This is episode 499 of the Happy Hour Podcast, which is crazy even though I've only been a part of it for the past year. It's crazy that it's been around for so long because I remember the very first episodes, which were right around when I joined 9to5Mac in 2013 maybe.
I was always on it at the very beginning. It was on Google Hangouts and they would be posted to YouTube and it was like, it was a Serbian Seth and Mark Gurman and Zach. It's come a long way since those Google Hangout conversations, I would say. Yeah, me and Zach probably took over 2014, I think, something like that. We did it with Don, Ms. Pizito for a while, and then it was me and Zach for a longer bit. Then you obviously came in about a year ago now, right?
It's been going great, but we've got the big milestone. Number 500, next week. We wanted to answer some Ask 9to5Mac questions about anything you want to know and you should send them us, send those to us. You can find me in mayo on Twitter, threads, etc. You can email them to us. Happy Hour at 9to5Mac.com. And yeah, next week we'll collect some of those and answer them on the episode, which will be very fun. We don't do Ask 9to5Mac as much as we should.
We like hearing from you also send us your questions. Mac OS Sequoia Beta 6 came out this week and we talked last week about the new permission prompt in Mac OS Sequoia asking for screen recording permissions from every, from every app you use on a weekly basis or every time you reboot your Mac.
Apple apparently heard all of that feedback from us and from other people and in Beta 6, it now prompts you for every month. So the first time you update to Beta 6 and launch an app that needs screen recording permissions. You'll see a new pop up where the two options are allow for one month or open system settings, and then you can manage your screen recording permissions there.
They've also removed the requirement after every reboot. So once you hit that allow for one month button, theoretically you'll never be prompted by that app, again, even if you reboot your Mac within a month. Yes, for a month. And the one month limit, the one month requirement is certainly better than one week, but it still doesn't seem to fit what power users want and there still seems to be, it still seems like there are better ways they could implement this.
Like we talked about last week with the staggered prompting, you know, you prompt after a month, then maybe you prompt a few months later, and then you give somebody an option to allow permanently or even right from the start adds something to system settings where a power user can go in and say yes, yes, yes, I'm aware of the risks never ask me about this again. And none of that's there right now.
A month is better than a week, but it's still not quite as there needs to be more options for reminding. And I still compare it to the location permissions where, on a regular basis, it will remind you about on iOS, about location services, perhaps that have got the permission for always using location, not just while the apps open.
And I'm pretty sure that's less frequent than one to month could be wrong, but it doesn't feel like I see that pop up that often like you see it a couple of times a year, I'd say for a particular amp, not that not that frequently and that feels about right and that's for me what I would consider the most sensitive privacy thing, which is location services for screen recording. And like for screen recording specifically.
If there's an indicator that scream was going on almost feel like you don't need a permission so that would be another route for them to go down like how they have a, you know, yellow indicator for when the mic runs active or read indicator for, you know, or green indicator for when the cameras active. If they always had a purple indicate when the screen recording going on.
Not sure what upfront permission or repeating upfront permission is necessary at all right, so there's more directions and stuff like an experiment with an I hope they explore further down the road, because in general.
Screen recording permission for an app is very obvious because a legit map you know when you're getting screen recorded right like you're doing zoom or whatever you're showing your desktop is not like they're hiding it away you only really need the privacy permissions and the flags and the popups and the indicators to weed out the unscrupulous bad actors which don't come around very often right like that's a pretty small case on but you have to defend against it, but it's not the day's the experience of using your Mac.
You're going to be seeing those permissions for the legitimate apps not for the bad ones you want to try and make the experiences good as possible. And I think part of the problem with this and I said it last week and I'll say it again is that Apple hasn't communicated this change to anybody not to the press I've asked them multiple times to get more details. Not to developers there's no documentation on this change there is that one.
Page on the developer website about a persistent content capture entitlement that some developers think maybe would let your app circumvent this pop up or at least reduce the frequency of the pop up. But if you look at that entitlement page on Apple's website it's literally like three lines with no details on how to get the entitlement.
And it's just like it's clear Apple knew and realized that people were unhappy with this change because they updated it but they still haven't communicated anything further which I think would go a long way towards addressing some of the concerns because there is a lot of questioning and misinformation out there about what this means and how this works and which apps are which apps are affected.
And an entitlement based solutions are never ideal because then you're basically like letting Apple pick the winners right like Apple hand bless a dozen popular screen recording apps. Exactly.
After prompt but then any upstart on newcomer is going to be having up hill bow to to compete so I don't love in time based solutions there are occasions when it makes sense but this thing doesn't feel like something where you need to work around it they just need a better based policy and at least going from a week to a month is going down the right path like his progress. Yeah. But yeah communication documentation would be welcomed.
Last week in happier plus we talked about a tease from Mark Herman about an inform Mac that would be getting a bigger overhaul a bigger redesign a bigger refresh than just adding the ship inside and as I was editing the episode Mark urban publishes full report detailing that that machine getting a big redesign will be the Mac mini. So he says the inform Mac mini will be far smaller than its predecessor and it's coming later this year the new design will be similar to the Apple TV.
And even though the overall footprint will be smaller German does say it could be taller taller than the current Mac mini. And I did some rough estimation of just how much. Bigger the current Mac mini is than the Apple TV 4K and it's basically twice as big in every dimension except height where the current Mac mini is a little taller than the Apple TV 4K.
So that's a pretty big reduction in size for the Mac mini it almost makes it actually mini because it hasn't felt very many in the past for the past like. Five years at least kind of in the era of a lot of smaller more box sized windows PCs coming out and they have a load of like even Intel has the Intel.
Nooks I think you see they're just like really really small little computers kind of competing with the likes of what there are as we pie which is just like a motherboard stand alone this would obviously be a packaged machine it wouldn't just be a bear motherboard.
But it's bringing the smaller package down to an actual mini size because the Mac mini as it stands today is a relic of well it dates to Intel but it also dates to the optical drive right like the Mac mini was defined by the fact that you have a slot loading CD drive in the front of it and obviously that's long gone. But the actual physical size of it is never really shrunk since when it was an Intel machine.
It had reason to be that big because they needed the fan they they're calling the air flow ever since it's been an apostolic and. It never needs to be that large they just never changed the industrial design of it until now so it's very very a great C and mark basically describes it as you know an iPad pro in a small box yeah and.
That makes perfect sense to me because the iPad pro is a five and a half millimeter thin tablet which also has to pack in battery display components speakers like all this extra stuff the actual amount of space you need and thermal quiet and thermal headroom you need just for the. M4 chip is very very very very small to get very very perform machine so the fact that they can do that and actually exploit the benefits of a silicon in this product is.
Very nice to see and what was more of a surprise he also says that in that smaller form factor there was going to deliver the M4 project which is what you know me see in the high in the map pro right to not the base model 14 inch the high end 14 inch has the M has the M3 pro chip in it and so we expect that to get the M4 pro chip and which has slightly more GP cross lay more CPU cause and a slightly higher headroom but again.
If you can fit in a lot topic and fit into small box like the Apple TV size and he says Apple has tested a version with at least three USB C ports on the back alongside the power cable and an HDMI port. The current Mac many I think has two USB A ports so you look at sounds like you'll be losing out on those USB A ports which I don't think is a big deal in the year of 2024 I think most people have just moved on to USB C and if you haven't.
It's easy enough to make that switch so so to be clear the current Mac mini comes in two versions right yes you have the M2 version the M2 pro version so the M2 base model has two Thunderbolt ports I use B.C.
One USB A HDMI so this would be an upgrade of that is got three USB C with HDMI power you're basically swapping one USB A for USB C instead and but the also had comes in the M2 pro variant which has four USB C ports Thunderbolt port and two USB A so you would have a slight I don't know if the M4 pro Mac mini doesn't have space for extra I on the back but.
Six port six ports directly on the machine was pretty insane number I think most people would take the trade off of the small compact design then requiring. Two USB A ports which are very outdated and then an extra Thunderbolt port that probably was never really filled.
Do you think there's a chance that in order to achieve this smaller design they might have to move the power supply like to be external so you'd have a bigger power brick that kind of that would kind of negate the purpose of the smaller box I think not entirely but.
A little bit so it's always I would always take an external power supply over and make the actual machine smaller because I feel like you know the power supply like what they do with the iMac right where like the iMac's nice and small the power supply is a bit chunkier but the power supply plugged into the wall what you see on your desk is the nice thin and small computer so with the Mac mini that same that's thing would still apply but I don't necessarily see.
I'm not an export power supplies but I don't think I think if you if you made it a quarter size you can still fit the power supply internal it would be my hunch just like to do for the Apple TV right. So I don't think they would have to but if it turns out that the power plugs bit thicker to accommodate for it then it's I still think it's a it's a worthy trade off.
Macmees are used in some weird circumstances like server racks kind of environments where they have spending design bays that they fit in so I'm sure this will cause some headaches for people that using it in those kind of context you can make adapters for the bays that can fit the small design or an event you make new bays that only fit the small design so there's a migration path there the current memory design has been around for a long long long time and.
It was aging and it was definitely a candidate for an upgrade I mean you just do a tear down of the thing there's so much empty space in that box it's like the macro situation just on a small scale right.
And so this was a great target the only reason I didn't in that happy our plus episode last week I didn't choose the man mini just because this design's been lasting for so long I didn't know I thought they've just never going to do anything but upgrade the internals but I'm really glad that they're actually giving it the attention so it will have a thin small you know puck design for the next 15 years.
On M4 and for baseline so I'm really conform to this I don't know if I necessarily need one but it's an option like. I use the MacBook Pro right now so that has that's the max chip in it that but.
You know someone slightly less requirements for me they could use the M4 pro MacBook Pro and then if they got a external space there they could slap it with a little bit more than the other people amounts like it helps the sting chip more from max studio as well I think because when you're looking them in the shop like the studio in the
Mac mini kind of overlap quite heavily now they're much more distinct all they will be when it looks more like an Apple TV so I think it's a good progress to the lineup but it doesn't necessarily make it. Straight paying for me the other question is are they going to put the price up or not to accommodate the redesign but we don't know yet.
The current Mac mini is what 599 and 499 for education which is an insane deal when you think about what you're getting for it so hopefully they won't raise the price too much.
The other thing Bloomberg doesn't address is Ethernet is the current Mac mini does have an ethernet port so if they did have to use a bigger power supply externally you could do what they do on the Mac where they have the ethernet port built into the power supply which would be a decent solution if they want still want to offer ethernet as an option but not compromise making the actual physical
mechanism itself as small as possible basically yeah or worst comes to worst using the adapter right on the one USB C ports like when you make me stay in the same place you're not unplugging and you can't do anything constantly so if you if you have to use adapters and extenders I don't think it's the worst thing in the world like I personally value it being small I think that's really cool and you can expect people to put on the desk they can hide it away I even
what people do with Apple TV sometimes is they like stick them you know they like tape them to the back of their television so it like that and hide behind it you could do that with the Mac mini some people do it ready because it's even better if the Mac mini is physically smaller and you just kind of have a little you put the display on and then
OWC or someone to sell you a little stand that you can just hide on hide behind like that's kind of that's kind of slick when I use the Mac studio I had a mount underneath my desk just like a 3d printed one that I bought on Etsy and the Mac studio just lived in there under my desk and I never bought I'd a OWC doc on my desk itself that I could easily access ports if I needed to but it was out of sight out of mind basically giving that I
Mac experience just with more modularity than the I Mac offers and we're expecting to see this before the end of the year right as we say that's what he said this M4 MacBook Pro M4 Mac mini and M4 iMac okay the next year will be the rest of the lineup so the Mac Pro the Mac studio and the Mac
Book Air yeah very looking photos it's nice that there's a big change on the horizon happy this week is brought to you by Hello Fresh hello fresh delivers fresh high quality pre portioning ingredients direct to your door with easy to follow recipe instructions
so you can make delicious meals easily and for a limited time kids eat free go to hello fresh dot com such happy hour kids to unlock this exclusive offer one free kids meal per box for two months while your subscription is active planning shopping prepping and cooking family dinners can be a right or deal hello fresh makes it easy by delivering fresh ingredients to make recipes for everyone to enjoy including any picky eaters you might have in your family it's such a hassle to find meals
that everyone likes especially when you have kids to account for but hello fresh has a new set of builder plate meals where every member of your house I'd create their perfect plate no more making dinners to satisfy everyone just one meal with so many different ways to enjoy it meals arrive on the date that you specify with all the ingredients you need and easy to follow recipe cards they have a changing menu of 50 recipes to choose from each week so hello fresh makes it easy to find
something the whole family will love to eat with a lot of variety in there to with hello fresh you can get nutritious and delicious meals on the table easier and faster than ever now chance and I have a fresh send you some meals to try out right yeah the last
batch that I got included one of my favorites from all of the hello fresh boxes I've ever had and that was a loaded stir fry and I think kind of like you said mayor one of my favorite things about hello fresh is you get everything you need in the
box because we've all kind of been in that situation where we're cooking something then we realize we forgot or ran out of a crucial ingredient and then you're just left standing there questioning whether you just scrap the recipe altogether whether you go to
the store and you don't still have to worry about that with hello fresh you open the box and it's all there including everything you need to make sauces and seasonings and of course it just tastes better than if you're using a pre-made sauce or something from a
so for me and my wife hello fresh is one of our favorite things to have for dinner with the versatility and the ease of making it gets a big a plus from me and my wife and for a limited time kids eat free go to hello fresh dot com slash happy hour kids to unlock this exclusive offer
one free kids meal per box for two months while subscription is active that's free kids meals just by going to hello fresh dot com slash happy hour kids hello fresh america's number one meal kit thanks to hello fresh for sponsoring the show
we got a bit of a surprise this week because apple announced that it's opening up the iPhones NFC chip to third party apps with iOS 18.1 so you may remember that this previously happened with the NFC chip and the iPhone in the European Union in response to the DMA and apples work to comply with the DMA and now they're saying they're bringing it to a bunch of other countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the UK, and the United States.
So developers will be able to use the NFC chip for things like payments, car keys, student IDs, event tickets, home keys, hotel keys, and a whole bunch of stuff. The question is there's a line in Apple's announcement saying that to incorporate the new solution for their iPhone apps, developers will need to enter into a commercial agreement with Apple, request the NFC and secure entitlement and secure element entitlement and pay the associated fees.
They haven't published details about that free about that fee structure, how much developers will have to pay Apple obviously gets a cut of all Apple pay transactions. So probably they're going to look to make up for that income somehow, but I think the most interesting and most surprising part about this and it's also what they did in the EU is that you'll also be able to set a third party app as your default contactless payment method.
So in the settings app you can choose to replace Apple wallet with third party app that appears every time you double click the side button on your iPhone. This caught me off guard when Apple announced it yesterday just because it seemed like the only reason they did it in the EU is because of the DMA and they never hinted at having plans to bring it elsewhere.
But they were also facing regulatory pushback in other places because of the limitations of the NFC chip. So maybe they just decided to go ahead with it in a rare case of Apple getting ahead of some legislation in certain countries. Yeah, because it was part of the DOJ US complaint for instance. Yes, it was. Yeah. And so clearly it's a target. And I think of compared to the app store, it's something where they they're much more willing to just seed and be like, OK, Apple pay remain the default.
If you want to go to the app store and download a third party wallet app and then you're going to send and say as you default and then it becomes a default in functionality. The. On a functional basis, this seems identical to what they shipped in the EU was 17.4. He's purely about the business terms in the EU. Apple doesn't have any. There's no there's no interception there. It's not like they have a core technology for the NFC apps, for instance.
And they just let them get on with it. So it's open season essentially. You have to apply and get approved in the summer requirements in terms of meeting. You know, like if you're doing a payment app, you have to be registered with a bank and have accreditation stuff. But once you get through the approval process, there's no Apple is not involved in the business side of it at all.
It just it just works. Whereas with this, they're press release had that very knowing indication developers can apply it as long as they agree to our business terms and pay the associated fees they can they can jump on board. Very plainly not publicly saying what the session fees were now Apple pay is different to the in that purchase system, right?
So right. Apple pay does not get 30% of everything you buy with Apple pay. It's not how it works. The Apple pay takes 0.15% fee from the card issue is when you use Apple pay contactless. So it's a much smaller number that they go for and it's basically like part of just the general win to change fees of a credit card transaction. It just gets lumped in with that.
And but obviously if you're getting 0.15% of every transaction that's on dumb, you know, via contactless on the iPhone, it adds up right so they make money off it and get me wrong. But it's not like they're going to come in a storm for 30% is just a different.
Different ballgame for whatever reason when it comes to non digital goods Apple is a bit more reasonable. When you go into the digital side, they want to take a cent from a body including the Patreon nonsense that's come up in the last few days as well. One one quick side on the page thing by the way, obviously I think everybody thinks that Apple isn't top to 30% of every money that ever exists in the world just because you have an iPhone app.
But I am not surprising the slightest that they're putting pressure on Patreon to change it because it's exactly the same as a load of other apps that are on the that are on the app store already that were that way like Twitch, you know, Twitch, what is Twitch? Twitch is just a platform where a load of creators stream all day long to you can pay for the subscriptions to the to the creators through Twitch. You can buy bits and currency through the Twitch app.
If you buy through the app on the iPhone, everything's state is expensive because they take the cart and Apple gets the cut. So patrons kind of done well to avoid having to fall under the purview of that of the rules, not saying the rules are right or fair, but it's more like Patreon through a quirk of history avoided paying the commission never having to force it in there.
It's called a lot of blowback and backlash because nobody likes paying more fees, but it's not really out of line with any of Apple's policy like there were a couple of comments or so, it's like, what happens going to risk of losing the Google money then they're just jumping everybody for money, it doesn't work like that. This is completely in line with app store policy.
If anything, they should have just enforced it five years ago, not saying that the policy is correct and they shouldn't take that much money and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but that is the state of play. The Google search deal has nothing to do with it.
With NFC, I have to assume they're probably going to somehow want to invade or not point one 5% fee, which is the same as what they get from Apple pay for payment cards, but we won't know we can only speculate unless it leaks out somewhere.
I think this is perfectly good for them to offer though, like from a moral standpoint, it is pretty unfair that the access to the fact that you can hold your iPhone near a contactless terminal and the only thing that could pop up with Apple pay was kind of ridiculous and kind of monopolistic. The fact that they've now been pressured by government, but the fact that they've at least volunteered without having to wait five years for the DOJ case to finish, I'll take it as some.
Give them some credit for that, because at least it now makes the possibility for someone to offer some sort of competition if they want to. Do I think that anybody is going to be able to wrestle up competition that's good and nice and fair and as good as Apple pay experiences? Probably not, but you have to at least let people try the fact that they blocked off entirely was kind of insane.
There are security concerns, there are concerns like that, but it is very clearly delineated by the fact that there'll be a page in the settings app where you can choose your default wallet app and it will default to the Apple wallet anyway. So if you really want to, you can go and then you can change it, but otherwise no difference.
I'm glad that they're offering this, they should have offered it before out of all the things that various governments are focusing in on, this is probably one that they can easily concede on and hope that it really reduces pressure elsewhere. So that's what they've done. I think it's a good thing that they've done this and it was inevitable they would have had to do this at some point.
But I do have a little bit of a fear that this is going to lead to some fragmentation in the contactless payment world on the iPhone because right now. Basically any bank you could think of supports Apple pay, but what's to stop let's say Bank of America in a few months once this is rolled out from saying, huh, we don't have to use Apple Pay anymore.
We can create a contactless system that we integrate directly in to the Bank of America app. So let's pull of all pull all of our stuff from Apple Pay and rely on our first party solution instead. There's nothing to stop them from doing that. Then you all in the flip side, you also have retailers who don't take Apple Pay like Walmart, like Home Depot, like HB.
Is this going to kill any hope of them adopting Apple Pay because now Walmart, who has relied on Walmart pay, which is a QR code based solution, they've relied on that for years. Now they can get ahead of the address the complaints about Walmart not adding tap to pay support just by adding NFC support in the Walmart app. Oh, yeah, that mean that's going to happen.
Yeah, and it's just going to be very disappointing if this leads to more fragmentation and this leads to people having to juggle multiple apps to know which app or which service to use depending on which card they're paying with, depending on which store they're at. I think in the case of a company like Walmart with Apple Pay, the fees are probably a little bit of a factor, but the primary factor is the data.
They collect less data on people when they use Apple Pay. If you go to Walmart and you pay even with your normal credit card, they're able to link so much data to you, link it to your online account. You might notice that if you shop at Walmart and you pay with a credit card and you happen to have a Walmart account, link to that credit card elsewhere. But when you pay at the store, you don't enter any sort of information to link it to that account. They do it anyway in the background.
I don't know. Maybe Apple has security and privacy things that are going to require for to get these NFC and secure element entitlements. But it does raise some concerns because you could also make the argument that Bank of America wants some more data on their customers that they don't get when they use Apple Pay. So they can add it to their app and collect that extra data.
I completely agree. This opens the floodgates for companies to do some scummy and not as good experience things, but you do have to let them exist. It was inevitable that this was coming at some point. Yeah. I mean, the slight of hand here is that the reason Apple did not open the NFC chip out in 2014, we have to pay launch. It's because they knew if they did that, loads of companies would fight against them and offer alternatives to Apple Pay.
The wood work in different ways that maybe would get more of a foothold. They knew that if they cut it off and only offered Apple Pay, they could offer an experience that would be adopted globally very quickly and very rapidly. And you kind of saw the opposites scenario happen with Android, where for a while there was a lot of competition.
You had Samsung Pay still exist and stuff, so it was a bit around it. It took a while for the Google Wallet native, you know, the first party experience to take hold eventually it did. But there was definitely because of the fragmentation opportunity, there was just more players and more competitors and it wasn't as seamless and like Apple Pay became almost like a verb, right? You know, like it became not normal, normal clutch. And you see Apple Pay logo is at every shop.
Even today, I feel like you see there's more Apple Pay presence and there is Google Pay presence. They could Google Pay these days, they change the branding fact sometimes. But you know what I mean, right? Like there's like a hand really is that they delayed it long enough before they opened it up to competition. They basically they have the inertia and they have the main app and so do I think that Bank of America will be able to fully pull out of Apple Pay, it's going to be harder to do it.
But if they do, then they have to compete on Merit, right? And customers will either be happy with it or they'll want their campaign to go back to the Wallet or those switch banks. So Apple contorted the market for countless payments in their favor for a long time. Now they're open out to some competition. Or some companies going to do stupid things like currency and you know, was the was the thing for a while. And obviously, Walmart Pay has the same problem. Some people are going to try.
I still think in the long to Apple Pay will be the most dominant player and most most banks will have to carry on supporting Apple Pay as they always have. But at least they can offer some alternatives and some companies like a firm things like that can also now offer, you know, payment experiences that they never had a chance to before.
So there's risk involved and yet there is going to be some hills and valleys in terms of, you know, what experience people can expect and there will be some diversification as I'm sure some bank will try and go on their own. But you know, Apple Pay is good people like it and that's going to lay it maintain a foothold for a long time.
If you look at like the market of contactless payment in the United States when Apple Pay launched in 2014, it was basically non-existent like we have been so far behind contactless implementation compared to the UK and compared to other countries. And Apple Pay is the reason that contactless finally took off in the United States and it's now I still think it's quite as ubiquitous here as it is in the UK.
But without Apple Pay having been that central solution for at least for iPhone owners, I don't think contactless would have caught on for much longer than it did. And I think would be even further behind. And in some ways, it reminds me of the car play situation like you can adopt car play and a lot of cars right now support car play the vast majority of new cars support car play.
But then you have companies going out and doing their own thing you have GM who is dropping car play as we've talked about a whole bunch and they're facing pushback from their customers and they seemingly don't care. And I can imagine a bank doing that exact same thing. And I think when it comes to most of the big banks in the United States, you always I think it's generally safe to assume they're always going to do the most customer hostile thing possible like they aren't.
There are big banks. There are only a few big banks and they have a lot of power. So if you could even see a world where chase Bank of America. Team up and launch their own thing. So it's not just one bank pulling out of Apple Pay. It's multiple banks pulling out of Apple Pay. So we'll see. I do think outside of looking looking outside of the payment solution category.
You can imagine a lot of cool things that apps can do now with having access to this technology, whether that's hotel keys, home keys, like rewards cards, I think is a cool one where you can have an NFC based rewards card. There are cool things that might come out of this. I am also just like I said a little bit concerned about the potential fragmentation possibilities.
This week we got iOS 18 beta six and iOS 18.1 beta two alongside all of their their the other beta season updates macOS watch OS etc. In terms of what's new in iOS 18 beta six. Let's see we have a change the music app where the browse tab has been renamed the new tab. For whatever reason there's no change to the actual content of what's in that tab. I think this tab is switched back and forth like a few times in terms of what it's named. But now we're back on new.
When it's not so long ago that the first tab was called for you and now it's called home. They're like yes they love rebranding the tabs. No as a name of a tab is a bit odd, especially as I feel like that tab definitely show stuff that isn't new. Absolutely. It's really make any sense. Yeah so browse was maybe a more accurate name, but I guess they've some reason they decide to change it up.
It doesn't match in the other apps by the way because like you know podcasts for instance still was the browse tab. With the same icon that's the thing like maybe you can all have different types of different like maybe maybe podcasts really does need a browse tab and music only has new, but they should probably change the icon to make that sense because it's still that like abstract set of four squares.
But they change the name of it so now you have to say go to the new tab and find whatever playlist. They've also made an interesting change to the home screen tinting option. So now if you tint your app icons on your home screen based on the color of a wallpaper. That color of the tent and that wallpaper are now linked together. So if you switch to another wallpaper the tinting will reset.
Or if you switch back to that wallpaper the original tinting will come back if that makes sense. There's now that link between your wallpaper and the tint assuming you based your tent on a color in the wallpaper. Which makes sense right because you could have red icons because you've got a red wallpaper background so you want everything to match and then your multiple more papers that have different themes and therefore the icons follow along.
So that's the sense for a little adjustment there. Do we know what the default is going to be when people update do I say teen like a default what the is it going to be default light mode icons is going to be default automatic. Oh, I don't know. Yeah, I assume it would be respect your current settings for light mode and dark mode.
And if you have dark mode then it'll just switch to the dark mode icons I would think that seems like the ideal solution maybe I don't know because that will be an interesting dimension on adoption because if they try. Like if obviously right now there is no default because there's anyone saying right light mode but. At least when I updated to the last beta I think it put I had it on live and I think it put me on automatic because that's changing back.
Oh yeah, so I don't know if that's an indication of what the new default is going to be but I could see them put it on automatic is the new default and then if you're in dark mode it makes for your icons dark. I was this but I'll I'll be keeping my out for that is. And it the launch comes around. I think when you set up a new iPhone now it asks you during the set of process if you want light mode dark mode or automatic.
So they're probably just add another prompt there that appears when you set up a new iPhone and the first time you update the iOS 18. That would be my guess so the what just for the icons I feel like they're going to make it match the system saying yeah. Or maybe they'll update that prompt to show that it also can link to the icons or something yeah I have a hard time I don't I don't think they'll do anything.
Too crazy by default or change anybody's default but but but on the on the just to devil advocate there they do change the home screen for some times like they slap icons on there that weren't there and they put on we just launched right like. Because they try and invite people to use the new home screen features so I wouldn't be like 100% they're not going to change the default to automatic is.
So I think that's the algorithm for like even if an app hasn't provided it's applied a dark icon the system does a lot of automatic tinting right like most icons can be darkened in a pretty convincing way and the even the ones that don't they just like. Reduce saturation like the ready icon and so they've gone out their way to make the system handle being set to the dark mode pretty aggressively which kind of made me think maybe they're going to actually put on automatic to begin with.
Because it was only like mode and you have to choose dark there be less motivation for them to add in all those you know fallbacks for the. Presuming you pick automatic on the theme you know during setup i'm not sure what they're going to do for people upgrading to 18.
So I think we talked about this at the very beginning of the beta cycle where Bluetooth and a few other connectivity things were only available in that like combo square control center widget so you couldn't just but Bluetooth you had to put Bluetooth Wi-Fi airplane mode all collected into that one widget but now you can break Bluetooth out on its own which is useful.
Because previously the square to by two widget of those toggles would have Bluetooth the top level so you could toggle it directly right as an 18 they put Bluetooth in the second menu so you can see the state of it if you click on it in that little huddle with an opens the. Bigger screen of all the controls that you can toggle and so that's still the case like that set of four which will be on the default layout will put Bluetooth a layer lower so some people can be mad about that but.
Now if you really like Bluetooth you can have a separate toggle that is Bluetooth standalone to toggle that. I was 18.1 beta to also kind of gets things in sync between 18.0 and 18.1 so you have distraction control now and the changes to the photos app that we talked about last week. There are still some inconsistencies between the two builds right now but we're getting closer to things being on track.
It's a lining and you can imagine that in a you know it's only a couple more weeks I was 18 will be done and then they'll be releasing 18.1 builds for like my phone to friends right. Anything else on these new betas just I guess it's been I guess it's been another week round of the point ones that you've been on the like any updates intelligence like reunification summaries or anything anything crazy that you've spotted or.
One thing that popped up in social media where the priority section in the mail app was prioritizing spam and fishing attempts so it was like it was like a fake apple i cloud email like reset your password but it wasn't you know it was obviously a fishing attempt but the app intelligence and put it in the priority section.
That does relate to one of the changes I've made I disabled the priority messages thing altogether in the mail app just because I didn't like what it was showing and again I like we talked about a couple weeks ago i am an inbox zero mail app purists so it just wasn't that useful for me.
Because once there's things just get stuck in that priority mail section like it's there until you archive the email i think which just doesn't really work with how i use my inbox so i turn that off like there's no way to like swipe on it and not remove it from the priority section is always the yeah.
Other than that I think I like the notification summaries for messages I really really really like the summaries in the mail app that appear like in line so not the priority notifications but the summaries that appear on your inbox view even for something like.
You probably don't know what this is but in the United States we have this usps informed delivery digest email that we get from the post office every morning that shows like the mail in the packages you have coming today and in as fancy 18.1 with apple intelligence it does a really good job of summarizing that and just in the preview line in your inbox it shows mail coming today three three pieces of mail two packages.
You can see it right there you don't have to put this and you an email every morning with what's coming to your house oh yeah it's one of the it's a shocking example of the government and the post office doing something cool and technologically advanced very shocking example but yeah it's and they like scan the emails so you see the envelope and everything it's very fancy wow yeah we don't we don't get that level of service with our room out the packages come.
Obviously you do careers and stuff they send you email yeah right and roll mail has track delivery and stuff but like general mail just shows up when it shows up email alerts there are issues where you get an email showing you a letter that's coming that day and it doesn't come and it never comes and sometimes it might look like a very important piece of mail so you just are super paranoid that you miss something saying you're going to jail because the post office lost it more often the nights very useful.
Other than that I find myself accidentally activating the type to see anything quite a bit because you it's meant to show up when you double tap the home indicator at the bottom and for some reason like how I hold my iPhone or how I swipe on my iPhone I'm accidentally activating that a lot maybe that's something they'll tweak throughout the
days other than that nothing too crazy to report on Apple intelligence sits kind of just there and a lot of the things on my iPhone I don't really have a use for right now like writing tools or smart replies and messages I don't think is very useful. But we'll get there I have used writing tools a few times on the Mac and the interface again like I said is not great but it does do a decent job of checking for typos and making suggestions.
18.1 beta to also we should point out has no changes to Apple intelligence. So we still don't know how quickly they're going to iterate on a improving the features that are available now and be adding some of the missing features. Yeah in the private frameworks they brought back some of the image playground related stuff yeah back in which was previously removed from 18.1 back in but it's not exposed publicly.
So they can still defer that to make it point to us and I know some people are seeing the Gen Mochi button and the messages app on the keyboard. I am not seeing it but some people see it. It doesn't do anything but it's there so maybe that's a sign that's coming soon. But yeah right now 18.1 is just the same set of features as it was last week.
Finally this week happy hour is sponsored by Shopify check them out shopify.com slash happy hour if you're thinking of starting in business or you already have a small business are using Shopify. And if not why not? Shepa fire helps you sell everywhere and you don't need code knowledge to get started. They have a bunch of free website templates and get you up and running and they'll handle payment, secure transactions and shipping.
The Shopify platform runs on servers in their cloud so you don't have to think about managing services or hosting or anything complicated like that. You just focus on what doing what you do best. And as you get bigger Shopify is there with the tools knobs and dials to tune your ecommerce site to your needs. It's there for you when you're just starting out selling your first products online and it grows with you even if you launch and retail and hit success with millions of orders.
Whether you're selling security systems PC components or maybe you're a Mac developer wanting to sell direct to your users. Shopify is the answer. They have all in one commerce and in person point of sell solutions that can work seamlessly together. I've personally sold staff as an indie dev before online and done it all by hand. And even though I had the know how to like program it was so much work and hassle that unreflection really wasn't worthwhile.
Whereas what I love about Shopify is that it's so simple and it has everything you need in one place. So if you hit the jackpot and you get big you aren't stranded waiting for a dev team to build it all the necessary functionality. Shopify just has it there waiting for you. Shopify powers 10% of all your commerce in the United States with global reach, putting millions of entrepreneurs across 175 countries. That's because businesses that grow grow with Shopify.
So sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash happy hour all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com slash happy hour now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in that Shopify.com slash happy hour. Thanks to Shopify for sponsoring the show. I've been really dreading talking about this next topic for the past week. And I think that is part of the reason why Apple keeps doing this. So we're going to talk about it to prove them wrong.
So more changes to the App Store linking out rules in the EU in response to the Digital Markets Act. So these are the rules that apply if you have an app and you want to include a link that takes you outside of the app to complete the payment other than using Apple's in that purchase system. So previously there are a few different elements of this change.
So the first are changes to the requirements for the link itself previously Apple said that links had to be statically defined go only to the developer's website and could not use any parameters to identify the user. And with that app has removed with this Apple has removed all of those restrictions so apps can offer actionable links with as many dynamic URLs as they please and the links can take users anywhere.
And the URLs can include parameters as long as those parameters are not used for advertising or user profiling. These links can also now kick users out to their web browser like Safari. Or in an app web view previously you could only be kicked out to Safari but now you can open it as a web view in the app itself. These changes I think are all good they're all fair they kind of address some of the extreme readiness that we saw with the first set of rules that Apple announced.
And it's basically what the EU is asking for exactly free flowing links and Apple is basically all those restrictions they put on the single link you know stack your own but all that's gone. They wipe that out you can have whatever links you want basically as long as you agree to this new you know link time and go down the other path.
The thing about the parameters was pretty crucial because it stopped apps from like sending a user to a checkout page that was actually associated to their account. Because they'd always have to take them to like let's just spot five you know spot five is never going to be happy but never use this stuff but just they're the obvious example so imagine they did do it before it would be spotify dot com slash premium would be the only URL they'd be allowed to link to.
And so then you you being the spotify app you click the link it would take you to Safari and then you definitely log in again because the URL has no associated with your account now they could send it to spotify slash premium slash checkout slash user ID equals Ben, and it would send me directly to the right place for me to pay and sign out and they could even push the web view up inside the application which is almost like offering alternate payment processing inside the app right like.
The other little thing they did here was that previously you know that scare sheet that would come up and it'd be like apple you're going to transact purchases outside of the app ecosystem this is scary a bad and don't do it but we're continual cancel that sheet previously was defined in terms of the design by apple but the system didn't show it apple required each developer to make a copy of that sheet to include in the wrap that matched apples design requirements to present.
Which is like a huge work around of stupidity right nonsense apple of finally committed that in a future I was 18 update they will add a capability to the custom link API that will show the system will present the sheet so no more will all the app to supposedly want to use this stuff.
I have to go make an exact match of the design that's described on the apple website the iOS would just do itself which is how we should have been beginning but obviously they didn't bother doing it until now so they made it slightly easier as well. So that's all fair and good and overdue but apples not just doing all of that out of the kindness of its heart there are new fees a new fee structure for all of this apple is basically introducing two new fees we have the initial acquisition fee.
And the store services fee. So the initial acquisition fee is a commission on sales of digital goods and services made by a new app user across any platform that the service offers purchases. It applies for the first 12 months following the initial download of an app with a link out entitlement.
So this is let's say again Spotify for example you download Spotify in the first 12 months if you make a purchase in the Spotify app that's digital good or service apple will get a cut of that the cut is 5% and it applies to whether you're using the new EU alternative business terms or if you're continuing to also offer your app inside the app store under the standard business terms so 5% in both scenarios.
But not just 5% yes that part seems relatively straightforward things get a little bit messier with the store services fee. So the store services fee is a commission on sales of digital goods and services applying to purchases made on any platform and it applies within a fixed 12 month period from the date of when you install the app update the app or reinstall the app so basically anytime you engage with the app store engage with the app itself.
The store services fee if you're operating under the new EU alternative business terms and keep in mind that's where you'll also play pay the core technology fee for those developers who meet the 1 million download requirement. In that scenario the store services fee is 10% reduced to 5% for members of the small business program or on a qualifying renewal of a subscription after one year.
If you're continuing to offer your app inside of the app store under the standard business terms the store services fee is 20% reduced to 7% for members of the app store small business program or on that subscription renewal. So in some 25% right if you're out pretty much if you're in the app store which Apple says is cheaper than what they previously asked for because previously if you did link it out to the web it was 27% so now you've got 2% discount.
And the real kicker is that it's not 25% of transactions that result of you clicking on the link exactly yes 25% of anything just because you happen to install the app first so like if you already had a Spotify account active and you down the spot of the app Apple is not going to take a car out of their incredible generosity.
But if you don't have a spot of if you own a spot of fire you down on spot of fire first any time within the first year that you then go and buy Spotify whether you buy it through the iPhone where you buy it through the web where you buy it through the browser of an Android tablet you know where you buy it by phoning Spotify up and talk to my phone where you see an ad on a you know
bus stop that says buy going by Spotify whether even if Spotify paid for an app store search ads to promote their app to you and then you win it again and reopen the app and bought it that way Apple still wants the 25% cut after a year that 25% cut drops to 20% or because it's a subscription it would then drop to 7% but still it applies on everything you're buying off platform or on platform which is a level that no one is going to agree to.
It's also a level that realistically how do you even enforce that how a Spotify so let's say you download Spotify from the app store right and you but you never use it you never sign into an account they can't link it to you in any way.
Then six months later you fire up your Mac and you go to Spotify dot com and sign up in that situation Spotify is technically supposed to give Apple its cut but a Spotify really has no way of knowing the analytics on that Apple if Apple still threatens that they can audit you and make sure you're paying your fair share however they want to do it they can act like the IRS and they can audit you even in a scenario like that it's very hard for somebody to prove that.
They had also originally downloaded that app before they signed up or that they're even the same person right they don't know that it's very much an honor sister like
and you expect a lot of people who are a bit more importantly speaking you need someone to download the spot for a band login right to this exactly so you account. Yeah but this amount this percentage whether it's 512 20 or 25 I was really mad there's no way that the companies are going to be happy with it the EU is not going to accept it the EU's mad enough about the core technology fee which is 50 sent fee per year right this is 25%.
It's just a ridiculous figure that, you know, Apple has enough problems trying to justify taking 15 to 30% of transaction using Apple in that purchase. Yeah. Like, how'd you justify a 25% cut of stuff that is happening completely off of your platform? If it was, even if it was maybe 25% of the transactions that you make, could you directly click that link? And within a seven day period of clicking the link, they're counting it as your conversion through them.
At least then, it's somewhat reasonable. But the failure applies for 12 months and on an ongoing basis, by the way, because so Apple converted you, let's even just assume Apple deserves full credit for converting you to a subscriber. Every single year, regardless of where you buy it, just because you now have the app installed, and it's all gonna auto update, right? Like, you don't have to open the app. The app can just be on your device, auto updating.
It's just like the corner to an engine that feels that regard. It doesn't actually matter if you launch the application at all. It's only on your phone for the next forever. You'll be paying, you'll be due the store services for your cart to Apple. On whatever you advertise or promote to anybody. Like, if after you do the first install, you then spend 10 million pounds on a TV marketing campaign that then draws in a lot more upsells of Spotify premium or Spotify premium plus or whatever else.
You know, even if they introduce new products that never existed before, Apple's still gonna be, hello, we want our money, you know, it's just unrealistic and stupid. So I don't know why they even come to the table with something like this. I guess they have to. And then this is immediately just gonna be one of the things that shows up in the little EU website where they're like, we are reviewing compliance on this particular, on the store services, for you, the initial acquisition fee.
And then they'll have to change it. I think all of the numbers we've been throwing around, around the 5, 12, 20, 25 kind of just highlights part of Apple strategy here, which is just to overwhelm developers with so many numbers and so many fees and so many options to where it's, I don't know, it's so hard to make a decision and to know what is best for your business, what is best for your app, because there are the unknowns, there are all of these different rates.
There's the core technology factor of it all, where if you cross over that 1 million download threshold, you have another fee to pay, you have so much of it being on the honor system with the looming threat of an audit from Apple, where Apple can come in and say, hey, we think you shorted this by $500,000. You owe us $500,000. Good luck.
There's just so much that a developer has taken to account before they do this, that I think it will just scare a lot of, particularly one person, indie developers away from doing it. And I think that's, Well, indie developers never even do it anyway. That's fair, because we're not big enough. This is all about big companies. This is why Spotify is the go to example.
But Spotify and other big companies have no incentive to comply and do any of this stuff at the moment, because they know if they just stand on the sidelines and keep fighting it, the EU is still investigating. It's just like a three-way negotiation where Apple announces some stuff that is clearly unviable or in some ways unviable. Spotify and everybody else say it's stupid and stupid and how they dare do it. And then we just wait a few more months for the EU to basically say the same thing.
So like, anything they keep announcing, it's kind of like, well, what's the point? In three months, there's gonna be a different proposition. Like I don't know when eventually we get to the end state, but we haven't got there yet. I think it goes back to what we've talked about. I think every time we talk about the DMA and the EU stuff, where you have, again, well, you Spotify as the example, we have three clear parties. You have Spotify, you have Apple, and you have the European Commission.
What Apple is doing is clearly unreasonable. What Spotify wants, which is to pay nothing, give Apple nothing, ignore the fact that Apple is the platform operator. They want to pay nothing. Then you have the EU in the middle of it, and you have to, I don't know what their motive is, but it's clear that they aren't doing a very great job of laying out what they want Apple to do.
And when you put all three of those parties together, it just leads to situations like this, where when are we, like you said, going to hit that point where we have a stable, EU-approved set of policies? And right now it's looking like we're so far away from that. To be fair to the EU, each time Apple comes around, they do make concessions that they didn't before. That is true, yeah.
The link out policy in terms of parameters as many links as you want that can be dynamic, that's actually way better than what they previously offered in January. So the EU is probably quite happy about that. Now we're just fighting over the percentages and the money. So in some ways, the EU is kind of, it's trending in the EU's favor, right? It's not like Apple's being able to stand its ground and win. They stand their ground, the EU doesn't change it. So I guess the EU's winning slowly.
It's just taken a very, very long time for them. That's the so. All right, let's talk about something a little more fun, a little cool. Another new report from Bloomberg says that Apple is ramping up its work on a tabletop smart home device with a robotic arm. And Bloomberg says this is meant to serve as a smart home command center, a video conferencing machine, and a remote controlled home security tool. It's three things, are you getting it yet?
Targeting a price allegedly of under $1,000 with a release in 2026 or 2027. The clear reasoning for that expensive price is Apple's plans to make it swivel. So Bloomberg says that it will swivel left or right or up and down, it's be able to spin 360 degrees. I would now use an actuator to do that with a thin robotic arm connected to the screen to move it around.
And the main interface for interacting with this device will apparently be Siri with some of the new and forthcoming Apple intelligence features. Bloomberg says it currently runs a modified version of iPadOS and Apple is working on features like voice recognition. So if you're, say, on a FaceTime call or just talking to Siri on the thing directly, you can say, look at me. And then the thing will be able to swivel and look at you like you told it to do.
I go back and forth, I think this is very cool. But I think it's perhaps an example of people, of Apple being very out of touch with what people want from Apple in the smart home. A $1,000 robot, arm swiveling iPad, home pod, weird combo device is cool. But I don't necessarily think that's what most people want or what most people will even buy. Yeah, at that price point. We literally had this conversation in an episode of Combo-Mix-One.
I was just, as I was saying that, I was like, I think we just talked about this. Yeah, because I think it was the home put with a screen and there was some room that maybe it swiveled with some of the same project, right? Yes. If you're going to make a home put with a screen, it makes sense that it can rotate to face you because you can then walk freely around your kitchen and it can follow you. And so you can still see the screen look over it from wherever you are.
But you don't necessarily need articulated limbs and actuators and robotics to make that happen, right? Like the Amazon Echo show, third generation, or whatever it's called, maybe it's called the Echo show 10, third generation for whatever reason. But that tablet slash thing is literally, it sits on a speaker stand. It looks like an Amazon tablet and it swivels to face you. And you can say, look at me and it turns and faces you. And it's just rotates 180 degrees or whatever.
And do you know how much that costs? Mm, $200. $300. $300, okay, yeah. An Apple is targeting hoping under a thousand. Yeah, it's happening, like opening. I think it's great. You're going to make a home put with a screen and you should do 100% do it. And it would be pretty cool if it could rotate to look at you. I don't know what additional value you get of making something that can support six degrees of free emotion and rotate, you know, 360 degrees and have a full-reboiled limon like the IMG4.
Like it doesn't need to be that complicated. In my, maybe I've got a limited mind in a million imagination. But it's stronger to think what the use cases are beyond making the thing look at you, which is handy. But beyond that, why do you just, the extra expense is off the chain. And I'm never expecting Apple to make a product that's as cheap as what Amazon makes. That's just not what they do. It's always going to be more expensive.
The three and a draw, they're actually 10 with a screen that rotates is the same price as the home put that doesn't have a screen at all, for instance. But $500 somewhere around that feels a lot more reasonable than a thousand. Like I'm not sure you can really come up with enough use cases that people are going to want to go out and spend $1,000 for that particular device. Maybe I would, but I don't think it's going to be mass market.
Which is the exact same conversation you can have about the home put as well. Good product, too expensive, doesn't get a lot of sales. Yeah, then we're going to end up in a situation and a few years after this, or a couple years after this thing comes out, where Apple says, ah, nobody's buying this thing. We should just get discontinued. And it's like, yes, nobody's buying it because it's insanely expensive. And this isn't what most people want to do.
I was re-engineered and I was a little bit, yeah. Nobody's buying the home pod because it's expensive. Nobody's buying Vision Pro because it's expensive. And over in the future, the vision is a bit different. I think the vision pro has to be expensive to look at. Well, this thing has to be expensive if they want to put it on a robot arm. Like, that's expensive. Yeah, but why they put on a robot? Well, yeah, I mean, that's another question.
But the thing with the Apple Smart Home strategy, the Vision Pro thing I actually completely get, like everyone lets a joke about it and be like, oh, they've only sold 400,000, you know, this year, but like, on the assumptions of them going heading into that product, I feel like they knew it was only 10,400,000. That's when they made it, they've made it 400,000. They're working with microlyd screens that only make a million a year. You develop by two for each eye, there's 500,000, you know?
Like, Apple's not stupid, they figured that out and they saw the roadmap. I actually think they're doing this as expected. With the home stuff, I generally think there's people in Apple like, we'll make this thing, it's gonna be a grand, but it's gonna be awesome, and people are gonna buy it in drives. That's where I feel like they're a bit disconnected. It's like a different, like the Vision Pro is a different set of issues or sort of problems like this.
They have smart home products that are pretty good. They're just slightly too expensive and they don't push them down market enough or they don't make versions that are cut down. Like, they don't put minis perfectly fine, but they need a home pod, big home pod that's $100 cheaper, for instance, but they never make one. And then the expensive products, they do ship, they don't get enough love and attention, they don't get ongoing development and generation after generation new models come out.
Like, the home pod has had two models since 2018 and the second model was basically just a revival of the first model. Like, it's not like I did no functionality to it really. Right? Like, it's basically exactly the same. Yeah. So the problem with Ampa Smart Home lineup is there's not really a lineup. There's two products that are, I think the minis find a way for, but the main home pod is like too expensive and doesn't quite fit the bill.
And they just need more stuff, more cheaper stuff, slightly more expensive stuff. Like, what the problem here is, you could have $1,000 rotating alarm thing. If you also had a suite of products that would hit different price points too in between, the prioritize a home pod with a screen on it, right? Ship that thing, then you can worry about making a robot or a robotic arm version.
Like, just take the home pod as it is today, pretty good speaker, slap a big iPad size screen on it, give it a visual indication, give it UI, right? It doesn't have to be as expensive as $1,000 to do that. And find somewhere to make it a little bit cheaper. Complete with the echo show, is basically what I'm saying. You don't need to be fantastically marvel, technologically crazy, going into the worlds of autorebotic technology. Like, that's just punching too high when you don't need to.
There's low-ahanging fruit to pick that they just don't seem interested in. The latest problem with Apple's smart home strategy or lack thereof is Apple Intelligence.
Like, yes, it sounds like this $1,000 robot will be able to use Apple Intelligence, but Apple sells smart speakers, that again, because they just don't get updates and they don't get enough love, aren't going to support a single Apple Intelligence feature, whether that's natively or with some sort of mirroring or pairing to a nearby iPhone. It's like Apple has all of these AI and upgraded Siri plans.
And the speakers they make that are in part dedicated to interacting with Siri, just aren't getting any of it. It's just such a weird balance. And I think, example of Apple, not really reading the room. And it's disappointing, even if this product sounds so expensive, but it sounds so cool. It's just not what most people, including myself, really wants out of a more expansive Apple smart home ecosystem. All right, I think that does it for this week.
You can find us on Apple Podcasts where you can leave a rating and a review, can also find an ad-free version of the show with bonus content every week at 9-5-Mac.com slash join. Again, please send us some ask 9-5-Mac questions for next week. Episode 500 will answer some of them. Do some recollection of the past 10 years. You can find me on threads, Twitter, Macedon, at Chance H. Miller, and Mayo, what about you? At, be Zidane, all right, thanks Mayo. Bye-bye.