped all fitness bands in with all smartwatches and. Come on. So Show Me has an incredibly popular fitness band that they sell.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, it's a fitness band and I'm sure that.

[Jason Snell]

And that's all in here. So if you want to say that smartwatches are wearable bands, then it's sort of interesting that Show Me is now ahead of Apple worldwide. But like that's also not a market that Apple is in now. Should they be in it? I guess we could argue that point, but Apple's decided not to be in it. And so, you know, I think that it's not the smartwatch market here. This is the wearable band market which includes some very different products from each other. But yeah, anyway, that's just for what.

[Andy Ihnatko]

It'S worth and also shows you how much, how valuable the Chinese market is. I mean, Jeremy is pretty much the state like electronics provider that if you have a big success there, you can make it anywhere.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, and it's unit share. Beijing, you know, it's unit share. So it's Beijing. Cheaper, cheaper products are going to do better because it's unit share and not a revenue share or a profit share. So it's just. It is what it is.

[Leo Laporte]

But like, I mean, sure, I love my info watch. Look at all the complications I could put on that thing. That thing is full, full, full of complications. It's the most complicated watch. I got it all in here. Look at that.

[Jason Snell]

But that's a face with hands. I'm saying there's the ones where you don't even have hands. It's just photos and data, all of those things on there too. If you want a full on computer.

[Leo Laporte]

Watch, I can press this button and talk to my wife instantly. I mean all of that stuff, look, it's counting my steps.

[Jason Snell]

I mean, I've got complications too, but I also Choose a watch face which. With hands and not the one that's got like all the data readouts in it.

[Leo Laporte]

I got eight complications and hands. And you know what happens when you tap the red ring. You get your longitude and your latitude.

[Jason Snell]

Oh, boy. Well, how about that? Different strokes for different folks.

[Leo Laporte]

What watch face do you wear?

[Jason Snell]

Mostly it's California, because it lets me do the kind of classic Swiss army kind of look with some things around the edges. And I like it. I like it. I think. I think Andy brings up a good point, which is Apple Watch hasn't changed in a decade and they've maintained band compatibility and the shape is there. It does feel almost like this is what the Apple Watch looks like that now. And I'm not sure whether they can change it because they've invested so much brand identity. And what the Apple Watch looks like to the point where there are pictures of the Pope and people are like, look, it's an Apple Watch. Because we all know what an Apple Watch looks like immediately.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yep.

[Jason Snell]

But, you know, there is an argument that they could try some other styles while other watches are shaped differently. And although yes, a round watch is very different and has lots of issues, I think the people at Apple are smart enough to figure out how to deal with those issues if they want to do that. But. But the issue is now, like, we know what an Apple Watch looks like. Would you change it if you could?

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Alex Lindsay]

There's so much design changes for all the app. Anybody made it, made an app for it and everything else. All the workflows. It's a. It would Apple.

[Jason Snell]

When is Apple stop from breaking things for developers and making them updated if they feel that there's value in it. But I agree. It's like, I think it comes down to the fact that everybody knows exactly what an Apple Watch is when they look at it.

[Alex Lindsay]

Well, I think also a circular watch is a legacy idea. Like, it's just, you know, like it's not a. You know, the screens don't work that way. The reason we want a round watch is because we had round watches, you know, like, that exists in the world, in the old world. And so I don't. I. I guess I've looked at round watches and it just seems so impractical when it comes to what I'm using the watch for. It feels like I would lose a lot by losing the corners.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah. I disagree. But it really is just a subjective style thing. The thing is, when I see the square Apple Watch. Yeah. You can remove all the complications from it, but it's still a circular, unless you're using digital. A circular thing inside a square thing. It doesn't really work. And also I think that the apps are also very conventional in their design where it's another basically, let's basically fill a square with user interface, which is fine. It's just that having used both styles, I just think that there's something about a really well designed user interface and a circular screen on your wrist that is familiar and reassuring and timeless and beautiful that goes beyond just simply expecting to see a round thing on your wrist when you go to check the time. I like the idea of user interface designers and app designers trying to solve the problems of how do we design a user interface for a screen that doesn't have corners on it? And I think that a lot of those interface solutions are beautiful and elegant and surprising. And it's just the same reason why we buy a watch because. Because there's something about it that we like, that we instinctively like and is tuned into our personality and our style and that sort of thing. And for me, even a digital watch on a round face is just more. A pixel watch is just more attractive to me than an Apple watch. And that's pretty much just all. It's the only argument I have to make.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, that brings us to the Vision Pro segment.

[Jason Snell]

What do you see?

[Leo Laporte]

What do you know? It's time to talk to Vision Pro. There is. Is there anything in the Vision Pro segment today you, Andy, put in an article by Marcus Mendez at 9to5Mac saying Apple absolutely cannot miss its smart glasses Swing.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah, only I put that in mostly so I could say really it ain't.

[Leo Laporte]

Got the thing is that swing.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah, I mean the smart apple. For Apple to make smart glasses or AI glasses, it's just like this ease. It seems like the easiest thing in the world for them to do and do successfully. One of the things that you never question about an Apple product is is it going to look beautiful, Is it going to be beautifully designed? Is the manufacturer, when you hold it, is it going to feel like a premium quality product? We talk about the phone being built as though it's a piece of jewelry. We talk about the Apple watch being designed as much as a style jewelry and fash item, as much as a piece of technology. They can design a piece of a pair of eyeglasses that even if it has no smart features whatsoever that people would want to buy, they can definitely design it so that it works amazingly well with iPhone and they're not like the Apple watch. They don't really, they're not going to care if it works well with other platforms because they don't have to. And they have a whole community of worldwide community of people who just love Apple's whole vibe and they're not going to blink twice at spending money on this thing. So, so, and thirdly, like as Alex has been saying for a number for a long time now, they don't have to do smart glasses in order to succeed. Like, they've got a long Runway before they figure out if they need to do what needs to come after the iPhone or even if anything important has to come after the iPhone, it's concerning that half of their money is still coming from this one product category. But it's not as, as though they've been unsuccessful at it. And it's not as though they've been having problems fighting people to buy these things.

[Alex Lindsay]

So, and, and the, and I think that one of the things that Apple has done a lot of is they draft off of a lot of other people. We think of Apple as an innovator, but a lot of times they let a lot of other people. They're kind of going down the path. They had to do. I think they had to do the Vision Pro because they had to be ahead of the, they had to be thinking about it. They had developers thinking about it. They have to develop technologies around it. There's a bunch of, as an R and D, I think that it makes a lot of sense for them to build it, but they're working on something that's bigger, bigger and further down there and lighter and all the other things that are there. And when we, I think the problem that I have, when everyone keeps on saying that Apple has to have AI or Apple has, has to have this thing and they. There's a sense of urgency. And we just have to remember that there was a point where Microsoft was, you know, they were done. They were, they were going to get broken up. There was going to be all this stuff that's going to happen. There's all this competition, they missed the boat. They, you know, and all those things and.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Alex Lindsay]

And today they are worth 3, $3.414 trillion. They are the largest company in the world. And that was, I would argue, I mean, they dumped a whole operating system that didn't work. So the thing is that when we say that the people have to. These kind of things move very slowly, especially when you have hardware. And so I think that Apple, I don't think Apple has to do anything. I think that they are definitely working on glasses. I think that they've talked about that. They've hinted to that for quite some time. I think that's a given. You know. Do they have to have it out this year? Probably not.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Well that was the Vision Pro segment. I hope you all enjoyed it.

[Jason Snell]

Not the Vision Pro at all. Right.

[Leo Laporte]

So it wasn't even the Vision Pro. I want to approve this. Come on, help me.

[Jason Snell]

Stories of Surrender comes out on Friday for Vision Pro. It's the Bono One man show. I forgot about Reflecting on his life. It is a 90ish minute long movie. So it's a the longest piece of and there's going to be a standard version of it. There's a version of it that's immersive and it's going to be the longest piece of immersive content Apple has released. Comes out Friday. I've seen it and can't talk about it other than to say that it is impressive. It's not 100% immersive. It kind of goes back and forth. But I think it's very interesting and I think I look forward to talking about it next week because good. There's a lot so here people who have Vision Pros should watch for that. I think Friday is when it comes out. Thursday. Friday.

[Leo Laporte]

And yeah, Friday. And you can also watch a 2D version if you have an Apple TV subscription, right?

[Jason Snell]

Yes.

[Leo Laporte]

I wonder how that is.

[Jason Snell]

Well, it's, it's again, I can't go into the details. The same content under embargo but it's basically the same. There are probably some variations. I can only intuit. I've only seen the immersive version. But it's. That itself is interesting, right? Why? How do you do an immersive version and a non immersive version of something in order to reach a broader audience. And what does that do to the immersive product? We'll talk about it next week. But just a heads up for people and that there is stuff and I watched another kind of immersive thing that I'm not actually sure if it's out yet. So I'll save that for next week too. I spent some good time in the nerd helmet this week watching stuff. Leah.

[Leo Laporte]

So this week's Vision Pro segment loss is next week's Vision Pro segment, I.

[Jason Snell]

Think so it's a net gain next week.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay. Thank you Jason. You're watching Mac Break Weekly. Our picks of the week coming up next. Andy and Notko. Alex Lindsey from Off Officehours Global Jason Snell. Of course, you gotta read sixcolors.com now with Morglan Fleischman, which is really great. In fact, I had somebody ask me a question about the iPhone and I said, send an email to Glenn Fleischman at Six Colors because he needs content. It was a really tough question. I didn't, I forgot what it was. But it wasn't easily solvable. I thought, this is for Glenn. This is, this is for Glenn for sure. So we're all glad you're here. Thanks for watching. I appreciate it. We do the show every Tuesday, 11am Pacific, 2pm Eastern Time, 1800 UTC, and we stream it on eight different platforms. Of course, the Club Twitt members can watch In Discord, but everybody can Watch us on YouTube. Hiya, YouTube. I see you there. Twitch. I see you there too. All three of you. X.com, tikTok. We struggled to get TikTok up today, but we got it going right, guys, we did it. Facebook, LinkedIn and Kik. And I see the Kik person too. So thank you all of you for watching the live stream. But of course, livestream is not the main point of the show. We do make a podcast available at our website, Twitter TV MBA. There is a dedicated YouTube channel for this show as there is all of our shows which make us very easy to share clips. If you see something you have a Vision Pro friend and you want to send him the clip about the Bono thing coming out Friday, very easy to do that on the YouTube channel. Best way though is to subscribe. There's audio or video feeds. They're free to all. Just pick your favorite podcast client and subscribe. Do me a favor though. If you subscribe, please leave us a five star star review. Let the world know about Mac Break Weekly. Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and safeway now through June 17th. Shop in store or online for your favorite personal care Items and save $5 when you spend $15 or more. Stock up on items like Dove Body Wash, Degree Motion Sense Deodorant, Tresemme Hairspray, Dove Shampoo, Dove Bar Soap, Dove Men's Body and face Wash and Dollar Shave Club blades and save $5 when you spend $15 or more. Hurry in before these deals are gone. Offer ends June 17. Promotions may vary. Restrictions apply. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details. Time for the picks of the week. Jason Snell, why don't you kick it off?

[Jason Snell]

All right, I am going to give you a rerun from 2019 because this product is still out there and it's still great. And I, I used it recently. Andy recommended it back then again, I'm going to cite mbwpicks.com the Semi Definitive Solution. And that person noticed that we were talking about them and posted about it on. 18 years of doing that site. Amazing.

[Leo Laporte]

That is dedication, whoever you are. What's his name Does. Do we know?

[Jason Snell]

Oh, I don't even know.

[Leo Laporte]

I'll go look and see while you.

[Jason Snell]

Talk about Paul Mason.

[Leo Laporte]

Paul Mason, that's right. Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

Thank you, Paul.

[Leo Laporte]

Paul.

[Jason Snell]

But if you post that we talked about you again, the site's gonna fold in on itself. It's gonna be weird. So. But I looked this up and it hasn't been picked in a while, so I'll pick it. It's called Total Mount. You can get them on Amazon. It's an Apple TV mount. I recently mounted a couple of Apple TVs on walls behind TVs, making them basically invisible. You can stick it to a wall, you can stick it to the tv, but basically you mount this thing and then slide the Apple TV right in and you can create that hotel room like experience where you cannot see the box that is controlling your tv. And I also bought a little power cable and a little HDMI cable cable that I measured out exactly what the length would be at its maximum that was required. So I don't have a big cable hanging down like I did for way too many years, but now I don't. So it is a part of the process of simplifying to get it so that you don't see that box that or the cable that's running to the box. I had a power cable and an HDMI cable running out of my tv just kind of like into the closet. It was really ugly. And I was thinking, how am I going to do this? Do I have to like get a hole like through my wall to all that? And then I realized all I have to do is get my electrician to put a power plug behind the TV and then I can do all this stuff and get the total mount up there. And it works great. So if you want to hide your tv, your Apple TV away, please do.

[Leo Laporte]

You know, it's funny because I bought this for the opposite reason. We had the Apple TV strapped tight to the back of the TV and the remote just really wouldn't work.

[Jason Snell]

Interesting.

[Leo Laporte]

So I got this mount and put it under the T so it's visible. The remote works better. Okay, so do it behind the TV or not. It's up to you. But yeah, I vouch for it. It's cheap. They have a version that comes with a cable and one without. Probably just get the one without. Everybody's got HDMI cables.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah. And also be sure it depends on, you know, it depends on where you mount it versus your tv. And if your TV pulls away from the wall and tilts a little bit, you might need a little more slack on it. But, you know, what you can do is use a big HDMI cable and extend it all the ways you can can think of. And then, you know, find out the. The furthest distance and add a couple of inches and then order a cable.

[Leo Laporte]

Or just use the Apple TV for everything.

[Jason Snell]

I mean, I do. Yeah, but you do need to attach it to a tv.

[Leo Laporte]

So. Yeah, well, it's next to the tv. Just goes right in. Right. That's it. That's all I need. I don't need speakers. Any. Nothing.

[Jason Snell]

Do it.

[Leo Laporte]

No receivers. Good pick. Very good. I'm gonna. This is a weird pick because I saw it on an ad on six colors. Calm. But I really like it. I have been suffering with a lousy Sonos app forever. You have an advertiser called Click CL I C for Sonos. I love it. I've put it on my Mac, on my iPhone, on my iPad, on my Apple Watch, and I guess there's even an Apple Vision version. It replaces. Replaces the lousy Sonos software with good Sonos software. That's all it does. It's pretty straightforward. And they are, I'm sure, very welcome. Got this via six colors. The iPhone app crashed my phone. I don't know what you're talking about. Didn't crash my phone. Works great. Don't read those reviews. Read my review. It works great. Click. Thank you. And I have one other pick. As long as Leo doing pics. Believe it or not, there is still no Instagram for iPad, but there is WhatsApp for iPad. They finally launched it. Don't know why you'd want it, but for those of you living in other countries now, you can do it on your iPad.

[Alex Lindsay]

Alex Lindsey by the way, the WhatsApp on there is, you know, if you have a team that you're working with, a lot of times you're on your phone and then people heard whatsapping you having it on other devices.

[Leo Laporte]

It's a good idea. I think it's a good idea. Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

So my pick tiles for Zoom is becoming more. It's been out in beta for a while, but has been a closed beta and now it's Much more opened. And what it's really designed for is to make the galleries very flexible. So a lot of times we've been kind of, you know, when we started using Zoom for these events, we would, you know, you figured out a way to put something over top of the Zoom Gallery, right? You know, and you're like, how do I make something look pretty? Let me show you what this looks like here. So this is what I have now, and I have this ability to design it. So instead of trying to figure out what I have over it, it's actually building that gallery for me. So I can sit there and go, oh, I want it to look like this. I want it to look like that. And instead of before, we'd have to build actual processes to make this actually work. I can figure out, oh, I'd like to space it, put less spacing between everybody or more spacing between everybody. In addition to that, I have, you know, I can start to. To play with their corner radiuses. So how rounded do I want to meet now? You'll notice down below here, there's actually. It's actually changing because this is the live view, right? This is us. This is what you heard earlier, where it said, so I'm in zoom, and there's a little bit of a double. You see me there, But I'm in zoom right now. And if I start making these changes to this gallery, you can see the gallery changing, you know, in real time. And. And I can make the border thicker or thinner. And so if you're building something out, that's a gallery now, this is not really designed as much for broadcast as it for, hey, I'm doing a hybrid event, and I want everyone to look nice. I don't want them to just look like every other. Every other Zoom gallery. I want this to actually have some style to it. This is where it goes. And if I can go, oh, I want some overlays, I can turn our overlays on. So we've got our little name tags on it there as well. And again, all of this is being driven by. The big thing is, is that this is all being driven by the data inside a Zoom. So when you think of all those little tags on all those little windows, those are not, you know, those are driven by the names that we put into Zoom. You know, so. So if you have a whole bunch of. Again, if you have a whole bunch of participants, if you look at something like Tony. Tony Robbins, who might have hundreds of participants, this is designed not just to design something for three or four of us. But what if I want to design a look and feel for 200 people or 400 people and put them all on screens that are on LED walls or all across different monitors? That's the kind of thing that you can do with Zoom Tiles. And when you adjust it, instead of going through there and trying to build something that some graphic that sits over top of it, you just say, oh, this is what I want it to look like. And so I can change all of those things. It's really cool. It's Mac only, actually. It's taking full advantage. The one thing about Zoom's team is that they, and we all know Andy because he's helped a lot here, is that they really write everything to the best platform that makes sense, and they take full advantage of the hardware. So it really is built for the M series Max, and so it takes full advantage of that. So all of the stuff you're seeing is happening in real time while it's actually streaming live video. So it's. It's pretty. It's pretty amazing.

[Leo Laporte]

So excited that it's Eddie Carluccio, by the way, not Andy and Nako.

[Alex Lindsay]

Andy Carluccio. Yeah, Andy. Andy's been working hard on tiles.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

No, no, no.

[Leo Laporte]

Thank goodness for Andy because his Zoom ISO is what makes it possible to do this.

[Jason Snell]

Right.

[Alex Lindsay]

And what's cool about this, What I'm. I'm working on a project coming up where we have lots and lots of participants coming in, and we're using both Zoom tiles and Zoom ISO Zoom tiles to show all the participants and then Zoom ISO to grab the ones we want to put into the production. And so, you know, you can kind of use both of these as they just jump in as participants and you're all to the races.

[Leo Laporte]

This just in, it looks like Governor Abbott has signed the bill. So now Apple is going to have to somehow do age restriction in the App Store, which means in Texas anyway, which means I don't know what you're going to have to prove you are who you say you are in Texas. Thank you, Alex. And by the way, here I just want to. To show the click interface so that I could play this really, really loud here in the studio. I could actually play it throughout the house, but I probably won't do that. See, this is what a clean interface this is. I really like it. Anyway.

[Alex Lindsay]

Downloaded it while you were talking.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, no, I'm very happy we discovered everything right away. It uses my Apple music. Music. It's great. And I think it was 27.99 for a lifetime. And I know you don't like subscriptions. They have a month yearly. But go for the lifetime.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yep.

[Leo Laporte]

Andy in a hot co. What's your pick of the week?

[Andy Ihnatko]

Sir, if your problem with the original Mac Classic or Mac512 was that it was just too darn big and you couldn't use it as a Christmas tree ornament, have I got a solution for you. A hacker by the name of Nick Nick Gallard has combined a bunch of open source like Mac emulators with a whole bunch of ingenuity and engineering. And he's produced the Pico Mac Nano which is a perfect simulation of the Mac's physical form and running Mac in a 2.5-inch size scale. And it runs. It has. It has a. It has a Raspberry PI Nano inside booting off of an SD card. And it runs like system three. Not system 6.02 but system three. But it's legitimately running Mac software. Okay. It's got an LCD screen backlit. The form is perfect. If you looked at the pictures on the onebitrainbow.com site, you'd be hard pressed to guess what the scale of this thing is. It's 3D printed but very very nicely finished. It's the only compromise that was made was that it doesn't have sound. It does make a startup sound through a hack, but it doesn't have like actual system sound. Also it's worth taking a look at Nick Allard's blog post about it because they go through like what they went through to get this thing working. One of the things was to find a screen that would give you the full 512 pixels wide experience. They couldn't make that work for a bunch of reasons that he explains. So he basically hacked the emulator so that it's a 480 pixel wide display. So we can use a 480 by 640 display on its in portrait mode stuck inside the thing. But I would think that that's a pretty. If you think that that's going to reduce the usability of macro.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm not buying it now, man. I'm not buying it.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I mean if you've got Stuart Little inside your house that's going to be.

[Leo Laporte]

Complaining that maybe this is so cool. I hate to ask. Can you buy it?

[Andy Ihnatko]

You can buy it. 60 day weight six seventy. It's in converting from you from pounds it is 65. 75. I imagine there would be shipping.

[Leo Laporte]

Expensive. Yeah.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Yeah. And I'm guessing that if you really want one and you don't want to make it yourself and follow the instructions and the STL files that he's provided, you should probably get on this quick because I think that back ordered already. Well, also when I bookmarked it like yesterday, it was backordered 30 days and right now it's backordered 60 days. But for a little extra money, you can even buy a version of this that's packed in the original. Original, like a scaled down version of the original Macintosh Picasso case with all the foam inserts inside it. And then he had custom printed at a print shop factory on a cardboard. Corrugated cardboard in India. I mean, I think Jason and I have spoken about this before, that there is something so compelling about something very, very silly that's done at an extremely high level of execution. And this seems to be both of those things.

[Leo Laporte]

It's so awesome.

[Andy Ihnatko]

It's just such a pretty, pretty thing. Unfortunately it's not. You would hope that it runs on battery. It doesn't. He says in the blog post that's one thing he would love to do for the next version of it. He's got some ideas for now you have to plug it in to USB C. But the good news there is, number one, the USB C port is exactly in line with where the accessory ports would have been on the back of the original Mac. And also it's not just an ornament. Like just oh look, hey look, it's running. It's telling me the time you can actually hook up a mouse and a keyboard to it via USB C and actually just run apps and play games on it within the system. Three limitations of it. But my goodness, you love to see someone who just has a vision of something extremely silly but awesome and just has to pursue it until it has been done perfectly. And it looks like it's been done perfectly.

[Leo Laporte]

Hysterical. Even the website is in Mac style.

[Jason Snell]

Classic Mac OS style.

[Leo Laporte]

I mean he's really done it right. Very nice level of execution.

[Andy Ihnatko]

You got to commit to the bit.

[Leo Laporte]

I really want one. Really?

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, I bought one just while we were sitting here. Thanks for that.

[Leo Laporte]

Very cool.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Wow.

[Leo Laporte]

Thank you Andrew, for a fun pick of the week. Thank you all of you for a fun show. Andy Inocco's working on the website. He's going to have it in that little 480 by 5.

[Jason Snell]

He's posting all the time.

[Leo Laporte]

40 by 480.

[Andy Ihnatko]

I finally solved the problems with the payment processor. So now the payment processor is all hooked up and when I open it, it will be ready to accept, hopefully your membership fees. If you don't want to be. If you don't want to, just simply look at the free.

[Leo Laporte]

So it's ready, it's done, Almost over.

[Andy Ihnatko]

Now the only big thing left to do is to basically transfer anotgo.com over to this new thing and then just give it a top to bottom of what did I. You know, when you're walking through like a new house saying, oh, it looks finished. Oh, right, none of the light switches have been screwed in yet. Oh, that's right. We need to paint that trim. That hasn't been. But yeah, that was the last thing that was driving me mad trying to figure out what needed to be done to hook it up to this payment processor. And now I've been told by the payment process that it is actually working. So good.

[Leo Laporte]

Very nice, Very nice. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you, Alex. Lindsay, what's coming up on officehours Global?

[Alex Lindsay]

We are answering questions. We've decided that maybe we should answer questions about media production. And then when we finish those, we were going to answer some more. More questions.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, nothing wrong with that.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. So we answered about 25 questions a day. And they range from very basic stuff that people are, you know, a lot of times people are asking, you know, how do I get my webcam to work? But it's all the way up to that to we had someone that was replacing their analog mixer with their new digital mixer, and they're trying to figure out is it an Allen Heath or a. Or a Behringer or. And that was just wow. So that's kind of the range. So whatever you're doing in production, oftentimes, you know, we have some pretty good applications experts on the panel. Usually it's somewhere between four and 10 people on the panel that are answering questions every morning.

[Leo Laporte]

And of course, the wonderful Michael Krasny podcast Gray Matter Show.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yes. And we were talking about Israel over the. We had a. Oh, I bet. Yeah. So Janine Zakaria was on Friday and I think that that's either coming out today or I think it came out today or be out tomorrow. And she was really talking. She covered. She's been covering Israel in the Gu and the Gaza Strip for decades. So we had a great conversation with her as well.

[Leo Laporte]

Very nice. Jason Snell. Speak slowly so I have time to order this Mac. This little baby pico. Leon, I finished. You were order number 600. What were you? 601?

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, something like that. 6. 11. And you're 612. I'm 612 we got in.

[Leo Laporte]

We're buddies right next next door. Nice order.

[Jason Snell]

Buddies. Yeah. 6colors.com check out my stuff there. Mike Hurley and I had a conversation on Upgrade this week about he he's a little more enthusiastic about the return of Johnny I've but as we it sounds like we disagree and then by the time we got to the end he's basically like, look, I don't know if it's going to be any good or not, but I think it's going to be fun to watch and see what happens. And I said, I agree. It actually is going to be fun to watch and see what happens. I just kind of don't believe believe it. But you know, good conversation that we had where we there's a lot of give and take in that. So people can check that out on the Upgrade podcast.

[Leo Laporte]

Jason Snell sixcolors.com and check it out sixcolors.com Jason for a media link.

[Jason Snell]

So many podcasts.

[Leo Laporte]

So many podcasts. Thank you everybody. We really appreciate all of your support for the show. As you know, Mac Break Weekly is ad supported, but club members put in at least 25% in this particular episode more than that. So thank you club members. We really appreciate it and we will see you back here next Tuesday, 11am Pacific if you want to watch live or on the website at Twitter TV mbw if you want to download a copy or subscribe. By the way, I should mention we have a newsletter. Sometimes people say, well, I'm in the club but I don't want to go to the discord to find out what's coming up. Is there a way to do that? Yes. Subscribe to the newsletter. It's free and it talks about what's coming this week and you know, in the upcoming week on all of the Twitch shows. So Twitter TV newsletter if you subscribe, you will not be in the dark, you will be in the light. Thanks for being here everybody. Thanks to our wonderful panelists. We'll see you next time. And now, as it has been and so it shall always be, it is my sad and solemn duty to tell you get back to work because break time is over. See ya.

[Jason Snell]

Hey, focus up. That is what I said to hands on tech when we looked at the relaunch. It is time for us to focus on one topic at a time and make sure we're answering that question. I am answering that question as thoroughly as possible. If you are a member of Club.

[Leo Laporte]

Twit, you can watch the video version.

[Jason Snell]

Of this show completely ad free. Of course. Listen to the audio version ad free. If you're not a member, the show will still still be available to you in both ways. You can watch the video on YouTube with ads, or you can watch the audio as you always have. I mean, listen to the audio as you always have in our feeds. In any case, you gotta tune in to Hands On Tech because I guarantee there's going to be a question you're going to want to have the answer to. And from time to time I also.

[Leo Laporte]

Review a gadget, a gizmo gizmo or.

[Jason Snell]

Something of the sort. You gotta check out Hands On Tech. And I can't wait to get your question.

[Leo Laporte]

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[Jason Snell]

A pirate on the weekends.

[Leo Laporte]

I never know what's gonna happen. It's a great show. Subscribe today. Beautiful Anonymous.