MacBreak Weekly 981: It's Thicker Where It Counts

Summary

MacBreak Weekly 981: It's Thicker Where It Counts – Detailed Summary

Podcast Information:

• Title: All TWiT.tv Shows (Audio)
• Host/Author: TWiT
• Description: Leo Laporte brings some of the most interesting personalities in technology together to talk about the most important issues. Fun, relaxed, informative, and always entertaining, count on TWiT for the best tech podcasts in the world.
• Episode: MacBreak Weekly 981: It's Thicker Where It Counts
• Release Date: July 16, 2025

---

1. Introduction The episode kicks off with Leo Laporte introducing the panel—Andy Inako, Jason Snell, and Alex Lindsay—all present either in the studio or remotely. The primary topics teased include Apple's succession plans, F1 streaming rights, and upcoming product rumors.

2. Apple Leadership and Succession Plans

Discussion on Tim Cook's Future: The conversation delves into the stability of Apple's leadership under Tim Cook amidst stock market pressures.

• Leo Laporte raises concerns about Tim Cook’s tenure, highlighting his age and the impending retirement of COO Jeff Williams.

  “Tim Cook isn't going anywhere soon, says Mark... But there's a question about executive succession.” [14:28]

• Andy Inako shares insights from sources suggesting Tim Cook is likely to remain as CEO despite rumors of possible succession plans.

  “Jeff Williams is retiring later this year... There's no signs internally, says Gurman, that Cook is getting ready to leave.” [14:28]

• Alex Lindsay emphasizes the challenges Apple faces with a significant portion of Cook’s direct reports nearing retirement age.

  “Half of Cook's 20 direct reports are at least 60... including Jaws, Phil Schiller, Lisa Jackson, and Johnny Surrugi.” [15:58]

Potential Successors: The panel speculates on possible successors, debating whether Apple will promote internally or seek external candidates.

• Jason Snell suggests a preference for a product-focused leader rather than another operations-heavy executive.

  “Do you want a product guy as the next CEO... Maybe you want a product person in that role.” [15:47]

• Leo Laporte notes the difficulty Apple has historically had in replacing its CEOs from outside the company without causing disruption.

  “There are too many examples where they brought somebody from the outside and it has either gone completely terribly or after a few years they just leave.” [27:16]

Conclusion: The panel agrees that Apple is likely to continue promoting from within, leveraging current leaders like Craig Federighi and Tim Cook’s close associates, to maintain stability and preserve Apple's unique corporate culture.

3. Liberty Media's Pursuit of F1 Streaming Rights

Liberty Media's Strategic Moves: The discussion shifts to Liberty Media's aggressive pursuit of streaming rights for Formula One (F1) in the United States, challenging ESPN’s existing $85 million deal.

• Leo Laporte highlights Liberty Media CEO Jerrick Chang’s efforts to secure F1 rights, potentially increasing the bid to $150 million.

  “Chang $150 million, almost twice what ESPN was paying... Pole position to acquire F1.” [04:43]

• Andy Inako debates the merits of Liberty Media’s offer versus ESPN’s established platform, questioning the rationale behind F1’s potential switch to Apple.

  “Why would they do another like this? I don't understand why they would take the Apple deal unless they are... trying out the relationship.” [06:01]

Potential Impact on F1 Coverage: The panel discusses how Apple’s involvement could revolutionize F1 broadcasting with enhanced features beyond traditional cable networks.

• Alex Lindsay envisions Apple adding unique dimensions to F1 coverage, leveraging their technology prowess.

  “Apple has a lot more dimensionality that they could potentially add... more dimensions to how F1 is covered.” [08:18]

• Jason Snell suggests that Apple's long-term financial commitment to live sports could pose a significant threat to ESPN’s dominance.

  “Apple can basically offer infinite amount of money for live sports in the long run must scare ESPN just a little bit.” [13:23]

Conclusion: Liberty Media faces a strategic decision between financial gain and maintaining maximum visibility on established platforms like ESPN. Apple's entry into the streaming rights could offer F1 unprecedented innovations in broadcasting, though it remains uncertain if Apple will fully capitalize on these opportunities.

4. iPhone 17 and Design Changes

Rumors and Speculations: The panel explores emerging rumors surrounding the design and release of the iPhone 17, with particular attention to its rumored slimmer form factor and enhanced camera modules.

• Leo Laporte shares insights into leaked designs showing a significant camera bump and possible color variations.

  “Sonny Dixon has Pictures of the iPhone 17 Lens Protection Cover... dramatic colors.” [57:00]

• Jason Snell discusses the design rationale, comparing it to past models like the Nokia 1020 or 1030, where aesthetic compromises led to better camera performance.

  “When you make the camera module thicker... people will get over it once they see the great pictures that they make.” [57:55]

Design Innovations: The panel speculates on how Apple might balance design aesthetics with functional enhancements, such as improved optics and durability.

• Alex Lindsay expresses excitement over potential closer interocular distances for better 3D capabilities, though current designs haven’t adopted this.

  “I was hoping they're gonna put a camera on the other corner of that bump so that we would get... more aggressive 3D.” [58:04]

Conclusion: iPhone 17 is anticipated to feature notable design changes aimed at enhancing camera performance, even if it means deviating from Apple's minimalistic aesthetics. The balance between form and function remains a key focus for the upcoming release.

5. Apple's Vision Pro and AI Developments

Vision Pro Enhancements: The discussion moves to Apple’s Vision Pro, with the panel evaluating its current state and future potential.

• Jason Snell praises the Vision Pro’s capabilities, noting it as possibly the best AI machine with unified memory, despite lacking CUDA support.

  “Apple Silicon machine learning code may become more easily portable to Nvidia hardware now because there's a project designed to develop on an Apple Silicon Mac and then exporting it to CUDA cross compiling in effect.” [92:54]

AI Integration: The team discusses Apple's advancements in AI, particularly how the company is integrating machine learning into its hardware and software ecosystems.

• Alex Lindsay mentions Apple's new AI model that flags health conditions with up to 92% accuracy, leveraging data from wearables.

  “Apple's newest AI model flags health conditions with up to 92% accuracy.” [87:51]

• Andy Inako highlights the potential of Apple’s AI in enhancing user experiences and driving innovation across devices.

  “Long term on device AI and then delivering that back to your developers, that over time is a lethal concoction.” [38:04]

Conclusion: Apple continues to push the boundaries of AI integration, particularly within its Vision Pro and health-related applications. The company’s focus on on-device AI and seamless integration across its product lineup positions it to leverage AI for enhanced user experiences and new functionalities.

6. Other Tech News Highlights

Airing Issues and Apple’s Supply Chain Investments:

• Leo Laporte reports on Apple’s commitment to expanding the U.S. supply chain, including a $500 million investment in a rare earth recycling facility in Texas.

  “Apple is committed to spending half a billion dollars expanding the U.S. supply chain... launching an all new recycling facility for processing recycled rare earth elements.” [45:47]

EU Tax Negotiations:

• Jason Snell discusses Apple’s recent negotiations with the EU, where Apple and Meta secured a reprieve from heavy digital taxes by trading concessions in other areas like tobacco product taxes.

  “Apple and Meta were about to be taxed pretty heavily by the EU. They traded away that for taxes on tobacco products and on discarded electronic equipment.” [48:45]

Emmy Awards and Apple TV+:

• The panel covers Apple TV+'s increasing success at the Emmy Awards, highlighting shows like "Severance" and "Slow Horses."

  “Apple TV+ has 81 Emmy nominations... 'Severance' and 'Slow Horses' leading the pack.” [81:17]

Playdate Console:

• Jason Snell recommends the Playdate from Panic, a unique handheld gaming device praised for its innovative design and indie game library.

  “Playdate makes it just trivially easy to move any file from where it is to where you want it to be.” [123:55]

7. Notable Quotes

• Andy Inako [05:18]: “It's a good deal and the coverage is good, but a lot of people don't have Apple TV Plus and so they're not going to see it.”
• Alex Lindsay [08:18]: “Apple could potentially add a lot more dimensions to how F1 is covered than a simple cable network.”
• Jason Snell [13:23]: “Apple can basically offer infinite amount of money for live sports in the long run must scare ESPN just a little bit.”
• Leo Laporte [14:28]: “Tim Cook isn't going anywhere soon, Mark says. But an Apple shakeup looms.”
• Alex Lindsay [87:51]: “This is just the beginning of where that's going. Tim Cook talked a long time ago, said our biggest impact is going to be health.”

8. Conclusions and Insights

The episode provides a comprehensive analysis of Apple's current strategic positioning, particularly concerning its leadership succession and potential expansion into live sports streaming with F1. The panel underscores Apple's enduring strength under Tim Cook while acknowledging the inevitable challenges posed by executive retirements and market pressures. Liberty Media's aggressive bid for F1 rights highlights the dynamic interplay between traditional broadcasters and tech giants seeking to innovate content delivery.

Furthermore, Apple's ongoing investments in AI and health technologies via products like Vision Pro and the Apple Watch demonstrate a commitment to leveraging data and machine learning to enhance user experiences and create new market opportunities. The discussion on the iPhone 17 and Playdate console offers a glimpse into Apple's design philosophy and the broader tech ecosystem's embrace of niche, innovative products.

Overall, the panel emphasizes Apple's resilience and adaptability, suggesting that while the company faces significant internal and external challenges, its strategic initiatives in AI, health, and content streaming position it well for continued leadership in the tech industry.

---

End of Summary

Transcript

[Leo Laporte]

Time for Mac Break Weekly. Andy, Alex and Jason are all here. We will talk about the succession plans for Tim Cook. The stock market's howling for his head. I don't know. Should we get rid of Tim Cook? I don't think so. But if we did, who'd replace him? Jeff Williams is on his way out, retiring to spend more time with his money Apple. Speaking of money, offering a lot of it to stream F1. But will Liberty Media bite and the new folding phone now with no creases? All that and more coming up next on MacBreak Weekly. Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is Twit. This is Mac break weekly, episode 981, recorded Tuesday, July 15, 2025. It's thicker where it counts. It's time for Mac Break Weekly. Hello, everybody. Time to talk about Apple with the best darn Vision Pro podcast in the world. Jason Snell. He owns a Vision Pro. How about that? 6colors.com. He's now fully decked out on the set.

[Andy Inako]

Myself. Yeah, still not done, but working on it. Working on it.

[Leo Laporte]

The no sign. What is it? No what? No fishing, no smoking.

[Andy Inako]

It's. It says sorry, no. And my parents for a few years ran a bed and breakfast and that was. They would have me run down and place that on the sign that said vacancy.

[Leo Laporte]

Ah, brilliant.

[Andy Inako]

So I would run down there, put the sign out and sorry. Put the sorry no out. And so I love that the sorry. And I managed to save the sorry, no.

[Leo Laporte]

So I. I might have to get that sign for Elisa.

[Andy Inako]

Sorry.

[Leo Laporte]

She used to have on her whiteboard behind her. No is a complete sentence as a warning to employees. That's Andy Inocco, who is employed by none, but as cool as all get out. Dressed in black. I love that.

[Jason Snell]

I mean, I treated myself to a pair of metal Ray Bans. Do you know that you can buy them without the cameras? Oh, so you don't have any privacy problems.

[Leo Laporte]

That's cheaper.

[Jason Snell]

You have to send it to a guy to pull them out and they put these little things in them instead. But otherwise, Ray Bans.

[Leo Laporte]

That's more expensive than with the camera in it. Good to see you. I have no idea how to spell anaco, but we fortunately have many acronyms for that. I have no tomato, ketchup, Onions, I think was the title of last week's show.

[Jason Snell]

Clearly you've not seen me at In n Out.

[Leo Laporte]

Also on location in Beautiful South Carolina, Mr. Alex Lindsay. Hi, Alex.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's good to be here. Good to be here.

[Leo Laporte]

Good to see you.

[Alex Lindsay]

Very humid Here I'm not used to so much humidity.

[Leo Laporte]

Are you on assignment?

[Alex Lindsay]

It's actually very nice where I'm. Where I'm at right now. In the studio? Yeah, I'm on vacation. I'm actually staying in North Carolina on the beach. But I came down to Charleston to Sage Studios, and they do a lot of things.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, I see. You're on vacation.

[Alex Lindsay]

I'm on vacation. But I saw it as an opportunity to come down. We're going to. A couple of us from office hours are going to hang out this evening and have dinner. And so it seemed like a good thing to do.

[Leo Laporte]

Is this a normal spot for your vacation in South Carolina?

[Alex Lindsay]

Charleston. I'm visiting. Normally we go to Hatteras. This time we went to Holden Beach. So the picture you see behind me is from the back of the house. Holden Beach. You're kidding.

[Leo Laporte]

That's out your door.

[Alex Lindsay]

That's out the back of the. And there's like little kayaks. People are like kayaking down the little channels and everything else back there. So it's a fun place.

[Leo Laporte]

Our top story today, there's actually a lot, a lot of rumors about iPhone 17 and so forth. We'll get to those in just a little bit. But I think the story I paid attention to comes from the Aspen Sun Valley Conference, the Allen Co Conference in Sun Valley, where the CEO of Liberty Media, Jerrick Chang, took meetings with Tim Cook, Eddie Q, as well as Bob Iger from Disney to ask, how much would you pay? I'm sorry, what's your vision for Formula One in the United States? ESPN has the rights right now to rebroadcast Formula One races in the U.S. they paid $85 million for it, apparently, according to Puck, which is, you know, Dylan Byers is wired in. He's actually in Sun Valley. Cook and Q, which is, by the way, I like that. I'm going to call him Cook and Q from now on.

[Jason Snell]

Favorite comedy duo, 1982. BBC won their show. Only six series, but so funny offered.

[Leo Laporte]

Chang $150 million, almost twice what ESPN was paying. The lower end of the 150 to 200 million range that was rumored. Still puts them in the front row, as it were. Pole position to acquire F1. Now, it's possible that Disney will offer more, but seems unlikely.

[Andy Inako]

No, they're not going to offer more. What's it going to come down to is do they want the money or do they want the exposure? Because they'll get way more exposure on espn. And as we all know, if you're not on espn, you don't exist in terms of their coverage of sports, which makes it harder visibility wise. If you disappear from their networks, they don't talk about you either. And that's bad. And that means reach on ABC and broadcast as well as on ESPN's new service that they're launching. And this is the same thing as the discussion with mls, which is like, it's a good deal and the coverage is good, but a lot of people don't have Apple TV plus and so they're not going to see it. And that's the, that's the, the, what they have to weigh is take more money and have less visibility. The, the complication here, which is super weird, is you can already buy a subscription to watch Formula One, which I. Yeah, right, F1TV. So why would they do another like this? I, I don't understand why they would take the Apple deal unless they are for whatever reason desperate for money or think that this is potentially like a way to try out the relationship before the international rights come up in 2030 and see if Apple would be a great long term partner for F1 as a sport. But like, otherwise, why would you not take less money other than the fact do you need that extra 70 million instead of the exposure of being a partner of ESPN and abc? It's a, it's an interesting decision they're going to have to make because I don't think ESPN has any interest in, in paying more. They consider that an overpay. And Apple's happy to overpay to, to get their good friends at F1 on their, on their service.

[Leo Laporte]

Should mention, should mention that ESPN is Disney, right?

[Andy Inako]

Yeah, they own espn, espn, abc, Disney, all the same thing.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, this is what Byers says. He says it's the MLS cautionary tale. Apple gave Major League Soccer $250 million a year and then more money for Messi, et cetera, et cetera. But, but MLS has kind of disappeared except for if you're on Apple TV where it's all over the place. So F1 may, you know, F1 Liberty Media is John Malone. I mean, Liberty Media is savvy.

[Alex Lindsay]

And I would say it's different than MLS because I don't think MLS was that front row before. So Apple brought them.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, they're not exactly Premier League or something.

[Alex Lindsay]

So it wasn't like they had a lot of exposure. F1 has a lot more exposure. I do think the movie probably had something to do with Apple trying to show them like this is what we can bring to bear we can get a whole lot of people that hadn't been thinking about F1. Yeah. And I think that that's the Apple has a lot more dimensionality that they could potentially add. Will they add it? I don't know. I don't know if they'll do it. But they have the potential to add a lot more dimensions to how F1 is covered than a simple cable network.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, buyers points out, for instance, the experimental trailer that Apple released on the iPhone had haptics.

[Andy Inako]

Also ESPN, I mean, ESPN just runs the sky, which is basically the F1 English feed, whereas the F1 streaming service has their own announcers. I would imagine that Apple would probably want to actually do this up and get their own broadcast, you know, at least announcers and potentially have a bunch of tech add ons as well. Right. To make it their equivalent of the, you know, push the red button for sky, which you can, you can see on espn, but there's. There's no red button to push, which apparently F1 fans don't like. So there's a lot, there's a lot that they could do. But. And that's what I think it's going to come down to. That's why it's as much having Apple as a partner than it is about anything else. Because. Because Apple doesn't really want US Rights to anything. If they want global rights. MLS is a global rights deal. Apple is thinking globally. So why would you get the U.S. rights? Well, to try it out. Because there will be a time when Apple could theoretically buy global F1 rights. And does everyone want to do that? Well, this would be a way for Apple to sort of prove metal.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. And I think that also there isn't like when you're making these deals, looking at the fact that there is an executive at EQ who is super excited about the product.

[Leo Laporte]

He's on Ferrari's board. He is.

[Alex Lindsay]

And so that makes, I think that makes also a difference in how you look at it because you're like, it's not just another business deal. It's somebody who really wants to, you know, someone who has the ability to make decisions that, you know, are available to really push things forward. And again, Apple has a lot of potential for lots of different kinds of promotions across the products. They've not done as much with MLS as I thought they would, but they, but they could do a lot more.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. It's interesting because espn, even though they're offering significantly less, is still at the table, which shows you that Malone and Chang are thinking, do we really want all this money from Apple. What is Apple going to offer?

[Alex Lindsay]

The problem is when you look at cable, I mean now, admittedly except for sports, but when you look at the rest of the cable network, but when you look at the rest of the cable ecosystem, I mean, most of that is as a macro level burning up in the atmosphere. So you're kind of like, that's not the cable tv. Now ESPN may last longer, the sports brands tend to last a little longer in this environment. But for the most part everyone's trying to divest from cable tv.

[Andy Inako]

But not Disney because they're launching ESPN as a streaming service as well. And it's finally doing that. It's probably a different kind of scenario. I'm sure FOM would love to be talking to other streamers as well, but they're not interested in this.

[Alex Lindsay]

Too much money.

[Leo Laporte]

Netflix has the money and they create a drive to survive, which I think single handedly made F1 popular in the U.S. yeah.

[Andy Inako]

And I think Netflix probably doesn't think that the US only rights are worth it for them. Which is why I come back to why is Apple talking to them other than their F1 film relationship? And it's got to be sort of like if they do this deal, I just feel like it's a, let's do this for the next five years and see what happens. And are we a long term partner for them or not? More than anything else, because even, even.

[Alex Lindsay]

Even with the bulk of the size of this deal, the US market is still a relatively small market for F1.

[Leo Laporte]

I mean it's races in many cases is the middle of the night. It's not a good live Sport for the U.S. yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

So it's not. This is, there's, as Jason pointed out, there's less at stake. This would be a perfect proving ground for Apple as opposed to like giving them the golden goose.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, Apple must be saying to them something more long term than just when.

[Alex Lindsay]

They start designing cameras for them. I mean they design cameras for the movie. So when they start going, hey, we could design, we have a lot of camera technology. It's not just you figuring out how to put cool cameras into your. Imagine what we could do with designing and building new kinds of ways of covering the sport that, that, that potentially could come with it. And for Apple that'd be, that'd be good on many levels.

[Leo Laporte]

Liberty owns F1TV and they, they own the streaming service, which I think if you're a hardcore F1 fan, you probably pay. It's not expensive pay It. I do every year because it gives you not only a choice between Crofty promoting Sky with a red button and their own announcers, who are far, far better, but you also get all the camera angles, you get all the radio, all the. Every driver camera. You get a whole lot more. In fact, we've talked about this before. It would be an amazing Vision Pro app.

[Jason Snell]

Remember that? Some independent people just basically built it on their own and it's mysteriously disappeared, which either means that they got lawyered up, they got lawyered at, or someone said, hi, come work for us, F1 and make this into a real thing, because we like the cut of your jib.

[Leo Laporte]

I think the fact that Apple can basically offer infinite amount of money for live sports in the long run must scare ESPN just a little bit.

[Jason Snell]

And in addition, they're not. They don't. It's not that they don't care about ratings, but ratings are down on the list. They will buy sports, they will buy shows for prestige and for subscriptions. They don't necessarily. You don't have to deliver an audience year after year after year.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, well, that's the. The one story that's not a rumor now. Now let's go to the German. Tim Cook isn't going anywhere soon, says Mark. And, oh, I have to sign in every time. I have to sign into darn Bloomberg. It's a lot of money for that Darn Bloomberg.

[Andy Inako]

I know, and they're so annoying. And then they sell your email address to spammers.

[Leo Laporte]

Do they?

[Andy Inako]

Yeah, yeah, I get lots of. Lots of really random marketing email that's to my Bloomberg.

[Leo Laporte]

You don't get enough money.

[Andy Inako]

Account email. There's never enough money. I think that's the lesson of Bloomberg, always more monetization of your subscribers.

[Leo Laporte]

Tim Cook isn't going anywhere soon, Mark says. But an Apple shakeup looms. Really, the big story of the week, which I should have probably moved up, is that Apple's going to lose their COO at the end of the year. Everybody thought that perhaps Jeff Williams would be the next CEO. No, he's retiring later this year. There's no signs internally, says Gurman, that Cook is getting ready to leave. But, you know, Cook's gonna turn 65 this year. He's retirement age, so there's a question. Mark obviously didn't have enough work to write about. So there's a question about executive succession. He calls it the Tim steps off the curb at the wrong moment moment. Who would run Apple if Jeff Williams is retiring?

[Alex Lindsay]

And Jeff Williams, though, is only Three years younger than Tim Cook. So if you're doing succession, it may not make as much sense. I mean, you're probably looking for someone in there.

[Leo Laporte]

Is it Hugh?

[Andy Inako]

Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

I mean, do you want an operations guy as the next CEO, given that the last CEO was an operations guy? I think maybe you want a product guy or, I'm sorry, product person in that role.

[Leo Laporte]

Right. There are a lot of retirements ahead. German says that, you know, Lisa Jackson's going to retire, obviously. Luca May street just, you know, kind of somewhat stepped down.

[Andy Inako]

Damn. Retired.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Semi retired. Jan Riccio left at the end of last year. There's a lot of turnover. He says half of Cook's 20 direct reports are at least 60, including Jaws, Phil Schiller, Lisa Jackson, and Johnny Surrugi. And besides, they have unlimited funds at this point.

[Alex Lindsay]

They do.

[Andy Inako]

They're all hundreds of millions.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

They have to work.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. I think that. I bet that Cook wants to see the transition to the headset through. Like, I think he's in the middle of that. Or not. Jason's like, where he wants to jump off the ship before.

[Andy Inako]

I know. That seems far. That seems kind of far out all the way there.

[Alex Lindsay]

I don't think it's 10 years away. I think. I think we'll see a lot more of it in the next five or six years. But I think that I would be very surprised if Cook left in the next five years and potentially in the next. I think I would. I would only give it maybe 20 or 30% that he'd leave in the next 10 years. I mean, I don't think that he has.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

I think he's doing this because he loves to do it. Yes. He obviously doesn't need the money.

[Jason Snell]

I feel like he leaves Apple feet first. And also he's not necessarily. Things would have to. Apple's already lost, what, $600 billion in valuation recently, and the board is still not interested in replacing him. The shareholders, by and large, are not interested in replacing them. There are some. There's a lot of. There are a lot of reports this week from various sources about different analysts and different newsletters saying, hey, it's time for a regime change at Apple. If he can't turn things around with AI, but that's really not in the cards. It's his job for as long as he wants it because he's really good at everything. That's Apple.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. That's what Gurman says is. The board might think they want a product guy in there, but they're so happy with the stock price, the valuation of the company under Cook's tenure that he is solid.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

From start to finish. Again, $600 billion in valuation. Going away is not a great thing. But you think about what happens.

[Leo Laporte]

It's not been a good year for Apple, has it? No.

[Jason Snell]

And, but the thing is like think about where the, where Apple was like when he took over. And it's not an accident that that valuation has got, they're now a $3 trillion company.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's also been a pretty, pretty crazy year. You know, I mean the fact that he's gotten through so much of it with so, so little scathing.

[Jason Snell]

And it's not like unprecedented macroeconomic headwinds. It's, it's screw ups and miscalculations that if Tim had been on less sound footing in his job, he might have been bounced after the second problem. After canceling the car, after the Vision Pro turned out to be a lot of money thrown away on what is just a very preliminary experimental product. Anybody who was not secure in his job would have been, would have been invited to spend more time with your plants and your dogs and your basketball games. But the fact that he survived this, he survived the fumble with AI, which is worse than anything else that's happened during his tenure.

[Leo Laporte]

Probably there are shakeups going on right now. For instance, Apple's broken up the Vision Pro team. It's moved the pieces from Gurman, moved the pieces into its software and hardware departments, relocated engineering for Siri and the robotics teams. Now they've got to figure out who's going to take over for Jeff Williams, the coo. He says this is, and I presume he's got sources inside the plan. Apple's already said its design team will report directly to Cook, was reporting to Williams. Right.

[Andy Inako]

So I think they already, they've got a new coo. What they need to do is find a place for the other jobs that weren't coo that Jeff Williams was also.

[Leo Laporte]

He was doing everything. Yeah.

[Andy Inako]

And yeah, the thought there is design. Design's a can of worms. Right, but design the can of worms is reporting to Tim Cook. But the other, the other stuff like where does Apple Watch and Health go a few years before? Right. And where does Apple Watch and Health care? Well, Apple Watch is going to do what Vision Pro did, which is they're going to put the hardware on the hardware side and the software on the software side and it's just going to be like every other Apple product. It's going to be part of the mix and health is an interesting one.

[Leo Laporte]

Ternus has Watch and Health. The watchos team, run by Dave Clark and its health engineering group, led by Evan Dahl, will move to software engineering head Craig Federighi's organization. The current unfinalized plan is for the health product team, led by Dr. Decide, a shift under Craig Federighi's oversight.

[Andy Inako]

Interesting idea.

[Leo Laporte]

So there's quite a bit of reorg going on, right?

[Andy Inako]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

This new COO will get the AppleCare team. According to what Gurman is hearing, Fitness plus will move to the services group, which was under Jay Blahnik.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah, AppleCare. It's interesting. AppleCare is actually a service, but I, I get it. Like, it's a different. It's a different kind of. There's. There's kind of. It's technically a service, financially a service, but, you know, in the end, probably doesn't make as much sense under Eddy Q. As it does. And, you know, some of this is like, there's some stuff that just doesn't fit really well. And that's why Jeff Williams was in charge of some stuff.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Andy Inako]

That was not COO stuff. It's because they're like, who's going to take this? And Jeff Williams either was told or put his hand up and said, all right, I. I'll do. You know, he probably like fitness and Watch. Yeah, I'm into. Into that. I'll talk about that. I'll. I'll.

[Leo Laporte]

Part of.

[Andy Inako]

I'm pretty now.

[Leo Laporte]

I could.

[Andy Inako]

But now he's leaving and. And the CEO job doesn't, you know, CEO job doesn't come with those, so they got to find new places for those.

[Leo Laporte]

It feels like his leaving is a bit of a surprise. Is that not the case?

[Andy Inako]

I don't think so. I mean, because he's got to have been part of succession planning. Look, there's two good theories here. One is that he was told that he was no longer part of succession planning. I don't. I think that's possible, but I think it's more likely that he looked at what he wants to do next in his life. And if you look at the text of the announcement, it's really interesting. Right. Because Phil Shiller became fellow Luca Maestri, sort of stepped aside, but kept some rules. Jeff Williams is. They use the word retire like he's gonna retire. He's not gonna be endlessly working at Apple, which good for him to spend time with his family. And he doesn't need to work. None of these guys who are in their 60s and have made hundreds of millions of dollars at Apple need to work, but they, I mean, need to, but they want to, so they stay. But you know, as a result, we're in an interesting position where you've got, you have to, you have to figure out how to, how to take those people and, and use them and find a succession plan without the guy. I, my theory, to get back to the second point, my theory is he looked at the future and what he wants to do in terms of retirement and said, this is just a theory, but just a guess and said, I don't want to be part of the succession planning anymore because I think being part of the, in case of an emergency with Tim Cook, you're the CE plan is some acceptance that you're going to be riding the, the CEO roller coaster for a few years. And if you're Jeff Williams and you're like, I think I want to retire soon, succession planning needs to get out. Right. Like you're like, I'll be the COO for another year or two, but I'm not going to be the emergency CEO for five years. It's not going to happen. And when that happens, I think is when this happens is, it's the, it's the step off because you're not going to be, you're not willing to be here until you're 70.

[Alex Lindsay]

And I think that if, I don't think that Apple will promote someone from the outside, you know, whenever there's a succession. So I think it puts, I think it puts Federighi and Ternus in the front row. Like, I think, yeah, that's the problem. They're in their 50s.

[Leo Laporte]

They're not the kind of company that goes outside.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah, never.

[Alex Lindsay]

But if you look at the public face and who's in the keynotes and everything else, I think it's those two become the primary. Those are probably the, the two most likely at this point.

[Leo Laporte]

This, the Apple press release is interesting because it says that the transition from Jeff Williams to Saba Khan is a long planned succession.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah. So Saba Khan's been there forever, right. Like he's a lifer. He's an Apple lifer. Yeah, he's been there since I think 95. So like, this is not in many ways, you're just kind of, and this is actually one of the issues right now is Apple have a lot of people that are, have been at Apple since the 90s or early 2000s. They've all got a lot of money in stock options over the years. They're all sort of around 60, a little older, a Little younger. And this is a challenge again. Look, I'm. I'm in my mid-50s. I'm not, I'm not being ageist when I say the problem is eventually you can't. You can't stay forever, right? Like, that's just a.

[Leo Laporte]

And I'll tell you from the truth of humanity, the other side of that birthday, that's. That is when you start thinking, okay, I'm on the downhill slope now. What do I want the rest of my life to be like? And if you've got hundreds of millions of dollars, you don't have to work.

[Andy Inako]

I do think you don't become a senior vice president at Apple or a CEO without being basically a type A personality, workaholic person. And so they probably a lot. I mean, so again, credit to Jeff Williams for actually saying, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't need to do this anymore. But it's going to become an issue sooner or later. And, and this is probably. It feels. I think Herman is right. It feels like this is a moment not, not like where there's a calamity. Apple is doing that they haven't had that calamity that causes a lot of stuff to break and then people to leave. And Apple is such a unique company that they just stay forever, right? And so you end up in this position where they now have to start thinking like, okay, but what happens in five years when, you know, or eight years, when all those people who are now sort of like 60 are all now headed towards 70? Like, you do need another generation to step up to do this stuff and to be the face of the company and to do succession planning. You know, honestly, even if Tim Cook wanted to stay until he was 75, which, you know, he could, he seems very fit. You still want clear people who are ready to take over. And probably you want to see some sort of a. A gradual transferring. That's the thing about, like, Phil. What Phil Schiller did is Phil Schiller is still at Apple and he does events and he does App Store. He's just not doing the job that Jaws is doing now. And that's like, that's like Apple retirement, right? Which is like, now I'm only in charge of two huge things of this giant company instead of five. But you, you do need to see more of that. You need to see John Turner step up. You need to see more of Mike Rockwell and, you know, other people who are, like, below and are coming up now. You got to see those people now.

[Leo Laporte]

Now.

[Alex Lindsay]

But I think I, I think when you start looking at that short list, you're looking at someone who's been at Apple for more than 20 years. That's less than, for sure.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah, that's, that's exactly right. And there's not that many because, because people are saying, oh well, maybe there would be a, there could be an acquisition and all that. It's like, look, I know. And somebody was like, oh well, but the board is the one who will decide who the new CEO is. I was like, yeah, but the board and Tim Cook agree on everything. And I really just can't, I can't imagine Tim Cook will not be the executive chairman after he's the CEO. I feel like he's going to do the same thing that they did to Steve Jobs. Right before Steve Jobs died, he was made the chairman of the board. And they're going to pick from within Apple. Unless there is a catastrophe that kills Apple's business, they will pick somebody from within Apple. There are too many examples, and we've talked about them here, too many examples where they brought somebody in from the outside and it has either gone completely terribly or after a few years they just leave. And so you can go from John Broward who was brought in to do the store and that was a calamity and he was gone within a few months. Or it's Angela Aarons who came in from Burberry and it was okay, but after a few years she just left and. Or you can talk honestly about John Gianna Drea, who by all, you know, visible evidence hasn't really worked out as the machine learning chief. So it's gotta be somebody from within Apple and they've gotta, you know, they've gotta be training those people up.

[Leo Laporte]

Does Apple need as many analysts? Apparently the stock market is not happy with Tim Cook, which just like, come on guys, are you that short term focused? Oh my God, two quarters there.

[Alex Lindsay]

They really are. That's the way they think.

[Leo Laporte]

You know, they don't have an AI story and that's the story of 2025. So of course Meta and Microsoft are doing better than Apple is in 2025. But gosh, the track record's pretty good.

[Jason Snell]

I wouldn't sell my Apple stuff. Most of the analysts that I was after seeing a couple of these like really, really alarming reports of leading analysts says CEO must stuck down or Apple is in big trouble. Those are, there's, there are some influential analysts. However, the majority of the reaction to that has been no. Apple would be nuts to make a Big CEO change. This is still a good stock, it's still working great. They've got problems, but the chaos of a regime change would hurt the company a lot more than just sticking around and trying to work things out.

[Leo Laporte]

LightShed, which is an analytic firm, said app quote, apple needs a product focused CEO, not one centered on logistics.

[Andy Inako]

Well, I mean there are a lot of, I'll just tell you, financial analysts.

[Jason Snell]

Not turning into a problem in 2014.

[Andy Inako]

Financial analysts are not smarter than the rest of the rest of us, honestly. And like I look at some of these analysts and I think they don't understand Apple's business as much as, as we do here, honestly. And they don't really get it. I will say one of Tim Cook's great advantages is I think there's a general perception, I think it's true, but I think there is a general perception that if you mess with Apple's culture a little too much, you will kill the goose that laid the gold. I think that that is true. That like we've seen too many examples of people coming in from the outside and yeah, somebody in the discord was saying, John Scully, it's like, yeah, I mean, okay, like there are a lot, but, but like even recently, like Apple, Apple is, is legitimately unlike any other company in the world. And it is used that to become one of the biggest and most valuable companies in the world. And I think it is a legitimate argument to say if you brought somebody in from the outside to optimize Apple, all you would do is destroy it. So there we are.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, it's. Well, it means it's a tough problem.

[Jason Snell]

That they've, which is not to say that putting someone in the C suite that's, that's a couple of generations younger than the current crew wouldn't be a good move. It's, there's, there's, there, there are times where you really do feel as though Apple is making some very, very smart choices. But based on a hard, established view of the world that has changed a lot in the last 20 or 30 years. I'm not sure that if you had someone in their early 40s taking charge of the App Store, I'm not sure that Apple would still be taking these hardline stances about keeping developers under their thumb and bucking every single single attempt to limit or control what they want to do. I think that we would see at least some conversations about adding features for developers who are selling through the App Store. They've been asking for, for years and years and years that they're used to getting on pretty much every other platform. That's, that's just an example of younger people who grew up with, with app stores not understanding why we have this regime that seems to think that every, every Apple Apple soft disc sold on a floppy is stealing from, from, from Apple's revenues.

[Andy Inako]

Well, that, that goes to the fear. The gold goose that laid the golden eggs, I mean, in some ways is Steve Jobs. And that's part of the fear, I think that causes a lot of these cultural problems at Apple is, oh, you know, this is the way Steve did it. Let's just kind of keep doing it that way. And again, not saying it's not the fact that those executives are in their 60s, it's the fact that they're all in their 60s and they've all been there for 25 years. And I wonder if, like, there are lots of executives down below that that have different, newer perspectives. It's just like at some point it does feel, and we've talked about this with some of the legal stuff in the US and in the eu, that it feels a little bit like the people at the top, even when told don't do this, are just like, no, we're going to do this. Because they have always succeeded. They have all the money, they have all the power.

[Alex Lindsay]

Well, and I think, I think it's not just their age, but they were all here in 1997.

[Andy Inako]

That's a huge part of it. Yes.

[Alex Lindsay]

And it is, I think it permeates their view of the world of shelter. They don't take anything for, they don't take any amount of revenue for granted and they don't want to just lean on their hardware, you know, like, they don't like the hardware. Like they, they, they, they letting go of, they almost let go of software in 1997 before Steve, when Steve was coming back in, of allowing it to be, you know, allowing a lot of people to make the hardware. And that almost was a disaster. I mean, that was almost the end, you know, and I think that there's definitely a, a certain level of paranoia that's driven Apple forward, but I think that they definitely view the world as, you know, they're looking at like, like, you know, China is very unstable and they may have to survive on their services for some period of time somewhere in the future. And that's why, I think that's why they don't want to give it up is because they, it's a big, it could potentially be a suddenly unexpectedly a huge chunk. I mean, it gets it's one thing for us to talk about tariffs, it's another thing of like, what does Apple do if China invades Taiwan? You know, like that is a. And that's becoming, as we get closer to 27, 20, 27, 2028, a more real problem, you know, and so, and so. And they have to. And China's now making it hard for them to get out of the, out of the country. There's a lot of, there's a lot of things where they have to figure it out. And I think that that's why it's so important for Tim Cook to be there is because the next five years is logistics.

[Leo Laporte]

I can understand though why the market and analysts might say, well, there was the Apple car and then there was a Vision Pro and now there's AI. Tim's stumbling, he's lost a step. Apple is at risk of becoming irrelevant in the next five years. I can understand why they might say that. Yeah, if you had no memory of history, if you had no track record, you might say this is not going well.

[Alex Lindsay]

I think that the relevant being irrelevant, I think that definitely having to figure out what they have to do next. But we talked about Microsoft got quote unquote, kind of like hammered and almost broken up or whatever 20 years ago and now they're one of the largest companies in the world.

[Leo Laporte]

They pivoted though. They got rid of Steve Ballmer who actually did a very good job. He was the Tim Cook of Microsoft. The stock was stagnant, but he made them a very successful company. But they got rid of him and they brought in this new guy, Satya Nadella, who's done very, very well.

[Alex Lindsay]

And that may happen, but this isn't the time that you would make such a radical change in what they're doing. The other thing is that I do think that there is a. And I don't know what percentage of Apple users are like all in, but whatever that number is, the chances of them going anywhere is so low they're pretty locked in. Well, it's just like, because everything gets easier, I live mostly, I mean I've got PCs that are on the peripheral of things, but I don't really, they're not part of my, my core operating process. And so as a result, you know, like I own 650 movies on Apple TV. I have, you know, all this other stuff. And so everything becomes easy and everything becomes, it's lock in and. Well, it's not just lock in, it just, it's just everything's easy. Like it's fun and it's. And it's. And it just works, you know and you know think you're throwing things from one device to another and everything. And I just, and the idea of going outside of that to a less efficient because I think that especially the ones that folks that use almost all Apple products I think are very much. It's not that they're that geeky. They actually just don't want to spend time thinking about it. I know I don't for the basic operation of my day to day life I don't want to figure it out like I just went to work, you know, like because I'm doing other things. I have other things that I'm working on and fiddling with my computer to try to figure out why this isn't talking to that is not one of the things that I want to spend time on unless it's something that's cutting edge. But on a day to day like how do I get notes from one place to another? I don't want to think about it, I don't want to calculate it. And I think that there's a. I think, I don't know whether it's a half or 60% or 70% of Apple users are like that but there's some pretty big percentage and that I think that's bedrock for Apple, you know, like that that keeps them from becoming irrelevant anytime soon because there's just a lot of people that don't have any interest in other platforms, you know and there's definitely a group that are using a little bit of everything and doesn't really matter to them.

[Andy Inako]

And the point matter if Apple innovates.

[Leo Laporte]

Does Apple have to innovate? Do they have to come up with something new?

[Alex Lindsay]

I think they have to innovate. I don't think they. I think that they just have to stay on the ballpark for most of their users. I think they have to stay in the ballpark of where things are. But I also still think that the book hasn't been completed on AI yet. And I think a lot of what Apple's doing long term I think makes a ton of sense. I think short term they made a lot of mistakes. And the biggest mistake in my opinion is still that they just announced more than they could do. But I think that long term on device when you own the operating system and the hardware and the chips and everything else and then you're building on device AI and then delivering that back to your developers, that over time is a lethal concoction. It's just that it's not cooked yet.

[Andy Inako]

Andy and Alex have both talked about this. The fact we wring our hands about AI a lot but you can do a lot of AI stuff on Apple's platforms, right. It's just the stuff that's baked in from the OS and that insulates them to a certain degree. And they could, if they wanted to do more third party app integration, make it even easier to bake, to have that stuff in there, even though the Apple didn't bake it. And that gives them an enormous advantage. Leo, to your point about like do they need to innovate? Well they do, but they don't need to innovate in I think a lot of ways that the analysts and other people sometimes say, right, which is that classic like going back to the Apple watch where people are like, is it if it's not the next iPhone, it's a failure. And I think the truth is there is no next iPhone on the horizon and the iPhone is going to be an annuity that pays off for Apple for a very long time. But what they do have to do is keep their head on a swivel, not get complacent, make sure that the iPhone continues to be good and look for whatever might replace the iPhone. Which is why they're spend spending money on vision products. It's why they spent money on the car. It like there are reasons that they put, they throw money at things because their biggest existential threat is that they'll be like Microsoft missing mobile. Right. That they will miss the moment for a fund a fundamental platform that they can't get back into. I don't think AI is necessarily that because you can do good AI stuff on Apple's products and integrate it pretty well. It's a threat. But I'm not sure it's quite as existential as that. I think that stuff you could wear, you know, wearable stuff on your glasses, in your ears, wherever could be a long term existential threat. But even there you need something with a battery and a network connection and, and processing power and smartphones are pretty good for that and everybody's got one. So I think they've got, still got a lot of advantages there.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, what you're really saying is you don't see the next thing coming. At this point there's nothing, it's going to take a while, disenfranchise them.

[Andy Inako]

Right, right. But the danger is you get complacent. I think when you say do they have BlackBerry?

[Leo Laporte]

They probably thought they had the Market. Market locked.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah, that's, that's the danger. I don't, you know, honestly, there are places like, I don't think Apple has gotten complacent. I really don't. The thing, they missed it. They blew it, but didn't. Were they complacent? I mean they were building neural processor units into their processors and they had it. They missed because they thought there were other AI technologies that were going to be better. And in fact I would say they knew enough about AI stuff, about ML stuff that it gave them a false sense of confidence that LLMs weren't going to be it. And they were. And then they got wrong footed and that, but it wasn't that they were like missing the mark. You wouldn't be missing the mark on the importance of AI and building neural engines into your product for a decade. They just missed LLM. So I think that they, I think Apple is kind of obsessive about what the next thing is and about innovating. But you know, there's a danger that their, their perspective is not. They don't have enough people arguing about what they should do, that they're not as flexible, they're a little more calcified because they are a giant. And this is just the story. They're a giant profitable company. It's very hard when you have. There was a great. On the Connected podcast last week, they were talking about the Liquid Glass design and, and a point that, that the host made was Apple's so huge now that if you deeply offend 5% of the install base, that's tens of millions of iPhone users like. And the danger when you're Apple and you're that big and you're that successful is it's kind of hard to be as bold as Apple used to be because you have, I mean again, you're really successful, but you also have this enormous install base and how do you please all those people or keep them from getting mad at you? And like it's a good problem to have but this is why, this is why companies calcify and get more conservative and they're, they're optimizing for their current profit and not trying to do other stuff. I think Apple tries to fight it, but I'm not sure how successful they.

[Alex Lindsay]

Are at fighting it. And also I think Apple, the only time they truly innovated was with the Apple one. So they didn't create MP3s, they just made them MP3 players, they just made them better. They didn't invent touch screen phones, they Just made them better. They didn't improve watches, they just made them better. They didn't improve. They didn't, I mean, I'm sorry, they didn't invent a set top box. They just made it better, Better like. And so what Apple, I don't think, I think a lot of times Apple's MO is to take the, you know, as we said before, take the bread that's been half cooked by other people and just put it back in the oven, you know, just cook it all the way. And so I think that a lot of times they're gonna. And I think that again, I think that a, they've got a lot of time with AI to work on it. I think that they, but as other technologies come out, I think Apple has the money and the time and the ability to continue to out design folks because a lot of people think, well, if it just does the thing, it's going to be enough. And Apple's like, well, there is this thing called a user experience that might be useful.

[Leo Laporte]

All right, we need to take a break. Hang on. We will talk more about all the news having to do with Apple with Jason Snell, Andy Inocco and Alex Lindsey. So glad you're here today. Our show brought to you by a good night's sleep. Doesn't everybody need a good night's sleep? I'm talking about Helix sleep. Let me tell you, you spend more time in bed than you might think. It's not just for sleeping. Movie nights with your partner. Morning cuddles with your pet. Did that this morning with Rosie. Your wind down ritual. After long days, your mattress is at the center of it all. Maybe you're waking up. You know, I bet this year, this summer, maybe this is true. You're waking up in a puddle of sweat. Or maybe your back's hurting or you feel every toss and turn your partner makes. It's a classic Helix mattress nightmare. I need a da da da da. Helix Sleep changes everything. No more night sweats, no more back pain. No motion transfer. Get the deep sleep you deserve. One buyer recently reviewed it with five stars saying, I love my Helix mattress. I will never sleep on anything else. Time and time again, Helix Sleep remains the most awarded mattress brand. Winner of Wired's Best Mattress 2025 Good Housekeeping's Bedding Awards 2025 for Premium plus size support. Support's so important. GQ Sleep Awards 2025 for Best Hybrid mattress. The wire cutter. New York Times wirecutter. It gave them awards this year for featured for plus size Oprah's Daily Sleep Awards best hotel like feel for 2025. All the awards and man, what a nice Mattress. Go to helixsleep.com twit for 27% off sitewide during the Fourth of July sale. Best of web offer extended. That's helixsleep.com twit For 27% off site wide exclusive for listeners of MacBreak Weekly. This offer ends on July 31st. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you. And if you're listening after the sale ends, still be sure to check them [e-mail] thank you Helix for a good night's sleep. I really appreciate it. Something we all need. So Apple is committed to spending half a billion dollars expanding the U.S. supply chain. They say with a commitment to American rare earth magnets, Apple and MP Materials will launch an all new recycling facility for processing recycled rare earth elements. Better to recycle them than to dig them up. This is in Fort Worth, Texas. Is this exactly what you were saying Apple should do to appeal to the government?

[Alex Lindsay]

Part of it. I think we even said 500 million.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, I think we said that number. Yeah. Apple is committed to buying American made rare earth magnets developed at MP Materials flagship independence facility in Fort Worth, Texas. They're also going to create a cutting edge rare earth recycling line in Mountain Pass, California. I don't know where that is. And develop novel magnet materials and innovative processing technologies to enhance magnet performance. How important are magnets to Apple?

[Alex Lindsay]

Well, rare earth is very important to Apple. Part of every piece of everything that they're doing. And MP Materials is probably the most.

[Leo Laporte]

Well known And I guess MagSafe is a magnet. It. Is it? I don't know.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, definitely.

[Jason Snell]

But there's, I mean, but yeah, it, it.

[Leo Laporte]

They also use rare earth and Taptic, the Taptic engine. Nearly all magnets across all Apple devices are made with 100% recycled rare earth elements.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah, that's, that's the thing is they've been talking about recycling as being a green initiative, but it is also a, a materials independence initiative, isn't it?

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

Although.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, you're spending half a billion dollars to save money anyway, by the way.

[Andy Inako]

To maintain access to materials that might not be available otherwise.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Because they come from China, right?

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, there's a lot of unknown. I mean there are definitely folks with claims in the United States that have MP Materials is one of them, but there's definitely folks that think that there's a lot of rare earths in the United States. We just haven't looked for them as heavily.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

Are we willing to do to our land what we are willing to pay others to do to their land though?

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, well, and I think a lot of the people are like, why did we. When you look at the cost of rare earth and you look back at petroleum products, why are we suddenly have all this oil? Why is the United States now the largest producer of petroleum products? Well, it's because we knew that they were there. We just weren't going to do it for $12 a barrel. You know, like we weren't going to open that up. You know, then we opened it up when there was more money available. And I think that the rare earth, it takes a long time to turn the rare earth. That's the big thing is that to go from zero to it actually producing something takes typically five or six years.

[Leo Laporte]

A victory for Trump as EU backs down. This is maybe Apple saves some money here in the euro on digital taxes. The politico says it's because of the tariff negotiations. Apple and Meta were about to be taxed pretty heavily by the eu. This was a tax against big tech and digital technologies. The EU has apparently backed down. So good. I don't know how much it would cost Apple, but I imagine it's a significant amount.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, apparently they traded away, they traded away that for taxes on tobacco products and on discarded electronic equipment and basically adjusted the sliding scale.

[Leo Laporte]

That's fine. Good. I'm okay with that.

[Jason Snell]

They still want the half a billion bucks that they find Apple for though. That's still, that's still happening.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, I thought that might give them a little break on that. No.

[Jason Snell]

Oh well, no, no. Actually there they had, the EU has like public hearings for all these compliance fines. And so Microsoft, Google and Apple both had their like live streamed day in front of this day in front of this panel and Apple was basically, EU was basically saying explain to us why you're not playing nice. And Apple was so petulant. It was amazingly, it was amazingly funny where their entire statement, they ate up most of their time because there's supposed to be time for Q and A and interrogations, but conversations with the EU people, but also questions from the public. And they were again as petulant as a $3 trillion company can be. It's couch the language of well, I mean we would like to comply but you keep telling you that we don't think that these are things that can be complied with. And you. So we're just gonna like let the courts tell us be specific about, about what we need to do to comply with EE regulations because you're not doing it, you're not helping us any. It was, it was really condescending.

[Alex Lindsay]

I mean, even with the fines, it may actually be cheaper for them to let the courts tell them what to do. Yeah, you know, like that may be a pretty well calculated process of like, well, we'll see what we get forced to do. Because the problem with a lot of the, that whole regulation is that it isn't very specific. It's kind of like we'll know it when we see it, like whether you're doing it. So I think that they could give up more than they have to if they actually offered it.

[Jason Snell]

That's a good observation. But Apple was also doing, they were asked directly, for instance, about. So they've been directed to allow third party browsing engines in the EU and so they're asking, gee, why? How come we made this order a long time ago and you quote, complied with it a long time ago and yet we don't see any browsers on iOS that use third party engines that don't use WebKit. And they said, gosh, we don't know why. And meanwhile they actually basically answered their own question by saying, yeah, here's everything, or here's all the roadblocks you've put up against anybody. Even Google and Mozilla have testified that they wanted to do it. They tried to do it, but they found it absolutely impossible under the terms that Apple. Apple was demanding. So again, it was a, it was a fun live stream. It was about three hours long.

[Leo Laporte]

Did you watch it?

[Jason Snell]

I've gotten through a half of it so far while I was doing email and stuff, but it's pretty amazing stuff. Like I said, there's something about, there's something that just triggers Apple. When they talk about certain topics, they can be perfectly reasonable about certain other regulations. But when you talk about steering, when you talk about how they run the App Store, when they talk about how they allow people to outsiders to operate on their own platforms, they are just. I know that my hands and my mouth are covered with Blueberry Jam, but I swear I'm not the person who got into the Blueberry Jam and stole it all.

[Leo Laporte]

Wow, Apple, let's talk about. Oh, there's so many rumors as we get closer to iPhone day. First of all, iPhone day, everybody seems to agree will be September 8th. Is that credible? Jason, you kind of pay attention to this stuff.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's predictable.

[Leo Laporte]

It's exactly what we'd think because it's.

[Andy Inako]

The first Tuesday after the 8th is a Monday. So I would say the 9th, Labor Day. The 9th is the one where I'd put my money down the ninth.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay. First week after Labor Day week right now. Here's the.

[Andy Inako]

And that would mean that phones would probably ship on the 19th.

[Leo Laporte]

That's my guess. I'm leaving for vacation on the 20th, so I might be able to take my new iPhone with me. Are you guys looking to gonna look at the air? The rumored extra slim iPhone Air.

[Alex Lindsay]

I want the extra thick one.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah. Battery life.

[Alex Lindsay]

Like, I want battery life and power. Like, I don't care about how thin it is because I put it in a, you know, it's in a big thick case. Like, like I'm not, like, I'm not getting anywhere near the, you know. And if it's thin, I just want it to be in a thicker case to make sure it doesn't get bent or turned or anything else. And so. So I have literally zero, not even zero negative interest in some thinner phone. I'm sure that there are people that want them.

[Leo Laporte]

I might get it just to be different, just to not like, look at that.

[Jason Snell]

I think a lot of people are going to be like that. Apple is. I'm surprised that Apple doesn't do more, let's call them style phones where they're not just the meat and potatoes. Uber phone for everybody. We've got a slab phone for mid range people, slab phone for budget people. We've got a slab phone for people who've got $1,200 to spend. They are so good at design and making it worthwhile to pay for Apple design that I'm surprised that they haven't. This is pretty much the first time they've done a phone that is. You will be paying a lot for a lot more, a little more for a lot less phone. But. Oh my God, when you hold this in the Apple Store, you will. Some of you will decide that maybe I don't need an iPhone pro after all. I'm with you, Alex. There is. This is the absolute intersection of a product that I think Apple would do a great job of making and a product that I have no interest in owning whatsoever.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. And I do agree with you that making a thin phone would be great. I just wish they'd also go the other direction. Make a thin phone, make a really hefty, powerful phone. Tons of storage and power and battery.

[Andy Inako]

I keep hearing people saying this, but, like, the whole point is that you take the phone and if you need more Coverage, storage, battery, whatever. Like that you put a, you put a case on it and you put a battery case on it. And I guess the whole point is that if they, if they make. Because I, my. You're not the only friend of mine who has said I just want them to make a big one with a big battery in it. And it's like. But that's just the whole point of Apple making little ones is that you can then add to them as you see fit. But if they made one that was only available in that size and shape, it would be another SKU and it probably they know that it would only sell to a small amount. So instead they make the what, what my pal John Syracuse calls the naked robotic core. And then everybody, because I mean most people put cases on them too, but Apple doesn't build them. Like if they, if you like a case so much, why don't they make it with the case? And the answer is because they don't. Because they want it to just be this little thing and then you choose what you want. On top of that, I think the, the thin phone goes even more extreme in that direction. I think it could be cool, I think it could be interesting. You know, why not make it? For all the reasons you've said. But like if you just, I mean at some point, if you want a super rugged battery heavy phone, get a battery case and stick a rugged battery case and stick it on there and you've got it like nobody's stopping you.

[Alex Lindsay]

I was introduced to the first time I've ever seen my phone. I was capturing some stuff for my daughter for her music stuff. And first time I ever saw the phone, I was charging it externally as well as capturing from it. And I've never seen an iPhone say I'm too hot, I can't keep recording. Recording like I can't, you know. And I was doing, now I was doing ProRes HQ on it, but it, but that's when I started going, well, it'd be great if I didn't. I think it got my thoughts. I think there's a rumor want to just do it.

[Andy Inako]

Isn't there a rumor that they're doing some new cooling tech on the, on the. This next generation too where they're gonna, there's like the vacuum chamber, whatever it is.

[Alex Lindsay]

And the thing is, is that you can do the ProRes or the HQ. What you can't do is do HQ and charge it at the same time for a long period of time.

[Leo Laporte]

Time.

[Alex Lindsay]

Like that's the thing that gets you is. The. Is. It'll heat up because it's. It heats the battery a lot when you are charging it, and then you add a ton of processing to it. And that turned out to be the thing that got. But I'd never seen that message. It was a. It was a new message.

[Jason Snell]

I'm just. I'm just glad they're making it thicker where it counts, like the people. I remember the first camera, the. The Nokia 1020 or 1030 camera, where they said, screw it. We're going to bump out the camera modules because we want to have really great optics.

[Leo Laporte]

And.

[Jason Snell]

And designers just savaged it. Oh, look, it's got Oreo cookie on top of it. But, man, did they have the right idea. When you make the camera module thicker, the optics are much better and you get better pictures. And people will get over it once they see the great pictures that they make.

[Alex Lindsay]

I have to admit that I was a little excited when the early rumors showed the cameras going all the way across the top, thinking that maybe that the two cameras on either side would be much closer to interocular distance, so that when they do the 3D, you would actually be able to get a much more aggressive 3D. But it doesn't look like that's where they're going.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, the bump goes all the way to the. From left to right, which is in itself a feature. Well, that I saw that I was.

[Alex Lindsay]

Excited about the bump going left to right. I was just hoping they're gonna put a camera on the other corner of that bump so that we would get. And, you know, maybe. I mean, as rumors right now, as.

[Jason Snell]

As I've shown time and time again, the idea of, like a horizontal bump means that you can actually put it on the counter, and it does it, like, rock when you're actually using it. So that alone, I think will get a lot of people saying, okay, you know what? Maybe I don't hate the bump after all.

[Leo Laporte]

So speaking of bumps, Sonny Dixon has Pictures of the iPhone 17 Lens Protection Cover, which he says tells you what colors the new phones will come in. And they're actually some kind of dramatic colors. For the 17. Black, gray, silver, light blue, light green, and light purple. For the air, black, silver, blue, gray, and light gold. For the pro, orange, black, gray, silver, dark blue, and orange.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, orange, orange.

[Jason Snell]

Or it could be more of a copper.

[Leo Laporte]

It is kind of coppery.

[Jason Snell]

Maybe those are just the names that were, like, put attached to it.

[Leo Laporte]

That's what he called it.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah. The Mac rumor story about this has this concept render of the phone and they've taken dark blue and copper and made it into bright blue and bright orange. And Maybe it's just 10 years of knowing that Apple doesn't want to do colors and pro phones, but I have a hard time believing that those will look like that, I think, you know, and take your imagination and then desaturate it like 90% to be like faintly coppery instead of bright orange. And if you look close, you could see that it's a darker blue.

[Leo Laporte]

It's the laptop blue. Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Inako]

But I mean, amen, though. Great. I'd love to see. I would love to see phones, these colors. I just don't believe it.

[Leo Laporte]

I wouldn't have to buy a slim if they have an orange Pro. Yeah, I'll stand out plenty. Yeah, it's. Yeah, well, we'll see. And these are all, again, these are rumors. Although they're more credible now because they are undoubtedly manufacturing these. Right?

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

There's news that India's plants are already, are already accepting shipments of components. Whether they are components for a trial run or test run or an actual production run, unknown. But they are definitely getting components ready.

[Leo Laporte]

Even though China recalled all the Foxconn engineers.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, but that's not, that's not a problem.

[Leo Laporte]

They could make it.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah.

[Andy Inako]

Apple likes a multi toned phone design on the back. And so what the mockups are doing is saying, okay, that ring is going to be the color that it is. And I think it's, again, I hope it's true, but I think it's more likely that that ring is the pop of color on a much less colorful thing. We'll see.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

So. So like, that would be like the bright copper and the body would be like a darker copper. Not, Not a contrast.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah. Or a light, or a lighter sort of vaguely coppery sheen. White, gray. Because that seems to be what everything Apple does on the Pro phones is sort of like it's black, except not quite. Or it's white, except not quite. Or it's tan. Right. Like it's like, you know. Right. Remember desert titanium? I mean, this could literally be. It's basically beige with a little tiny touch of orange here and there.

[Jason Snell]

Basically, the designer's vision board for iPhone colors is they take stills from like the old Bob Newhart show, like the living room, the sunken living room. And if it's, if it's in that, if there's a rust, there's sort of a buff color, there's sort of a brown color. Yeah. They don't go. I am of the belief that every phone line should have one kind of wild color.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah, I mean my favorite iPhone color of the last decade was the the coral on the iPhone XR which was this just bananas orange. I loved it so much but they so rarely do that.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. We are going to take a break. When we come back we will talk about what you won't be getting this year. Mark Gurman disappointed me a lot. But anyway, we'll talk about that in just a second. You're watching Mac Break Weekly this episode brought to you by Spaceship, the new better way to register your domain to get your hosting your email. We've talked about Spaceship a few times already on MacBreak weekly for good reason. If you've seen it, you know it's quickly becoming one of the fastest growing domain name registrars and hosting providers. 3 million domains, 3 million under management in less than two years. And really I think most of it right now. That kind of rapid growth doesn't happen by accident. Spaceship offers well, you're looking at it right now, but beautiful, clean, straightforward interface and innovative product features. I love this messaging tool, Thunderbolt, end to end encryption using your domain name, which you completely own and control. I just love it. I am if you want. I went to Thunderbolt registered by the way they have below market prices for domain name registration. I registered Leo's im Leos im because I thought well this is my instant messenger now, right, for about four bucks a year and then set up a spaceship with a one button connect and suddenly I've got a messaging app fully encrypted end to end using Leo's im. I love that that by the way, that low pricing is something that really sets a Spaceship apart. We're not just talking about new purchase prices. Their renewal prices are also low compared to other companies. In fact, it's a no brainer if you're considering transferring your existing domains. If you've got a domain stuck with another back in primitive times registrar, transferring it to Spaceship is quicker and easier and simpler than you might think. The transfer process, and I'll vouch for this, incredibly straightforward, often completes in just 30 minutes. You don't even have to wait till your current domain expires. In fact, you probably don't want to because once the transfer is complete, they'll automatically add an additional year to your current registration so you won't lose any time. Plus you'll receive a complimentary one year subscription to spacemail, their incredible professional business email. And it'll be to your address, which is awesome. Very pro looking Right. If you're still. If you've got a company Getting [e-mail], no stop. To discover how much you can save compared to your Current Registrar, visit Spaceship.com TWIT and follow the link at the top of the page. When you're ready to switch and save, transfer your domain to spaceship today. Spaceship.comTwit. love these guys. So nice. A question from the chat. Is AOL email better or worse than a Yahoo email? They're the same, aren't they?

[Andy Inako]

Now I feel like you're just digging back through the different layers of sediment from the past of the Internet.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm amazed though. I mean, I get a lot of email. I see lots of Yahoo. Hotmail, AOL domains.

[Andy Inako]

But once you're on, it's hard to to. It's hard to get off. It's hard to switch.

[Leo Laporte]

Right? That's true.

[Andy Inako]

That'd be forever.

[Leo Laporte]

Doesn't have to be spaceship.com.

[Andy Inako]

I had a Yahoo. I mean, I log in for ages and they finally had like one breach too many where they're like, okay, everything is going to. You're going to have to come back to Yahoo. And do this and do that. And I was like, no, not just delete my account. It's fine. I don't care anymore.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't care anymore.

[Andy Inako]

It was a good. We had a good 20 years, Yahoo.

[Leo Laporte]

But for a long time I just sent all my spam to Yahoo. I still use Yahoo to log into Flickr, though.

[Andy Inako]

Come to think, I only used it for like fantasy football. I mean, honestly, that was about it. So when I retired from fantasy football.

[Leo Laporte]

You don't do that anymore. Do you do fantasy curling?

[Andy Inako]

I don't do fantasy sports. I decided it was too. I didn't care enough about. It made me like. It made me care about things artificially. And it just. I wasn't getting any joy out of it. It was more like work to go set my lineups and stuff. And I thought, well, if you're not enjoying it, it don't do it. So I stopped.

[Leo Laporte]

It's a huge time sink.

[Andy Inako]

It is.

[Leo Laporte]

See, Larry got it his own domain. LRAU.com oh, but that was back in the day, Larry. Ah. All right, all right. What are we not going to get? I was really. I'm holding out for the MacBook Pro with the OLED screen and maybe an M6 or an M5 processor.

[Andy Inako]

Well, late 26, early 27, I guess. Maybe.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, maybe not 26 even, because the M5 MacBook Pro is 26.

[Andy Inako]

Well, according to Gurman. I mean, Gurman said it's in fl. He was really vague about it. He said they're probably next year instead.

[Leo Laporte]

Of this fall, but Apple's considering pushing them back to 2026.

[Andy Inako]

Considering. Right. And he said it was, he also said it was like in flux or something. So it's, it's maybe we may not get it. This basically, if you're expecting an annual cycle where it's going to come out this fall like it did last fall, it may not. It may, it may be more like the previous year where you get it in, in early next year. That doesn't preclude Apple from releasing that new OLED MacBook Pro that's been rumored at the end of next year. Because they did that. Remember a couple of years ago they did two different MacBook Pro iterations in a single calendar year. They could do that again. It wouldn't be a problem. There's no law preventing them from doing it. Or they could wait and, and, and ship it in in 27. That's also possible.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Andy Inako]

One more cycle though, and then you'll get your OLED MacBook Pro. It sounds like. That's interesting. Also, the other quirk of that report is if it's true that they're not going to do a fall launch for the MacBook Pro. He said they are going to do a fall launch for the iPad Pro and that would mean the second Apple chip generation in a row to be launched by an iPad instead of by a Mac, which is wild if the M5 first appears in the iPad.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, I think it feels, it feels upside down to me, but I'm starting to understand, starting to think that the lower quality chips that are easier to make first, it's just so you put them out first, but it feels so backwards. But I can understand that you slowly.

[Jason Snell]

Work your way up.

[Alex Lindsay]

I mean, Jason said this before because.

[Andy Inako]

You don't have to have a Pro or a Max to launch an iPad, but you do launch a MacBook Pro.

[Alex Lindsay]

Because a lot of times I think that you have the chips just aren't yielding what they need to yield yet because a lot higher percentage of them because in the iPad we're not really measuring them the same way.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah, I mean, yeah, you can get that basic. I mean nothing about chip design is basic, obviously, but an M5 is going to be the most basic of the any of the M5 family. And you know, it's possible even via binning that the M5 that goes in the iPad Pro might not even be the same M5 specs that you might get in a MacBook Pro down the line. Maybe, maybe not. Who knows? And it lets, and it's a smaller volume, so it lets them kind of of ramp up the volume and they don't have to have the Pro and Max variants there on, on day one for that product. And so, yeah, I, I'm not surprised.

[Alex Lindsay]

I think it's amazing, you know, like these, these chips are so complicated and they, and they're baked, you know, like, they're baked, you know, it's kind of like we're computing with bread, you know, like it's, you know, they're, you know, and some of the bread is good, and some of the bread is good, like. Cause it's because they, you know, they come out as these wafers and some of them are running faster than the other. Some of them will come, continue to run and do what they need to do faster than the other ones, and that's what ends up in one place or another. And then when they run out of where to put them, they put, I think they put them in the Apple.

[Leo Laporte]

TVs.

[Alex Lindsay]

Throw them in here, you know, it'll be fast enough.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, I have handcuffed myself to this notion of a M6 OLED, fully redesigned MacBook Pro, and I will not allow myself to buy anything until then.

[Andy Inako]

Then good for you.

[Leo Laporte]

Sounds like.

[Andy Inako]

Go get them, Leo.

[Leo Laporte]

Tie me to the mast, please.

[Alex Lindsay]

Probably won't be foldable, though.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, let's.

[Andy Inako]

Speaking of foldables, all laptops are foldable. Okay, once. No, every time. All laptops are foldables.

[Jason Snell]

We going to get into is a burrito of a sandwich argument here. What kind of constitutes a fold? A hinge is not a fold. A hinge is something you open or close, sir.

[Andy Inako]

I don't know.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't know.

[Andy Inako]

I don't know. Feels foldable to me.

[Jason Snell]

If I had a white leather glove, I'd be slapping you with it. And I challenge you.

[Leo Laporte]

I challenge you, Sir. So the iPad Pro, which is slated to get the M5 chip as early as October. Wow, that would be in this October. Wow, that'd be interesting. The Airs will be upgraded from M3 to the M4, but otherwise limited changes.

[Jason Snell]

All right, I just, I just want to see. It won't be me, of course, but I just want to see the person who has got, who's got a big, big checkbook, who says, you know what? I'm going to buy the maxed out M5 iPad Pro. I'm going to attach the maximum number of monitors and cameras and microphones and external, external Thunderbolt connectors and everything that's I want to see exactly how much of a warship desktop I can turn this iPad into because it seems like the ambition is definitely there.

[Leo Laporte]

And as Mark says, the timing remains fluid, so don't take this as gospel. The company had been planning to release new 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pros later this year with M5, but now internally, Gurman says targeting a launch early next year. But it's fluid. It's fluid. I think this might, given the changes in iOS or I'm sorry, IPADOs, this might be the year of the iPad in 2026. Maybe these iPads are where people will go because they're now maybe a little bit more like real computers.

[Jason Snell]

IOS 26 is probably a bigger upgrade than the M5.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. MacBook Air is also coming in the first half of next year, according to Gurman. And a new external monitor, the first since the Apple Studio display. The highly overpriced but still desirable Apple Studio display three years ago. Early 2026 for Studio 2, or whatever they call it, the Smart Home Hub, originally planned for a few months ago, delayed indefinitely due to its reliance on the new Siri voice assistant features. That device, says Mr. Gurman, may now arrive in the first half of 2026 as well.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, that was interesting because he blamed not specifically Siri, but app intents for Siri that put the kibosh on it. And I think one of his previous reports, I remember because I liked the suggestion that Apple was basically saying we don't care. We're going to Apple watch this release where we're going to get the hardware on point and perfect. We're going to release it in time for holiday buyers and then we will give them a hell of an upgrade in the spring once Apple Intelligence is ready for this device. But we're not necessarily going to hold off on shipping what could be a very, very interesting and exciting product, particularly as a holiday sort of release, just because we don't know exactly when Apple Intelligence is going to be ready.

[Leo Laporte]

Mark says this is not a technical there are no technical reasons for this, he says. It's about smoothing out revenue growth, he said after a pandemic fueled sales surge in the early part of the decade, Apple has suffered from spottier demand the past two years. A slower rollout of new models, including iPads, contributed to the slump. So they're trying to kind of stretch it back so that they can get a more Even revenue flow, so your graphs look better.

[Andy Inako]

This feels like Bloomberg narrative building, where you're thinking, when you think about the market, you can have a little narrative like that. But I guess at most charitable, what I would say is if you've got, if, if you really crank up your product release engine so you've got a new version every year, everything should be smoother. And that the COVID everything was bumpier and that maybe they're just trying to get it so that they're back on track to just release everything every year and smooth everything out again.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. I also think it's very hard for Apple to get growth in the iPad. As someone who owns a lot of iPads, they just. It takes a long time before you feel like the iPad's running slow. Just, you know, you buy a new one and it's like five years into it and it's still. And it's again, because with the Macs, you know, new software comes out that gets slow. Like Resolve is suddenly a lot slower, you know, or a lot faster on the new M4s or whatever than it was before with the iPads. It's like, what app is actually making it? And it's just really hard to find.

[Andy Inako]

Honestly, Alex, the reason that you upgrade an iPad is not because it's slow like a Mac. You do it because. Well, yeah, there's a new hardware feature. Right. Like there's a new Apple pencil thing, or there's a new OLED screen, or there's a new.

[Alex Lindsay]

I don't, I don't know if the nerd really pulls. I don't know.

[Andy Inako]

I think, I mean, we can, we can debate, we can debate them, but what we can't debate is that it's faster, is the hardest of cells. So it is going to be more about the shape or some hardware feature they've added in the meantime. Not because, oh, my M1 iPad feels so slow right now. Because it doesn't. I've got one. It doesn't.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. And the USB C made a big difference when they switched over to that. I don't think cameras matter as much on the iPad because when are you taking pictures with your cameras? Yeah, and so I think it's over 60.

[Leo Laporte]

It's not allowed.

[Alex Lindsay]

Well, so I think that that's. I think it's always sluggish. It's such an amazing piece of hardware. But I've said this before. My kids have ones that are 10 years old that they're still using, and that's the end. And just kind of plotting along with.

[Leo Laporte]

I have to say, once you use the, the M4 Pro with that screen, you don't. That's the best screen Apple makes.

[Alex Lindsay]

You want to go back? I haven't done it yet.

[Leo Laporte]

Don't. You'll never come back.

[Alex Lindsay]

By the way, I bought the Vision Pro and it kind of sucked up a huge amount of like what I spend money on for a while.

[Leo Laporte]

So I just got the new Lenovo Chromebook. The Chromebook plus is with the OLED screen and it is the same thing. OLED just. I'm not, I'm. That's it for me now. From now on it's OLEDs, OLED, OLED all the way down. This is not for me. I'm going to show Jeff Jarvis to make him unhappy and then I'm going to give it to my daughter. She likes Chromebooks.

[Alex Lindsay]

So cute.

[Leo Laporte]

If you like folding displays, not the laptop version, the anantianako style, you'll be glad to know that apparently according to Ming Chi Kuo, Apple's decided to go with a crease free display solution from Samsung and it's going to be made by this fine M Tech company. The leading winner for Samsung's display crease flea solution for the foldable in second half 26.

[Jason Snell]

So that's, that was interesting. There were rumors floating around that Apple was so, so demanding of a folding display that doesn't have the crease. They'd actually developed their own technology or their own system for it. And so this was, this is a new twist that no Samsung is going to make it for them and they didn't. It's not Apple's design, it's something that Samsung created. And so that should show something about Samsung's ability to get on the ball. When a client as big as Apple is placing an order as big as that, it's going to create so much credibility for folding phones. The foldables that came out Samsung unpacked last week are amazing.

[Leo Laporte]

They were so thin.

[Andy Inako]

It's funny when we get in this game of like, oh, Apple and Samsung, they're arch rivals. But you know, the truth is Samsung Display is a giant company and you know they've been like giving samples to Apple for like a decade now and Apple's like, not good enough, not good enough, not good enough. And they keep talking about it, you know, they are desperate to get Apple on board and sell them a product and that they finally gotten to the point where there's something where Apple's like, yeah, that's good enough, let's do it. And, like, it's going to be. Yeah, it's a huge win for Samsung display. It's a huge win for foldable mobile phones. But, you know, that's pretty cool, right? Like, the idea that they've been iterating and iterating, and Apple's like, no, no, no, no. And they're like, all right, that's it.

[Leo Laporte]

Let's next.

[Andy Inako]

Let's. Let's do it. And that's. And it makes sense because they are one of the, you know, really one of the leaders, if not the leader in that kind of display technology because. And this is one of those great advantages because Samsung just puts it out there and says, let's see about this one. Whereas Apple has been happy to sit on the sidelines until now.

[Leo Laporte]

Nice.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah, yeah. Next year.

[Leo Laporte]

Next year. We're going to talk about health in just a moment. When we come back, you're watching Mac Break Weekly. Andy Anako, Jason Snell and Alexander Lindsay, who is on vacation in Cape. Not Cape Hatteras, Holden Beach. Holden Beach. He's holding the beach.

[Alex Lindsay]

But coming to you from Charleston. It's complicated just to be fixture from Olden Beach.

[Leo Laporte]

No. Hey, I appreciate that you went the extra mile, literally, to get a good picture and good sound. I appreciate it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's good. A good excuse to come to Charleston, meet see some friends. It all worked out.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Thank. Thank. Do we want to thank somebody for giving you access?

[Alex Lindsay]

Powered by Sage is the. I'm in their Sage studios and they have. They have these. This is a huge LED wall. Like it is. Oh, it's massive. Like it's.

[Jason Snell]

That's a wall.

[Alex Lindsay]

That's not a blue screen.

[Leo Laporte]

It's a real. It's a.

[Alex Lindsay]

That's a. It's. I think it's. I want to say it's like 8ft by 16ft behind me. Oh, 9 by 29 by 20. Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

So it's a.

[Alex Lindsay]

And I'm. That's an FR7 that's sitting in front of me, you know, here. And I've got four huge monitors that are. That are. So that I see here. This is. This is definitely the way to. To do this in style.

[Jason Snell]

So it's not only a matter of.

[Leo Laporte]

Time before Alex sets us all up at home, I imagine, but until then. Powered by Sage.

[Alex Lindsay]

Powered by Sage. I've been taking notes. I'm taking notes like, oh, this is really. This is really nice.

[Leo Laporte]

Somebody should tell the information about this. They decided they wanted to do a daily video tech news show streamed live at 10am every day, their first. They. Weirdly, they name it T I T V.

[Jason Snell]

Okay, that was.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay.

[Jason Snell]

That wasn't very well vetted.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, I mean, twit's bad enough, but anyway. And so their first stream was yesterday, and of course, a flagship interview. They got Mark Zuckerberg. Jessica Lesson, their CEO, interviewing Mark Zuckerberg. They throw to Jessica and Mark. They're talking. There's no sound. They're talking. Turns out Mark is live.

[Alex Lindsay]

Is hard. And, you know, and this is.

[Leo Laporte]

They literally have to cut away. I'm saying, sorry, we don't have any sound. So see you tomorrow.

[Alex Lindsay]

When I first met Blue, who was one of the owners of Powered by Sage, I was excited because they were doing zooms for 800 people at the beginning of COVID or whatever, and now.

[Leo Laporte]

That'S what we're seeing here on their screen. Look at this.

[Alex Lindsay]

But now they do them for 30,000. Like, 30,000 people in a. You know, so if you're doing a giant meeting and you need and. And being able to grab any single. Any person from that whole wall and that. That's a studio that you're seeing there. It's like a huge wall.

[Leo Laporte]

Incredible that they put.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's.

[Leo Laporte]

It's.

[Alex Lindsay]

It is the. The most advanced, you know, event studio I've ever been in.

[Leo Laporte]

So it's. Come on, Jessica, you can afford it. Go to Sage. There you go. Don't try to do it on your own.

[Alex Lindsay]

Absolutely.

[Leo Laporte]

I think they have an intern running. It's not good.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's hard, you know, like, we.

[Jason Snell]

We.

[Alex Lindsay]

You watch that all the time. If you haven't. If you don't do it all the time, it is really hard to just stand up and make it work. It's complicated. So.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, and how, you know, you get Mark Zuckerberg, which is a great get, and then there's no sound. How embarrassing is that? I mean, that's.

[Alex Lindsay]

I almost had that happen.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Well, that's why you go to the pros like Alex Lindsay or Powered by Sage. It's not. It looks easy. Well, that's the goal.

[Alex Lindsay]

When you're doing it for someone, you try to make it look easy because they won't do it again if they knew how hard it was. So when you're working for them, everything's like. It's always.

[Leo Laporte]

You don't want to never let them shatter sweat.

[Alex Lindsay]

And then they think, oh, I can do it myself. And then they go, try. And then they roll the 737 down the road, and then they're much nicer after that.

[Leo Laporte]

Yes. Thank you Alex. And thank you Sage, for giving Alex that Very nice, nice place to hang. This episode of Mac Break Weekly brought to you by Melissa. We talk about them all the time. They're the trusted data quality expert. They've actually been doing that longer than we've been doing this since 1985. Melissa's address validation app is available for merchants now in the Shopify app store. Oh, I gotta tell Henry about this. This is cool. Enhance your business's fulfillment and keep your customers happy. With Melissa. Enhanced address correction corrects and standardizes addresses all over the world, more than 240 countries and territories. And then Melissa adds missing components postal codes. They ensure compliance with local formatting rules which are all over the place. Every country is different. Melissa's address engine is certified by leading postal authorities worldwide. So they are giving you the right address and for deliverability, that's so important. Important Smart alerts. This is cool. Warn in real time as your customer is entering their address, please send me your new stuff. If there's a potential issue with the shipping address, customers get a little pop up giving them the chance to update their information before the order even goes into your system. So you've got always got accurate data in your system. Look, a business of any size can benefit from Melissa. The data experts, their data quality expertise goes far beyond just address validation. In fact, every industry can use Melissa Healthcare. Perfect example. Data cleansing and validation, absolutely essential. It's life or death in fields like healthcare. In healthcare, 2 to 4% of contact data is outdated every month. That means millions of patient records changing those records, they're in motion. They demand precision. Right? You can't send the medication the wrong address. Only Melissa can keep those addresses up to date. Slight variations in addresses, misspelled names can cause duplication and fragmentation errors, risks of misidentification or lost records. In healthcare, it's more than just a package doesn't get to the right place. These data inconsistencies can delay treatments. They can introduce errors in care delivery and complicate billing processes. Melissa's data enrichment services remove that guy. By using Melissa's enrichment as part of their data management strategy, healthcare organizations are actually using it to build a more comprehensive view of each patient which supports continuity of care, timely follow up. It also aids in predictive analytics allowing providers to identify patterns in patient behavior or medical needs that actually can inform preventative care. And of course your data is safe with Melissa. It's absolutely safe, compliant and secure with Melissa. Melissa's solutions and services are GDPR and CCPA compliant. They're ISO 27001 certified. They meet SOC2 and HIPAA high trust standards for information security management. They have to. They're the trustees of the most important stuff in your business, your data. So they protect it like it's their own. Get started today with 1000 records cleaned for free at melissa.com twit that's Melissa. We thank him so much for their support. Melissa.com/TWIT yeah, Grok has two new agents they call it that you could talk to the AI with. One is a waifu kind of anime girly that's kind of sexy and talks sexy. The other one is a wise ass fox. I can't even say on the air the I turn him on. And the first before I even. I said like hello. He says I can't even say it on the air. He says he's going to. I'm going to go teabag the mayor. He says, oh my. I said. I said what? Who's mayor? He said whatever mayor you want. And he got more filthy after that.

[Jason Snell]

How is this help? How is this helping you to help me to book a flight to Vienna?

[Leo Laporte]

I think Elon has decided that because GROK is kind of the also ran compared to Anthropic and OpenAI that they need to get attention. And there's no such publicity as bad publicity. This was actually. I think Amy Webb or Harper Reed floated this on Twitter on Sunday that the whole Mecca Hitler thing was intentional to get coverage because other other than that nobody ever heard of it. Right. If you're not an X user. So now that now it's even and he's getting coverage, I'm giving him coverage. Just appalling.

[Jason Snell]

Still got $200 million from the department of Defense.

[Leo Laporte]

He just, he just took $2 billion from SpaceX and put it in XAI. I don't even know if that's legal. I guess it is. It's all really Elon Enterprises. I don't know. Anyway, I'm just old man yelling at clouds. What let's talk about health. This is an interesting study and if it is, if it is genuine, could be amazing. Apple's newest AI model flags health conditions with up to 92% accuracy.

[Alex Lindsay]

And we talked about this when it first came out is that Apple with a lot of the anonymized data and everything else over time is going to see trends that you could never see any other way because people are have these on their wrists all the time. So it's absolutely going to this is just the natural reaction and it will get better. It's 92 right now.

[Leo Laporte]

It's using the information it's collecting every day away from us.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, well actually it was from the data from the heart and motion studies that they've been doing whichever I volunteer for 30,000 people or so. So yeah, yeah, so it's not everybody, but yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Evaluated on 57 health related tasks, the Apple model shows strong performance across diverse real world applications.

[Alex Lindsay]

I mean this is 162,000 individuals. I mean most of these studies are like 2,000 or maybe we'll get up to 10,000 and you know, and they're doing 162,000 and that's just a small sliver of the users. And so that's the huge advantage that this is going to have. And as they add more sensors it's just going to get more accurate.

[Jason Snell]

Well actually what's very interesting about this study is that it's not necessarily, hey, we've got these incredibly advanced fine tuned sensors that give us this finely grained information about something very, very technical. A lot of it is the fact that they're looking at not just, just the heart rate monitor, they're not just looking at that stuff, they're also looking at your behavior. How much are you moving around. Combine that with your sleep data. Combine that with all these other data that is tracking. So the paper mentions just parts are as simple as if this person is ABC and they suddenly are moving around a lot more slowly, gradually over the past two months it might be, is probably indicative of X. And I'm not totally surprised that they say that they. Excuse me. The study claims that this model is predicting pregnancy with a 92% accuracy. I'm surprised that things like that.

[Leo Laporte]

They say combining wearable sensors with physical measurements such as step counts can make for a pregnancy detector.

[Alex Lindsay]

Well and it's not just, I don't know if it's just step counts because the gate and you know that's the, and I think that there's a, again I don't think it's a single sensor that's going to make a difference but as you add more sensors it adds more to that cluster and it adds a more complex or more detailed picture of what's going on in someone's body. I think Tim Cook talked about this a very long time ago. He said I think our biggest impact is going to be health and I think that this is just the beginning of where that's going.

[Leo Laporte]

Really cool, really cool. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 comes out this fall I'll probably upgrade. I love my Apple watch.

[Alex Lindsay]

I love my Ultra 3. The Ultra 3 is 3.

[Leo Laporte]

This is a 2. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In fact, look, it shows my blood sugar because I'm wearing a cgm and so it goes to the Apple watch. And I know my blood sugar is right now 118. That's super useful. Yeah, that is good for me. I'm a type 2 diabetic, so. So that's healthy.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, I think that when the watch actually, I'm kind of waiting. When the watch actually measures sugar, I know it could take a while, but I feel like I don't know what the watch would do that I want it to. What more my Ultra would do. Like, I just don't know what feature. The only feature I could think of was glucose monitoring. I would buy the next.

[Leo Laporte]

Or blood pressure.

[Alex Lindsay]

Blood pressure, maybe. I mean, I have.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, you're old.

[Alex Lindsay]

Why Things. I don't. I take it. I take my blood. I actually for, you know, I take my blood pressure.

[Leo Laporte]

You are hypertensive. Okay.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. So I take it almost every day.

[Leo Laporte]

And so you'd want that, you'd want that.

[Alex Lindsay]

I want that. But I don't know how accurate I would lean into it. I think that the big thing about glucose monitoring is that it doesn't have to be perfectly accurate to give you a sense of what you're doing, you know? And so you see these, you see these peaks.

[Leo Laporte]

It's the delta that you care about.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, you care about. Oh, wow. Like, I, you know, like I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then immediately wanted to look at my watch. You know, like, like I just go. I, you know, I just waited. I waited a, waited 45 minutes and then opened up my, my phone and looked at it and like, oh, I should have.

[Leo Laporte]

It's got me walking.

[Jason Snell]

It's like you're posting to social media and your audience is your glucose.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, the funny thing is the whole.

[Jason Snell]

Family likes I get for that sandwich.

[Alex Lindsay]

The whole family gets into it because my, my daughter will be like, she saw me, she saw me eating it. She's like, oh, let's look at your glucose.

[Leo Laporte]

That's so cool that she's aware of. That is great, is really good. It's got me walking after every meal.

[Alex Lindsay]

Now or every day the same thing. I, I have this thing now. Like, I, I eat and I go, okay, now I gotta go take a walk.

[Leo Laporte]

Yep. Yeah. Yep. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. Apple silicon machine learning code. This is actually. I wish it went the other direction. But we were talking about AI machines, you know, the Mac Mini or the Mac Studio or I guess the Mac Pro with its NPUs, with its unified memory is actually a brilliant AI machine, maybe one of the best AI machines machines. Except it lacks Cuda because it doesn't. It's not Nvidia. I would love to see some sort of translator back and forth between Apple's. I don't know if it'd be metal or whatever it is to Cuda they are. Now Apple Silicon machine learning code may become more easily portable to Nvidia hardware now because there's a project designed to develop on an Apple Silicon Mac and then exporting it to Cuda cross compiling in effect. This is Apple's MLX is the company's open source machine learning framework. And people are working now to add support to the back end for Cuda. It'd be nice if it went both.

[Jason Snell]

Ways, but even this is pretty significant. Nvidia is the number one producer of AI chips out there. So the idea that you're doing your development work on Apple AI and that the tease that maybe this can be ported to again the most popular chip platform for AI in the world basically validates the amount of work you're doing on Apple AI.

[Alex Lindsay]

I will say when we talked about pivots before, man, Nvidia has done a pretty good job.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, well.

[Alex Lindsay]

To AI.

[Leo Laporte]

So having CUDA to Apple would be perhaps a problem because I imagine Nvidia would, would very actively defend it. Nevertheless, it is a moat. So this is the hacker news story. Apple's MLX adding CUDA support. I don't know if that's quite fair. It's really cross compiling on Apple to Cuda going the other way might be.

[Jason Snell]

A problem and it is very early going. But it just goes to show that the more portable you can make things, the more credible Apple becomes. They don't have to own everything. They just have to make sure that whatever's out there, the work that you do on Apple in artificial intelligence is going to be embracing whatever technology, software, hardware models that are outside the Apple ecosystem.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, I went out and ordered AMD this new AI plus Ryzen, hoping to have a home AI server. But I realized one of the things it does is Unified Mountain. I realized really I've got the Mac Mini here with a lot of memory. I probably should just be running my home AI on that. Yeah, this is perhaps not the best image, you know, where I'm going. Hannah Waddingham, the star of TED Lasso says Season Four is like a, quote, beloved dog that was buried and now we've exhumed it.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

To be.

[Jason Snell]

To be fair, she was shooting from the hip. She was on a red carpet and just asked. Answered a spontaneous question. I'm not sure the publicist signed off on this, but. Whoa, we're talking about Ted Lasso, aren't we?

[Alex Lindsay]

So, like, a zombie. She says she's here for a dog. Like, it's like half skeleton and half, you know, like, sometimes.

[Leo Laporte]

This was at the Smurfs premiere in Los Angeles. If you appear in a movie, a live action film about Smurf Smurfs, I guess, you know, when you go to the red carpet, you might be a little stoned. I don't know. She says, I was hankering and hankering and hankering and hankering to see where my Rebecca had gone, where she was going to. She's my girl. She's in my bloodstream. So I'm thrilled it's been exhumed.

[Alex Lindsay]

Evidently someone told her that the season three was the last season. Like, I think that.

[Leo Laporte]

No, I think everybody thought it was, didn't they?

[Alex Lindsay]

And they were like, hey, this did so well.

[Jason Snell]

Let's.

[Alex Lindsay]

This is the typical Hollywood thing. It's like, well, this did really well. We might want to do one season, didn't they?

[Leo Laporte]

I don't. I didn't watch it. But did they kind of. In season three, kind of wrapped it up, right? He. It's over.

[Jason Snell]

At least. At least for Ted.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. But he's coming back for season four, so I don't know what he's going to be doing.

[Jason Snell]

Maybe there's. I think I read the story. The basic storyline is that. Is that Hannah Waddingham's character is like buying a. A women's soccer team, expanding her sports portfolio, and maybe bringing Ted back for that.

[Andy Inako]

All right.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, Ted will come back for that. By the way, I have been informed, is not a live action Smurf movie. So now my heart is broken. It's just a new animated Smurfs movie.

[Jason Snell]

But wait, wait two and a half years. I'll do the live action remake.

[Leo Laporte]

I want a live action Smurf.

[Alex Lindsay]

I don't know. I don't know if we do want that.

[Leo Laporte]

I think Hannah Waddingham as Mama Smurf would be just something else.

[Jason Snell]

Like Hannah Waddingham. We want to see her in more things.

[Leo Laporte]

In more things. Let's see. Do you want to buy Steve Jobs Commune? This is his counterculture commune in Oregon. It's for sale. Apparently he. This is the Orchard he worked in to pick apples. Right. And that's where he got the name Apple. Apple. It's very early years of Steve Jobs. There's the Apple orchard. Let's see. How much would it be? It might be a good. Oh, only $5 million in McMinnville, Oregon.

[Jason Snell]

And not only that, but the previous buyer of the property, as though he was auctioning this shack on Sotheby's, like, verified the red shack where Steve Jobs actually slept.

[Leo Laporte]

Look, there's an Apple logo in the window.

[Jason Snell]

And preserved it. Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

It looks like the half of this was cut off there. I don't know what's going on with that shack.

[Jason Snell]

I don't know. It looks like he shared it with chickens or something. It's not.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, Cider house rules here. Look, there's the. The interior of the cabin looks much as it did when he lived there. Yeah. Okay. Except I don't think there was an Atari computer on the desk. Why is there an Atari on the desk?

[Jason Snell]

Because he lived there, apparently, at the same time when he and Moss were developing bricks out.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, okay.

[Jason Snell]

Which is why, of course, there's an Atari 400 personal computer on the desk.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Woz was a frequent visitor to the farm. That's maybe a little bit of history, eh? You know, the property has been a commune until the mid-80s and then fell into disrepair. It could be used as a corporate retreat, says the seller. A hunting lodge, a vineyard, a winery, or any other commercial venture. Sure, it does look pretty. It does look pretty. I wonder how much more is it worth? Because Steve Jobs walked around barefoot there. I don't know. You could make a little museum. It's home to the McMinnville is home to the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum and the Wings and Waves water park, in case you thought you were moving to the backwoods. Oh, my, no.

[Jason Snell]

Home of the splash meister General.

[Leo Laporte]

This is an interesting website. A history of Mac settings, 1984-2004. You put this in, right?

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, It's a real. Designer basically decided that the control panel is the only thing that is, like, that's been a constant from 1984 through today, even though they updated it and changed the name of it. And so he did this beautiful, like, interactive, like, website that basically shows the design changes that Apple has gone through, as expressed through how they designed the control panel and how it changed over the years. And it's not just, like, static text with some screenshots.

[Leo Laporte]

It's a nice site.

[Jason Snell]

It really is a beautiful experience, like navigating this thing.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. This is really cool.

[Jason Snell]

And it is an interesting look at, like, here's every setting and user control you needed for the very first Mac. And then compare and contrast to what you have to be confronted with today in order to manage a system, even in a minimal way.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Boy, it's memory lane, isn't it? I bet you all have had almost all of these. I have, yeah. Wow. We thought we were so cool when we got the first color Mac laptop. Wow, look at that. So perfect. So pretty. There's the imac. Nice orange color. I'm sorry, Copper. I don't know what color.

[Alex Lindsay]

One of the little extensions.

[Leo Laporte]

And then look at the 3D kind of design. Starting to get a little 3D on the control panel. Yeah, there's this PowerBook. Oh, a next cube. That even has the next cube in here. Yeah. I did see an article about setting the magnesium next cube on fire. Don't you do that?

[Jason Snell]

Ah, that seems instinctively like, not a good thing to do.

[Leo Laporte]

Not a good thing. Not a good thing. Although magnesium is flammable. Inflammable, actually.

[Jason Snell]

But, you know, it was the. It was the Simpsons that taught me that flammable and inflammable mean the same thing. I honestly thought that one meant, no, you can't. No, it doesn't go on fire.

[Leo Laporte]

It's like, enervated. You think, oh, oh, that must be energized. No, I was told. My dad told me this. He says, you see the back of that gas truck? See, it says flammable. He said, they used to say inflammable, but people thought it meant it wouldn't blow up. So they had to change. They had to make up a new way of saying it can be inflamed, and they just call it flammable. My dad was a professor, in case you didn't know.

[Jason Snell]

It's not a rash. It's a bomb on wheels. Be really clear about this.

[Leo Laporte]

Not inflamed. So long. Airport Extreme and Airport Express. They are now officially obsolete. I don't think Apple will ever make routers ever again. You think?

[Alex Lindsay]

No.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, I don't think they will either. Although it is such a perfect thing for them to make because it's still a. Routers are still kind of a mess between the need to keep them ultimately secure and also to support, like, the very, very latest versions of WI fi to get the best speeds out of your latest Macs and iPhones and stuff like that. And also configurating things when you need to do port forwarding or Make a connection from your inside network to the outside network. It's still either it works without any trouble whatsoever with one mouse click or you're on a two week sleigh ride through every technical hell that you ever deal with. This is a problem that Apple could solve.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, I agree with you. I think that Apple could do something. I don't think they will but I do think that this building a network where anywhere, any device that you have is all kind of tied together but it's also secure and you have it all just works would be a huge opportunity for Apple. But I don't think they're going to go go down that path. They just have a hard time concentrating on lots of things.

[Jason Snell]

So indeed. Also, also obsolete the trash can. Mecharoox mech bro, it's got to be.

[Alex Lindsay]

Hard that you spend a bunch of time on designing of something and they call it the trash can. But I mean well you knew it.

[Leo Laporte]

Was, it was so pretty but it was so broken in so many ways. Yeah, yeah.

[Jason Snell]

God. And, and it was, it was announced with such fanfare I think. Didn't Phil say like hey, can't innovate my boat.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

And like yeah, I mean it looks really nice but it can't keep your chips cool and it's impossible to upgrade and yeah, nice try. Nice concept art.

[Alex Lindsay]

But yeah, it worked for a while. But I got. We had like three of them I.

[Leo Laporte]

Think and my first one failed right there was that. So I sent it back, got a new one and that worked okay. Yeah, but it was never that. That never felt that fast, did it?

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, still intel.

[Leo Laporte]

That's the problem. Boy, did you see the lip? Bhutan, the new CEO of Intel says yeah, it's kind of over.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, laid off another 3,000 people.

[Leo Laporte]

He says we're no longer in the top 10 chip manufacturers Intel. Boy, Apple's looking pretty good at their decision to abandon intel. So.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

And it's looking less than. Wow, what a visionary, daring, forward thinking. No, they basically said we can either go down the toilet with you or we can decide to live. And I think that we're going to be living. Thank you very much.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Wow.

[Jason Snell]

It's sad.

[Leo Laporte]

It's so sad. I can't wait till Thursday because I am going to immediately download Cyberpunk 2077 coming to Apple Silicon Max on Thursday. This was the game a couple of years ago. Even though its launch was very much marred by bugs and problems and so forth. But I think those are probably all ironed out. Oh came out for 25, 20, 25 years ago.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah, you had to wait five years. But the bugs are probably out now.

[Leo Laporte]

So you're glad you waited.

[Jason Snell]

And the mean 11 year olds have probably moved on to another platform, so you're probably safe.

[Andy Inako]

And they're all 16 now, now, so.

[Leo Laporte]

Right. 16 gigs of RAM required for anything. There are actually M1 and M2 Mac configurations with 8 gigs of RAM. Can you believe that?

[Alex Lindsay]

I have them. I have a whole stack of them.

[Leo Laporte]

But you can run Zoom on it, right?

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We run. We can do up to 8 output. Like 8 1080p outputs from an 8 gig Mac mini.

[Leo Laporte]

And if you already own Cyberpunk 2077 on Steam, good news, you do not have to buy it again. Which is actually, I think I do own it. I'll have to check. Yeah, I mean it's good.

[Jason Snell]

It's not great that we have to wait five years for aaa, very popular AAA game like this to come out. But it's not as though Mac is a. Mac is a really, really lucrative target. But. And there are times where AAA games would just not arrive on the Mac at all. And everyone's game is their first game. So we got the. I don't own a game console, but I've been really curious about Cyberpunk. I've been watching the game videos. The lighting is incredible.

[Leo Laporte]

That's a good game.

[Jason Snell]

The world is pretty nice. It's almost up there with Red Dead Redemption.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, it's kind of that style. First person shooter. Apple has 81 Emmy nominations. 81. Which does not put it on the top. Netflix and HBO have more, but Severance and the Penguin leading the pack. This was earlier today. Severance is the early favorite in best drama. I golly if it doesn't. Although hbo, the Pit, White Lotus andor all nominated as. As was the diplomat. Last of us Slow Horses in Paradise. Boy, those some good movies. Good TV shows, I should say. Slow Horses is also Apple. Slow Horses, yeah. Loves Slow horses. Diego Luna snubbed for Andor. That's kind of a surprise. I thought I was quite good in that. Noah Wiley, who is in the pit.

[Alex Lindsay]

The pit is really good. If people haven't watched the pit.

[Andy Inako]

Great show.

[Leo Laporte]

It's a great show.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's not very Pittsburgh. As someone who came from Pittsburgh, they sell it as Pittsburgh, but no one has a Pittsburgh accent. Accent which everybody there, if they're like. At least the folks that work like not the doctors, but the nursing staff and everything else, they'd have some pretty thick accents that aren't there. And, you know, they don't show any of Pittsburgh.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, you're from that area. That's right. You would know. Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

So it's kind of like what's going on here, you know, like, we, you know, and so. But what's really interesting about the Pit, number one, is they, quote, unquote, save money by only they really have one set. Right. And. Or one large set. But they don't go anywhere. But it's like, I think. I think they're doing like $6 million an episode, which is right now, you know, inexpensive for these kind of things. But the. But the other thing that's really interesting when you watch the Pit is there's no music. Like, there's no. There's no music. And my wife was like, I don't like it. There's no music. I'm like, no.

[Leo Laporte]

I think it's.

[Alex Lindsay]

You just feel like you're there. We're not adding anything to it. We're just having you feel like you're. You're part of it. And I think it's a really. And it's really good. It all happens in one day, you know, like, I mean, over 15 hours or 15 episodes or 12 episodes, whatever it was. And so it all just the next hour, and it's super intense. And definitely one of my favorite shows of the last year.

[Leo Laporte]

Noah Wilde's been doing this for 26 years. Never got an Emmy nomination. It's first. But here's a little piece of trivia. He played Steve Jobs in Pirates of Silicon Valley.

[Andy Inako]

Yes, he did.

[Leo Laporte]

Way back when.

[Andy Inako]

Up against Anthony Michael Hall, Bill Gates.

[Leo Laporte]

Wow.

[Andy Inako]

And John. What's his name, the bender from Futurama? Is Ballmer in that also? John DiMaggio. Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Wow.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

1999 for that. So good on you, Noah. You finally, 26 years later, you get your first nomination.

[Alex Lindsay]

I think when you look at these Emmys, though, I mean, whether it's across the board, I think that you're seeing this inflation of what it takes to. To compete in the sense that, you know, the. The. It's really, really high end stuff is the only stuff that people are really, you know, nominating but also watching because you're competing against, again, YouTube. I'm gonna fill time. If I'm gonna fill time, I'm gonna go to YouTube. If I want to watch something specific, I'm gonna go watch one of the. And so you have to spend a lot of money. But all the. I think this is one of the challenges that Hollywood has right now. All the stuff in between isn't really moving the needle. Like it's not. And so they, you know, these. You're seeing more and more money spent on less and less shows because that's the only way you really get eyeballs.

[Leo Laporte]

Also, best actor nomination, not only for Noah Wild, but for Gary Oldman in Slow Horses.

[Alex Lindsay]

So good.

[Leo Laporte]

Really.

[Alex Lindsay]

Did you see. Did you see the interview with him with Colbert? Oh, my gosh. The Kabar interview, The long one on location. It's so good.

[Leo Laporte]

He's trying to do a Graham Norton. It was kind of interesting. It was a total ripoff of the Graham Norton format. But in it, I thought the funniest thing was he talks about going into makeup and his co star in it. Oh, I can't remember her name. Says you wear makeup for this show. She said you could do it right now. You don't need to wear makeup. He looks a little seedy. I guess they have CD makeup.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Gosh. I recommend that show, though.

[Alex Lindsay]

So good.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Studio. The Studio, which is also an Apple TV production, the Seth Rogen comedy. 23 nominations tied the record for the.

[Andy Inako]

Most nominations by a comedy. And it was the record as the Bear, which isn't a comedy. So technically, I guess.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. I never understood why the bear was.

[Andy Inako]

Because it's short. Because it's a half hour. And that they decided when they say comedy, they really mean kind of half.

[Alex Lindsay]

Half hour.

[Andy Inako]

Ish. But. But yeah. So huge for the. The studio as well. I mean, it really. Apple had the most nominated drama and comedy at the Emmys. They were third in total noms. But I mean, it's a. It's a real big deal for them.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. Well. And I think the part of the studios getting so many nominations is the people in Hollywood who are voting for this for nominations get it.

[Andy Inako]

They've all seen it. They've all.

[Alex Lindsay]

They've all been there. They're like. It's all. It's all inside jokes that they get. Get all the jokes, you know. So I think that's part of why they got so many nominations.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, good On Apple, it's. I think this is fairly important to the success of Apple tv. Not because these nominations drive traffic, although I guess they do. But really what they drive is creatives. Creatives are looking for a place they can be and get and win awards. Is that right? Am I right? Yeah. Okay.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. And it's, you know, I think that right now it's a. If you actually can get work doing this right now, it's a great time because everyone Everyone on all these teams are. Are really, really the best in the world at what they do. It's just hard. It's hard if you're not at that. At that certain level. But so a lot of these shows are just have an incredible amount of talent both in front of the camera and behind the camera to do it.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah. Oh, by the way, little known actor Harrison Ford got his first Emmy nomination for shrinking for supporting in a comedy.

[Leo Laporte]

Shrinking's good. He's good in shit.

[Andy Inako]

It's a good show and he's great in it. I mean, that's, that's the thing is. Yeah. Shrinking and Slow Horse has got a bunch of major nominations.

[Leo Laporte]

He's a curmudgeon in it, which is nice to see him as being kind of a cranky old man.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah. Brett Goldstein says that it's based on his dad.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, really?

[Andy Inako]

Yeah. And his dad was like, was your dad offended by that? And he said, no, I told my dad that Harrison Ford was playing him. He was fine with it.

[Leo Laporte]

It's a nice dry kind of humor. And I. That's kind of my. I like it.

[Andy Inako]

It's a great show. It really is.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Good cast on that show.

[Andy Inako]

Severance. I mean, let's. I think, I mean, what a success story that is in its second season. It really, I think this is the consequence of it being on Apple tv. Plus is that that first season was a slow burn. Right. Like, not everybody had it, not everybody watched it. But over the course of the, what, two years between seasons? I feel like lots of people saw Severance and so when it came back, it was in the Nielsen ratings. It was one of the most streamed shows of the year. I think it was the fifth. I think there was a stat that's like the. The first half of this year was the fifth most streamed TV show on Apple TV plus, which doesn't have a lot of viewers. And now it's got the most emmy nominees at 2027. So what a. What an interesting kind of like build for it. But it. If we didn't know, now we know for sure that it is. Yeah, it's on top.

[Leo Laporte]

There's a guy in our YouTube, Brian, who says they don't talk about how utterly silly the Emmy Awards are. I just want to say thank you to the Academy for the Emmy Awards. They're not silly. They're not well.

[Alex Lindsay]

And I think, I do think that Apple, when we talk about what Apple had to do, I mean for Apple tv, I mean, they took on this. We're going to do the high end. We're only going to focus on high end. We're not going to try to do quantity, and we're really going to try to put everything into everything that we're making. And I think that if they, if they weren't. If they got to this point six or seven years in and they were not getting these kinds of Emmys, I think that they'd have to really rethink what they were doing. But it seemed to be going the right direction in that area.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, they are kind of in last place as a streaming network. I mean, they're not. Yeah, but it's already troubled if you're a streaming network. There only really is one, which is Netflix. Netflix and YouTube dominate TV viewing these days.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, I don't know. Again, it's part of a larger ecosystem. They don't know if they need it to be as big as everybody else. They're not trying to, you know, and they've done real well with computers where they weren't the dominant. The dominant.

[Andy Inako]

Ryan.

[Leo Laporte]

It may be a mini Emmy, but it's an Emmy. Okay.

[Jason Snell]

It's just as pointy as the big one.

[Leo Laporte]

It is, actually. It's deadly. And mine broke. That's why it's so small, because it fell off the shelf. But I kept. Kept it even though it's a little messed up. We don't have any Vision Pro stories. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

[Andy Inako]

No, not this time. No, next time.

[Alex Lindsay]

All I'll say about the Vision Pro is that I flew across the country and from the time they finished the announcements to the time that we stopped at the gate, I pretty much had the Vision Pro on the whole time. And if you're traveling a lot, man, what a great experience. I loaded a whole bunch of movies. I'm just sitting there watching movies and doing stuff. It is just the way to travel.

[Leo Laporte]

Flight attendants offer you drinks, snacks, anything.

[Alex Lindsay]

I've learned now that I don't wanna. I get up, I get a window seat and I have, I have my water and my stuff. Like, I don't want to deal with. Like, the only stress about the Vision Pro is, is trying to wait for drinks or whatever. So I bring whatever I'm going to eat and I sit down and I, I put it on and I. And I did the meditation thing and I was like, oh, I got some time. I'll do 20 minutes of meditation. Then I fell asleep, you know, I.

[Leo Laporte]

Was like, oh, perfect.

[Alex Lindsay]

So it was, you know, it just, just put me to put me. And I never sleep on a flight. And so for me to fall asleep, it was. Was useful. And so anyway. But yeah, just such a. It's a. I know that that can't be the only thing it can do, but if, man, as a frequent flyer, it's pretty nice.

[Leo Laporte]

All right, let's take our final break and then picks of the week coming up next. You're watching Mac Break Weekly. We're glad you're here today. Special thanks to our Club Twit members who make this show possible. 25% of our revenue now comes from the club. That's actually amazing because. And we started the club for that reason because we saw advertising slipping during COVID and we thought, you know, wouldn't it be nice if, if the audience supported the show? That was always the dream. And I think we've made something pretty compelling. 10 bucks a month gets you ad free versions of all the shows because I'm never the guy who's going to charge you and then show you ads too. So ad free versions of all the shows. You get the access to the Club Twit Discord, which is a wonderful place to hang out, plus all the special programming we do in the Discord. We've got a bunch of stuff we did that last Friday. We, we did Chris Marquardt's photo time and our AI user group coming up this Friday. I feel like we have something this Friday. Stacy's book club is coming up. Micah's crafting corner, I think is this week on Wednesday. So these are special events that are in the club. Club Twit Discord for club members only. If you can't be there live, you can watch after the fact. The Twit plus feed is just for Club Twit members and has all that extra content on there there. I think we've made it something pretty compelling. But more than anything else, the reason to join, it's a way of voting, of saying, yeah, yeah, I kind of like what you're doing and I want you to keep doing it. So if you like the content here on Twit, that's the best way to support Micah's crafting quarters. Tomorrow, 6pm Pacific. It's the third Wednesday he does Lego, but you can bring in any kind of code. Cozy crafting project. Oh, yeah, we're going to have a. On Thursday, we're going to be interviewing somebody who can't be there for the live version of Intelligent Machines. Google Models senior director. She is in charge of AI at Google, so that will be good. And then Richard Campbell on Friday is going to build his brand new PC. So I'll be kibitzing, I'll be doing the color while Richard builds the PC. So that's going to be fun. AI's user group hands on tech. Stacy's Book Club. We got a lot of stuff. I hope you will. And we're still doing. This is how you lose the time war, Jason. And you're still invited if you want to be there for that Twit TV club. Twit. If you're not already a member, please consider supporting us. We really appreciate it. Thank you club member. Our show today, brought to you by Cash Fly. When I say brought to you by, I mean literally brought to you by Cash Fly. They're our content delivery network. For over 20 years, CashFly has held the track record for high performing, ultra reliable content Delivery serving over 5,000 companies in over 80 countries. We're one of them. At TWIT, we've been using Cash Fly practically since we started. Almost 20 years. We love their lag, free video loading, the hyper fast downloads, the friction free site and interactions. I love it that we don't even have to think about it. You don't have to think about it. The shows just arrive without any fuss or trouble. Cashfly's proof is in the petabytes. We actually deliver petabytes worth of content every month through Cash Fly. If you're doing video events, they can stream smoothly to millions of concurrent users worldwide with less than one second latency. Try that that with any other service. Online games start 70% faster, scale instantly, play without lag, software downloads flawlessly. Great for when you're releasing something new or you're putting out patches and updates. HD video plays on demand with ultra fast sub second starts on every device. And you know that's important. People don't wait. And podcasts like ours reach global audiences in record speed at any scale. We love you Cash Fly. Cashfly delivers rich media content up to 158% faster than other major CDNs and allows you to shield their site content in their cloud, ensuring a 100% cash hit ratio. We do that. It's miracle. And with Cash Fly's elite managed packages, you'll get the same VIP treatment we do. Cashfly. It's like gaining an extension of your team. And when your entire business depends on delivering massive amounts of content like ours, you don't want to go it alone. We tried, believe me, no terrible idea. You can't count on personalized help if you're alone. You can with Cashfly anytime. From a tenured expert who gets IT Engineer to Engineer 24 7. Just ask our engineer Patrick. He'll tell you he loves Cashfly. Learn how you can get your first month free at cashfly.com. that's C-A-C-H-E-F-L-Y.com TWIT I did an interview a podcast with Cash Fly founder Matt Levine and I think it's going live. Let me just check. I think they sent me an email saying it's going live soon. Yeah, the Anycast episode July 10th. The trailer went out July 17th, Thursday, the full episode. I will put a link everywhere on all my socials for it because it was a great conversation. So Matt Levine and I Cash Fly. Where is the link on that? They sent me all the information. They didn't send me a link. Okay, well. Well I think if you go to cashfly.com you might find it. Cashfly. I say it every show bandwidth for Mac Break weekly brought to you by cash fly at c-a C-H-E f l y.com twit and watch for me. I'll post it on all the socials. My interview with Matt Levine, he interviewed me coming up on Thursday. All right, pick of the week time. Andy Inoco kick us off.

[Alex Lindsay]

Off.

[Jason Snell]

Mine is going to be familiar to a lot of people because it was been recommended by Doc Rock, been recommended by Allison Sheridan, but I just discovered it recently. It's blip.net it is a direct device to device file transfer system utility, whatever you want to call it. And it makes it just trivially easy to move any file from where it is to where you want it to be.

[Leo Laporte]

Like Airdrop. Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

Except instead of being limited to the Apple ecosystem, it works with my Android phone, it works with Windows, it works with Linux, it works with their clients for pretty much absolutely everything. And it's not like Dropbox where or something or cloud service where oh, you're uploading it to a server, then it gets downloaded by that server. No, it will establish a connection. I've got the app installed on my Android phone, on my iPad, on my iPhone and on my MacBook. And so just directly through the sharing sheet and pretty much any of these devices. If I want to Send Like a PDF file from my Android phone to the MacBook, I just share it just through the sharing sheet, select My MacBook Pro and then because I've it knows that these are all my personal devices automatically, just like Airdrop, it just get a little bit box pops up Say, oh, by the way, I'm receiving a file from your phone and then just puts it in the downloads folder. And it's all done directly, either through your WI Fi if you're connected to the same WI FI access port, or even if you're just both existing on the Internet miles and miles away. You can share files between your devices and other people's devices if you know, like, what email address they're using to sign up for Blips for. It's super, super fast. It's very, very slick the way they've written all this software to make it as intuitive and as easy as possible. It never stutters. I've tested it with. Normally I'm using it just for, oh, I just want this file on my phone. But if you have like a 400 gigabyte backup file, it'll take a while to do it, but it will turn it. It'll chug it right along and just send it right from point A to point B in a very efficient manner. Like I said, I was surprised that it worked as well as it did. I've seen a lot of tools that are kind of like this, but none that are done with this level of execution. The good news and the suspicious thing is that for an individual user, it's also free. They make their money by charging 25 bucks a month for businesses to use it, or even more money if enterprise systems want to use it. And they also accept donations from individuals. The. The only downside of being an individual user instead of like a subscription user is that obviously you'll get community support, but you won't get direct support from Blip. You get not necessarily, not slower speeds, but they are. I think they're bent. They're. They are managing the speeds of all of its free users in one big pile so that your speeds may vary if there's a lot of demand on the network. But once again, Blip does not host or provide web links to your files. Again, all it does is provide a conduit from the Blip app on the device that's sending and the Blip app on the device that's receiving. And again, I can't think of a bad thing about it. This is why I did a lot of searching for it, because I'm like, there must be some sort of a catch. And that's when I discovered that Doc Rock had recommended it. Allison Sheridan had actually recommended it, and she had introduced it to Adam Angst, who himself wrote a nice tribute to Blip. Net. I've put it on absolutely everything. And it's just solved a very simple, frustrating pain point. Previously, if I needed to send something from my phone to my Mac or vice versa, I would wind up just basically creating a note in Google keep or uploading it to Google Drive and then having to switch over, find it in Google Drive and download. This is exactly the solution that I would have wanted. It's the sort of thing that I just wish that. I wish that it were a common protocol that just all machines just happen to support. The only drawback that I find with it is that I wish it supported WI FI direct like Airdrop does. So you do need to have some sort. You need to be on the same network. Excuse me, the two devices you're doing the transfer between both have to be able to access each other through the the same network. Whether it is you're connected to the same WI FI base station or you're both just happen to be connected to actual broadband. So that's kind of a bummer when like, oh God, Airdrop. I wouldn't. I could be sending this like from one point to another just like on the train, the commuter train to Boston. But it will work. But I will have to like, I will have to like use this as a hotspot and basically use that as basically as a WI FI network. Other than that, that's the only thing I can think of that I wish that they would improve. Like I said, simple, cheap as hell and solves a major, major problem in a very, very nice way.

[Leo Laporte]

Nice. Blip.net to learn more Alex Lindsey Pick of the Week.

[Alex Lindsay]

So because I'm traveling, people often wonder, what do you do with your old Apple tv? I have an Apple TV that sits in my bag like where it sits in like every time I leave. And I just have to say if you're not using it for this, you're crazy. If you're using Apple tv. I have all of my Apple TV settings, everything all ready to go. You know, on that Apple tv I kind of plug it in and make sure that it works. It's some old, I don't know, it's two generations old or something like that. And you know, and I've, you know, as you update it, having a travel Apple TV is just so great. When you go to a rental house or any, you know, like rental, you're renting a house, you just walk in, in, unplug whatever they have plugged into that tv, you plug in your HDMI and you connect it to the WI Fi and you're Back to what? You're back to your life. Life looks exactly the same as it did when you left the house. And I just think that, I think a lot of people underestimate the value of just having that, especially if you're gonna be gone for a couple days. And I have to admit, I use them in a lot of places. But you can share.

[Leo Laporte]

You probably can't use it in a hotel, though, right?

[Alex Lindsay]

You can. I have used it in a hotel, but not very often. Often, but usually at any kind of rental house or anytime I'm traveling.

[Leo Laporte]

You need to know how to get on the WI Fi. Basically, yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

I, I, I, I, I, I feel like I've done it with, with, with WI Fi.

[Leo Laporte]

Maybe I had a travel.

[Alex Lindsay]

But what I, I usually what happens, I don't think about it because I, I will admit when I'm traveling by myself, I'm typically have my, have my. I have a vision pro, so that's what I'm watching it on. But when I want to watch with other people, I want to. So when my family's around or other things like that. And usually I have to admit, when I travel with my family, it's often like either Airbnb or some kind of house rental or something. So usually you short circuit all of the things that are trying to figure out how to use whatever they plugged in or whatever they thought was going to be useful. You just have the same thing that we have at home, you know, and all the time.

[Leo Laporte]

Last time we did that, I, I edited all my accounts into that guy's system.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

You don't have to remember before leaving to delete them all.

[Alex Lindsay]

I don't have to think about any of that. I just plug it in. I just unplug whatever's there, plug it in, and call it a day, you know, and so it's just such a great solution for travel, you know, especially with family or something like that, where. And again, part of it works. We talked about this before. Part of it works because the only thing that we ever use at home is an Apple tv.

[Leo Laporte]

Right?

[Alex Lindsay]

So being able to, so everything's there, everything, what we last watched, you know, all that stuff is all just active. And so you just.

[Andy Inako]

Nice.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. So if you, if you're wondering what to do with your old Apple tv, I mean, that's pretty good use for it.

[Leo Laporte]

Very cool, Mr. Jason Snell. That leaves you, my friend, your pick of the week.

[Andy Inako]

So it is, has come to me. This is a, this is a pick we've done before. But I've got a little timely reference.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm sad because I gave mine a way.

[Andy Inako]

Well, you could get a new one I guess. Play Date from Panic, which is this little teeny, teeny, teeny tiny game handheld thingy.

[Leo Laporte]

It's got engineering design, it's got a.

[Andy Inako]

Little crank on the side and it's in stock. It was not in stock for a very long time. It's in stock at 229. The, the timely thing is they just finished season two of playdate which was they rolled out, I think it's 10 games over five weeks for $39. And there are some great games in there. I'll just point out they also have their own app store called Catalog that's got hundreds of games in it that are in every genre you can think of that are really good. There was season one, which was really great and you can also sideload games from independent developers and there are a bunch of those too. It's a black and white handheld with no backlight. So you got to play it outside. Summer, perfect time to play it outside or in a well lit room. But the season two games are great. And also I just want to keep mentioning Playdate because a lot of people kind of poo pooed it at the beginning because of its specs, which aren't the point and because it was a new platform that doesn't have any history and therefore, you know, why would you spend boutique kind of levels of money for hardware that might have a questionable number of games? And the answer now a few years in is it's available, you can get it now and there are hundreds of games you can buy for it. They're all cheap, they're all, these are all. We're also talking, these are like $5 games, $10 games, they're not $50 games. And it's open so that you can sideload. You don't have to go through Panic Store. Just I can't say enough about it. If you love kind of retro consoles, this is not retro, it is new, it is its own platform. But like it's a viable platform with lots and lots and lots of games. It's simple, it's fun, it's cute. And season two really just a bang up selection of games for season two.

[Leo Laporte]

What's your favorite?

[Andy Inako]

Fulcrum Defender, which is this kind of use the crank to aim and you're like in the center of a base and the crank turns your little aim around and you have to fire because the various, the monsters, the various spaceships are coming at you from all sides and you, you get upgrades as you go. And it's a roguelike, so, you know, you get a different path with different upgrades every time. There are Dig Dig Dino, which is like a super chill game where you dig down into the dirt and find dinosaur bones and garbage. Like, there's so many different kinds of game for this. So, like, I definitely. If you really thought of it in a while, check it out.

[Leo Laporte]

I mean, they're black and white, but they're really aesthetically kind of intriguing. That's.

[Jason Snell]

I have. I have to piggyback on. On Jason's recommendation. That's the only game game console I've ever bought. And I bought it basically because of Panic's reputation. And also I had a suspicion that it would attract really talented and weird game designers. Like, yeah, exactly. They're beautiful. Because part of the fun is just that it's not like, okay, here's another Space Invaders. Okay, here's another Pokemon sort of game. Even though there are some games like that, it's like just someone will have this most bizarre idea for a game as the most creative thing you've ever thought of. And it'll give you. It's designed to run for like 90 minutes to play this game from start to finish, but you feel as though you've been interacting with a piece of art for that amount of time. And like Jason said, it's easy for a gamer like me who doesn't want to spend like hours and hours and hours like playing an in depth game. I just want something that will entertain me for 10 to 30 minutes at a time, ideally, like while I'm waiting for my commuter train or something like that. It's tiny, it's pocketable, the display is not backlit, but it is super, super, super high contrast. And if there is any light in the room, it's going to be playable. Although like you said, you want some light in the room. Again, you might balk at the price. I bought it when it was only 1:89. Then the price has gone up a couple times since then. It's 229, but. But for people who are thrown off by the idea of Xbox gaming, but they don't want to be retro gaming stuff that hasn't moved forward since 1980s or the 1990s, this will give you pretty much. It'll scratch the itch that you're looking for.

[Andy Inako]

And this is Planic's own platform, so they're still adding features to it. They just added network support for gaming. So They've up to now it's all been very self contained but now there will be a new wave of games that will allow you to play if you have a friend with a playdate play or the network. So there'll be, there'll be more but it is definitely. Yeah, it's a throwback but it's also just a very different sort of thing. And I guess what I would say is if, if you or somebody, you know looked at the play date and said but why would you spend money on that? It doesn't have color, it doesn't have backlight, it doesn't have Mario, it doesn't have old emulation. What's the point of it? I would say the specs are totally. You've missed the point of it. The point is this is a beautiful object full of weird indie games and it's. I am glad it exists in the world and it is very entertaining and you can just stick it in your pocket because it's super tiny and I'm glad it exists. If you care about specs and stuff, this is not the product for you. Get something else.

[Jason Snell]

I'd say it's like an independent movie theater where it's like oh, it doesn't have THX. Oh well, it doesn't have like 4k digital projections. Like we don't go to this theater for like the 81 channel surrounding the butt thumper. Butt thumper reactions. We get it because of the pro. The programming that they put into this theater that you really can't get as a universe anywhere else.

[Leo Laporte]

Well that's great recommendation and those are great picks. And that's the end of the show. Thank you all for being here. Andy Inaco's website is still life. Still almost.

[Jason Snell]

I have to. I'm right, I'm all I have to right now are like the three things that you see like at the very, very top that explain why, why I'm doing this and why you should probably click some links and read some stuff. But yeah, we're, we're, we're. We're terrifyingly imminent. I shall say. Like, oh, so now I get to see what, how people react to this stuff.

[Leo Laporte]

Nice.

[Jason Snell]

That's going to be really great. I'm happy about that.

[Leo Laporte]

Alex Lindsay is at office hours global on YouTube. It's YouTube.com officehoursglobal anything you want to plug?

[Alex Lindsay]

You know it turns out if you come in in the morning, 7am we answer questions.

[Leo Laporte]

So that's fascinating.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's crazy. It's a crazy.

[Leo Laporte]

What A concept.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. But yeah, we should be there.

[Leo Laporte]

I always send people there if they have questions, especially about production audio, that kind of thing. That's pretty great resource.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's a pretty good collection of people seem to know a couple things. So it's good. I'm glad.

[Leo Laporte]

Thank you around Alex. I hope you enjoy your vacation. When do you come home?

[Alex Lindsay]

Get home over the weekend.

[Leo Laporte]

Golden beach is waiting for you. Get out there.

[Alex Lindsay]

Absolutely.

[Leo Laporte]

Thank you, Mr. Jason Snell. Jason is at 6colors.com end of July, you're going to have to get back into the graphing. Apple has announced that's its quarterly results at the end of the month.

[Andy Inako]

I got to get some chart action going and working on beta coverage for whenever there is a public beta.

[Leo Laporte]

Whenever that happens. Yeah, any minute now, I hope. I thought we'd have it by today, but I guess not. You can also see a list of all his shows. He does so many good [e-mail] Jason. Thank you, Jason.

[Andy Inako]

Thank you, Leo.

[Leo Laporte]

One of the best, if not the best in the Jason Snell business.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah, Top Jason.

[Leo Laporte]

The number one, the best Jason Snell. We do Mac Break weekly every Tuesday, 11am Pacific, 2pm Eastern Time, 1800 UTC. I say that because we do actually stream it live. You can watch live. Our audio even works. It's amazing. If you're in the club, of course, watching the Discord. But everybody else you can watch on YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, X.com, facebook, LinkedIn and Kik after the fact on demand versions of the show. Audio and video available at our website, TWiT TV, MBW. You'll also find a link there to our YouTube channel. Great way to share clips with friends. Friends. And help us promote the show. Of course, probably the best thing to do is subscribe either to the audio or the video feed or both if you want in your favorite podcast app, whether it's Apples or Overcast or Pocketcast, whatever. If you do do us a favor though, leave us a good five star review. Let the world know about the number one Vision Pro show in the world. Even though we had no Vision Pro this week. But we did talk about it though. That's good. That's thanks to you. Alex.

[Alex Lindsay]

We talked about, you know, we had a. You got to keep the stake in the ground. That's all. That's, you know, you're going to say a couple things.

[Andy Inako]

We want to lose our title. Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

We wanted to continue to wave. Thank you everybody for joining us. We'll see you next time. And now it is my sad and solemn duty to tell you. Get back to work because break time is over. Bye bye.

[Alex Lindsay]

Bye bye.

[Leo Laporte]

Get your tech news exactly how you want it with TWiT TV. Tech News Weekly with Micah Sargent delivers quick hit coverage and exclusive journalist interviews, giving you the inside scoop on breaking tech stories in under an hour. Now for deeper dives, I hope you'll join me, Leo Laporte, and a great panel of tech industry experts. That's every Sunday with this Week in Tech. We'll break down everything from AI breakthroughs to privacy concerns to cybersecurity alerts in the tech world's longest running and most trusted tech news roundtable. So efficient or in depth, the choice is yours. Subscribe to both shows wherever you get your podcasts and head on over to our website, TWIT TV for even more independent tech journalism.

[Jason Snell]

High interest debt is one of the.

[Leo Laporte]

Toughest opponents you'll face unless you power up with a SOFI personal loan. A SOFI personal loan could repackage your bad debt into one low fixed rate monthly payment.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's even got super speed since you.

[Leo Laporte]

Could get the funds as soon as the same day you sign. Visit sofi.com to learn more.

[Jason Snell]

That's s o f I.com p o w E R Loans originated By SoFi.

[Leo Laporte]

Bank NA Member FDIC Terms and Conditions apply.

[Jason Snell]

NMLS 696891.