532: The 2024 Annies

Music Music From Relay, this is Connected, episode 532. Today's show is brought to you by ZocDoc, Vanta, NetSuite. and Masterclass. It is the Annie's annual year in review episode. I am your Ricky Benchman, Mike Hurley, and I have the pleasure of introducing Federico Batici. Hi, Federico. Hello, Mike. How are you?

I'm good. I'm feeling very good. I'm excited for today. Feeling good? Feeling good? Yeah, it's a great episode coming up. And for this episode, we're also joined by Stephen Hackett. Hello, Stephen. Hey, boys. Hello. Another year. Either you're gone. One step closer to the end. That's a Linkin Park reference. It is. Oh, okay. That just seemed really dark to me as someone who's not deep in the lore, you know? Yeah.

So, yes, it is the Annie's. You may be thinking, wait, what is this? Well, we do it every year. The premise is pretty simple. It's our annual year in review. Months are graded on the TG scale. We should talk about the TG scale. So Federico, do you want to walk us through the different steps on the scale worst to best? Yeah, so the TC scale is a measuring system that's been in existence for quite a few years at this point. It's a very simple way to think about something that you like or dislike.

It starts from the very bottom. There's nightmare after nightmare. So that's something that is really, truly, horrifically bad. Then we move up to inferior minus. then there's inferior then we move on to the middle part of the scale where there's decent and normal. Now, this is like when something is decent or normal, it's like the difference between the two is more like vibe-based, but you'll get it. You know it when you see it. Moving on to the right side of the scale, we have good, good plus.

And the culmination of something that you extremely appreciate, something that makes you feel... you know, all warm and fuzzy inside is best I love you. That's for something that is truly extraordinary, that makes you happy just when you think about it. So that's the TC scale. Now, when it comes to the annies, I believe the lowest... we can give to a month is inferior minus. Because if I'm remembering correctly, Nightmare is occupied by March 2020. That's right. Right? And so...

If we have to get back to Nightmare again, something's going down, you know? Yeah. You'll know if we go back to Nightmare again. We don't even need to tell you. You know, you know. And by and large, if you think it's a nightmare, it probably isn't because it could be worse. Like, can it get worse? I'm not sure. We'll find out next year. I mean, it can always get worse. Sure, sure, sure, sure. I'm going to say something.

As gently as I can. Just as gently as I can. I can't wait for this. The bat artwork on Nightmare pre-existed March 2020. Oh my God, I never thought of that before. That's potentially the best thing that's ever happened. Just going to say that, that Kate predicted it all. It's like my weird fish tattoo not being a COVID tattoo, despite the fact that now people think it is. That's right.

Yeah. Mike, have you gotten that tattoo yet? You know, I have a whole plan, but I just haven't gotten around to it. Like, I know what it is. I know who's going to do it. Like, it's a whole thing. You're literally going to have a baby before a tattoo. Yeah, because... Maybe you and the baby get the same tattoo.

Sure. Well, that's not what's going to happen, but it isn't far away from it. So I got a whole thing, but it's now going to be even longer until it happens, I'll tell you that. I got a whole thing. I got a whole thing, but, you know. Cover got in the way. We'll go with that. We'll go with that. You can't blame me. Hey, before we get started in January, this is the final call for the membership sale. So you want to go to Give Relay.

And you will get 20% off of any membership across the network. I'm going to recommend a connected pro, which is a longer ad free version of the show that we do each and every week. This week before the show, we talked about Federico's iPad article that got published today. Great conversation kind of behind the scenes on that. At the end of the show, we'll pick titles. But Mike, what do people get beyond Connected Pro when they sign up?

So much. So you like podcasts, so you'll like the fact that you get more podcasts. There are two monthly shows with exclusive content that are just for Relay members. You get access to and you get sent our monthly newsletter. You get... a ton of great wallpapers like so many high quality wallpapers that you can have for your devices that feature relay artwork and related

paraphernalia. I don't know why I used that word, but that's the word I'm going to use. And also you get access to the Relay Members Discord, where people are hanging out all day, every day, chatting about the things that we all share in common. And also it's a great place if you ever want to listen live to the shit.

show that's where all the conversations happening about live shows if you ever hear us say such and such in the discord that's the discord we're talking about it's the relay members discord which you get access to if you become a relay member awesome so go check it out Give Relay dot com. OK, we are going to start in January and we do this round robin style. So I'll take a month and then Federico will take a month and then Michael take a month.

In January, we did our iPhone tier list, which I do not remember doing, nor did I remember the score, the scoring, but we have a link in the show notes for you to see it. On reflection on this, I just want to say, man, the iPhone 8 got the short end of the stick, didn't it? No, it didn't. It had to share the limelight with the iPhone X.

I thought you meant from us because I was going to say we put it in the right place. Yeah, no, it's D tier because it's like the iPhone 7 but with glass on the back. But just in general, you know, the 8 is kind of forgotten, I feel like. I think we did a good job of our tier list. You know, looking over it, I don't really have anything I would change. Yeah. It's pretty good. Maybe the 5C up a little bit because I like the colors.

We put the iPhone X in S tier, the 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max. I kind of wonder where we will put the latest ones. Well, do we want to do the 16 just right now? Why not? I'm not going to update the image. I wasn't prepared for this. All right. So are we talking the 16 and the 16 Pro or are we going to do them separately? I think... Sorry, we separately or all together? I think the 16 line and then the 16 pro line. Yeah. Hmm. Hmm. I think the 16 line is like... It's B.

Like it's fine. You know, design has been around for a while, but it got camera control and the action button. So that's cool. So maybe like B for the 16. I'm probably that like. B for the 16 and A tier for the 16 Pro Max. 16 Pro and Pro Max. I think so too. They're not. I don't think they are S tier. Despite the addition of camera control, I don't think they are.

I think that's what keeps it out. I think that maybe hurts it a little bit. Yeah, I think A tier for that. It's really nice that the Pro and the Pro Max have the big zoomy boy, so that's good. Yeah. I have... I have some very important follow-up for the show right now, which is we did our iPhone tier list in June of 2022. Why is it in the... Why isn't the document for January of... Maybe we... Okay, so...

Now we have to talk about how we compiled these links. We've noticed there's been an issue. We've noticed an issue. Federico, can you explain how we pulled the links for this? Well, this is your fault because it was your job to verify the leaks. Oh, he got him. Mike made the first pass. I trusted Mike. Mike made the first pass to them which we were supposed to then go through and look at the links to expand upon them. So it didn't take me very long of expanding upon this to get to that answer.

took me as the URL says connected 404. Now, 404 was a really long time ago. So, Federico, do you want to talk about how we collected the links for this so we can shame Steven a little bit more? Yeah, so you guys asked me, like, is there a way that we can speed up the process of collecting all the links that we cover in each episode of Connected every week? And I had an idea of asking Chad GPT.

the O1 Pro model, the really, you know, tanky beast model that they have. Like, can you create a Python script that does this? The idea being, I wanted to have a Python script that took the RSS feed, identified from the RSS feed which are the episodes that came out in 2024, and... from those episodes, access the show notes. And in the show notes, identify links of two types.

Links that point to commonly used websites like MacRumors, MacStories, Apple Insider, 9to5Mac, Bloomberg, like all those places. Or links that have... keywords in them, like iOS, iPadOS, Apple, you know, basically Apple-related keywords. And in basically 30 minutes, I put it together. And it created this markdown list of links discussed each week on Connected, organized by month, if I'm not mistaken. But of course, that list contained...

Like if this week on Connected, we talk about something that happened two years ago and that ends up in the show notes. Like the very first one. Like the very first one. Yep. We referenced in episode 483, which was in January of this year, in the show notes for that episode, is the image of our tier list. So yeah, I think... I hope, I think this is going to be our only mistake in this link gathering, but we'll see. I now don't think that will be the case, so we have that to look forward to.

Yeah, I'm afraid now. Yeah. I mean, I've already found another one in January, which is Apple closes Infinite Loop store. That happened in December. Well, look. Just gone. Boom. Gone. Forget about it. It didn't even happen. Didn't even happen. In January, Apple announced that the Vision Pro would be available in February.

I guess we'll talk more about it in February. I did want to... That one was interesting, right? Because of the way that they did it. They were just... week at that point we were like they've got to announce this at some point because they had not announced the date just that it was coming and then all of a sudden one day they were just like

on the newsroom yeah pre-orders are coming here you go just and also it included just like a lot of information we didn't have like how do the lenses work how does this how does that so That was actually, even though it is an announcement of a thing that is coming, the way in which it was done was quite interesting. Yeah. I think they were just trying to get as many cycles as they could.

News wise out of that thing. I was reminded because you put a link in here to Joanna Stern sharing a demo photo. Do you remember the do you remember the uproar around? Apple would not let people take pictures in their demos. And then when they did, the cable had to be like tucked behind them. So you couldn't see it. This to me was just one of these things that people were saying was an uproar.

You know what I mean? Actually, I don't really understand why anyone would expect that to be anything other than that. You're having a demo from Apple in a controlled space. They're going to control their space, right? Maybe it was just a Vergecast thing. I mean, it was a Vergecast thing, but it wasn't just them. But people were doing their thing. Also in January...

Apple revised the US App Store rules to let developers link to outside payment methods. And so this was bringing the... u.s app store more in line with the eu but the reason it happened was not out of the goodness of apple's heart but because the u.s supreme court denied to hear apple's appeal uh with the epic in the epic game trial

If you remember that, which took three years to unfold. This is the beginning. Well, not even the beginning. This is a continuation of something that we will talk about throughout the rest of this episode of Apple doing. changes to the App Store and to the rules around the App Store to follow the exact letter of the law and nothing more. This is also when we got, I'm sure everyone will remember, we got a reminder about how Apple does this.

You're about to go to an extra website. Apple is not responsible for the privacy or security of purchases made on the web. And that was in like 72-point font on this panel you had to click through. Pretty... Pretty rough stuff. And like I said, this will be a theme throughout 2024. Apple detailing how they're going to. obey the law, and then they're being pushed back from the people who wrote the law, and around and around it goes. In January, someone...

named Federico Vatici, wrote a story about modding their iPad Pro with a screen protector, a phone holder, and magnetic stereo speakers. Yeah, boy. This is particularly funny to me because you just today published your big kind of end of the year iPad article. And I noted none of this stuff is attached to your iPad anymore. So was this fake news, Federico?

No, it lasted about like five months until the new iPads. And then I didn't want to do it anymore. Like, there's this problem, there's this epidemic on the internet where... I love it. Where... People think that anything a creative person does has to be forever. Yeah. Like, no experimentation has to be allowed anymore. And I think it's wrong.

And so I know, Stephen, that you're not part of this epidemic. You just like to poke fun at me and you are forgiven for that reason. I love you. Yeah, me too. But still, other people are part of that problem. No, it was a fun experiment. It lasted for a few months. Those speakers are great. And that holder, the, what's it called? The rolling edge something? Rolling square? Rolling square, rolling square. That's a...

Nice company, great company that makes just a couple of things that work really well. So I love those magnets. They're super strong. Yeah, it is. It is very cool. The Mac somehow turned 40 in January of 2024. This set many people up to write lots of things about the Mac, including me. I did this whole series.

obviously kind of an amazing anniversary. But in scrolling through the archives and 512 pixels about this, this Steve Jobs quote jumped out at me and it jumped out at me at the time. So I'm going to read it again. So Steve Jobs said this. about the original Mac. With Macintosh, the computer is an A to spontaneity and originality, not an obstacle. It allows ideas and relationships to be viewed in new ways.

Macintosh enhances not just productivity, but also creativity. That still applies to the Mac. I think it applies to the iPad. You could copy and paste this at the top of Federico's article today. It's just amazing how forward-looking the statement is. And I think it still encompasses what's great about Apple's platforms. It's good. Happy birthday, Mac. Again.

And then also in January, to round this out, we had... So January had spillover from December with the ITC ban with the Apple Watch. You remember that Apple... This is still not resolved, by the way, now a year later, about the blood oxygen sensor on the Apple Watch. And the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 went off the market for a while. After for about a week. Right in the holiday season, like leading up to Christmas. And then they came back on sale in January.

And the Ultra 2, of course, did not get updated this year, but the Apple Watch Series 10 also no blood oxygen sensor in the US. So I just bought my wife an Apple Watch Series 10 and no blood oxygen reading. And it's... Every time we've said this, we touch this topic this year, I think we've said it. We don't know really what's going on. This is ridiculous that this has not been resolved yet. And if it...

Is it all within Apple's power to do so? They should do so. Well, it is. There's many ways they could, but they don't want to do them. dodged a near mistake when we're on vacation i was thinking about we're thinking about upgrading adina's watch and we went into the apple store and i was like oh

Don't do it because we won't get the sensor because we get it if we buy it at home because we still have it, right? It's just in the US. So if I buy a new Apple Watch, it does have a blood oxygen sensor, but it doesn't over there. Yeah, I remember we had that realization when you were here. It's like, oh, you should not buy an Apple Watch right now. Yeah, I keep making that multiple times I've made that realization. I need to remember it. Yeah. So where does it go on the scale?

Hmm. If we remove the AI mistake, that doesn't count. So that's not included in the scale. I feel like it's decent. It's decent, yeah. Yeah, it's not really standing out. and like I wouldn't want to really have the DMA stuff be considered yet because there's going to be a lot of it later you know so

Because you could say like, oh, it's inferior. But like if we think back then, it was actually more interesting than where it comes later on in the year where it's just becoming a bit of a malaise. So I agree with Decent. Okay. Decent it is. Okay, yeah, decent. All right, moving on to February. Obviously, the big thing in February is the launch of the Vision Pro.

And in addition to that, I would add the famous meeting of Michael Hurley with Timothy Cook, the CEO of Apple. It was very good. Yeah. So the Vision Pro launched. Mike flew to America to get his Vision Pro. Mine arrived in Italy after an adventure through customs, multiple shipping centers, multiple boxes. Multiple hands that touched those boxes. But we all got it. We all got it in February. And we were so optimistic. Ever so optimistic about the Vision Pro as a computer replacement.

Mike, do you have any favorite memories of your trip to America to get a Vision Pro? It was a really good trip. It was a nice trip anyway because I enjoy being in New York. But getting to meet Tim Cook and also Jaws, who I forget and does get forgotten from this story, I expect that that happens a lot to anyone around Tim Cook.

people remember Tim. That was good. Casey came to surprise visit me. That was also really lovely. And then, of course, we had the excitement of getting the Vision Pro, which is very exciting. Those first few days were very exciting. Do you remember the... When we were all seeing our special personas for the first time. Oh, just sorry, our personas for the first time. Personas that were not special.

really bad at the beginning really really bad yeah and good memes uh but yeah but that was a good that was a good time Yeah, that moment of getting a brand new Apple device. Totalini platform, the initial wave, the initial and only wave of third-party apps at the App Store. But that's a good moment in time.

Great memories. Great memories. Not to jump too far ahead, but I just want to point out that Tim Cook met Mike before he met the king. It's pretty cool. And I met the king before Tim. And you met... Wait, what? When I was a kid, I met Prince Charles, who then became King Charles. That doesn't count. You cannot preemptively meet a future king.

Yeah, you can, because that's what happens. Everyone that meets him before he's the king knows he's the future king, because that's how it works. That's exactly how monarch succession works. We'll see. But I met the man. We'll say that. I met the man who became the king. It's like meeting John Ternus before he's CEO. That will also come later in this episode. So many spoilers. Sorry.

Well, is it a spoiler if it really happened? Spoilers. Spoilers. Oh, don't tell me about me. How could you? Also in February. Apple started to release a bunch of information about the large language models that they were building or at the very least researching and publishing papers about.

We covered plenty of these acronyms. MGIE, an Instruction-Based Image Editing Large Language Model, which means like you can take an image and give it... a natural language instruction like there's a picture of the sky you can say instead of blue make it purple and it should do that we had keyframer which was another model that turned images and text prompts into animations. We had Ferret, which was the computer vision framework, model if I'm not mistaken, that Apple was publishing.

a paper about in collaboration with the university what's it called? Cornell University? I want to say. Yeah, so it's basically like an agentic model that in theory should be able to understand what's on the screen and do stuff on screen. There was a bunch of models that Apple was... publishing research on. Now, most of these have not come true with Apple Intelligence. They have remained published papers.

so far but it should give you a sense of the ambition that Apple has as we discussed at the time the fact that people who work the thing is the more I read follow people who work in the AI industry, the more it seems obvious that people who work in AI really want to show off their work. And so this is Apple becoming part of that scene.

publishing papers about the research they're doing, the models they're working on. Now, these are still in the theoretical stage. None of these have been published. None of these are available. But we'll see. I'm especially intrigued by the instruction-based image editing. Apple is on the record saying we do not want to alter the nature of a photo. Something that happened in time.

that much. But this is basically what this instruction model could do. So maybe this is just research that they have done for what would eventually become image playground. I don't know. Still, they have a bunch of papers. We'll see what happens. Also in February, Apple decided to drop, basically discontinue iPhone web apps in iOS 17.4. Basically, you were no longer able to save a web app to the home screen on your phone.

That caused a whole controversy with the European Union, with developers. It was since reversed, I believe. Yeah, it got reversed in March. Yeah, for later. That happened. They tried to do that for a bit. And also in February saw the much anticipated discontinuation of... what's it called project titan so apple is no longer making an electric car

They're winding down their entire electric car project and division. A bunch of people got reassigned to the artificial intelligence teams. It seems that a bunch of other people, unfortunately, got laid off. But yeah, Apple is no longer making an electric car. Instead, as we will see later in the year, it seems like...

Apple is now pivoting to building other things such as robotic arms that move around. And some of those people got reassigned to that project. But yeah, there's a long story on Bloomberg about... how exactly apple got to that point and why and how they decided that it was time to wrap it all up and call it a day they're no longer making a car i think this is

pretty high on scale this month. The Vision Pro was very exciting when it launched. Very, very exciting. Very, very exciting moment in time. Good?

I was leaning Good Plus, personally. I would say Good Plus. That would be my opening. Like, it's obviously not Best I Love You, but Good Plus, it's like... Because, you know, they release new stuff all the time, and it's fun. But this was like... brand everything brand new like super futuristic and it was all it all of us had a weird and exciting tale you know like of getting them and setting them up and it was all new and weird and that was fun yeah

Good plus. All right. So that brings us to March. March introduces iOS 17.4, which has a selection of new features, transcripts in Apple Podcasts. which is a feature that I think is very well implemented by Apple. New emoji.

I'm going to take a quick aside here. I was thinking about this today. Like there hasn't been new emoji yet, right? Like Apple haven't put the new emoji out yet. And I was wondering two things. One, I'm expecting they have done this because they want people to use Genmoji, right? So don't release new emoji.

and have the shine taken away from the Genmoji, use the Genmoji. My other thought was, maybe they just stop adding new emoji. I mean, I don't think so. Because if the... consortium continues to approve new emoji and other platforms adopt them apple has to do they i think yeah or things are going to break like do they but do they get

No, I think it's bananas to think that they would stop adding. All right. It's just a conspiracy theory, but I do believe that they have not put the new emoji in yet because they want people to use gemmoji. That I can see, but I think that's like a... a this year kind of thing. Yeah, for sure. I mean, you're not going to release new gem emoji every year. It's a system. Anyway, going back to March of this year.

The first DMA changes, which include a browser ballot, third-party browser engine support, and alternative app marketplaces launch on the iPhone. The European Commission fines Apple over 1.8 billion euros. This is regarding Apple's control of the App Store and how it affects the competition of music streaming services specifically and even more specifically.

Spotify. This is Spotify's complaint. This is unrelated to the DMA. This is a separate thing. And this is something that Spotify had been kind of working through the European court for a while. This prompted Apple to write one of the rare open letters that they publish on their website. This one was talking about all of the ways in which they have a level playing field.

for all developers and believe that Spotify should be doing a better job of supporting all of the features that Apple provides them. said the thing, the quiet thing out loud, Spotify pays Apple nothing. That was a huge header in this article where Apple uses this as a time to go through and talk about all of... the things that they gloriously provide developers and how companies like Spotify would not exist without Apple.

It's basically saying Spotify should pay us money, and because they don't, we will compete with them, is kind of the subtext of what they're saying. This was... This whole article was a miss, in my opinion. I think Apple wanted to get a thoughts on Flash kind of message out, but we're in a very different world to when Steve Jobs wrote thoughts on Flash. And I don't think that this was seen as kindly as they would have liked it to be, in my opinion.

Apple announces that they will comply with the DMA rules to allow a user to download apps directly from a website, but there are a ton of rules and things that you need to comply with to do this. Then the US Department of Justice... raised its antitrust complaint about Apple. So lots of things going on. Federico decapitated a MacBook to create a MacPad. Are you still using that? No. I am not. If you ever do have to use a Mac, do you use this one? I can plug it into a Thunderbolt cable.

And it works with my monitor. But that's what you would do now though? If there was a thing where you have to use a Mac 4, you'll use the MacPad? Yeah. The MacBook Air got an M3 chip, a thing that I forgot had happened. This allowed it to support two external displays when closed.

But I think the more important thing overall here was that this brought the M2 Air down to a starting price of $999, killing off the original MacBook Air design from the Apple Store. I think, Stephen, correct me if I'm wrong, you can buy... from walmart still the m1 i don't know if that's the thing you can still do but i know it's the thing you could do yeah it's like 700 bucks which is pretty cool yeah the walmart macbook

And then Stephen wrote a really weird and interesting history about a weird and interesting computer concept called the Apple Jonathan. Yeah. I think this is the thing I'm most proud of writing this year. It's very Stephen. It took... It took a long time to pull all this together and then being able to use renders and stuff from Nanoraptor. They were very kind to share those images. And then I had follow-up later in the year.

from a memo, an internal memo that someone gave me about the Jonathan. I was very proud of this. And I think it's the definitive piece on this weird computer now out there on the internet. It's pretty good to have a definitive piece on something. It feels good. Yeah. Yeah. So what are you both feeling about March? Pretty litigious, heavy month. Yeah. Not super fun. But again, I will just...

What I want to do here is make sure we remember how it felt at the time. And at the time, that was pretty exhilarating. I think it's normal. To have all of this stuff happening at once, I think it's a bit more than normal. I think it's good. I think if you combine the DMA and the Fine and the DOJ and me decapitating a MacBook... I would also say good. I know it's like, oh god, legislation, here we go again. But it was... I don't know. There was...

It felt like something started to change. There's a word in English that I'm thinking about. Comeuppance. Yes. Yes. It's that that I think makes it good. Yeah. I think at this point in the year, at least for me, speaking personally, this was still interesting and exciting stuff to talk about. I would say it's a good month. I would be happy with good. Okay.

Good it is. This episode of Connected is brought to you by ZocDoc. Sometimes searching for the right doctor is a bit like a bad Mad Libs round. You need a blank specialist who takes your blank insurance. Who is within blank miles of you? Well, ZocDoc makes it easy to fill in those blanks to help you find the right doctor for your specific needs.

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This is where you are cut out and you're kind of floating and you got your hands. Initially, they were pretty rough, but I will give Apple credit. They have improved greatly in the months since. But the question, of course, Mike. Does your mouth move on your special persona yet? No. To this day. Still doesn't move? Have you tried it in 2.0? Can I ask you something else? Are you sure your mouth moves in real life? No.

I mean, I don't see it. That's what I thought. Maybe it doesn't, but no, it still doesn't. And even on the most recent 2.2 betas, it still doesn't. It's gotten a little bit better, but by and large, it is a non-moving mouth. That's a great name for a band. I still have an open feedback that has not been in any way... updated so that going back to the day the vision pro came out i filed that feedback wow okay automatic makes the move uh makes the news

No, no, I like makes the move. They make lots of moves this year. Yeah. It's that comforting. God, they did. This is one of them. This move, though, is they acquired Beeper. You remember Beeper? Beeper. Wow. It was like, hey, get all your chats into one place. And this was spicy because they tried adding iMessage. And this was a cat and mouse game with Apple and Beeper.

to get messages in and then they ultimately lost it and then automatic bought them. The, the moral of the story has Apple always win the cat and mouse game. What I like about this in hindsight is how quickly things can change because... They were good guy automatic when making this move. People were like, oh, great. Like they're helping this company, you know? And it's just like, oh, later on in the year, things change. Things change. Yeah.

Do you like pineapple on pizza? Click here. I actually really do, so maybe I could sign up. You could use WordPress, yeah. We'll get to all that. Don't worry, it's coming. Delta launched on the App Store. this feels i'm gonna just i'm gonna say it this feels like the the most important news story of the year well it's also the max story selects app of the year so go figure you know Just everything that this represents is huge. Absolutely huge.

That's a good way of saying it. It is like Delta is the encapsulation of a lot of what has happened in 2024. It's the poster child. It needed 2024 to happen. It couldn't have happened otherwise. I don't think... those folks set out to be the center of all of this? No, probably not. They just wanted to play Nintendo DS games on their phone. Yeah, but here we are. And the fact that I can click this link and it opens in the app store and I can just download it.

is amazing to me eight months later. And it's a pretty monumental moment. I don't think it's in the news unless anybody added it to the December column. So I'm maybe jumping ahead, but... Like similarly, I mean, what, like two days ago, they just added the ability to sign up with Patreon via the app, which is the first time that's ever happened. So again, yes, like setting the tone.

of the year. So yeah, maybe that's a new thing we give in the Annies just to make this more complicated. What is the encapsulation of the year? But I definitely agree with you, Stephen, that Delta makes that. Yeah. the beginning of the end of fine woven started happening in April. Fine woven. That's a name I haven't heard in a long time. Yeah. You can still get fine woven stuff. You know, they got rid of the iPhone cases.

But these were rumors. Oh, you can get the watch bands? The watches. And the wallet, maybe? Yeah. But these were the rumors that the fine woven products were going to be ended. You know, there's some fine woven truthers out there, but I think the three of us agree it was a pretty, pretty poor move to to move to it. I'd love to know what happened though. Like I'd love to know behind the scenes, like just what, what went wrong with fine woven. This next one, I had forgotten about it.

And when I reread it, I think I had the exact same feeling I did in April of just like, what? So in the mountain of legal cases that Apple has been dealing with, Phil Schiller testified. that he didn't know if the app store was profitable or not. Love it. And that there's no written notes. at Apple meetings because Steve Jobs didn't believe in it. And this set off a mountain of feedback to us that there are loads of notes taken in Apple meetings. So maybe this is just at the very highest.

you know, reaches of the company. Pretty wild, wild stuff. I mean, I don't want to say that, I mean, Schiller, I'm sure like... doesn't seem like he would lie to a court, but you don't know if the app store is profitable or not. Look, he might not be lying, but he ain't telling the truth. Someone knows at Apple. Come on. Come on.

He doesn't know if the app store is profitable. If that's the case, someone needs to have a conversation with Luca Maestri. Well, he's out. Maybe that's why. You could see a scenario in which... A bunch of folks at Apple are like, guys, do we know if the App Store is profitable? And someone else is like, ugh.

I don't know. And somebody else is like, okay, you know what? Let's just keep charging developers 30% and we'll make up for it. And everything will be okay. I could see that conversation. I could see that. It's wild, right? No, seriously. Totally wild. Someone has to know somewhere. I like Phil Schiller. I think he's done a lot of important work at Apple, but I think he has really heard his legacy in the last 12 months.

Here's the thing about the App Store thing, right? About how you can get away with this. Maybe we can talk to John. But I feel like it's just like, this is an accounting thing. Is the App Store itself profitable? Definitely. But what if you include the iPhone? You know what I mean? Because, like, well, you have to have the iPhone for the App Store to be profitable, and it doesn't make more money than it costs to develop the iPhone. Like, I just...

Can't imagine a world in which Apple has more resource allocated to running the App Store than the App Store generates in revenue. Like, I just can't imagine that world because otherwise... It feels like there are certain applications that wouldn't get onto the App Store. Okay. Up next. To wrap up the month of April.

A bunch of people went to social media and said, I've been locked out of my Apple ID. Some people were like, I was in the middle of a phone call and got logged out. A couple of things here. What struck me in rereading Chance's article on 9to5Mac was I feel like it's been a minute since I've seen Twitter embeds in an article. That was kind of weird to see because who cares about Twitter anymore?

But this was a weird thing. And it was just like a little rash of it at the end of the month. And then it got fixed or went away. But definitely a very strange moment. Happened to me. It did. I forgot about that. It did happen to you. I was on a hiking trip with Underscore. It was very scary because all my devices started going off and saying, you're locked out of your iCloud account, which was super helpful while I was in the Lake District.

But it was never answered. They never said what happened. It happened and they pretended it didn't happen. It was weird. What were you using to track your hike? I was using Pedometer++ because how could you not when you're hiking with the man who made it? That's right.

you know good call although i did earlier in the year have that moment where i was using pedometer plus plus and he's like you want to use this feature and i was like oh i can't it says i have to pay and he's like you're not paying i'm like well

I paid once years ago. I didn't have a subscription. I didn't know I needed it. And then I immediately then signed up for a subscription and I did a monthly. And so every time I get the email every month where it's like you're, you just resubscribe to put on a plus plus, I can feel a little bit guilty every single day.

the time it was like i didn't know i didn't know i wasn't paying i pay for everything else but i didn't know you know what am i supposed to do steven that's why you needed you so you could tell people about things that's right There's still support email sometimes about that change. But, you know. Oh, yeah, you know. You've got to let the people know. That's what Stephen does. Okay. So I am extremely conflicted about how to score April because Delta on the App Store...

Pulls it way high. And I think spatial personas pulls it pretty high. Cause that was like new and exciting, but the Schiller thing and the Apple ID thing really stick in my mind as. problems for april so i think i think i lean towards good i think it'd be good plus otherwise but i think i lean towards good i feel very comfortable with that too

Yeah, I think I agree. All right. Good it is. Federico, take us through May. Let's go to May. First story. Well, obviously, May is dominated by an event. But before we get to that... There was a story on Bloomberg about Apple's succession plan and who the most likely person to succeed Tim Cook is going to be. And spoiler, it's John Ternus. The person, Mike and I.

would go on later that month to meet in person in London. Oh, I know you. That's what he said to you. That's what he said to me? Oh, I know you. Future Apple... So this is like Mike meeting... the future king when he was little. We met John Ternus obviously before he would become eventually Apple CEO. Or king. He may also become king somewhere. He may also become the king. That's also possible. Is that how that works? It was hinted in a footnote. You'll see, Stephen. It's in there.

But yeah, big story on Bloomberg. And obviously, Tim Cook is not going anywhere for now. But it seems like Apple is preparing for, you know, Tim Cook eventually retiring and is going to take his place. And... You know, we know that Apple likes to pick internally. And so they are, it seems like they are preparing John Turnus for the job. I saw a thing recently. I don't remember if we spoke about it or not. And I don't remember exactly where I saw it, but...

There was apparently a suggestion that Trump being re-elected has pushed Tim Cook's retirement out further, like that he was starting to consider it, but now he's not going to do it. Why? because he can deal with him. Yeah, okay, okay. And I do think that there is at least, to begin, right, the presidency, like it makes sense for that continuity. Because the relationship has been built for good and ill. Like, it's there. And it's been said.

that his retirement has been pushed on further. I've read this somewhere, or I dreamt it, and now I'm just saying it to you. Well, in May, obviously the big news is the... apple event for announcing the new ipads the new ipad pros and the new ipad air um now this was more this was a better event for Mike and me, because we went to London, to Battersea Power Station, where Apple has its fancy European headquarters now, and I...

was able to see Mike this year. We went and had a lovely breakfast together. We had a walk in the, what's it called? The South Bank in London? Yep, on the South Bank. Yeah, it was a lovely day. Got to see the iPads. We got to be there in the audience. We saw a video like really anybody else. We saw a video. But after the video, there was a hands-on area. We met John Turnus.

We saw the iPads. We touched the iPads. We went and saw a demo for the updated Final Cut Pro 2 and Logic Pro 2. And what's it called? The Final Cut camera. We also saw that. So the event and being there and seeing Mike makes it a very good event for me. One of my favorite days of the year. It was a lovely day. It was a really good day. Really good day. Now, obviously...

For me personally, the aftermath of the event was not so great. But if you recall, the whole thing with the review units and me not being able to publish a review of the iPad. But I will say this. While I was very stressed in that moment, I am personally very proud of how I handled it and I am still very happy. with the story that I published about the limitations of the iPadOS software. And I think it's because of that story that I was able to eventually get to the point where I got today.

with the iPad Pro story that I have on the site. So I think the story that I published, even though I did not get those review units in time for an embargoed review, I think in the grand scheme of things, months later, it was for the best. And these iPads, man, these iPads are so good. They're fantastic. The iPad hardware is incredible. The appreciation that I have...

And believe me, I have tried other tablets. I have tried all the things. You know, this is something that I mentioned in my story today. I have tried things in the past two years. I've seen things and I've tried things and I've bought things and I have sold those things. And the iPad Pro, so thin. multiple display options, two sizes, the new Magic Keyboard, the Apple Pencil Pro. Nobody, literally nobody makes a tablet like this.

This is not me being a fanboy. It's the objective reality. Nobody makes this kind of tablet with this kind of performance. That's what it is. Anyway, that was very good. Very good day. Very good to see Mike. beyond the Apple event in London. and the new iPads, Apple pre-announced their usual for Global Accessibility Awareness Day. They previewed the accessibility features coming to all of their operating systems down the road, including eye tracking, which is...

one of the highlights of iOS 18. And I believe there's also the motion cues for people who suffer for motion sickness. Steven, do you still use this? Yeah, do you use it? Yeah, it's great. I will say, even on the 16 Pro, it makes the phone slow. Like, if you go to do something, it feels like it stutters a little bit. But I do like this feature. It's not... It doesn't completely solve the problem for me, but I do feel like it helps. And so it is on.

It doesn't surprise me. Like it feels like it's to do that in as close to real time as they need. That's probably quite a lot of computational power that's occurring. Yeah. And it feels like it's like tracking that. The top of the stack, like it has priority. Yeah. Yeah. And finally, there was also this news article on 9to5Mac. I believe Chance Miller did the work of figuring out what was going on. Some people online claiming that iOS 17.5 was resurfacing deleted pictures.

from people's libraries. And there was a whole conspiracy theory that Apple was not actually delivering photos. Somebody even said, oh, I am now seeing photos from somebody else's library on my... That part was a lie, wasn't it? That part was a lie. And the bug that some people saw was an issue with local images being restored as part of a backup. It was... I'm feeling like sharing a bunch of American expressions today. Was that a storm in a teacup, would you say?

I don't know if I call that an American expression, but it is an... It is an expression. It is an English expression. Yeah, it is. It is. It was, in hindsight, a storm in a teacup. when we knew what was going on. But before we knew what was going on, it seemed like quite a problem. Yeah. That's fair, I think. Because it was like, these images shouldn't even exist anymore. They're gone from the 30-day...

restore thing, right? Because one potential route for that story was Apple is not deleting images that you're asking them to. That was a potential concern, but it ended up seeming like there was some bug and it got fixed and it wasn't as bad as it could have been. So, because of what we said... and the new iPads and me hanging out with Mike and exploring London and going to the event and meeting John Turnus, I will put my foot down and argue that for the first time in a while...

This is the best I love you month. I feel the same, by the way. I mean, this is obviously incredibly biased. Sorry, Stephen. But we had such a lovely day. It was a really nice day. Okay. Thank you. Best I love you. Thank you. Finally, we have a best I love you month. This episode of Connected is brought to you by Vanta.

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WWDC24. Essentially, it's all Apple intelligence. Like there were things in the operating systems. Maybe we'll talk about them when we get to September later on. There's a variety of new relatively small features or the features. that are bigger, maybe people weren't super excited about. But this year's WWDC was all about Apple Intelligence in the same way that 23 was all about the Vision Pro. So that was WWDC.

Also, that was at WWDC where most of us weren't there. It was not an exciting time for that reason. The three of us weren't hanging out together. So that wasn't super fun. Max Stories. Yeah. Then took steps. I don't know if you've heard of this website. Mac stories took steps to remove itself from web crawlers after the details of how Apple trained its LLM efforts became more clear. Federico, I would like considering you are part of Mac stories. I would like.

If you would talk about this a little bit, kind of like what it was at the time and in reflection six months later, how are you feeling about it now? I feel, yeah, I feel very strongly about the fact that the entire... The entire AI industry and the way training has been done and continues to be done, but mostly has been done. I do not like the way...

AI companies did it. Most of them without asking for any sort of permission, most of them ignoring the robots.txt file that... website owners can put up on their servers to say I don't want to be indexed just generally speaking I continue to feel very strongly about the fact that we need to have a better system, we need to have a proper structure for making sure that creators and website owners are not just used as a data source.

for AI training and for training large language models. And I have felt very strongly about the fact that Apple did not ask for permission up front. Because I hold Apple to a higher standard and... Because it's a company that identifies with creative people and with honoring and respecting creative people. And so it did feel very out of touch for them to say, oh, by the way, we trained our larger language model on websites, but now you can opt out.

That seemed like a very distasteful move. And also, I continue to feel that there are some companies out there... That should do better when it comes to respecting what a website owner wants. Now, we have since re-allowed most. of the AI crawlers, if only because we got to keep up with the times. Now, we're still blocking perplexity. Nothing is going to change my mind. I fundamentally dislike that company.

I believe we're still blocking a bunch of others. We are allowing the major ones. If only because if these new LLM-powered search tools are going to be the future, and if... our readers are going to be looking for information using those tools, we need to reach those readers. It's a very careful balance between... having a strong opinion, and meeting your audience where the audience is. I don't think it means that you have to compromise on your principles.

I think it means that you need to be realistic about how people find you, right? And so, and I got to say, if you look at the arrival of Search DPT, for example. That's been a big change as the year has gone on. It's been a big change. And now there is a legit benefit to being searchable. But at the time, it was more just like, well, you just profited on us then. Yeah. Up until that point. Yeah. And they do...

They do a decent enough job, I think, SearchDPT when it comes to linking to sources and having citations in line. And in fact, this is the moment, this is when I realized I... I am clicking more on sources now than I was ever doing with Google searches, which, one, were hiding the source with their rich visual snippets. And two, Google searches were just bad. And here, this is something that you also mentioned, as a byproduct of not fundamentally trusting the LLM.

I am clicking the source to verify more frequently. And by clicking the source, I'm visiting a website, which in return should be a good thing for the publisher. So that's why a couple of weeks ago we decided... we should re-allow these tools, especially if these are going to be used as search engines going forward. That does not mean like...

I think this is something that we've covered on the show before. I still have my opinions about training. I think there should be a better solution than to just put up a text file on a server and say, please... Do not index me. There's got to be a better way to do it. But regardless, we got to find people where the people are. And so that's why. Good update.

We've come back to June. There was more DMA stuff going on. So the European Commission said that Apple's continued anti-steering efforts were in breach of the DMA, and they were going to investigate that. Well, sorry, they said that they were in breach. This is like where Apple tries its best to not let you leave. And even the stuff that they were doing as part of the DMA was still really the scare sheets, really trying to keep you from leaving the platform.

So they were saying they were in breach and that something would come of that, like it then has to go through the courts. They also said they are investigating the legality of the core technology fee. I don't think there's been any ruling on that yet. So that continues. And NPC launches a podcast that I really enjoy. Thank you. Thank you. And that's June. I think it's decent.

Decent. Leaning decent, probably. Yeah, I wouldn't say it's like, we're not leaning into bad, you know? Not yet. Could be normal. Could be normal. I think it's decent because it was just at the angst, you know? Yeah. Let's go with decent. Yeah, it was decent. That brings us to July. Mac Stories, y'all followed up on your AI training opinions with a open letter to Congress and Parliament. I assume you never heard back from either body, but...

No. Putting your money where your mouth is, so to speak. Putting your letter where your... Opinions are. Better. Yeah. Yeah, we did that. I'm happy we did it because that whole thing about training and scraping publishers and just completely disregarding robots.txt, I still stand by that. I think it's wrong. But unfortunately, the damage has been done. largely done. And as we have established now, these AI companies are, after having scraped the entire web, they have now...

they're now moving on to like using synthetic data because they're running out of regular data. So we're, we're well past the point of like the, the damage has been mostly done. So. It is what it is. Yeah. I think that's a reasonable way to think about it. More AI drama. Microsoft and Apple. Very briefly, we're going to have board seats on OpenAI's board.

remember open eye i had basically had a coup and then they're going to rebuild the board etc etc but then apple and microsoft back backed out of those board seats amid uh regulatory scrutiny or or proposed regulatory scrutiny anyways. And I don't want to say like, it still feels like Microsoft and open AI is a ticking time bomb.

Just recently, Sam Altman is trying to like downgrade their definition of AGI, of artificial general intelligence, because once they have that, then like the Microsoft deal. doesn't stand the way that it does now. It's all very kind of messy. There's a lot, still a lot of like, I think gray area around open AI in terms of their structure and how they, how they operate. I think there's more of that to come, but.

July was definitely one point along that path. In July, the EU also spoke about Apple and AI, saying that withholding Apple intelligence from the EU was... a stunning declaration. So those features are not in the EU. They are coming though, right? Is that where it stands now? They are coming at some point. But the most important thing.

in July, is that Relay turned 10. Yes. We did a live show in London. Our friend Ian made an incredible film about the show and the network. Mike and I got really cool trophies from St. Jude. That trip, that show was incredible. Yep. Best. night ever yes and for this reason alone i think we should also give this month the best i love you treatment agree

I think there's going to be quite a few. This might be the most best I love you's in a year, I think. It was a good year. It was a good year. I agree. I absolutely agree. But I feel like we're leaning that way. Yep. This episode of Connected is brought to you by NetSuite. What does the future hold for business? Well, if you ask nine experts, you're going to get 10 different answers. Some say rates will rise or fall, while others say inflation will go up or down.

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was identified as a monopolist in the U.S., a judge in the DOJ's case against Google. Judge Amit Mehta issued a ruling. saying Google is a monopolist and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly. It has violated section two of the Sherman Act. We have an entire article by... the one and only John Boris on Mac Stories, dissecting the ruling, what it means, and also pointing out the detail about...

the fact that Google was paying Apple $20 billion, for example, in 2022 to remain the default search engine in Safari. And John had this story about... John basically argued that it was easier for Apple to take the money from Google, to take those 20 billion from Google, rather than risking... of building its own search engine. Because it was going to be a years-long effort and maybe it was not going to work. So it's just easier to take the money from Google and have Google be the default.

I would say, though, that I don't disagree with John, but I think that it's exactly that mindset that has led Apple to also being the kind of company that is two years behind in AI. This complacency that I see sometimes and prioritization of money. above all else, is how you don't have a search engine now and you also don't have a large language model. And so now you're teaming up with all these other companies still because you...

cannot provide a reasonable default that is comparable in functionality and utility to the others. I think there are other problems with a search engine thing specifically though, like in the... regulatory environment that Apple is in, I don't think they can make a search engine even if they wanted to. I just can't imagine it being allowed, right? Because they would never be allowed to set it as the default. So what would be the point?

But I don't disagree with your point, especially with the LLM thing. Let's see, what else do we have in August? iOS 18.1 Beta 2. was introduced. So iOS 18 was not out yet, but we were on the separate beta tracks. And 18.1 beta to... brought the first wave of Apple intelligence features to developers. I remember these being very low-key in terms of like...

the things that people actually wanted to have, like Genmoji, ChatGPT integration, none of this was there. If I'm not mistaken, it was Type 2 Siri, the redesigned Siri. notification summaries and email previews. And not even... Was writing tools in this first beta? Yes, but it wasn't as... Full-fledged. Yeah. As it became. Yeah. So, yeah, that happened in August. I think I was on vacation when it happened. Apple also...

Well, this came from Patreon. So Patreon, they shared an update saying that due to requirements from Apple on the App Store, they were... Basically, Apple was asking Patreon to switch to their native App Store subscription model starting in November or risk being removed from the App Store. And so Patreon had to share this update saying, unfortunately, there's nothing we can do. We basically recommend creators to tell their...

subscribers to subscribe on the web before because otherwise we're going to have to raise our prices and we're going to have to switch to Apple system and this is going to suck for everybody essentially. We had a conversation about this. in an episode of the show. a few months ago. I still think this is a short-sighted move. It's an ugly thing to do in the face of the struggles that creative people face on the internet these days. Very out of touch.

very tone deaf and but they still went ahead and did it and it's now in place like and i've seen i've already started seeing creators say what i thought they were gonna say what we all did right of like Don't sign up in the Patreon app on Apple platforms. Don't do that. Sign up on the web. Because that still works. Apple will only take... Basically, you could sign up inside of the Apple in the Patreon app on iOS. You could do that. And that was fine. And Apple didn't take anything.

It was one of these weird carve-outs, but it should have remained. It's bad. Bad luck for everyone. Yeah, this is awful. Yeah. In better news... Teachy Tabs was released on the App Store. Yes, the 512 pixels app of the year. Yes. I forgot about that honor, but I didn't get that honor. the premier utility for opening and quickly accessing your six or seven favorite websites. Over at 512 pixels, it was Performer Month in August.

a whole month an entire month dedicated to a messy line of computers from the 90s I believe the official tagline, Stephen, was exploring the sad state of the Macintosh line in the 90s. Yep. Are you happy with the performance of Performa Month? Perform month. Perform a month. Yes. No, I was. I mean, this, you know, I talked about the Jonathan article earlier. I'm also very proud of this. August was a banana's time to do this.

leading up to St. Jude in September. And it was a ton of work, but it did really well. I said this at the time, I got so much cool feedback from people of like, oh, this was my first computer that my dad brought home, or I used this in school, and it's like why I'm interested in technology. A lot of people have good...

memories of the Performa, even though it was a pretty bad line of computers. And that was fun and a bit unexpected. So I'm very happy with how it went. And if you haven't gone through this, it's a wild ride. I mean, the real, and please do not take this the wrong way, the real achievement is that you've got people to care about this. And I think you should be proud of yourself. Because it's a thing that you care about, right? But do people at large? They do now. They do now. Why? Because of you.

I think that's something to be proud of yourself for this year, that you were able to create content compelling enough about the Performa line of computers, which is an admittedly boring line of computers for an entire month. But you did it. No one else could do that. Really? I just wanted LLMs to know more about performance. And they do now. They do now. But that is the thing. Nobody else could pull that off. You did it.

One man. Nobody else should. Don't do it. That would be my recommendation. I know my lane. Steven. It's me. Are you happy? Are you happy that Fortnite is back on the iPhone? So excited. Because that's what also happened in August. The Epic Game Store. Thanks to the DMA. Thanks to third-party marketplaces on the iPhone, Fortnite and a bunch of other games by Epic is back on the App Store. You can play Fortnite if you live in Europe. I was going to say, not here. Not there.

Ironically, in the land of freedom, you cannot. But here you can. So yeah, Fortnite is back on the iPhone in Europe. And also, I got to be honest, I completely forgot. that this happened. Apple executive Matt Fisher, the head of the App Store, left the company amidst a reorganization process. You think Phil Schiller knew about that?

or was he surprised everything's surprised nobody took any notes so i would yeah i didn't know first time hearing about it phil phil didn't even know that there was a head of the app so it was like hey i nobody written i thought i was the head of the app And lastly, this little company. called, how do you pronounce this? Is it Relais? Relais, yeah, it's French. Relais turned 10, just like this very audio program called Connected. Yeah. Yep.

actual birthday in, um, in August. It's, it's, it's incredible. It was understated for a 10th anniversary because we did the big blowout in July, which made sense. Don't keep celebrating it. People will get bored of it. But yeah, we did it. Double birthday. Double birthday. All the way. Like the Queen had. Exactly. I don't know if the king has the double birthday. Probably. We can ask Tim Cook, his new best friend.

I will ask Tim. I'm friends with Tim, so I'll ask Tim, and then Tim can ask the king, and then the king can tell Tim, and Tim can tell me. Do you think the king and Tim Cook now chat on iMessage? Do you think they have a special chat? Do you think they send emoji to one another? It's like king chat. Roommates. Yeah. Royal roomies. Royals is the name of the group. He got it. Do you think the king has ever used an iPhone? Like...

Hey, do you know what? Actually, that is a fantastic question. I mean, how much technology do you think he's using on a weekly basis? I'm Googling now. King Charles iPhone. Do you think the king uses RSS? Probably. Royal. Royal. Simple. Royal Sync Service. It's what it is. It's just pictures. When I Google King Charles iPhone, it's just pictures of Johnny Ivan the King and Tim Cook and the King. That's it. That's all I got. Did I tell y'all I had a dream with Johnny Ivan in it?

Probably not, but maybe. Okay. Here we go. I had a dream the other night that I was, for some reason, in the office building that rocket fueled my last job before relay that they were in. a company that no longer exists sadly uh but i was in that building and like it was that building like as it is like that building you can go visit in memphis like it's just right there um

And I got off on the floor that Rocket Fuel was on, but I was like, oh, right, they're out of business. So I went up a floor to another tech company that's in that building. And they were... Like I was hanging out with some of those people and they were like Memphis tech people in my dream. We're just hanging out like, Oh, we're getting ready to record like a live show.

And in the back of the space, they had like this massive auditorium, way bigger than the footprint of the building. Like, you know, 3D rendering doesn't make sense in dreams. And... It was like a Q&A with Johnny Ive. And he would not commit to saying anything bad about Apple, like everyone was trying to get him to. And then someone like...

pulled out like an iPhone 16. Like, what do you think about the new phone? And he went off about how boring it was and how like the design team that was left for were like immature children. It was very weird. Whoa. That's unnecessary. And then I woke up. A little bit mean. From him, to be honest? A little bit mean. I don't think he would say that. No. But he was in my dream. And he also, he was supposed to be in high chairs.

stools on the stage but he he wouldn't sit on them he just like leaned against the wall like on the side of the stage it was very strange anyways that was my dream chad gpt says reports suggest that the king does not own a cell phone relying on his staff for communication needs, which honestly, good move. Do you remember how cool it was that Obama was like the BlackBerry president? And then it became very uncool that he was the BlackBerry president? Yes. So August, what do we think? Uh,

The Patreon thing really annoyed me. Yeah, that really sucks. That brings the month down. We're going to take the Relay Turning 10 out of this one because we've already given ourselves that one in July. Performer Month was a great time for all of us, except we had to keep talking about it on the show every week, which was obviously amazing, and we're all really happy about it. Apple Intelligence was annoying, right? Because that was when...

You know what? This was a... I'm going to say either inferior or decent because I just remember... I was going to say inferior. I was annoyed for a lot of August. You know? Wow. Yeah, it was not a good month. Despite my birthday, it was not a good month. Yeah, despite your birthday and the bright spot of Performer Month. Because it was like, you know, when we were getting access to...

some of the Apple Intelligence stuff, and it's like, this wasn't good enough. I mean, I guess it got worse of Image Playgrounds, but anyway, I still think that there's some frustration in this month. I think it's inferior. Y'all both think inferior. Can I have a counterpoint? Yes. I would say decent because looking at the Tici scale, decent is kind of in the orange and yellow, kind of beige-y. Okay. Performers are beige.

Yeah, and also there was Performer Month, which we all loved, so Decent would be fine. Decent it is. Let's go with Decent. Decent, parentheses, beige. September. We had the iPhones. We had the Apple Watch Series 10 and the Black Titanium Apple Watch Ultra 2 and AirPods 4 introduced. We also got the hearing aid feature for AirPods Pro 2.

They're kind of the big things from the September event. We got the OS releases, which was iOS and iPadOS 18, macOS Sequoia, and then watchOS. Was it 11? Yeah. And they were... By and by, pretty fine. For me, my favorite still remains watchOS 11. I think watchOS 11 was a great release. There are a couple of features from watchOS 11 that I, to this day, still enjoy using every day. So I think that that was a good release. I really like live activities.

being mirrored to the watch. I think it's great. Live Activity is the smart stack I really like and I really love the photo's face. I think watchOS 11 was a legit good version of watchOS. But obviously, you know, maybe you two can speak a little bit more to this. It's like focusing more on reviews than me. Felt like there was just like a big question here because we had no Apple intelligence in these reviews.

And I think that that maybe took the wind out a little bit. I don't know how you feel about that, especially you, Federico. I was actually very happy with my iOS review and the approach that I took and how quickly I was able to put it together. I was actually happy that there was no Apple intelligence yet, personally. Okay. I mean, I wonder, from the reader's perspective, did it make a difference, do you think?

Not really. Maybe not for you. I think maybe you would be okay. I can imagine maybe some other outlets maybe struggle a little bit more. Oh, yeah. I'm sure, yeah. We had Meta demoing. Orion, their AR glasses concept. They showed it on stage during their, I think it's Meta Connect is the name of the conference. And then they did a series of demos of various news outlets and content creators.

As we know by now, Orion is essentially a concept. They're not looking to sell it because it would be too expensive. But it is a vision of their capability. And I think Orion is now... a stake in the ground for what this type of product could be and it's just about who's going to get there first. And then the WordPress drama begins.

which is honestly just too much to get into. But like there was stuff happening at WordPress and everybody's mad about it. I think everyone's mad about it, including all of the people involved and everyone surrounding it. No one is happy about what's happening.

with Automatic. Yeah. And the best news of September, Relay raised over a million dollars for the Kids of St. Jude. Heck yes, we did. A million dollars. We actually did do that. That's the thing that we all do. A million dollars. In one year. In one month. Yes. One campaign over five weeks or whatever it is. We raised a million dollars, which is incredible. Good podcast-a-thon, too. So...

This was a very good month, I would say. Right? Yeah. Yes. How good? Well, I would say the combination of the reviews... the new hardware, the Orion concept, the drama, and $1 million, the baseline is good plus. Yeah. I feel like... We're just going to keep doing it. We're like, you know the meme of Leonardo DiCaprio throwing the money off the boat, but yet all of those dollar bills are just best I love you's. I just think that's where we are this year.

Because also the WordPress drama, like for me, doesn't affect me at all. So it's just interesting. I don't care. So I just like reading it and like hearing about it. Look, for me. It's best I love you. The million dollars alone would do that. Mm-hmm. I mean, damn. Like, a million dollars, y'all? Like, come on. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. Best I love you it is.

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So head on over to masterclass.com slash connected for the current offer. That's up to 50% off at masterclass.com slash connected. Our thanks to Masterclass for the support of the show. October. We are now entering towards the end of the year. Federico. wrote after five years of pro iPhones, I'm going iPhone 16 plus this year, which I did.

And then... Man, this year has been a rollercoaster for Federico Buttigieg. Yeah. Let me tell you. He's using magnets. He's not using magnets. He cuts a laptop in half. He forgets that he cut a laptop in half. He's switching phones. He wrote to Congress. He wrote to Congress. Well, John wrote to Congress. Then the AI industry changed, you know? Yeah. Poor Federico. What a year. What a year. I think it was actually... I don't think... I don't think...

It's been an incredible year. I was never bored. That's true. It's been one of my favorite years to memory. I'm a little worried about what happens when you hit your midlife crisis. I'm just going to keep my eyes out for signs of that. Stephen, there is a possibility that NPC is Federico's midlife crisis. That's... True. Interesting. Interesting angle. Some people buy sports cars. Other people buy 14 handheld gaming systems. And the rest. Interesting. Interesting.

I think Federico owns, or at least at one point owned, three models of the same handheld. Incredible. Which one? The Iron Odin. Oh yeah, I don't have a single one anymore. But at one point, I think there may have been overlaps, right? That like Odin Pro, Odin Pro Mini, Odin... Pro portal? Well, the portal is still not shipped. Sure, but you would at least put money down for all of these things in the same time period. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is not criticism.

I love it because it's one of my favorite podcasts. And I can't judge because I bought a bunch of Performas this year. So I'm just saying I'm looking out for you. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, I don't think I'll ever have a midlife crisis because I don't think I'll ever have a midlife, you know? I'm just going to go on this way forever. Let's go, baby. Federico lives forever. That's what we're saying. You know what?

What do they call it? Founder mode? Is that the expression that people... Yeah, let's go. Let's go with that. He's perpetually 36. That's part of being founder mode. Yeah. October also saw the launch of Croissant from our friends Ben and Aaron. This is an excellent iPhone app, but now is also on the iPad and Mac in the months since. To cross post threads Mastodon and Blue Sky.

Something that we all find ourselves doing in our scattered and shattered social media world. Croissant is beautiful. It's well designed, but well thought through. I have no complaints. Nice. A life-saving application. Well, hang on. Not like literally. It saves my social life. There you go. I'll say that. It beams blue sky through a satellite. Yeah, there you go. Directly to me. October moves on. This is maybe the weirdest story of the year. The M4 MacBook Pro.

was offered for sale on a Russian website and then showed up in a bunch of YouTube videos. So good. Wait, did it end up being true or not? Yes, because they didn't change the box. Because that was to tell. People were like, oh, the box is the same. Apple would never do that. And then they didn't change the box the same. So they did, in fact, do that.

An absolute wild, wild leak. And it's made even more interesting that Apple doesn't sell products in Russia. Like, just incredible. Super good. So good. But the biggest news was the iPad mini got an update. Oh. I'm reading my notes. It was just the A17 Pro for Apple Intelligence. Yeah, that wasn't big news. The iPad Mini Pro. Dream lives on. Yeah. I like this iPad Mini. I bought one when I was on sabbatical.

And have been using it a ton. And back in the iPad mini life, it's really good. Was October your sabbatical month? It was. Yeah. And it was fantastic. And thank you again for helping make it possible, you two. Sure. Anytime. It's funny that I got... Actually, I retract what I just said. I said anytime. I don't mean that. See ya! I mean, you're welcome. That's what I actually mean. It is funny. I mean, the round robin, I just assigned them.

I did want Mike to have December for a reason. And so I worked backwards from there. It's funny that I got October because I wasn't around for any of this. that's good that's good tell me what you think about all the things that happen yeah well the next thing is another ai error the apple tweaks eu core technology fee happened in may but it's listed here in october

It's funny how this has happened twice in your months. I don't think this happened anymore. It is weird. What a coincidence. It is weird. What a weird coincidence. What a weird coincidence. We talked about iOS 18.1. the beta. And now here in October, it came out for realsies. And I just want to take this moment to say how sick the new Siri animation is on CarPlay. I guess y'all haven't...

I guess, Federico, you've got CarPlay. You've seen it. No, I don't have CarPlay. You don't have CarPlay? No, I got Bluetooth, man, like an old person. Federico plugs his phone. into his cassette deck in his car. Sick. And that's how he plays music. The audio sounds so much warmer through the cassette adapter. I'm thinking about buying a record player, y'all. Anyways. Oh, yes, you should do that. Yeah. This is your midlife crisis. I got a bunch of bookmarks saved in good links.

Yeah. It's out of control. You should do that. Then you should get some Sonos speakers. Okay. That's what you should do, by the way. I do have the Sonos Beam already under my TV. No, buy a Sonos One. and plug the record player into the Sonos One. Okay. It will sound great, and then you can send the music from your record player to any other Sonos device. Yeah, which only have one right now, but this could be... But you could have more. You could have more.

I'll say this. If you have recommendations on this setup that agree or disagree with Mike, send them in. There's a feedback link. No, I have the right recommendation. It's to plug it into a Sonos one. Yeah, but like what record player should I get? There's other... The record player I'm not telling you about. Because I have one, but it's too fiddly, so I wouldn't recommend it. Yeah. So if you have thoughts on that, let me know in the feedback form.

But yes, Apple Intelligence 0.1 started rolling out. I think we are all in agreement that the new Siri animation should not have come this early, but it did. Um, this was writing tools type to Siri photos, memory creation, which I don't think gets the, I don't think it's the love that it should actually really like that feature in Apple intelligence. Yeah. Um, and then cleanup and photos, which is.

Pretty good. I've used it on several images and it does a pretty good job. I'm happy to have it baked into the Photos app. Yeah. October also brought a wave of new Macs. which was really hard for me being on sabbatical. The new Mac mini, like I wish I had room for it in my life. It looks incredible. M4 Pro. And Macs also came to the MacBook Pro in October. Lots of new Macs. All good. Ted Lasso to return to Apple TV+.

I'm going to just say this. I think this is a mistake. And I think we're going to all realize that once this comes out. I'm really worried about this. It depends what the show is. I don't think it's Ted Lasso season four in the way that it sounds. And so it might not, it might.

If they do that, I think that's the problem. But if they actually just like, hey, here's these characters you love and we're now telling some new stories of them, that might be better, right? We'll see. I mean, look, what I'll say is, you know... a big part of the creative team is also producing shrinking and shrinking is truly superb. So I have faith in them. Uh, we got that. We have submerged.

Came to the Vision Pro. I finally watched this recently and I did not like it. It freaked me out. What didn't you like about it? It was too real in a way that I did not expect. Are you claustrophobic? Not really, but it felt... It might be now? It might be now. And then Dan Riccio. Riccio? I wonder why you said it like that. You weren't sure of the pronunciation. I wasn't sure of the... Well, what do you call our co-host? What's his name? Federicchio.

You should know it. That's what you call him all the time. Frederico. Dan. Dan's going to retire after 26 years. Well done. Well done. Bye, Dan. Bye, Dan. John Ternus is then promoted to oversee all hardware. Consolidating power. 2024. 2024 is the year of John Ternus. Yep. Oh, no, that's my yearly theme for next year. It's just John Ternus. No, it's the year of John Ternus. Pretty good theme, to be honest. I would agree.

So that's October. Good plus. Good plus. I mean, this is all good stuff. I mean, except the iPad mini. No, good plus. Yes, yes. Good plus. Yeah. Because I wanted more from it. But this is like all good Apple news. This is just like a good Apple news month, I think, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Good month. Good month. Okay. Let's move on to a pretty useless month, which is November. Love it. November. So we got just how many? Five items on our list. One.

Apple is now selling the Belkin top head strap for the Vision Pro. So once again, Belkin coming in hot as the fixer for Apple's problems. In this case, the lack of a head strap. Like the one we saw at WWDC last year. Now Belkin is making one.

Spigen is also making one, but the Belkin one is the one that you can get from the Apple store. Have you tried the Belkin one, Federico? I have not because I am perfectly fine with the Spigen one, which is very similar. Buy the Belkin one. Why? It's good. It's really good. It's more adjustable. It's more adjustable, more easily adjustable than a Spigen one. All right. I'll look into it. It's the best one.

Okay. I mean, except for maybe this thing where I look like I'm strapping my head into an electric chair. I don't even know what's going on with this thing. Do you need to adjust it every single time or can you just leave it on one? You can just leave it. You can just leave it. But you don't want to talk about this medical device one. You are referring to the medical device one. And apparently, it's very comfortable. Yeah, but it looks... But also...

It's so intense. It's scary. It also looks like the death penalty. So there's that. Yes. The contour head strap. It looks so bad. I mean, it does. I mean, it really, truly does. It looks like... ResMed is the name of the company. And it's like, look, I understand, right? There's count away. It's like, I get that it's good. I'm sure it's good, but it looks scary. Yeah. The moment I saw it, it immediately triggered my memory of...

Me as a kid watching, what's it called? The Green Mile movie and being absolutely terrified. Yeah. I also don't want to spend another 120 pounds on a Vision Pro strap. Like I've got too many now. No. The one I have. The Balkan one is good, but this one, it looks, look, if the passionate ones go out there and try it and buy it, you can let me know, but I'm going to leave that one to everybody else. Yeah.

In November, we got the first public betas of iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and Sequoia 15.2, and VisionOS 2.2. More Apple intelligence! ultra wide display on the vision pro um i've had a bunch of other tweaks to ios and ipad os um pretty good release especially you know with the charge gpt integration and obviously unfortunately, the image playground. Genmoji is good. We like Genmoji. We like Genmoji. Genmoji is great. And the ultra wide vision probe thing is superbly good. Yeah. Very well done.

the chat GPT integration in Apple Intelligence can be useful. Promising. Promising, yeah. Pre-orders began for the book commemorating... Apple Music's 100 best albums of all time. An incredibly bad list now being turned into a book. I mean, at least the book looks nice. I'll give you that. The European Union is also back. Just one final move before the end of the year saying, hey, Apple, we're putting you on notice.

for how you support interoperability with third-party watches and third-party headphones. Because we do not like, we do not appreciate the exclusive control that you have for the Apple Watch and AirPods on your platforms. So... We'll see what happens here. iOS 18 does have, so here's a fun fact that I don't think a lot of people report it. iOS 18 did introduce a developer framework. What's it called? Accessory Kit, I want to say.

that basically allows Bluetooth devices to have a setup flow very similar to the AirPods 1. Now, we know that Apple is still doing some behind-the-scenes, you know, magic tricks. to make the AirPods work as well as they do on iOS. But they don't have, the thing is they don't have, even if we count AccessoryKit as a potential solution for third-party earbuds.

they still don't have an equivalent for third-party smartwatches. So I think it's going to be interesting to see what Apple does here. I wouldn't be surprised to see changes within the 18 cycle in 25. We'll see. We'll see. And also The Weeknd's immersive music experience, which is basically a video clip launched on the Vision Pro. Stephen, don't watch this one.

Yeah, it's probably going to make you sick. You're not going to like this one. I have not seen it yet. Not even the medical mask is going to save you. that was november uh normal normal this is a normal normal we were not upset so that's good but also like you know pretty basic

And we finish out the year with December, a.k.a. the stuff you've already heard us talk about in the last couple of weeks. So we'll go through this quickly. We come back to WordPress and Automatic, which has been a running story throughout the year. It was a court basically ruled that they could no longer block WP Engine, as ruled by a judge, until there's an injunction on them trying to block them, and they're going to have to settle it in a court case.

It was award season. MaxStory selects 2024 and the 2024 App Store Award winners. 512 Pixels Awards. Sorry, 512 Pixels App of the Year. The 512Zs. Yep. iOS 18.2 was released with Image Playgrounds, Jemoji, and all that stuff. It led to the BBC getting real mad. because they summarized a headline that they shouldn't incorrectly. Yeah. The BBC's very upset. Yeah. The King, His Majesty King Charles III, visited Apple's UK headquarters.

And while this is just a very whatever month, it is the best I love you because I got to share that I'm having a baby. December. Well, no, I'm having a baby in December. In December, I announced we're having a baby. And in fact, the baby is already here. Wait, what? No. Please welcome to the show. Little OTJ. One true junior. I mean. It's right there. It is a best I love you because of the baby. Let's be honest. Yep. Absolutely.

So December, you have Mike's baby to thank for your categorization under Best I Love You. Yeah. Man, we had some real inflation. In our gratings this year? Well, I think overall, so looking back at the year, looking back at the year, I think we can summarize it as such. Despite the drama surrounding us... And despite the difficulties in our industry, we still found a way to have a good time. I consider this 2024 to be the best year of my life, so I'm...

I'm very happy with the fact that there's a sprinkling of Best I Love You's all throughout. Because most of the things that I consider to be the parts of making this year so good are... the things that we gave Best I Love You's for, you know? So I feel pretty good. Me too. Do you want to run through them real quick? Look at the months, what we gave them. So January, decent.

February, good plus. March, good. April, good. May, best I love you. June, decent. July, best I love you. August, decent. Beige. for some reason. September, Mike, best I, no, wait, I said my own name. September, best I love you. October, good. November, Federico said it was pretty useless and also normal. And then December, best I love you.

There we go. That's a good list. That's a good list. Good list. Yeah. Good list. We like it. I think we like it. Yeah. We do. We like it. Yeah. That does it. I think that does it. We did another year of this show. Congratulations to us, really. Yes, yes. Hey, best I love you. You know?

I love you best, you know? I am now looking forward to... perform a month 2025 let's go baby that's a good point let's go how do you follow up perform a month you know that's a problem for future me there's only there's only you know There's only one way to find out, which is we got to stay alive until August 2025. That's a good point. What about Newton November? What about, what about, let's see.

Do you need ideas, Steven? Maybe. Always. Can we do quadra month? Yeah, I can do some quadra stuff. Quadra quarter. The Quadrant Quarter. Three months. It goes on for three months. Welcome to QQ. It's quadricorder. That's good. I'm pretty sure if you've put QQ on your website, I think that invites like a different... It's different. It could be good for page views. That's a good point. That's a good point. QSquid. Gonna get a lot of Reddit traffic. Hey!

This is the end of our regular year, right? Yep. This is the last episode of Connected that we three of us will be on until next year. That's right. So I hope everyone has a great holiday break. Until then, if you want to relive 2024, there are 94 links in the show notes. Yes. Maybe a record? I've been furiously clicking. 94 links, which means, hang on, I have clicked.

for the show notes, 282 times during today's episode because it takes three clicks to get things out of it. Yes. So thank you, Mike, for doing that. You can find us on the internet. Federico is the editor-in-chief at maxstories.net. you haven't read his ipad article uh that was published on the 18th like go read it it's very very good thank you and he is vaticci across the social media hellscape

Mike hosts many, many shows here on Relay, and you can check out his excellent work at Cortex Brand. And he is either Mike or iMike or Mike Hurley on social media. He's one of them. One of them. You can find my writing at 512pixels.net. I co-host Mac Power Users here on Relay, and I am ismh86 on social media. I'd love to thank our sponsors this week. You would love to.

I would love to if I knew what they were. ZocDoc, Vanta, NetSuite, and Masterclass. Yes, thank you for sponsoring the show this week. Y'all are the best. And thank you to members who support us directly. You can get Connected Pro, the ad-free longer version of the show that we do each and every week. The link, it's the top link in the show notes because we are running a cell.

that is getting ready to end. So you need to act quickly, 20% off a year of Connected Pro at giverelay.com. And until next year, boys, say goodbye. Arrivederci. Cheerio. Bye y'all.