you From Relay, this is Connected, episode 540. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, Google Gemini, and Incogni. I am the keynote chairman, Mike Hurley, and I have the pleasure of introducing... My chairman in arms, the annual chairman, Federico Vatici. Hello, Mike. How are you? I'm great. I'm feeling good. How are you? I am feeling fantastic, although a little bit sad for reasons we'll talk about later. Well, it's your fault. Look, it's not mine. Fair enough.
It's his child's fault. Hey, wait for your turn. Yeah, why are you bursting in with your jokes? There's an imposter on the call. I was premature. We're also joined by Mr. Stephen Hackett. Hello, Stephen. Hello. Chairman. Ah, there you are. There you are. My first appearance on the episode. Yes. I note that you don't have any kind of special title to your name. Well, so we can talk about that in a minute. For now.
We'll talk about that in a minute. Okay. Okay. We have some follow-up though. Okay. The most exciting follow-up is that it worked. It worked. My ordeal. of my iCloud space not being able to add two terabytes and being forced by Apple to go to six terabytes, which set off the whole thing with legacy Steven and iCloud family sharing. It all worked. Because two days ago, February 17th was one month since it started. And for one month, I've had eight terabytes of storage space on my iCloud account.
On the 17th, I got an email saying you've been billed $9.99 for iCloud Plus storage space. I opened my device and there it is. Four terabytes of space on my plan. As I desired it all. worked what an incredible chain of events i know you needed extra space now we have potentially is the reason we now have uh purchase migration requirements and you got what you needed you got your four terabytes
So you're now using 1.84 terabytes. So it's a few years time. We'll be back here again. Yeah. I mean, eventually, you know, now it's a race. Are, you know, is my daughter out on her own before we hit? four terabytes. Maybe that's the reason, you know what I mean? It's like it's too far and you're like, you're on your own, kid. Well, so if I go and, if I go and like look at family usage, like her photo library is growing, you know, we'll just.
We'll just say that. She's got a lot of photos in there. You do have the problem when you have multiple children, right? And that like... Right? So like Jude... I assume Jude doesn't have a phone. Maybe Jude's going to get a phone at just that time. So like...
They'll overlap a little bit, maybe. It'd be interesting to see how that plays out. We'll see. The Discord wants to know if I will cut her out of the iCloud family when she turns 18. Like, no. But, you know, at some point... at some point she'll be on her own she gets a job it's like kid pay for your own kid yeah 99 cents you know let's go uh this again spawned off the great uh
update to the apple account system where you can migrate your purchases between accounts uh we spoke about this some last week apple in the meantime has updated the requirements to well They've updated the support document to reflect the requirements to migrate your purchases. I'm going to take the additional step, but guessing that they didn't know about some of these requirements.
Until they launched it. And then it's like, oh, no, we just didn't tell you about all the requirements that we definitely knew about before we put it out there. Maybe so. Yeah, it's a real fun time in Apple support land, I'm sure. We have proof that this is thanks to me. via our feedback form. So we said, if you could prove that you were the one, as which we all believe, if it can be proven that you were the one that spurned the purchase migration...
we would call you king of the K-base. Yeah. But we told you we needed actual proof from a verifiable source. Yes. Yes. Do you have it? In our feedback form, someone with the email address of Tim at Apple.com said, hello, fine sirs. It was because of Steven. It's also signed to Team Apple. He's in on the joke. Not great. I feel like he would at least say good morning. Good morning. Good morning. I'm sorry you do not. This isn't enough. Do you have anything else? Not that I can share.
Okay, well, there was a message from a birdie, but that's as specific as that can be. It counts. I feel like Ricky's rules. Yeah. Someone did leave feedback in the forum. Sort of angry feedback that there was no way it was because of me. They've been working on this for years and I just deleted it because that's not the vibe I'm looking for.
Wow, that's angry. It's also a lie. It's like that thing where it's like, you know, when... someone says like Apple delay the thing and like you can't delay something that was never announced and it's like yeah but we all know what it means though don't we that is that is the voice that is actually the voice that those people have hey
No, no, you can't do it. There's nothing to do with you. It's not delayed if it's never announced. They're very small, but it's very tiny. They live in a little mouse hole in the wall. You know what I've just realized? Yeah. I can say whatever I want on this episode. Oh, no. I'm free, right? I could just say anything because I'm not going to get any feedback. I won't see it. I can do whatever I want. We could also split the next eight weeks of ads two ways instead of three ways.
I feel like those two kids could be tied together. Okay, I'll say whatever I want on this episode. You can have all the money. How's that? Do you like that deal now? Do you like that deal? Jim! Jim, where are you? Hold on. Can you clarify something for me? During this time period, which you continue to claim it's going to be eight weeks, I continue not to believe it, but regardless of the time period, are we forbidden from texting you? No, you can text me.
Okay. We're going to talk all the time. Okay. So it's not like you're actually like proper disappear. You're just not going to be on... I'll be gone from work. Okay. But I'm not going to read the feedback form, right? Right. But you continue to exist as a person. Hopefully. Hopefully. I don't know. Stephen, will I? I don't know. I don't know how it works. I mean, you know, I survived the sabbatical. Right.
Okay. Was that particularly taxing on you? No, it was great. I already want to do it again. Okay. Okay. Well, you're just going to leave me alone on the show, just doing monologues. You know, there is one week in April that is going to be just to you and hopefully a guest. We'll talk about that later.
This is good news for Federico to find out. Interesting. Okay. Maybe we'll record it ahead of time. There's just like, there's a Wednesday I can't do. That might be the better thing to do. We'll figure it out. We actually don't need to have this conversation now. Especially me. I don't want to know any of this. Okay. We spoke about WhatsApp.
and how it's not on the iPad. Lots of people are going to say there's a test flight of WhatsApp floating around that has a full iPad version. I found a link to it on Reddit, but the test flight is full. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, I remember looking for this like last year and it was the same situation. You can never sign up for this beta. So, I mean, I would love to test it. Give me access to it. Otherwise it's just a test flight link that does nothing.
Does this actually indicate that they're going to do it? And now I'm going to elevate something that's later on in the show notes because I don't know how much we would talk about. Actually, it's not even in the notes anymore, so I'll just reference it.
There was like that Netflix thing, right? The Netflix, Apple TV thing, which is like something that they have definitely built all the plumbing for. Like it works, but they don't have it. And I wonder if this is a similar thing. It's like, oh, we have a WhatsApp iPad app. but we're just never going to release it. We're just not going to do that. I don't know. It's just, I guess I don't understand why you want to do it.
Because for Netflix, I sort of understand. But, like, this is a full-on app that's been in testing for years. There must be thousands of people using it. Yeah. Like, I don't understand. Like, what's the... What's the leverage here? Not even Apple cares about the iPad. And I feel like if this is a strategy, like, look, it's not going to work. This is not going to work. If you hold WhatsApp for iPad hostage...
for whatever reason you think works, it doesn't. This is not working. It's not going to work. Cool. Listener Ben sent a link. to a video from the Beats by Dre YouTube account about Powerbeats Pro 2 that says in that video they are the best-selling fitness headphone of all time. So this clears up. So clearly either...
MKBHD misheard or the person misspoke to say it's the best-selling headphone of all time. It is the best-selling fitness headphone of all time, which makes significantly more sense and is infinitely more believable as a thing. Yeah. I heard that in the MKBHD video. I was like, I think you just got that wrong, dude. Like, there's no way that's true. Yeah. Well, I mean...
But maybe they said it to him and said it incorrectly. And I think that was why he shared it, because to him it didn't seem like a believable statistic, so he wanted to share it. But there you go. That explains it. And that does make a lot more sense, doesn't it? Maybe they were speeding through the press call. Oh, Stephen. Oh, Stephen. Too late? Too late for that joke?
I don't know. It's just a bad joke. It's not a problem of timing. It's just bad. Yeah, if you would have said it like three days after it happened, it wasn't a good enough action joke. Okay, well, I'm sorry that joke crashed and burned. Next week, we're going to have an interview with my wife about her Powerbeats Pro 2. Amazing.
She's been taking notes. It's like biannual, the biannual review or whatever. Yeah, it's also a biannual check-in on your relationship. So I get to ask her questions about you every couple of years. So she can't be here. when we've recorded the show but maybe we could do a time when you could do it maybe this weekend because otherwise it's biased you know you want to have me on the interview so we gotta we gotta figure that out
I really hope you can figure that out. Okay, we'll talk at the end of the show. If you're in your life, then you're in your life. We need to schedule an interview with Mary. Okay, so we'll do that after the call. We'll figure that out. And here is an all-timer piece of feedback from Jack. Yes.
Jack writes in and says, back in 2020 or 2021, you talked about Stephen wearing Lycra. I think it was for a bike ride. Mike made a joke about it. I don't remember this. But it sounds plausible enough. All of this sounds believable. but i i don't remember this happening which is even better so jack continues i was living with my dad in lockdown listening to that episode while emptying my bedroom bin every sunday after that i take the bin out
Think of Steven and Lycra and laugh. It weirdly became my only way of marking time. Another week gone, and there he was in my head. Now, years later, in my own house, the habit remains. Every time I take the bins out, the image... returns yes just incredible stuff i love this so much we all have these things right like something just sticks in your mind uh steven and lycra is helping jack how's uh how's the lycra going steven it's good wearing it right now
That's not true. Oh, that is speed podcasting. Yeah. He's speeding. This episode of Connected is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and to succeed online. So whether you're just starting out or you're managing a growing brand, You can stand out with a beautiful website, engage with your audience, and sell anything. Products, services, and even content you're creating. Squarespace has everything you need, all in one place, all on your...
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And when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash connected to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain name. That's squarespace.com slash connected for 10% off your first purchase and to show your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of Connected and all of Relay. So as we record today, Apple released a new iPhone. There was a hashtag Apple launch.
as Tim put it, which is just terrible. I hate it. But there was a little video that went up about the iPhone 16e. The video is... fine. It feels like a chunk of what could be a presentation, kind of like what they did last year with John Ternus when the roundup of videos, those three videos they did for the Mac line. The video was presented by Tim. at the beginning and said that the iPhone 16e. Oh, I just realized it's hard to say. iPhone 16e. It's the 16e.
It's the 16. Give me the 16. Give me the 16. Give me the 16. We're the perfect show for this. No one else is going to do that. Mama, can you pass me this XT? It's so expensive. And Kayan Drance said that the, just a couple of notes from the video that I thought were interested in, we'll talk about the phone itself. It has an A18 chip in it, and Kayan said that the A18 will help the iPhone 16-y feel fast for years to come.
And you'll feel a huge boost in speed when upgrading from an older phone. I found this framing interesting because it kind of, I think, speaks to who Apple do believe the customer is, right? Someone who... keeps hold of a phone for a long time right that like a selling point of this phone is if you buy it now it'll feel good for years and also if you you should upgrade to this if you've been holding on to a phone for a long time
And it also features the C1 modem chip, Apple's first in-house modem chip in an iPhone, which is the, quote, most power-efficient modem ever in an iPhone. to break into some more specs of this thing. It's a new design, kind of similar-ish to the iPhone 14, 15, 16. It's a bit of a... a kind of a mix mishmash of those devices it comes in white or black has a 6.1 inch oled display with a notch has an action button usbc the a18 chip of apple intelligence
A single 48 megapixel fusion camera. That means it does the 2x zoom. So like where it just it crops in and does the like the I think it's the central 12 megapixels of the sensor to give you like a 2x zoom. It is, and it has Apple's first ever cellular modem. And apparently the remarkable power efficiency of Apple Silicon, including the first Apple design modem, the C1, means that it gets 26 hours of battery life. Yeah. I looked up that the hour video.
Video playback battery stat. Just rearrange those words, Jim. iPhone 16 is 22 hours. The iPhone 16 plus is 27. So it's closer to the plus despite being the size of the 16. iPhone 16 Pro Max is 33. So got a ways to catch up with that, but definitely an improvement for a phone in this size class. I have a question. I don't know if we know the answer to or if we will know the answer to for a while. I know that there is new battery technology.
that is floating around now in phones do we know if there's any of that going on here too that they have like a new kind of battery in this phone or is it for as much as we can tell right now purely because of the C1 chip that is getting this better battery life? If it's a battery chemistry thing, they haven't disclosed it at this point. They did say it's bigger and that they kind of... rearrange the guts of the phone to make that possible. Right.
Yeah, well, that comes with its own set of things we'll talk about in a minute. The prices. So it starts at 128 gigabytes at $599, and then it goes at $256 for $699, $512 for $899. Pre-order this Friday, shipping February 28th. Stephen, do you want to talk about, you put this beautiful chart together in our show notes, comparing the 16 to the 16e. Sixteeny. Sixteeny. Sixteeny. That is so good. They both come with the A18 with six CPU cores.
The 16 has five GPU cores and the 16e has four GPU cores? No, that's it. That's it. I'm getting the 16. It's that one GPU core. Okay. It's for all the... Games? To play Infinity Nicky. It's to play Infinity Nicky. It's for all the Infinity Nicky that I'm going to do on my iPhone 16. That's the new one, by the way. Did you see it in the press release? Infinity Nicky is the new friend.
Death Stranding? Yeah, okay. Friendship ended with Assassin's Creed or whatever the previous one was. Assassin's Creed is probably a good call for Infinity Nikki. uh dynamic island on the 16 versus the notch on the 16e um it also has an older version of the ceramic shield which is that you know protective layer on the glass
Screen brightness is down a bit. A thousand typical nits max brightness or 1600 HDR versus 800 and 1200. Apple does not list the... peak outdoor brightness for this screen so assumedly it's just the regular it doesn't have like the deal where it can like supercharge it um and it cannot go down to one knit minimum brightness like the 16 can
I'm going to come back to the cameras because I think that's interesting for other reasons. Camera control, the iPhone 16 has it. The iPhone 16 does not. And if you want to use visual intelligence for some reason, you go through the action button. They also have a control center action. I know. I did see somebody that you can access it via control center. I don't know if that will come to all phones, but it will be on the Sixtini. Okay.
And then the iPhone 16 has MagSafe up to 25 watts with a 30 watt adapter. The 16e has Qi wireless charging up to 7.5 watts. And no MagSafe. So it does not have the ring of magnets. This is the thing, right? Like this, for me, I know lots of people got their own things about... Everyone's got their own problems about every product ever, right? But I think the three of us can probably all agree, no MagSafe is just a chaotic decision.
yeah this is this is the i'm trying to think of an equivalent like that weird apple pencil with usbc or like it's one of those weird one-offs that you just look at apple's lineup and you think what happened here for Max to be gone from this phone. John, OTJ, has a really good conspiracy theory on the Don, which is... John is speculating that maybe Apple's modem, the new C1, is bigger and maybe they couldn't fit the MagSafe circuitry or whatever. I don't know if that's the case.
But it's a good conspiracy theory. Yeah. If that is it, that is bad, right? That is like a bad thing. That's a bad thing. If the chip is that big... You know what I mean? I can see where John is coming from because there has to be a reason that is a weird reason because why would you not do this? I mean, we'll talk about this. compared to the SE, right? Because I think that's what everyone was expecting. But really, this is an iPhone 16, in the 16 line. They've given it that name for a reason.
I think the lack of MagSafe, not even just the fact that the wireless charging is so bad, right? 7.5 watts, that is so slow. For a phone that has a 26-hour battery life in it, like, you would be charging... And I think it would probably use more power than the charge would give it. And I really don't understand this. MagSafe on an iPhone.
It feels as table stakes as the biometric kind of stuff now. You know what I mean? It just feels like you have this whole ecosystem of products and accessories that you sell. And this, I think...
immediately devalues the product in the lineup. And something I thought that they would do is maybe they put it in the cases and that's not working either. So I think it does lend credence to John's thought that like... maybe the cables are in a different place like maybe they're not in the same place like i think that will be interesting to see like something weird has happened here yeah we'll know more in a couple weeks when this thing's in the world and people take it apart yeah but um
Yeah, so Apple's official case does not have MagSafe. There are lots of third-party solutions. You can buy a MagSafe thing to put in your Pixel case. There will be workarounds, but definitely strange. Also on the modem thing real quickly, you know, I'm just going to read something from Apple. Apple and Intel have signed an agreement for Apple to acquire the majority of Intel smartphone.
modem business. Approximately 2,200 Intel employees were joined Apple along with intellectual property, equipment, and leases. The transaction valued at $1 billion. So that's like nine. and a half humane IA pins, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2019. So this has been five years. Five and a half years since that deal. Wait, no, four and a half years. It's been some amount of time. It's been years since Apple has been on this journey.
And it's finally here. And I'm very interested to see how it performs in the world and if it is actually bigger, like OTJ speculates. But the C1 is maybe the most interesting thing about this phone to me, that Apple, after so long... and god knows how much money has shipped their own modem yeah this is the only interesting detail in my opinion for a phone that is too expensive for what it does and does not from
Just my opinion. But the modem is a fascinating story that I think will be, if this works and doesn't drop a connection, if it actually works, and I think if it's in a finished product, Apple must think that this is a good... modem yeah I think this will be the story to keep an eye on this year for any future products it's fascinating finally see I say how good though why wasn't it in the 16
Maybe that's why I think there's your question. I don't, I don't think that would necessarily be, maybe it could be about quality, but my thought there is that it could be about quantity that. The 16E is not going to sell like it's four other siblings and let alone combined. And so maybe you start it with what could be a lower product or lower volume product. Yeah.
Yeah, Jason and I, we have a long-running draft on this. We'll settle when I come back from Paterna, Ian. And one of the picks that he went for, which I think is a very good one, is there will be some kind of controversy about the C1. what is now called the C1. Like something. So there's going to be something. Because I just... This has taken them so long.
to do like it has been years now where maybe there has been like apple's getting ready to to debut its modem apple's getting ready to debut its modem and they haven't done it and they have like poured not just the money into buying this but also there have been they've have lost more money with I think it's it's either Qualcomm or Broadcom or both I don't remember who provides like the modem technology they've had to renegotiate deals where they
have lost more and more money because the prices have been going up. Like they've been trying to get this thing out there and it's taken them a long time. And I'm just very keen to see how this actually operates at scale. in use. That is going to be an interesting story, I think, to see. Yeah, definitely. Maybe if the issue is MagSafe, maybe there's going to be some kind of magnet-related controversy. Like if you get this phone next to a magnet.
The connection drops. But see, if that is the scenario, then surely this is not, like I know we're like half joking here, maybe, but that would be a significant enough reason not to release it, right? I think so too. Do you remember back in the day, like your computer speaker was making noise before your phone rang? What if they brought that back? Oh, the GSM thing? I'm getting a phone call in four seconds.
Wow, kids, these Zoomers, they don't know about this stuff. Yeah, Jim, put in that sound effect, Jim. Do you think it's just a sound effect, Jim, just has a hand? I'll find one for him. Also, I did it. How do we need any more, you know? Cell phone, speaker sound. Okay, camera. This is also interesting to me. It is compared to the... Okay, so the 16 has the main camera and the ultrawide. This...
16e does not have the ultra wide. So there's no macro mode, no spatial photos, obviously, because you just have one lens. It has the older photographic styles, not the fancy new ones. Oh, that doesn't make any sense. I don't understand. Maybe it's some pipeline thing. Maybe my only thought is like, maybe that's just not very performant on the cut down GPU. I don't know.
And Apple's doing the optical, you know, 1X, 2X zoom thing because it's a 48 megapixel. Megapixel. Megapixel. 16, he has a megapixel. I also think I said IAPen earlier. You did. Yeah, you did say I ate that. This is quite the mega pickle we're in today. What a mega pickle we found ourselves in. The photographic styles thing is the weirdest part to me about this camera. Maybe so, yeah. I'd miss that part.
The single camera makes sense to me. Like, you know, it's like it's not going to have everything that the 16 does. Otherwise, why does it exist? And I think the fact that it has the 48 megapixel camera in it is actually pretty decent. Like if you're going to have a... cut down solution. I think a 48 megapixel megapixel single lens is better than a like 24 and an ultra wide. I think. I think they've gone for the best.
of a compromised solution. That's what I think anyway. Maybe so. I just listened to the computer sound effect thing on YouTube. It sounds terrible. Maybe we don't want to put that in a podcast. Yeah, I feel like my rendition is enough. But we lived through it. That's true. That is true. We lived through it. Maybe it's just a PTSD that you have for that sound effect. gsm sound gsm so the reason this is interesting is that the the iphone slim or air or whatever is rumored to have one camera and
I would imagine it would be this setup, maybe with like the photographic style thing fixed. Yeah. So maybe they're like kind of preparing the way for that a little bit. I don't know. I mean, the old SE also had one camera. It also makes it way cheaper. Like I get all that, but. This would be the question I would ask if I could ask a question of someone at Apple would be why, what is the reason for the photographic stars?
Is it genuinely a one core difference of GPU? That doesn't make any sense to me. If someone knows for realsies and you're not Tim Apple, let us know. You don't have to go on the record for that. Yeah. We will. We will just say it, and we won't say your name. I would love to know the reason for that. Well, you'll find out in eight weeks. Maybe. No, I'm going to listen to the show.
Oh, no. When I'm gone. I am going to listen. I'm going to be tuning in every week, like a real passionate one. I'm going to be passionate. Somebody wrote in on the Panatic today, and this is great, and I probably will do it. They said, will I use the feedback form? And I think I might. So. If I have things to say, I'm going to be blowing up that feedback form. You better watch out. That feels like work. You said you were going to text us. Why do you need to use the feedback form?
I mean, all right, I'll text you all my thoughts about the episodes then. I mean, I was just going to text you as like a friend. Like I wasn't going to give you like show feedback. But if I have show feedback, I'll write in, you know, like a real listener. Actually, I don't want to abuse my position as... a host right but when I'm not on the show and just like text you all my feedback I'll send it in like a good listener
Federico, we just opened Notion and there's like red letters, like, you know, like in a horror movie, it's like etched on the glass over the sink. I know what you did last week. Yeah, I just etched into the Notion document. So here's a big... Bigger picture thing here. This is not an iPhone SE, is it? No. We thought this was a replacement for the iPhone SE. It isn't. And they also don't sell it anymore. Yeah. It's a lot more expensive.
Yeah. It's a lot bigger. Rest in peace, small phones. How much more expensive? So the SE3 started at $429 for the 64 gig, but they don't make that anymore. So if you compare 128 to 128, it was $479, and now it's $599. So it's $120 more, which is quite a jump. Yeah. Yeah. A jump for this. Yeah, it is. For me, I think, and I think Federico disagrees, but I think this package at $599 is pretty decent. It's not perfect.
I think this is a decent $600 iPhone in the world that we're in today. Well, let me tell you about our good friend, the euro currency. This phone starts at 729 euros. Yeah, you guys are paying. I couldn't believe this, but in the UK it's 599 pounds. So it's similar. I'm going to the Italian Apple store right now, which is fine. So, Dove amere acquistare i prodontici a mi? So, I've got that. That's what that's telling me. I'm trying to find the compare.
I want to see what the prices are. How much does an iPhone 16 cost? It starts at $979. Whoa! That's, in the words of Tim Cook, economic headwinds. That is a spicy meatball. Now you see why most people in Italy buy Android phones. Because the prices of iPhones are crazy here. That is very expensive. Don't look at a Pro Max unless you want to get a heart attack or something. $1,239. Oh, that's the Pro. Oh, my God. The iPhone 16 Pro Max starts at €1,489.
Yeah. That's a lot of money, man. Yeah. That's a lot of money. Yeah. Yeah. So it's the end of the SE. If you dial back the clock, the SE started life as... We're going to have a four-inch phone. It was the 5S form factor after the 6 had come out, like six months after the 6 had come out. Or maybe we were even into the 6S cycle. I forget. But we were moving into bigger phones. Hey.
Some people want a smaller phone. The SE is going to be the smaller phone. And the later two revisions kind of followed that, but basically it was an old phone with kind of like a mix of parts. You know, people... refer to that as like a parts bin device. And this one is just really different from that. This is an iPhone 16 that's cut down to hit a price point in a way that's not the same strategy.
With Apple, you know, in the video, I think you referenced earlier, Mike, it's like we're completing the iPhone 16 line. Like, what does that mean? Does that mean there's going to be a 17e in a year? Like, it's kind of confusing at this point. It has only made more long-term questions than short-term answers. Yeah. This product is weird. It's weird in a way that I'm happy about because if it was boring, we wouldn't have so much to talk about with it.
But just the name alone asks a bunch of questions. Because if they don't come out with a 17E, then I don't understand why you would call this the 16E. Yeah. Because it doesn't even look like an iPhone 16. No, it looks like whatever the last one with the notch was. Yeah. So like, what, like a 14? Yeah.
It does mark the end of several things in the iPhone line, though. It marks the end of the home button and touch ID. That's gone. At least on new phones, it marks the end of the mute rocker switch because this thing has the action button. And I was thinking of this, but MacRumors pointed it out. It's also the end of, or at least currently there's no product red products in Apple's lineup. The iPhone 14, which is also discontinued today.
and the SE3 were the last ones. It is sort of like the closing of a lot of chapters in the iPhone line. Rest in peace. Do you think that was a Johnny Ive thing? The Product Red? Yeah. I think he took the mantle after Jobs. You know, and he did like the Product Red Mac Pro, the Trash Can Mac Pro. Do you remember that? He continued working with them on a bunch of stuff. Like he's done... I think Post Apple has done other things. He's done a red lycra. He did a red lamy pen. So maybe this was a...
Maybe that was a Steve-Johnny thing, and maybe that's why they don't do that anymore. Maybe that was a relationship that was important to them. Maybe they like Bono. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. But it's here, and I'm very curious how popular it will be. I think the price jump, it still makes older phones look pretty good in terms of pricing. This episode of Connected is brought to you by Google Gemini. I tried Gemini a couple of days ago, the Gemini Live where you can talk to it.
And it's really wild to have a full on conversation with this thing. I asked it to give me ideas for hosting during the holidays. And when it starts giving you results, you can just stop it and say, okay, well, what about something low key for a smaller group? And then it adjusts to that, and you can just keep going until you get an idea that you want. And that's what I think I would use it for most, brainstorming things.
It's so good if you don't know where to start or you hit a wall with something. Just go to Gemini and it can help you get the ball rolling. You can use it for all kinds of stuff. If you want to learn something new. or get some advice, ask it to explain Bitcoin in simple terms, or you can have it quiz you on something like microbiology. I mean, imagine being a student and you've got this personal tutor on hand. It's hard to explain. You really have to go play with it.
See how it listens to you, responds, and adapts to your style of conversation. Try it out. It's free. Our thanks to Google Gemini for the support of this show and all of Relay. Oh, come on. Oh, God. You think it's going to get away with it? Welcome back to the Quizzies, the quiz show within a podcast where I, Mike Hurley, quiz my connected co-hosts randomly and by surprise on a variety of varying subjects. Welcome to the 2025 Quizzies. You're both at zero points. Oh, it's a new year.
It's a new year. You will remember that Federico took the crown in 2024 with a score of 680 to 600. I will remind you the 2023 score was Stephen at 2,020 points and Federico at 2,000 points. And the 2022 score was Federico. at 8,801 points. Steven at 10,673 points. We've reined that in a little bit. We're playing a new game today called ASC Eeries of Questions. Oh, was that a Siri joke?
Nope. SE Rees of Questions. Is it about the SE? It's about the SE line. It's about the Mac SE. I'm really good at that. I am going to be destroyed. Okay. We'll find out. I am in danger. Okay. I'm in danger. Federico, I have six questions for you both. It's 25 points per correct answer. Federico, as rating... You get to choose whether you would like to answer first or second. Second. Okay.
So question number one, Stephen, you will answer first. Which iPhone was the visual design of the original iPhone SE model based on? The iPhone 5S. Federico? The iPhone 5S. Correct, correct. Question number two. Which processor powers the iPhone SE second generation released in 2020? Ooh. 2020. Mm-hmm. I'm going to say the A13. Okay. 2020, you say? I did. We are in 2025, right? Mm-hmm. Somewhat. So in 2024, what's the new chip? The A18?
21, 15, 2020, 14. But it's the SE, so I'm going to copy Stephen, whatever Stephen said. The 13? Is that what Stephen said? I can confirm that was what Stephen said, and that is correct. Technically, A13 Bionic, but there wasn't an A13 chip. Okay. Question number three. Which of these colors was not available for the first generation iPhone SE? Rose gold, black, or silver? Say those again.
Which of these colors was not available for the iPhone SE first generation, the original one? Rose gold, black, or silver? Black. Federico? He thinks the SE was not available in black. Mm-hmm. What is the original SE even? That's a great question. So it looked like an iPhone 5S? Mm-hmm. You know what, whatever. I'm gonna say that it was not available in rose gold.
That is incorrect. It was not available in black. I should have copied Stephen. Space Gray. It was available in space gray, silver, gold, and rose gold. Yes. The original four color options available. Here's how I remember that, Federico. The iPhone 5 had that. cool black color and then they went gray on the 5S and so I kind of I didn't know that that was my why do why do I even try is the real question you won last year so you you know
Yeah, they're not all history things. This may play to my strengths or it may not, but there'll be something that plays to yours. We're only halfway through. Well, and I'm already complaining. It's the first game of the year and I already don't like it. Hey, Mike. Mike, did you get the money I sent you? Yes, I did. Thank you. Here's the thing. Even though I dislike it and I complain about it, I am going to win regardless.
Wow, I love it. I love it. Okay, so question number four. Which version of iOS did the original iPhone SE model ship with? Steven? Ooh. See, it was... iOS... I'm counting backwards. iOS 8? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. iOS 9. I don't think we've ever had a thing before where... Okay, I'm going to take your second answer. Thank you. Federico? Are we allowed to know when the original iPhone SE came out? Yeah, I mean, I can tell you, it doesn't bother me to tell you, it came out in 2016. 2016? Yeah.
Are we allowed to know the month of 2016? Sure, March 2016. Come on. Well, then it was running iOS 9. I knew the answer. I could have taken your first answer, Stephen. It was running iOS 9. Yeah, it sure was. Bonus question. When did it come out? What was the point release of iOS 9 on the original SE? See, by March, Apple used to do... I feel like Apple used to do fewer. Point. Bonus. Point three. Federico. Did you say March 2016? Yes, I did. March 2016. March 2016. Not a 0.3, I don't think.
Yeah, I think I overcooked my answer. 9.1 or 9.2. I'm going to say 9.2. It was, in fact, iOS 9.3. Final question. What is the display size of both the iPhone SE second generation and third generation? Ooh. Ooh. Okay, so how big was the iPhone? I don't even know how big my iPhone is right now. What's the size of the Pro Max? 6.7? Is that the size? I think so. 100 inches. It's pretty big. I'm going to say, I think the iPhone...
It's got to be four point something. Yeah. I think, though, that first batch of bigger phones... Was it the same as the first batch of bigger phones? I'm going to say they didn't do a 4.3.5. I'm counting up iPhone sizes in my head. Then it gets really messy. 4.7. Yeah, I had the number somewhere in my head. I'm going to go with 4.7. Yeah. It is 4.7. Okay. That brings us to the end of the quiz. Federico scores 100 points. Stephen scores 150 points.
This is a good start for Stephen as we start the quizzes, but do not fear. The quizzes will return later on this year. Was that perfect? Yes. You got every question correct. Oh, man. What a surprise. The history quiz he gets right. The person literally has a museum in his home. I would say... As quiz master of the quizzes, I try my best to make them not all history. Sometimes they're history. Yeah. That's the end of the quizzes. Thank you. Hey, speaking of history. Yeah.
As alluded to earlier, HP has bought Humane. Jay Peters reported this at The Verge. The... AI pen company is no more sold to HP for $116 million. Some people and some IP are going to HP. We've already seen on social media, some people are not going to HP. And the team is going to be working on something at HP. Probably something super cool and interesting. Okay.
Humane's team, including founders Imran Chaudhry and Bethany Bongiorno, will form a new division at HP to help integrate artificial intelligence into the company's personal computers. printers, and connected conference rooms. It's rough, right? It's rough. There's no way to put this. It's rough. Hey, randomly, because it just popped into my brain.
Also the end of lightning phones. Right? Or like new lightning phones. Unrelated to HP. I was just thinking about old technology and it came back to mind. Yeah. That is the end of the lightning. Printers. printers and connect to conference rooms here's the thing about printers printers should have no software like the reason i use that brother that everyone likes is because it literally can't do anything
It just prints black and white pages. I really don't know what AI you could put into a printer. I genuinely don't know. I really can't. Make the text sharper. With AI. It's like, oh. Like, should that happen on the computer? Like, why is that happening at the print point? It's like, you know? Look, look, man, these people need a job, all right? Hey, what? You gotta let them do something. Look, we're taking the generative AI.
and moving it from the application level to the printer level. So you just type in a prompt to your printer. It's like, hey, make me a form for my doctor's office. And then you don't even see it. It just comes out of the printer. It's saving you so much time. You know what? Actually, there are things that I've done on printers in the past where I've messed things up. You know that you want to print something on two sides of a page of paper?
but you put the wrong one in and you print over the thing. Yeah, but LLMs can't get things right now. They're telling people to eat rocks. I want the AI. But that's what I want the printer AI to do, to be like, no, you did that wrong. Or it flips the paper over for me.
Or something, you know, like that's what I wanted to do. Or like I scan something and I scan it askew and like the AI straightens it. That's what I'm looking for out of my printer AI. From February the 28th, so in about 10 days or so. nine days to be exact, the AI pins that people own become effectively useless. I'm going to...
Because they will not be able to access any online service. I'll read again from The Verge. After the shutdown, offline features like battery level will still work, Humane says. But, quote, any function that requires cloud connectivity like voice interactions, AI responses, and dot center access will not. So it can't do anything. Just nothing. That's not true. It can do battery level. You just said it. That's true.
I did say that. It's fake news. I'm sorry. Are we allowed to say that this was always a scam and e-waste in the first place? I don't know. I do think scam... We're all thinking it. I'll tell you what I'll say. I think we can all agree from the first time we saw this product, we knew it wasn't going to work. So in that sense, you could say it was...
scam-ish, because you've got to assume that they also thought that this wasn't going to work. But I also don't, actually, as I say that, I don't know if they believe that, because they really seemed, I mean, this is why a lot of people... are taking a level of glee in this because of the way Humane positioned themselves. Yeah. Right? Like... They kind of made this bed for themselves by saying all the things they said, presenting everything in such a grandiose way. And...
I kind of like imagine doing all of that. And like, I think that they genuinely believed that they were going to change the world, at least at some point. Whether it was before the AI pin or not. They were building something before the AI pin that then became the AI pin because they thought they were going to disrupt smartphones. Imagine doing all of that and having that belief in yourself and you end up putting AI into connected conference rooms.
That's rough. Like, that is a rough situation that they've ended up in. And I think I saw something that they've had like a quarter of a billion dollars of VC funding. So the HP money... It doesn't even make the investors whole. No. Yeah. It's just money down the drain, basically. Yeah. Which, again, I think...
There was an element of obviousness to that. Clearly, they were good pitch people, right? They were able to pitch people to get investment, but it's just a truly crazy thing to have happened, I think. And there's a whole bunch of people... without a job now, because I don't think, you know, I think most people working at Humane were laid off. Yeah. There's a whole bunch of people who purchased Humane AI pin, spent...
you know, around $700 or $800 depending on the version that you got. And then the monthly subscription. Used it for less than a year and they were informed with a 10-day notice. that the pin would stop working. So it's basically unsellable. You cannot do anything with this thing. Yeah, good deal. What a way to go out in style.
If only this company had the same class and style that the CEO had in terms of fashion style, that would have been nice. But no, sadly, no, that's not the case. There is this thing too where like... I agree that that amount of notice is incredibly short. The other part of it, though, is like, maybe no one was using them. So maybe it's not that bad. Apparently, I was looking up, according to The Verge, as of August 2024, there are only 7,000 humane AI pins in the hands of consumers. Okay.
maybe of those 7,000 people, there wasn't really anybody actually using it. I'm not defending it, but just while on the face of it. My initial reaction was like, oh my God, I can't believe that you've given people such a short amount of time. Maybe they just knew it was fine. You just think nobody cares. Just no one's using it.
Think about that, right? 7,000 people bought this product, which I think, and there was at a point, there were, remember there was a point where there were more units being returned than bought? So that was 7,000 people left who hadn't yet returned it. Of those 7,000 people... you've got to imagine, I would say, at least half, at least, although I would say probably more, at least half of those people bought it to make content about, right? Mm-hmm.
Like that they are an influencer or a YouTuber or a technology journalist, like whatever. They bought it as like a little curiousness. But most of the people that I would say probably half of the people that had one probably bought it. But they weren't planning to make it part of their life anyway. It was like a thing that they bought. If these people were smart, here's what they should have done.
sell any leftover inventory for like less than half the price and release on GitHub a jailbreak tool and documentation to jailbreak your pin and install whatever software you want to install on it so that the people who had it could jailbreak the pin and i'm sure some kind of modding community would have spawned up and you would have made a bunch of extra money on the site so so here's here's the thing about that because i had that thought too and i thought about pebble like
That's probably not up to them. It's probably up to HP because HP now owns all of the patents and everything. And if they're going to use whatever they did as the basis of whatever they're going to do with an HP. They're not going to do that. The same way when Pebble got absorbed, all the stuff went away, and now the original guy has the rights back and is starting it over. That may be on the humane people, but...
I think it's probably also on HP. I saw some, I mean, there probably is patents and intellectual property, but I saw some reporting somewhere that this deal did not include the hardware at all. Like Humane did not buy any of the hardware. I think the bigger problem for why they can't do that is, do you remember that they had to do a product recall about the batteries? Yeah. That wasn't completed. Oh. Humane said if they had not sent that...
battery recall to you, they would refund you the amount of the battery. So like, even if they wanted to do that and could do that, they still would have to deal with the fact that the batteries weren't good in these things and they could catch on fire. What a mess. What a mess. These people are never going to make a product again, right? I can't imagine. I mean...
I would say Silicon Valley disappoints me in many ways at times, but I have got to believe that nobody would have invested in them now. Yeah. Right? This is a pretty catastrophic failure for... the hype that was around them and the people that they had invested in them. And it's been like this multi-stage failure, right? Of like...
Just the announcement videos were a failure on their own. And then the product came out and it was bad. And then it just continued to fail. It got to this point. Like you remember. When the reporting came out about them wanting to sell this company, they were looking for somewhere between $700 million and a billion dollars. Like that's what they were looking for if they would want to sell. And it sold for $116 million. So that gives you an idea, I think.
of how little interest there was in acquiring anything of this company from the people to the teams to the technology that they've patented. It's rough. It's real bad. And it is easy to make fun of. And, you know, maybe part of it is deserved. But like, it sucks that people are going to lose their jobs. And it sucks that people have to go to HP and do things that they, they joined a cool startup to do something cool.
And now they're making printer firmware. Like there are downsides to it. And look, I even made fun of it because I thought of a very clever headline in my own opinion. But it is. Anytime we have these stories, we've done this show long enough where we've covered lots of these things like. There, there's a balance to be struck because like hardware startups are rare. And this shows, I think again, like how hard that is. Now their idea was bad and their product was flawed and it was too expensive.
all that's true but um i wouldn't want to be in a hardware startup no matter how good i thought the idea was like it just seems really difficult really difficult um I did set up an eBay saved search for a humane AI pen, though. I think that makes sense. If you've got one and, you know, don't throw it away, don't recycle it, mail it to me. I'll put it in the museum.
But put it in a little fireproof box. I'll put it in a glass tube. I'll get a tube made up for it and float it. What is that thing? Remember the thing in the documentation for replacing an iPhone? and it was a something event? What was that? Do you remember? A thermal event. A thermal event. You've got to be ready for thermal events. Yeah. I would say, like, I... I feel for some people, I think a lot of people who worked at Humane, they must have known, right? Like...
I feel like there is an element of like, you surely should have seen what everybody else saw. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Like, you know. Especially with the founders, I don't have any sympathy for them. Like, I don't. Dave probably ended up pretty okay out of this. realistically. I don't really have sympathy. They've landed on their feet. They actually have probably pretty well-paying jobs out of this. But I think a lot of people that left other tech companies to go work for Humane...
You should have been able to just look at what they did. I don't know. I think the founders tried to do the whole reality distortion field. They did. Yeah. They were trying hard. Yeah. I think there's something here of like, some people learn the wrong lesson from Steve Jobs and from Apple. And I think that's at the heart of a lot of this.
And I think another angle is like, you know, you're trying to introduce a device for people not to use their phones. People really like using their phones and phones are really good, right? It's the same thing with the Rabbit R1. At least then you got a fun like orange thing to have on your desk. But there's just very little room for a device that's not a phone.
Like even wearables, like even smartwatches, even smart glasses, right? Like they're kind of at the edge. And that's like a big thing to take on. But when you think you can change the world with your idea, you know, no one can tell you no, I guess. Yeah.
This is an interesting point from Aaron in Discord. It says, I wonder if they were hoping to find enough of an interest where they could iterate on feedback and continue to grow a new product market. That would have been interesting, but that's not all. the way that they position themselves, right? If they would position themselves like that, I would have a little more, and I think everybody would have more sympathy for this team.
And like this company and these products. But the problem was always what you said, Stephen, like that they. You can't. You can't bootstrap Apple like you can't just be like. We're going to go from zero to Apple. That's not a thing that you can do. You can't do that. Because it's not what Apple did either. That's not how they became...
what they are. It's not how any big technology company became what they are. Like people kind of, I feel like had a little bit more earnestness to what they were doing than just to be like, we've changed the world, everyone.
We've actually done, we've done this and like, look at our tables. They're big and they have objects perfectly aligned on them. You know, it's just like stuff like that where it's like, oh, you've been in an Apple design lab or, you know, you saw one in wallpaper magazine and you've done that. None of it, there wasn't a, they did subsequent videos that were better, which had more personality to them. And I think if they would have come at it from that regard, rather than the original one.
This story, I don't think it would have been significantly better, but people may have had more empathy for them at this stage, I think. like i don't know if you if you guys saw those videos but i was watching all the videos but they were doing kind of like os um talking through like their os cosmos yeah
And there were like little jokes in it. And like Imran was looking in a video and he's asking for a fit check. And then like someone was laughing in the back. Yeah, it's just stuff. It had more of a actual real personality to it than. the initial stuff that they did. And so I think it would have been different if they could have actually seen human people rather than this, like, we have delivered this product to you from heaven, you know?
I'm gonna eat it. You're gonna eat it? Remember that? He had the handful of almonds or whatever? Yeah, I thought you meant if someone sent one to you. Yeah, that's what I thought. You were going to eat it. He had like a handful of almonds and it gave him vastly incorrect nutritional information. He's like, I'm going to eat it. This episode of Connected is brought to you by Incogni.
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for it to become available we have a new report by Mark Gurman saying that due to recent internal struggles with getting the Siri overhaul you know getting it together it seems like it could get delayed so we were expecting uh ios 18.4
to have the teased and pre-announced Siri integration with apps and... with the ability to chain multiple requests to Siri in your favorite apps together, have Siri execute all of those actions seamlessly, as well as Siri being able to draw from your personal context. So to be able to infer and find information based on the things that you store in your apps, in your notes, in your task manager, in your photos, in your email, whatever. and also for Siri to be aware of what's displayed on screen.
Now, it seems like these features may or may not make 18.4. According to Google, Apple is... been discussing lately the idea of maybe shipping them in iOS 18.4 turned off by default or just postponing them to 18.5. I kind of wanted to get a vibe check from you guys. Are you disappointed? Do you care? Do you not care? Did you see this coming or not? What's the overall vibe check? Yes, that is also a vibe. I'm disappointed for various reasons, I think. I think that...
You know, this is an overall frustrating thing, right? These are the most interesting parts of Apple Intelligence. Were they ever real? Like, was this a thing that ever worked? Or was it like a hope? Was it a video animation? Yeah. Let me ask you this way, Mike. Do you think that by the time you'll be back on the show, we will have these features? Not all of them, no. Yeah, I agree. I think at least one of these features gets just straight up moved to 19.
I wouldn't be shocked if... So Apple announced this system based on intents and app schemas, like all these things that... All these commands that apps can register and Siri will be able to execute those domains. I wouldn't be shocked if like half of those domains get moved to 19. Yeah. Or like... iOS 18 technically runs until September. Technically, iOS 18 could run forever. That's also true. Apple has that system in software update where they show you both.
tracks so you can choose. Imagine if iOS 19 is out but there's still like 18.26 and we finally need a personal context. I mean I just I find it frustrating. I'm not surprised about it while also being surprised, if that makes sense. It's like, I am kind of... On the face of it, it feels like these features just don't work and that maybe when they showed them off, they weren't ready. That's how it feels on the face of it. Under regular circumstances...
The kind of thing they wouldn't do at WWDC, with some exceptions, right? But it is rare for them to show something and just not to arrive, which it does feel like at least... Some of this stuff might not. One of the things Mark Gurman says is that some of these things might get added but are off by default because they're not good enough. Maybe they're limited. Maybe, you know...
Maybe personal context only works if you use Apple's apps or something. We actually don't even really know what the original plan for that was anyway, like how that system was going to work. It's a bit of, I do think that it is, I think it's concerning for sure, right? Like these features are important. whether you like them or not. I think it is important to have this kind of technology now. Can they?
I want to hear from you, Stephen, and then I have something I want to share about this topic. I think that there's no greater evidence that Apple rushed into the Apple intelligence. announcement uh i'm not surprised that it's delayed um i also think this is not new we've talked about this before Apple making this part of the Siri brand continues to feel like a mistake to me. Yep. And the last thing Apple needs to do.
is release something under the Siri brand that's bad because Siri's reputation is pretty poor, I think, kind of out in the general world. And so they got to, I think they kind of got to get it right on day one. I think people are going to be already hesitant to try something. People don't trust Siri. I think it's why it's so interesting they put the new fancy gradient and UI in place when it's the same old Siri.
that i think was misleading is probably a strong word but at the very least like odd or strange and so i part of me is hopeful that apple sees okay this isn't ready we're going to wait till it is but If they didn't start working on this until 18 months ago or something, I just don't know. I don't know when we're going to see it. Okay. My feelings are complicated.
But the biggest one is like Siri's brand is bad. What does Apple do about that? Yeah. I have a waterfall of thoughts that I need to share on the show. Please. I'm going to try my best not to lose them because it's a whole... jumbled mess of thoughts that i need to share if you do lose any of them don't chase it don't go there you go thank you thank you
So, first of all, I think it's interesting that this report is coming out a couple of weeks after that other report about that new person that was put in charge of Apple intelligence. Oh, yeah. Federico. Federico. Perfect. It makes me wonder if maybe John Andrea is not that great at their job. Interesting timing. The other thing, I was listening to you and Jason on Upgrade. And you were raising this interesting point, like, what's worse? What could have been worse?
for Apple not to pre-announce anything at WWDC? Or was their approach correct? Could there have been bigger damage if Apple hadn't shown anything last year? And I get the argument and I think there's something to it. But at the same time, the flip side of that is that with this timeline that we're in. Apple has basically accelerated as fast-tracked Apple intelligence becoming the same running joke that Siri has been for the past few years. Like, you see the memes on a pretty regular basis.
On Blue Sky these days, I'm not on threads. I suppose you can also see them on threads. I suppose you can also see them on X if you're still using X. But like the memes of Apple Intelligence summaries. or the memes of Apple Intelligence Image Playgrounds. Like, it is becoming a running joke. And it's sort of... It's becoming this, like... The vibe that I'm getting from those posts is, like, most people would typically...
Those are people who are not attuned to tech news as much as we are. They're just regular people. They see Apple doing AI. Sort of like the weird uncle who's now really into something modern. It's like, look at the big company now wants to do AI. They're not cool in that sense. And I was thinking, and now we're getting into another thought. I was thinking about this lately. Like, why do people... I spend a lot of time... This is not... I am not bragging but I do spend a lot of time.
unfortunately, on the internet. This is not bragging. I do spend... I am very online. I don't know about you guys, but I spend a lot of time online. I don't know about you, but I am very much... highway i spend i spend a lot of time on the line and i so here's the thing i see is that people people who are sort of kind of into tech, they tend to be more forgiving toward this new generation of companies like the ChatGPT.
or anthropic, or deep-seek, or God forbid perplexity, or even Gemini to a lesser extent, then they are toward Apple intelligence. Definitely.
And I was thinking, why is it? Like, is it a general dislike toward Apple? I'm sure, you know, there's a component there. You know, Apple, the premium company, they make you spend the fortune to buy a phone and then they... give you something that is not working but arguably google also makes you spend the fortune to buy a pixel or a pixel fold and i think i think i've landed on a personal theory that i wanted to share on the show
I think when it comes to AI, Apple eventually, they will probably need to understand that they will need a fundamentally different approach in communication. Because all of these AI companies are very much open about what they're building, the flaws of their existing products, and how they want to make them better.
It's a new approach, isn't it, to technology? You have never seen, especially with Tim Cook's Apple, you have never seen Apple publicly say, yeah, we know this is not great, but we're going to make it better. Apple never says it. According to Apple, and this goes back to something that Jason shared weeks ago and I continue to repeat, according to Apple, any product you mention is the best one, the greatest.
the most versatile, the fastest. You will never hear Apple say, yeah, we know this is not great, but we just want to release it and then we'll build it up from here. That is the approach that all these other companies have. And I think in the AI space, if Apple wants to be taken seriously and wants to be taken in a more forgiving manner, they will need a different approach. I may be wrong.
We'll see when and if eventually this features ship. We'll see if and when a Siri large language model ship. I am dying to see how Apple is going to... treat a large language model compared to Google or OpenAI or Anthropic or Meta? Is it just going to be like a closed app? where you cannot pick a model, where it's not open source, where Apple doesn't share anything about, like...
Are they really going to do the Apple version of a large language model? I am dying to know, dying to see what they're going to do. The one thing that they could do, which would, you know, I imagine they would do, which has its own benefits maybe.
like if they actually do get their own LLM together. Like we were talking about the fact a few weeks ago, like choosing LLMs is quite a weird thing and a complicated thing. Because you're saying like the names of them aren't great, right? Like why would I use... 40 mini like is that good like should i do that you know what and so like not choosing would be nice right that's the thing that that i would like and you know i would hope
If I believed Apple had their stuff together in this, which I don't as of right now, because they've not proven it. If I was to believe that they had their stuff together, I would believe that's what they would prioritize, right? That they would have like a bunch of different models for different tasks.
But you as the user never need to request. At least that would be their attempt at building the product. But that would also require them to have genuinely shown that they have any kind of capability right now. And their capability is slim. right? Like, well, Apple's LLM capability is what? A little bit of text, right? Like rewriting tools? That's their LLM capability right now. Yeah, sort of, maybe that. Only a little, right? Because anything complicated, they send it off to OpenAI.
And the notifications. Oh, yeah. That's going great. And the images. And literally the only... The only part you can salvage of the images is the Genmoji because they were trained on a pretty good data set, which is the Apple Emoji that have a good design. So that's not a huge surprise. But yeah, just I... I kept having this thought of like, everybody seems to be... And I'm not saying that people are not complaining about Gemini or people are not complaining about LGBT, but...
Because those companies are so outspoken, they have created this sense of community and openness regarding communication that Apple doesn't have. And I wonder if that style... becomes sort of the default approach communication-wise. You can literally go on X and send a reply to the person working on Google Gemini and they're going to reply to you. Like, if that style of...
communication with the public and with developers, right? Because there's also a strong developer story here. And if that style becomes the norm, I wonder whether you're a customer or you're a developer. How do you engage with Apple intelligence when these other companies give you a fundamentally different experience and treatment if you're a developer? I'd be curious to see for sure.
I will just, if you'll allow me, I might as well make a disclosure. Google Gemini is a sponsor of this week's episode. That is not in any way, I can feel very confident in saying it, not in any way, shape, fit or equal's opinions. Yeah, no, yeah. absolutely just thank you sponsor but I don't care yes I know which I love about you I
It's going to be very interesting to see over the next couple of weeks how this unfolds because realistically 18.4 should be available in beta now and it's not. So it is very clear something's going on. Right? Because there's no current beta version of the operating system available right now. I think that your theory that it is Kim Vorath, which is that the API has been brought in.
I think that is a very good theory of like someone has come in and they're like, show me this. Oh, that doesn't work. We're not shipping. Yeah. You know, I think that could be like an interesting theory for why. Or it could just be that it just doesn't work and they were never going to ship it because it doesn't work. But no matter what is going on, it doesn't seem like it's a good thing. And again, to go back to what you were saying,
Apple have a way to prove it. They could talk about it, but they don't do that. But maybe that's not the era we're in anymore. Apple do not own or control this era of technology, right? The previous era of technology of personal computers, smartphones, they owned and controlled it. So they could set the tone and everybody followed their tone. They do not own and control this.
for whatever it is, for however long it's going to be, for however successful it will not. They're clearly following, right? Because they don't have the stuff together. And they are... Their way of doing things is not the way that things are being done. And it will be interesting to see if they just decide to not bother with that or if they change their approach or if they change their approach in a different way that like maybe they're just like, hey, we give up.
And we'll just build some really good APIs for people to build on top of and integrate with. Well, that brings us to the end of Mike's last episode for a little while. Goodbye. Is that all you have to say before you go? Before you go. I like it. I don't know what to say, really. So I'm going to be gone for a long time. Probably like two months.
Federico thinks it'll be longer. We'll see how it's going to go. Slightly longer than that, yeah. Paternity leave if you've somehow missed that, right? You're not just like going on a... Sabbatical. Yeah, yeah. who would do that. Can you imagine the person that starts listening to Connected with this episode and goes from a 16ie to somehow one of the hosts leaving? You know?
I mean, they've had a ride, you know? They've had a real ride. They've got what is, I think, a very classic episode of the show. We've had some laughs. We've had some big thoughts. We've had some mispronunciations. You know, we had a game.
a real classic. And then I guess a new classic part is one of the hosts leaves. So this is the new thing. I don't know. I don't really know what to say. I'm going to be gone for a while. I'm going to be focusing on my daughter when she was born, which is... probably going to be quite soon.
And I won't be around much is the intention. I thought today that I will delete all social media from my phone. That was the thought that I had today. I was like, that's a good idea. So I'll do that. Do it. That'd be my intention. And yeah, and I will be, I don't know, I don't know when I'll be back exactly, but it's like...
My plan is in late April and I would like to extend my thanks right now to you both for being so gracious and so encouraging in letting me take this time because it is quite a long time. And also to everybody else who is making it possible for me to do this, because there are a lot of people who have to step up if I'm going to be gone. I would like to thank the listeners for...
for also allowing it. Everyone's been really cool about it. I hope that you enjoy the time without me. But not too much. We will. But not too much. No, Stephen, you're supposed to say that we will. Okay. Say it, Stephen. We will. Thank you. You know, I had the thought today, and I don't know about this, but I just want to put it out there. I know when you record.
Quizzies can happen at any time. You just pop into the Zoom? Don't ever get comfortable. No, you're supposed to be gone. You're going to stay gone. I'm just telling you. I agree with that, but just don't get comfortable. At any point. I feel like I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. But also, I might. By the way, you will be back. I need to consult with the universe some more, but you will be back either on May 7th or May the 14th on the show.
That's a long time. I don't need that amount of time. Look, it's you who decided to have a baby, not me. I don't know. I don't know how long. I don't know how much time I need. All of it is just like a number picked out of the air. But yeah, I don't know. I'm very excited about this.
time i am very ready for it to begin you know we said this right this is a long journey for my wife and i to get to this point and we're very thankful that we're here i'm very thankful that i have the kind of job where i can do this i'm very thankful that uh people are supportive and I hope that you'll miss me a little bit and when I come back I hope you'll be happy well we will miss you Mike thank you but not too much you know but not too much that's good though
You've got to always keep people on their toes. Well, if you miss me too much, then it'll be hard for you to do the show. We don't want to be clingy, you know? Or like crying every episode. Yeah. Jeez. Okay. Yeah. Looking out the window while you record. The rain goes down the window. No one can see me crying in the rain. I wonder if they're talking about pickles today.
I am going to listen, by the way. Okay. I said that earlier, but I will be listening. I'm going to be listening to the show. I look forward to listening. Is that a threat? It's more just like a thing to remember. Okay. So it's a threat. Federico, you made your prediction, right? Yeah. I'm going to make my own prediction, but I need to log into something to do it.
Because I know what you're going to do. I know what Steven's going to do. Probably next week he's going to put the tiny T-shirt back on sale. I'm not stupid. I know what's going on here. We haven't. talked about this at all you don't have to have spoken about it he's gonna do it right i can tell you that's gonna happen already so i'm logging in right now to see how many we sold last time because i'm gonna make a prediction about how many we'll sell all right we sold 206 last time i say we sell
No more than 150 of those t-shirts. I'm putting that out there into the world. And this is the thing. If I'm wrong, great. You know? We'll find out. Don't look at the other things in that account. I mean, I just saw something. I just saw that. I logged in and I was like, what's that? Incredible. Spoilers. Jeez. Okay. Jeez. Wow. Jeez. Okay. You had to ruin it at the last second as the last thing you wanted to say.
Okay. Mike, why don't you do the closing? Ah, I love it. What a treat. Okay, so if you, as a listener like me, would like to leave feedback. for the hosts of this show, you can go to connectedfeedback.com and that is where you can leave feedback. I'll be leaving feedback, so I'll be in the feedback along with you over the next couple of months. If you would like to join the show, become a member, support the show, support my growing family, go to getconnectedpro.com.
Oh, that's not how I usually say it. GetConnectedPro.co. That's the good URL. Both work, so you can choose. Yeah, if you think to yourself, I'd like to buy Mike and Adina a gift for their baby, just become a member. You get something and we also get something, which is your money. Which is nice. On the pro show today, we spoke about Stephen's really big cable.
If you want to know what that is, become a member and find out. If you want to find Federico online, please go to maxstories.net where he is both the editor and the chief and the editor and chief in chief. Editor and chief. Is that what that is? Yeah, they call me chief. It says here, Federico, editor and chief. Yeah. Oh, interesting. Okay. No, that's a typo from Stephen, obviously.
I'm not the editor and chief. I'll fix it. There's a lot of very precarious things in the closing area. Yeah, that's why no one can be trusted except me. Well, because you write them wrong? Is it like, do you do this? So like... If other people say it, they seem silly. It did it on purpose. I saw the cursor removing the in. He wanted to make me like a fool, didn't he? He's like, oh, why didn't you go read the closing links? I'm like, oh, go to 546pixels.net to find Steven.
That's not. Stephen is also, you're just making me look silly, 512 pixels. He is the editor and chief of that website. He was also the co-host of Mac Power Users here on Relay. We're all on social media. You can find me. If you're like, I want to see when the baby's born, Instagram will be the spot. I'll put a picture up on Instagram of our beautiful baby when that beautiful baby is born. Live streaming the thing. Nope. Not doing that.
Absolutely not doing that. But thanks. That's a good way to get Bam for quits. Hey, guys. Hey, guys. Thanks. Hey, fam. Thank you for tuning in. Oh, what up, gang? You joining me live? Hey, chat, what do we think of this baby? Can I get ones in chat if baby's cute? Get an F in the chat for my marriage. Spoken like a true content creator. Oh, yes, yes. People asked me if I was going to live stream my wedding. Oh, gross.
Yeah, it's a great birth. I can't wait to birth it. All right. Thanks, everyone. This has been Connected. I'll be back later. These guys will be back next week. It's a pleasure. I love you. Goodbye. Au revoir. Oh, man.