524: We're Making a Trifle

From Relay, this is Upgrade Episode 524 for August 12th, 2024. This episode is brought to you by New Pizza ovens and, delete me! My name is Mike Hurley and I'm joined by Jason Snow Hi Jason. I'm Mike. How are you? Um doing doing alright nice weekend. Nice weekend. Got some stuff done. Ah, some chores done. Love it. Oh, we haven't got time for that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We've been watching a lot of the Olympics is the answer to your question.

all the limpicks all the time in the Hurley Household and this snow comes from Anne who wants to know if you could be good enough to perform in any summer Olympics event. What would it be? I see I got you. I knew what you'd say. Yeah, because I just say curling because I play on a sport and I'm not very good at it. So that would be it. It the closing ceremonies. Now let me tell you. I mean, I've got a Phoenix. I've got a Phoenix. I've got to say I might be in the minority here. I hate it.

The opening ceremonies. I do not like it at all. I enjoy how strange it was. It was. That was fun for the first 20 minutes. And then that guy, they showed a montage of it right before the closing ceremonies. And there was that guy who is running on the on the water. Yes. And Lauren said, Oh, yeah, that guy who is running on the water for a very long time. And then again, that was really boring. So here's my thing about the opening ceremonies. It took too long. The boats didn't look good enough.

They should have done something to actually make the boats look like something. All of the sound was terrible. The lighting was bad because it was outside and uncontrollable. And because of their requirements to move things up and down the sand, things that should have been impactful took too long. Like the Joan of Arc, like horse thing took ages. And like then when they took the flame from the Eiffel Tower to the Tukarero, I think it was whether it's just for everything took too long.

And so I think that I think that their decision to do everything on the sand made everything a little bit worse because the closing ceremonies were fantastic because it was a performance so that people you could hear people that could enjoy it. The music was good. And I love. There was a dystopia. The dystopia where they couldn't find the Olympic rings and so therefore Earth was terrible and they found them and then everything was fine and then Phoenix played.

Do you know that I don't know because we get different commentary. Like what the impetus for that was? No. So do you know the, I think it's on the Voyager, right, as a Golden Record? Yes. So that was produced in France, the Golden Record. And so the opening ceremonies started with them playing a piece of music that's on the record. And then that was an alien that came to Earth after Earth was quote a archaeological remnant.

And then like that's kind of I think that's why the alien was gold and it also was referencing a statue in France. And so yeah, that's kind of what that was about. Yeah. The American announcer basically said, ah, now we're going to tell this is a story about a future dystopia where the Olympics do not exist, which made me laugh. It's like guess what could be worse than they're not being the Olympics? Well, I don't know. I left. I don't.

So other than other than up with Phoenix, you know, can I just say how fun it was to have one of my favorite bands have a concert in the middle of the Olympics closing ceremony? I was very surprised. And then all of the collaborations that they did would fantastic. Yeah. So on the US, there were a bunch of different commentators, but for that part, it was Jimmy Fallon and Mike Tarrico, who is the host of the Olympics on NBC.

And Mike Tarrico was like, Jimmy, they, these guys and Jimmy Fallon's like, oh, Phoenix, I love them. This is so great. They've been on my show a bunch of times. They're so great. It was like appropriate amounts of enthusiasm. And he was like, oh, Lister Mania, yeah. And then they get to 1901. And Mike Tarrico says, Jimmy, you're the music guy, but even I know this one. It was really cool. So it was like, they were enjoying that it was Phoenix. And I love Phoenix. They're great.

That was a wonderful job. And yeah, that was, that was really fun and then all the extras. And I honestly, I did love the, the bit with Tom Cruise. I'm sorry. It was my favorite pot. It was my favorite pot. Yeah. Lauren was out and she came back and I said, now if I told you that Tom Cruise stood on the top of the stadium, jumped off of it, repelled to the floor, got the flag, put it on a motorbike, rode out and flew to LA, would you believe it? That's what happened.

I was already excited about the prospect of the LA Olympics and seeing that whole section was like, yeah, it's going to roll. It's going to be so good. My favorite part about the Tom Cruise thing is what I assume was his dictated camera shot where the camera goes above his head and looks into the camera as he jumps. So no one could doubt that it was him. No. Absolutely. He's looking up there like, yeah, it's me. I'm here. You're right. I can't wait for the LA Olympics, man.

But this one was sent to you. Overall, the games, brilliant. I watched so much of it, loved it. My many upstream here, I'll just say is NBC who has had the almost every Olympics in, you know, modern memory in the US. After a lot of experimentation this year, they nailed it. They nailed all of it. They showed all the events live and then showed them in prime time. They used to hide events. They used to like not like the ones people wanted to see they wouldn't show them live.

They would hold onto them because they were afraid people didn't want to watch a prime time. It wouldn't want to watch in prime time. They'd have already heard about it or seen about it. Well, the world has changed and they gave that up. So you could watch them live. Their streaming was really great. You could watch anything you wanted live or on a replay.

And they had this gold zone channel, which is literally the Olympic equivalent of the NFL Red Zone where they literally had the host of that on it. And that was basically you just tuned to that channel and they take you around to whatever is going on that's interesting. And that was on for like eight hours a day. Yeah, it sounded like that experience was really, really good. I was like, okay, like it didn't have anything special, but it sounds like Peacock really went all out this time.

Yeah, the Peacock stuff. Oh, and I should say the Kevin, Kevin Hart, Kenan Thompson, comedy highlights show that they did. I mean, we watched one last night. It reduced me to tears. It was so funny. Just so funny. Those guys. So, and that was a case where it's like NBC's not so uptight that they can't, they were like, we're going to just make a comedy show. I mean, it's like a streaming comedy show. There's the bad, there's bad words and stuff like it. It'll care.

And it's the Olympics and they just don't care because that's that's if you want that, it's there. And it was really funny. So I think they got it. And making Snoop Dogg, like the international Olympics ambassador, I don't know why that works so well, but it really does work very well. Yeah, like so good. But I love both the basketball games, both basketball finals were just fantastic to my favorite. Yeah, women's soccer final was great too. Women's soccer final was amazing.

But if you could be good enough to perform in any Olympics event, what would it be? I said closing ceremonies. Oh, yes. I don't know, like archery. Okay. I don't know. I would take like skateboarding or something, I think. Well, that would be cool. I thought of archery because I saw some video of that and it's amazing because like they're these tight close-up shots. They don't show like the arrow flying.

So it's like somebody very carefully looking, looking, looking, pooh, they shoot, cut to the target. And then several seconds pass before the arrow comes in, you're like, oh my god. Wow. How far away are they? And the answer is they're extremely far away. If they cut and showed that they're like 10 feet away, it would be really disappointing. No, they're not. They're very, very far away. So I'll say that. It seems low impact.

If you would like to send in a question to help us open a few traps of the show, please go to upgradefeedback.com and send in your snail talk. Thank you to Anne for giving us an excuse to talk about the Olympics. Yeah. Jason, it's time to lower up. All right. So this is kind of lower up and follow up. Thank you. It's like lower up and follow up kind of in one. So we were talking a bit about the streaming. Follow follow, follow lower up. Yeah, follow lower up.

But it's not all about some of it is new stuff. So we were talking about Apple and streaming, like revenues and stuff like that services, I should say, sorry. Well a US federal district court judge, Amit Mehta, has ruled that Google is a monopolist and has used its power to its gain in violation of US antitrust law. And why is that relevant? You may hear me asking for us talking about Apple here.

Well, one of the key things that has been brought up in this monopoly case is Google's deals with browser companies and firm manufacturers to become to basically pay for placement of the default search engine. This basically this further entrenches their power and et cetera, et cetera. If there's still a lot to go here, right, like there's actually for as much as I can understand because it is, this stuff is quite complicated.

There hasn't been anything to say that they will block this stuff from happening, but we can assume. Yeah. We can assume that this will be the case. And so if we get to a point where Google is no longer paying Apple around $20 billion a year, that is going to affect Apple services revenue. Yeah. It's a quarter, roughly a quarter of Apple services revenue is this. So this could be this could be quite a problem act for Apple where actually might not be that problem act for Google.

Yeah, well, yeah, good congratulations, Google, you just saved $20 billion. I do wonder. I mean, so here's the thing. A lot of these antitrust remedies are, I mean, first of all, it's going to take a long time. And a lot of them are weird. A lot of them can be very, very strange. We think of like simple, like don't do that anymore, but it may be a much more complex negotiated regime. Like do they take Google search and force Google to spin it off or follow certain rules?

And you think, well, that seems impossible, but I mean, they could, they could do it. They could say what if Google has to make search available to other parties so that advertising and Google search is separated from the search business, right? One of the problems with antitrust is that monopolies aren't illegal. It's using monopoly power to exert your authority in other places or to maintain your monopoly. These are the parts that are illegal.

So is there a solution where like different companies can put ads on Google search, including Google, but that other people can too. And then there are different versions of Google search and you can choose them or they're chosen for you or whatever. Like it could get weird. And that means it could get to the point.

And what I think Apple would probably come in as a potentially harmed subject here and say, you know, we, because it's Apple, of course, we think that every search from our apps should kick money back to us. And you're saying that if you, you know, you material, I heard our business if you disallow this and could that he could money to Apple even be part of the remedy. I don't know, right? But like it's not impossible. I know a lot of people talked about this.

There's so many, it's like infinite possibilities. I will just say the one that I keep coming back to is Apple going, Apple going its own way in some places and surfacing their search engine more prominently in more places. And also potentially putting ads on it is not beyond the realm of possibility. I think it's unlikely that Apple would entirely override like all searches now go to Apple bot. Like I don't think so.

But they could take a lot of stuff and divert it into places where Apple would make the money off of advertising. And I wouldn't put it past them to do that. We also don't know what the impact of kind of like AI stuff is on all of this because you know, it could it be like with with Apple intelligence, the strong implication, and we heard this on the call, the strong implication is that if you want to search with Siri for world knowledge, you'll go to chat GPT or another AI provider.

Well, if that's the case, like is that where search is going and the US is stopping the last thing when the new thing is already here that's going to replace the old thing? I don't know, but I just I think I think Apple is going to be okay either way because it's not like they earned that money. Just I mean, they they earned it by being in existence and asking for it, but like it's not like they invest that's a that's a 99% 98% profit category, right? They may amortize.

They may like say, well, so far development is covered by this or something, but like really it's it's just free money. And it's free money to help Google prop up its monopoly. So it goes away. It's not the end of the world, but I have a hard time imagining that the Apple we know that we cover in this segment is going to just go, oh, well, easy come easy go and not find another way to get money out of somebody. The money might not go away. Just the default might go away.

Right. I mean, I think there's a possibility where they just say we have a new affiliate system and I believe that being a search is Apple for whatever Bing searches go. Yeah. Like if you choose right, Bing as your default app that Apple get money from Microsoft, I think so. I think it's very much like kind of an affiliate search engine arrangement, which would Apple will just put up a choice and people everyone will just continue choosing to Google. Nothing changed.

And Google will keep paying Apple because they're paying for use and not for exclusive payment, which I think honestly, which I think is the way to go. Yeah. I think honestly that is the that is the truth is that it's not it shouldn't be necessarily legal under this ruling for Google to pay to be the default, but that doesn't mean that it's illegal for Google to cut in Apple for searches on its platform, right? Because that's not necessarily the same.

So I don't know, but like again, you know, could Apple shrug and say like, you know, it's fine. Sure. But nothing we see in Apple's behavior suggests that it's a company that's willing to leave a dollar on the table that it is. You can find something is out. Speaking of which, yeah, Apple has found another new and exciting way to charge developers 30%. So last week, Apple announced a new set of rules for external linking in the European Union.

So this is what gives the will and will give developers the ability to direct customers inside of their iOS apps to purchasing options on the web that don't need to go through Apple's in-app purchases, but you can have as many links as you want now. It's not just this one link. They can be as many as you want and they can go wherever you want. And it apps that opt into this new system. They have no restrictions.

They can have tracking parameters on the links and the links can be opened in an in-app web view. So this is essentially it's like, oh, great. This is exactly everything that you would want. It's enabled via Apple's store kit entitlements. And this is also available to customers who have accepted the new EU business terms and also ones who have not. So again, like all of this is like, this sounds great. Then you get to the fee structures. There are two different fee structures.

I'm just going to preface this by saying this is very complicated, but we'll get through it together. If you are on the new business terms, so this is where you're paying the core technology fee and all that kind of stuff, if somebody clicks a link inside of your app and then goes and makes a purchase, you give Apple a 5% initial acquisition fee of the price of the purchase.

And a 5% to 10% store services fee, whether you pay 5 or 10 depends on your app size, like the size of your app, because that changes some of the fees that you pay otherwise. So you pay a 5% to 10% store services fee plus the CTF. And this store services fee is on any purchase within a 12 month period.

This would result for Apple in a 10 to 15% commission plus a 3% payment fee if you use Apple's tools, because you can still use Apple's purchasing tools even with the outside linking plus the CTF on top. If you're on the regular terms, you have not opted into the business terms, you pay the 5% initial acquisition fee for the price of the thing. So you pay 5% of whatever that is plus a 7 to 20% store services fee that results in a 12 to 27% commission plus a 3% fee for payments.

I'm going to now read how Apple describes these two fees again for completeness sake. So this is. Please stand for the reading of the rules. The initial acquisition fee this is coming from Apple's developer pages. You'll pay Apple a fee on all sales, digital goods and services the customer makes on any platform that occur in a 12 month period after initial install.

This fee does not apply to transactions made by customers that had an initial install before you make your app available at the entire to month profile to link out. The fee reflects the value the app store provides when connecting developers of customers in the EU.

And then the store services fee in addition to the initial acquisition fee, you'll pay Apple a fee on all sales, a digital goods and services the customer makes on any platform that occur within a fixed 12 month period from the date of an install, including app updates and reinstalls.

After you make your app available with the entire to month profile to link out, this reflects the ongoing services and capabilities that Apple provides developers, including app distribution and management, app review, app store trust and safety, rediscovery, re-engagement and promotional tools and services, anti-fraud checks, recommendations, ratings and reviews, customer support and more. I really said that part. Apple didn't.

So, essentially, again, like with the other stuff, Apple will reserve the right to audit any company. So you have to collect all of the transactions from a specific customer who initially went through Apple, no matter what platform they're buying on, which is an incredible overreach in my opinion, aside from everything else that they're doing. And essentially, the result of all of this, Apple's getting its money.

It's just going to get it in a different way, but they don't care they're getting their money. Yeah, I really don't like this. I mean, honestly, Jason is, okay, I've been a bit annoyed about this today, just talking about this. Like, I want to cover these things because I think they're important, but I didn't feel the need to do an insane amount of research on this, like I've done in the past, because this is just another attempt to do in the same thing.

That's the same thing they've done before. And in six months' time, I'll be telling you about their new way that they're going to try and get it. So, here's the simplified version of this, which is Apple believes that if you have an app on Apple's platforms, Apple is the source of your success and that Apple wants to cut.

And Apple wants to cut, I mean, let's be honest, if Apple could say, if you have a corporation and your corporation has an app, you owe us 10% of your global revenue, they would do that if they could. And I'm like, literally, you built your business on us, on our greatness. And therefore, we want our cut. Now, I'll point out again, Apple doesn't cut developers in on iPhone sales and apps are a huge contributor to the success of the iPhone as a platform, the existence of third-party apps.

When Apple tells the App Store story, they like to talk about that it's a partnership between developers and Apple, but they also like this whole mythology of, oh, Apple invented buying software on the internet, which isn't true. And it is this idea that Apple and the developers are partners, but Apple takes 100% of iPhone revenue for itself. It doesn't share that with developers. It doesn't do that, right?

But developers have to share with Apple, which says something about how Apple really feels about developers. And this is the icing on the cake, not only is it ridiculous that Apple doesn't want links and things in apps and says it's because of safety and privacy. This is that little, little thin privacy shield that they put up. Like, oh, going to the internet, buying things on the internet, that's dangerous. Everybody does it. We've done it forever. Have you heard of Cyber Monday?

Like, I mean, what are you talking about? And this is the mask coming off, which is Apple doesn't actually think that the internet and links are bad, except in the sense that they prevent Apple from being the gatekeeper and taking a cut. And so what they're saying here is, once they leave our app, anything your customers do is because of us give us money. In this scenario, they would make more money than the current market, right?

Well, because it's a poison pill because they don't want anybody to use these terms, which is why they will, you're right, which is why they will be found to be unacceptable by the EC at some point here. But I just think just the goal of saying we own everything. Like I would be okay. I actually would be okay with the idea of like, if you have a link, it's like an affiliate deal, right? It's like an Amazon affiliate deal.

If you have a link in your app that directly results in a purchase, cut us in. Okay. No, no, no, no. If you have a link that goes out, then everything forever because it's a 12 month period except if you update your app, everything else thereafter just pays us money because it came from our app.

And therefore, we are the one who brought that customer to you, which is hilarious because of course, it again suggests a world where there's no other way to find an app that there aren't brands out there that are saying find our app on the app store, download our app. And it's coming in from their greatness. Apple scenario is basically, no, no, no, apps are only discovered by the app store, which is hilarious if you try to ever try to discover apps in the app store, right? So come on.

I mean, like, I know that this sort of versions of this do happen, but I'm just saying, if let's say Federico writes about an app on Mac stories and it drives thousands of app sales, should Federico say, you know, you got to pay me 20% of your revenue because that link came from Mac stories. Incredible thing is there was a scenario like this once, but Apple took that away.

There wasn't a silly marketing thing where you got like 2% if you link to it and they converted and all that and they took it away because they just don't want to do that anyway. So it wouldn't be, and from Federico standpoint, you know, there's a lot of things.

It's like with wire cutter where if you're making your money on the referrals, it, you know, you have to distance yourself and say, no, no, we make our selections regardless of the referral revenue instead of targeting the referral revenue and creating a business that's basically advertising and marketing of apps. So it's complicated.

But what I'm saying is Apple really thinks that it's a partnership that they should be a participant in when it benefits them, but in no other case, in no other case. And I'll just come back to again, if this was a partnership, why doesn't Apple share 30% of iPhone revenues with developers? Well, we know why. So anyway, the idea that they would reach their clause and even further here and say, basically, if you have a relationship with a customer, it's because of us. It's just, it's ridiculous.

But you're right. I think on its face, it's very hard to see because it's, it's designed in a way to be so unpalatable, it's hard to imagine that the regulators aren't going to look at this and go, no, that's not going to work. I'm so happy that Apple are on a run right now of making incredible products. I feel like the last two years, they've been making some really, really good stuff.

Because if we were in a period right now, where the products were bad and this was happening, I would be struggling. Like, because this stuff just, it just puts such a bad taste in my mouth. That if I was also like, let's imagine we were in the, the real bad Mac time. Yeah. That was many years ago. Like, I would be, I would be struggling right now.

Like a lot because this stuff just makes me so angry and like disappointed that if the products weren't good, I would be, I would be, I would be really struggling. I keep going back to like the ebook thing where, you know, you can buy a book in the US, right? You can buy a book in iBooks, but not in the Kindle app with a Kobo app for that matter. And Apple will tell you it's like, oh well, you know, they need to do 30%.

In fact, there's a story today about how Patreon now is going to have to finally do 30% in Apple. I'd like to get into that next week, but yeah, we should talk about it a little bit now, but like I really want to do some reading about it. I think it'll be a good big thing next week. They're continuing to try and, you know, catch as much money as they can out of everything. So that's all going on.

And it's this, I don't know, it's just, it is frustrating because I don't disagree that there is something there. But like Apple can, can sell books without a middleman, but nobody else can. And you're saying, well, yeah, but they're using Apple's in that purchase. But it's like Apple makes it illegal. This is the thing is that a lot of the, but, but this, but that kind of things are only because of Apple's rules.

Like Amazon, I have a linked credit card at Amazon when I'm logged into the Kindle app. It knows who I am and it knows how I can buy things. And it's not allowed to let me buy them and download them straight in the iPhone app. It's just not allowed by Apple. And what Apple is saying is, well, you know, you think, oh, well, why don't you link out to Amazon.com and buy them there?

And the answer is no, you can't because Apple, Apple still wants its money because it thinks that if you buy a Kindle book on an iPhone, you're doing it because of, because of value that Apple has added. Come on. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Unipizza Evans. Unipizza was number one pizza oven company letting you make restaurant quality pizza in your own home. Unipizza Evans can reach up to 950 degrees Fahrenheit and cook pizza in the little to 60 seconds.

That high temperature is what you're going to want to get the best pizza possible. This is also like that heat and especially that's on the speed that you can cook pizza and when you get to those temperatures, that is what sets an Uni apart from a conventional home oven. Also in the Unipizza oven, it heats up super quickly. You'll be ready to go from turning it on to cooking pizza in 20 minutes. It's just enough time to get your dough rolled out and your topping spread on.

Whether you like authentic wood-fired flavour, the convenience of cooking with gas, whether you would like the option to cook with wood, charcoal, gas or even electricity, there is an Uni oven that fits your needs and lifestyle. If you're looking for maximum portability, they have the wood pellet-fueled fire 12 and the multi-fueled car root 12g. This is made for people who like cooking on the go.

Maybe you want to get out into the wilderness, do some camping and also be able to cook some great food. Uni has the stuff for you. Whether you want to make pizzas indoors or outdoors, they have Uni's electric volt 12 pizza oven, which is the one that I own and love. But if you want the convenience of gas, but love the flavour of wood-fired cooking, then you want to check out Uni's car root line.

Because you can use wood or charcoal right out of the box, you can get an optional gas burner for cooking flexibility. Uni have all of the accessories you're going to want to take your pizza cooking to the next level. They also have car-style and cookware if you want to make more than just pizzas, but they have pizza peels, thermometer, loads of accessories to help you level up your cooking. You can buy your groceries from them too.

You can buy your dough and some toppings and you can rest assured that they've done the works you don't have to. I also will make a recommendation here for two things. One, Uni's app, they have a great app that has loads of great tips in it and also their YouTube channel. So when we got our Uni vault, we watched a few of the videos that they have on their YouTube channel and it really just gave us the confidence to like, oh, how do you stretch the dough?

And like, what's the best way to clean it? They have a really, they've done a really great job of making lots of instructional videos for all of their products. Uni's ovens for more than just pizza. You can also cook juicy burgers, sizzling fajitas, buffalo wings. If you can cook it in another, you can cook it in a noony and your results are going to be fantastic. They start at just $299. They're free shipping to the US, UK and the EU.

Because of this show, we can get 10% off their purchase of an Uni Pizza oven. Just go to Uni.com. That's o-o-n-i.com and use the code upgrade2024. Check out and you will get 10% off your purchase of an Uni Pizza oven. Uni Pizza ovens are the best way to bring restaurant quality pizza to your home. So that's o-o-n-i.com and use the code upgrade2024 for 10% off. Thanks to Uni Pizza ovens for their support of this show. Jason, I've been thinking today's episode when I was planning out the subjects.

It's kind of like a trifle. trifle is a dessert that comes in layers and in a trifle that- This isn't that I was flashing to that Romanian Christmas thing, but that's a different thing. You don't want that. I don't want that. trifle is a dessert, right? Okay. There's layers in a trifle and maybe some things in the trifle you don't like but some you do but you eat them all together and you're like, oh, that was a good trifle.

So that's how today's episode is where there's some good stuff and there's some bad stuff and some good stuff and bad stuff. We're making a trifle. Next up in today's trifle is Rumor Roundup. Oh, Yeehaw! Mark German is reporting that the first Macs with M4 chips are on track to launch this year. The iMac, the MacBook Pro and the Mac Mini in 2024 followed up by a refreshed in the MacBook Air, the Mac Pro and the Mac Studio by mid 2025.

A little bit sad that the Macs Studio is being pushed out so long. I don't like that. Yeah, but more importantly, there's just some more information about that M4 Mac Mini. It's going to see a new design making it quote the smallest Mac ever. It would be likely close to the size of an Apple TV but a little bit taller so it kind of the dimensions is, you know, like the area with the old Apple TV. Yes, actually. Well, the old Apple TV was bigger, right? Then the one we have now.

At least it would be like small but tall. Yeah, I guess. I mean, there was the first, the first of the black Apple TVs were taller. Right. Yeah, then they got a little shorter. So like that one. I was thinking of the big silver one, the i, the iTV as it was actually. Yeah, no, no, no. Yeah, the tall, the tall block one, yeah. Apparently Apple have been testing a version of this product with three USB-C ports and HDMI and a quote from Mark Gumman.

People involved in the development of the new Mac Mini say it's essentially an iPad Pro in a small box. Yeah, it's like, yes, that makes sense. What do you think of this tiny Mac Mini rumor? I love it. I love it. Well, I looked. I wrote about wanting this seven years ago. Okay. Yeah, because this, this, this Mac Mini design has been around about 15 years. I checked in with Stephen Hackett about this because we were on the six college podcast.

I was kind of like trying to remember the various, I opened that original Mac Mini so many times. When we talk about the optical drive, the truth is that they went to this design, this design, look, there should have been a Mac Mini redesign seven years ago. Clearly, because this design is actually from an era where they still had an optical drive and spinning hard drive. And then they dropped the optical drive and then they got rid of the spinning hard drive.

But it's still in this big wide pancake thing. And like, it doesn't need to be, right? It's essentially a MacBook Air or maybe a MacBook Pro if you put the pro chip in it. So it's very, very small or an iPad Pro, right? It's, Apple has, has reduced energy consumption and the chips don't run as hot and like, there are all these reasons for them to do a new enclosure.

And I think it just says how Apple feels about the Mac Mini, which is that it's not a high priority that they haven't done it up to now. I'm kind of amazed they're doing it at all. Honestly, I kind of gave up. But yeah, seven, I looked it up. I wrote, I wrote columns about it seven years ago saying, wouldn't it be nice if we had a much an Apple TV-ish sized Mac Mini instead? And people always are like, oh, it doesn't matter. The size of a desktop computer doesn't really matter.

And the answer is, look, the Mac Mini is a multi-purpose tool. It fits in a lot of workflows. Everything would be smaller so it can get stuck in another little place somewhere is better. And it's also not necessary for it to be as big as it is now because there's very little inside. There's very little in there. So if you just throw this inside or in your backpack, like you could just throw it in there, you know, I just think, as awesome. I don't know what use that would be for me.

But I love the idea of being able to do that because it's the thing for me. Do they need to do this? Absolutely not. Would it be cool? So that is a reason, you know? Yeah. Because cool computers sell. Like we're seeing. I feel like we've seen that with the Apple Silicon, right? That I feel like they went on this big resurgence because they made these computers that were like really interesting and people wanted to buy them.

Like, and I just think that this is a very exciting prospect of like, let's make a computer that, you know, from Apple, let's make a Mac that, as you say, can be used in place is that a Mac would maybe not have been used before because of its physical dimensions. I just think that's, I just think that's a really cool, I just think this is a cool thing to do. Yeah. I mean, the Mac mainly has always been that thing, right? Which is like, what is it's target audience?

And the answer is, I don't know. It's whatever. It's anything. It's where I need a Mac to do a thing. And it's a cheap desktop Mac. It's the cheapest desktop Mac. And you can kind of put it anywhere. Now there is a question about size, which is, there are a couple questions here. One is power supply, right? There have been Mac minis with big bricks outboard. And there have been Mac minis where there's just a plug that goes out.

So I've heard there are a lot of assumptions people are making about this product. Some of them may be true, but we don't know. So let's just put about there. The MacBook Air doesn't have a brick. The Apple TV doesn't have a brick. So I'm hopeful that this won't have a brick either, the power supply will be in it. Because that would stink if you had a little tiny box with another box on the outside of it. And let's put a couple of bolts on it. Well, okay.

So you've never done it in anything other than the iMac. One thing they could do is something like the iMac where there's a magnetic connect. And then there's a brick later on that has Ethernet. At least on it, they could do that. They could do that. My guess is that they know that these things get put in racks and stuff. And that the ideal situation is for it to be one surface without a lot of messy extra blocks somewhere. The other question is ports. And I get it. That would be a challenge.

I will say the Mac Mini was designed in an era where Apple didn't put ports on the front of anything. Because how dare you? And we live in an era where the Mac studio has ports on the front of it. So the Intel Nux that are of this sort of class of computer that I had one for a while running as a hack and touch server. Like it's got ports on the front and it's got ports on the back. And it's very useful. And my guess is that that's what we will get out of this.

Now what ports there will be, I don't know, and keep in mind that the base m2 Mac Mini today has two USB A, two Thunderbolt 4, so USB C, HDMI and Ethernet. While it have all of that, I don't know. Absolutely. You're going to remove the USB A ports. I think that's true. And then what I would say is what is the base 13 MacBook Pro have, right? Like what is the base 13 MacBook Pro have? That's probably what it will have. So what is that? That's fun. That's here it is.

It's two Thunderbolt USB, an HDMI power headphone jack. And in that case, it's got a card reader. Like, yeah, so that's my guess is that it's going to be, you know, fewer ports because it's not going to have the USB A ports anymore. And I fill up my ports on my Mac Mini. So I hope that's not true. I hope it has more ports than that. I'll just point out that at least with the M2123, there's actually a limit to the number of ports they can put on there.

And the reason the Mac Mini has the USB A is because they can, they can, you can put more USB A ports on it because you don't need as much as you do with a USB C Thunderbolt port. So we'll see. My hope is that they have ports front and back. My hope is that the power is internal because I think it makes the most sense that way. We don't know. We don't know, but it's exciting. This is going to be, you know, a new shape of Mac. That's exciting. Those don't have a very often.

And in the case of this computer, 15 years. Yeah. I think three USB C ports, a HDMI port and Ethernet on the power brick would be pretty sweet. I think as a combination of all of those things, I think that would be pretty nice. Yeah. But we'll see. Time for the details. Woohoo. We're going to talk about macOS privacy dialogues. We're in another layer of the trifle now. Oh, okay. Do you see what's happening? Do you see what's happening? Leaving the sweet layer behind. I see. Yeah. I see.

Maybe you have like a slight intolerance to whatever's in this layer, you know? Like it maybe it makes you a little tingle. Apple has added new privacy and security prompts in macOS Sequoia. I always forget what the name of this macOS is. By the way, I'm always happy to get that information whenever I receive it, which is strange for California bear trophy holder, not to know about. Yeah, because nobody won. It's the reason that we both have the trophy. Should we both want to do that?

Sure. So new privacy security prompts in the latest betas of macOS require a weekly reauthorization of any app that can capture your screen. There is currently no permanent authorization that can be given. You can't say, hey, just stop bugging me about this. And this adds what I would say is another stone on the pile of dialogues. Apple has been adding over the years, which I know has been a part of yours in this book at about it many times.

So you wrote a great article about some six colors, but I would like to go talk about why? Why would Apple add a weekly security dialogue to a screen recording entitlement? If you agree with that, or IPL. So one of the things that I tried to do in my article, which is called Apple's permissions features are out of balance, is I didn't want to write what I kind of desired to write, which was an angry, screed about Apple getting in my way and get out of my way. And this is my computer.

Because the truth is, Apple's motivations are good. Apple's motivations are that capturing your screen is a huge invasion of privacy. And if somebody can either talk you into authenticating, which is, that's how malware spreads. The number one way malware spreads is that it's social engineering, at least Mac malware. Number one, I don't know.

It is a very common way where somebody calls you or you are told to call, you text them or whatever, you end up on the phone with an expert, they have you install software, they have you put in your password and stuff like that. And now they're in your computer, right? Like that's super dangerous.

Also abusive relationships, people who have access to one another's devices, a person who is an abuser in a relationship might choose to, or you know, for whatever reason in a relationship, but like I think a common case is abusive relationships to have surreptitiously installed software, monitoring software, model computer. So the problem is, if it happens once and then it's there forever, that's really dangerous.

So what you, I'm sure the motivation here is you got to ask them again later, because outside of being talked to by a social engineer or outside of the surreptitious installation of the software on your device. If you get a prompt that says, did you know that this thing can see everything you do, are you sure that this is a good idea?

At a later date where that person is not around or you know, or that person is not on the phone, it's an opportunity for Apple to say, hey, you might not want to keep giving this permission. But it's very similar on iOS, there's a lot of this stuff, right? Like, I would argue too much actually, I haven't gotten it into that, but like I am very tired of being randomly prompted if my weather app should know where I am or if my maps app should know where I am. Similar kind of thing.

And this comes to the truth of it, which is good motivations all. I think all of these scenarios should software know where you are, should software see your screen. Absolutely, you should be made aware of it and not just in the moment. The problem is that in macOS Sequoia, they're literally saying approve for one week. And at no point, am I as the user so far as I can tell, given the opportunity to say, actually, I'm okay approving this forever now.

But I can see scenarios where like permanent approval at the moment that you install it is dangerous for all the reasons I just outlined. We're going to ask again later. My problem is it seems to be that in this cut of beta, I'll grant them beta of macOS Sequoia, the only power they're giving the user ever is to just kick the can down the road for a week, which I have a couple of problems with. A week is wild, a week is wild. It is wild.

I think they've done a decent job with some of the iOS prompts, like the location prompts and the photos prompts. I don't know what their timeline is, but they pop up every now and again. And I think they do okay. Part of my issue is at some point as the user, as the owner of the device, I do want to be given the authority to say, stop asking me. The answer is yes, right? I want to be able to say, hey, dummy. I do want Google Maps to know where I am. Stop asking, right?

And the problem is that you can't. And again, I'm not saying you have to do it right at start, but eventually after you get past that initial thing where you're like, oh, they might not know what they did. Let's ask them later. As the user, I need some recourse that is not ask me again in a week. And there's two reasons for that. One is, well, there's many reasons. Terrible user experience. It gets in your way. And often it gets in your way when you're trying to do something on your device.

And then it says, oh, hey, by the way, this thing is going on. Or if you're trying to do screen sharing in your office meeting, in your company meeting. And suddenly it's like, oh, by the way, do you want to approve this thing, which is the worst possible time to ask? It also leads to permission fatigue where people just say yes, which makes sense. Pretty people hate this, right? Like, oh, why do they say yes? Well, it's like, if they say no, they break their software, right?

If you say no, I've had this where a thing has come up and I'm like, do I want this? Like, well, I'm trying to do something right now. And if I say no, I know it's just going to break and I'm going to have to go to system preferences and turn it back on. So I guess I'll just say yes. So you just overwhelm people and they don't want to break their strides for what they're doing.

And then I would say not, not given enough focus is I think Apple, whether intentionally or not, is trying to drive a wedge between users and their software. And I hate it. This is the, this is the thing where it's sort of like, oh, you want to use that software. Well, we can't stop you, but every week we're going to warn you that you shouldn't essentially. And you can give it another week, but eventually you're going to give up. Like well, you can do this.

How long, you know, who's going to outlast who? It's like a staring contest. Who's going to outlast who? Well, guess what? The operating system is a computer. It will never stop bugging you if it's programmed that way. And I don't like that. I don't like that it is Apple programming its operating system to get to bug users and basically say, hey, don't run software outside the Mac App Store. Hey, don't run that program that uses that API that's useful, but we don't want you to run it anymore.

Hey, hey, hey, you over there. And it's super gross and bad. I'll throw in the other thing that they changed, right? In Sequoia, which is gatekeeper, which is what happens when you launch an app for a first time. And if it's not notarized by Apple, a system that used to be completely neutral, but that Apple has weaponized in the EU for iOS makes me feel much less charitable toward gatekeeper and toward notarization.

The first time you do that on Sequoia, it directs you to system settings and you have to approve the idea that you could possibly open software that is notarized by Apple. And then when you double click on it, it's going to give you another warning and then you have to authenticate and then it will finally launch this app that is a program you installed and want to use, right? Theoretically. But worse than that is the language they use because the language they use is scary language.

It's Apple can't vouch for this thing because we couldn't scan it for malware and we can't say whether it's safe or not. And again, I think the attitude that Apple has with this is attempting intentionally or not to drive a wedge between users and the software that they use. And with the ultimate goal of saying, if it isn't in the Mac app store, don't trust it. Why can't they do the scanning on the device? The scanning that they do for notarization that confirms there's no malware.

Why can't Apple just do that to any software that download? What they're doing is the notarization includes a signature. So they scan it for malware on the server. There's also got a cryptographic signature on it, which means that the app that you're using they can verify is the app that they saw. Right, but that hasn't been modified. So they have to see it for that. You're right. They could potentially do some of the scans that they're not tomato process, right? Mac notarization.

So like why can't whatever they need to do to sign it? Why can't my device do that? Now they can't sign it and they shouldn't sign it. But in theory, they could verify it from malware if they wanted to. They could. They could, but they can't sign it. They have to have the one that's on the server so they can verify. And I think what they want to do is they want to verify that the one that on the server that they're signing is not full of malware. Yeah. And I do support Mac notarization.

I do think that if you make a piece of Mac software, you should get it notarized because it seems like it doesn't harm you in any way. And like actually is better for even your customer support, right? If you're out for a piece of software, people are going to be emailing you, be like a con launch it, you know? Yeah. Yeah, but that's because yes, but that's because of a barrier that are erected by Apple. I know. In order to get people to notarize their software. I know.

It's, I renotarization on the Mac is harmless at least so far. And the apps that aren't notarized, I don't know why they're not notarized. I don't think that it's the ones that I've tried are for malware. I think it's for reasons of either not wanting to play with Apple, play Apple's game or feeling like Apple might reject them for content, which I don't think they would actually do. I don't think make MKV, which is a, you know, basically DVD ripping software.

I don't think it actually would get not notarized. I think it would be notarized, but the guy doesn't want to do that. And it's like, okay, fine. But anyway, so this is my, this is my issue here is it's the same thing we've talked about, you know, over the last few years, which is people who say at Apple who say, oh, God, we got to add this privacy thing, this security thing, because what if get their way?

And there seems to be nobody who is given, who is empowered to push back and say, this degrades the user experience. And that's the out of balance part, which is I went into this when I was talking about migrations, which seemed that they may have been fixed now, but you migrate to a new computer and then you have to re-approved every single app on your system. And I had people say to me, well, what do you expect? I expect a better interface for that.

So I don't have 50 dialogue boxes that I have to click through one at a time. I expect Apple to build something better that says, oh, you just migrated. Here are your apps or perhaps in the system settings, there should be a better UI for this. I saw some people enlisted on this week talking about the idea that you should be able to look both by permission and see apps and by app and see permissions so that you can have like a good interface to this stuff.

But authorize for one week is the laziest, most user disrespectful thing you can do. I'll grant you its abeta, but that should never have been put in an operating system. And it stinks. It stinks. It says again, I'm not inside Apple, so I can't say all I can say is from the outside Apple seems to be behaving like a company where the privacy and security people can get anything they want.

And anybody who speaks up and says this is bad for the user and ultimately, probably bad for security, those people are not empowered to get to be heard. And so everything gets approved. There's this draconian security stuff and there's nobody there to fight for the user and say, this is the wrong way to do it. And I blame Apple's managers, right? I blame Apple's software managers. And ultimately, I guess I blame Craig Federighi for this because

I'm not saying you shouldn't care about security and privacy. But if you're going to play that game, you also have to spend the money and the time on the user experience that go together, you have to do both. And Apple, it seems to me, is much more concerned about the one than the other. And that leads to authorized for one week. So the issue that I see here, it reminds me of something that I experienced quite a lot

when I worked at the bank that I used to work at. So people that I don't know used to work at a bank for like 10 years, I left school and I ended up in the marketing department. I was responsible for, you know, sending out email campaigns and mailing campaigns and stuff like that. And during that time, I kind of quite a phrase in my head, which is institutional

one person is. Now, I'm not saying this is bad or good, but it is a thing that happens where every decision is met by, well, what about the one person who might get this who X, right? Right. So like, for example, you're sending out a mailing campaign to, let's imagine people you know who are getting married, right? That they've applied for a loan and the reason is that they're getting married. And you want to send them out a mailing

campaign about congratulating them. And then someone says, well, what about the person who got left at the auto? And then the entire campaign ends because of that one person. Now, I'm not saying that this is good or bad, but it is a thing that happens. And the reason I bring that up is like one of the things that you mentioned as like a reason to do this is because of potential abuse that people might receive, right? That you may be

in a harmful relationship. Because of if you, if it is, if it is, if that is considered to be important enough, and I'm not saying it is or isn't, I'm just saying if that is considered to be an important enough reason, there is no scenario in which a global approval could ever exist. Because if you have started down the process of we need to have this because people may be abused, you can never create in any scenario, any kind of setting

that turns off those security prompts. Because if you start it down that path, you can only get more strict with it. Right. And this goes to the core of what a Mac is. And again, you could argue that it's different from the iPad and the iPhone. I would argue that Apple's made some decisions on the iPad and the iPhone that are also questionable. But what is a Mac? You know, and I've heard people argue over the last few days who've

said to me, you can't let users make bad decisions. You can't do it. And that's wrong. And so you keep saying I'm not going to say it's right or it's wrong. But like I'm going to say it's wrong. I fundamentally, it's wrong. Saying we're not going to wish, we're not going to put up a sign that says happy mother's day because what if they don't have a mother? Come on. Come on. Like there is a limit. I'm sorry, people. There is a limit.

Jason, it is the one and one person. I agree with you. Like what if one person, exactly what you're saying. So this is the thing. The Mac needs to let me do what I want. At some point, do I am I willing to have the Mac be a little more complicated so that gullible people and and vulnerable people are a little bit better protected? Yes. Am I willing to give up the ability on my Mac to do what I want, which means install software Apple hasn't seen?

It means give permission for utilities to monitor my screen. Even though Apple thinks that's not smart. Apple thinks I shouldn't do those things. And this is the bottom line here, which is I'm willing to be inconvenienced a little bit for the general safety of the platform. I am not willing for Apple to take my agency away and say this isn't your Mac anymore. There are things on the your Mac that you've always been able to do. We don't

think you should do them. And there's no way for you to tell us otherwise. That's my problem with it. And and it is I'm just going to say it. Apple has spent so much time on iOS and iPad OS now where they have a top down paternalistic attitude toward all of its users. For some good reasons again, I'm not saying that they're bad reasons that it's seeping into the Mac. And I've had people say to me, why are you guys making such a big deal about this? It's just a beta.

And the answer is because if we don't if we don't screen bloody murder about it right now, they'll just do it. Yeah. The reason this will change if it changes this summer. The reason it will change is because a whole bunch of us complained file feedbacks got John Groover to write a post about it. All of these things for somebody inside Apple to say, I told you this was a mistake and have some manager who didn't care and didn't think it was a big deal because users are stupid

and we should just not let them do things. Say, okay, you're right. I guess that was too far and fix it. I should also mention as a footnote here, I've also heard from people who, including some people inside Apple who say, I think there's actually a new API that does this stuff that doesn't doesn't trigger this thing. The problem is one, I've heard other people, other developers say it actually does trigger this thing. Maybe it's a bug. I don't know. Two, why is there

a proof for one week in any scenario, even for an old API? And three, I talk to developers who don't know what's going on. They have no idea. Is there like a special approval, a special entitlement that Apple can provide? Nobody seems to understand it, which comes back to the original point, which is, so who's who's up on this? The security and privacy people clearly can do whatever they want, but like developer documentation has nothing. The user experience is nowhere. And,

and you're just out of sync, you can't run an organization like that. Those three groups need to be in lockstep. You need to have good UX for your new security and privacy settings. And if you're making changes that developers have to build, you need to tell the developers, here's what we're doing. We're going to give you a warning. If only there were some sort of developer conference that they could hold at the beginning of the summer to talk about this and make it clear to

developers what's going on. But unfortunately, nobody is capable of such a thing. In Discord, Zack says it's a shame. They have nowhere to tell all developers worldwide. Worldwide. It's like this is maybe a conference. It is a tragedy. Look, the beta thing doesn't work because there wasn't a bug in the computer that wrote a dialogue that said one week, right? Someone made a decision. But like it is a beta. Yes. So

feedback can be collected. But if you complain to people that are talking about this, this is part of the feedback process. Like year after year after year, this is what happens. Things happen in iOS or macOS. People write about them. We talk about them on our shows. And it helps drive some people to make different decisions. Like this is, I think at this point,

an accepted part of the beta process that we're all a part of together. And I will say, like you mentioned iOS again, and I will just say, I think in general, they have done a really good job with iOS prompts in the last few years. They are providing visual context to the thing that's happening. I never get the thing that I do on the Mac where I do one thing and I'm prompted with

eight different things. That never happens, which is good. And also they seem to find good so for example, you get these prompts on the home screen when you're not doing the thing. It's like, hey, what's app has access to your photos? And it shows me my photos that you want to continue. I think that they need to do that. So for example, it's like every now and again on the Mac and pops up and it's like, hey, it shows like a little screenshot of my desktop.

And so it's like, these five apps have access to this. Would you like to manage that? Like that's the way to do it. But like do it, you know, whatever, I don't know what the intervals are in iOS, but they feel better than this. Right. And I would say also, ultimately, I need to be able to go somewhere at some point, not right away and say, stop asking me about this app.

Right. I need to be able to do that. I think you're right in general. Like I said, I mentioned the example before, which is my frustration on iOS and iPad OS is also there are certain apps that I wanted to stop asking me. And sometimes they do. I think there is, I think it's hard because it's a progression. I think maybe you get that. I think maybe you get like, you get the location approval. And then there's the sort of like when I use it or all the time that you get eventually.

But it but you don't get it at first. They still check in after a while though. Like it is a progressive thing when you're like, no, this is fine. And then you can say, whenever I'm using this app, or just like all the time, because that bugs me when they put up the map, I'm going to, I'm just going to be blunt here. When they put up the map that says, oh, your weather app showed you your weather where you were. And look at this map, your weather app. This is,

this is the driving a wedge thing. I know they think of it as disclosure, but this is them saying, care it whether it's spying on you. And like, okay, if I'm unaware, that's great. But as a user of that app, at some point, I need to be able to say, never tell me this again. My weather app knows where I am. Yes. Thank you. Stop asking me. It just, I, they have to. That's just good user experience.

This episode is brought to you by Delete Me. If you ever wondered how much of your data is out there on the internet, it is uncomfortable to think about your private information being out there, especially since there are data brokers who can make their business selling your information. But the good thing is we actually have the right to stay private and protect our privacy. And there is a way that you can say to these data brokers, hey, get rid of it. But it's really

hard. Do you even know who all these data brokers are? How would you even find them? This is where Delete Me comes in. Delete Me is a subscription service that removes your personal information from the largest people search databases on the web. And in the process, helps prevent potential ID theft, doxing and phishing scams. You sign up and provide Delete Me with exactly the information you want to be deleted. And their experts take it from there. You don't need to give them everything.

You just say, this is the information I do not want to be out there. Delete Me will then send you regular personalised privacy reports showing what information they found, where they found it, and what they removed. And this isn't just a one time service. Delete Me is always working for you, constantly monitoring and removing the personal information you don't want on the internet. Couple of weeks ago, was it maybe last week? I got my most recent Delete Me report and I love it.

I love that I could see all of the services and all the brokers that they have removed me from in the past. I really like that. They're like, hey, look, this we've done this before and they're still gone. And then like these ones are in progress of being removed. And these ones, and my favourite thing about it though is it's just the information that I don't want to be out there. Because I, you know, I'm a person on the internet. I don't want everything about me completely removed from

all of the internet. But there are things that I want to know to be gone or there. And what I also like is as a customisation to it too, you can contact their team and say, like, hey, you don't need to delete me from this one or they'll take care of that for you. It's really fantastic. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me with a special offer for listeners of this show. You can get 20% of your Delete Me plan when you go to

joinDeleteMe.com, slash upgrade20 and use the promo code upgrade20 at checkout. That is the way to get 20% off. Just go to J-O-I-N-D-E-L-E-T-E-M-E.com, slash upgrade20 and the promo code upgrade20 at checkout. That is joindeleteMe.com slash upgrade20 and the promo code upgrade20. Thanks to Delete Me for their support of this show and relay. The next layer of the trifle. Okay. So this upcoming Sunday, the 18th of August is relay's 10th birthday. So we turn 10, which is an incredible thing.

Me and Steven will talk with you last night. We both ended up posting this social media, but we found the like the post. Yes. Announcement post kind of saying like, hey, we're coming in a week and these are the shows that are done. Steven, we thought we'd lost this multiple years ago. And we ended up finding it again and Steven posted it on 512. So it will remain online forever, which is good because we had this like it was like a static page that was living on the domain.

Our launch was ten years. We barely got this thing together and so I'm happy we found that. So that was interesting to think about and obviously reflecting a lot this week. So I thought what was going on with Apple News in 2014? So I have a list of things here that occurred in the year of 2014 that we could maybe reflect on a little bit. This covers upgrade episodes minus 30 to 10.

The majority of the stuff that I'm talking about, we would have actually covered on the show, just because of the way in which Apple works, right, as a company where the majority of things that are happening happen from June to December. That's true. So the biggest news of the year was the six and six plus were introduced. Yes. So this is the first time that we got a big iPhone. Is that both big? But we got a bigger one. Yeah, big and bigger. Yeah, this is the origin of

plus club. I guess those were the early days that connected with plus club. I remember this. So this is at the same event that they introduced the Apple watch. And I guess I should just get it out here. That was September 9th, 2014. Literally the executives at IDG came to me and said, we would like to lay everybody off on September 9th. And I said, well, many of those people will be you know, large numbers of the editorial staff will be at or covering remotely the Apple event.

Maybe you should come the next day. And of course, famously, this turned out it was because one senior executive had a kid soccer game that they did want to miss. And I'm all for work life balance. That might be a swing. But hey, suit who's, hey, suit who's here to lay off dozens of people. You got a way today. Sorry, I have no sympathy for you. So anyway, the announcements at the Apple watch event and the iPhone six and six plus. And I got review units of the iPhone six and six

plus. And I had that moment where I'm like, I need to tell you, I'm not going to be in the PR press was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it was very nice. I'm not going to be there. But I got the review units. So that was real question of like what I wasn't going to do. And I think I ended up making a deal with Matt world where I would write the reviews for them. They couldn't pay me because I had been laid off. But that's okay. They were paying me.

So it was great. And I was starting my own thing. But they had to link back to a like a reviewer's notebook piece that I was going to write on six colors when I launched six colors, which is why six colors launched when it did. Anyway, so I remember walking around XO XO, the festival in Portland. And then and then Seattle, because I went to Seattle afterward for a day. And with these and walking through parks with these two phones taken pictures because like the cameras were upgraded and all

that and then writing my review and all of that stuff going on here. It's just it's very that was my little teeny tiny inner kingdom between my two jobs was literally that weekend. And and and the iPhone six and six plus review. So it is burned in my brain. And obviously that was you know that time was important that when we were starting to show, right? So we were getting ready for episode one of upgrade. Yeah. Just around then too,

which is an incredible thing for me to consider. And one of the reasons I wanted to talk about this is because me, you and Dan had a very good long conversation in a pub a couple of weeks ago talking about this these exact two weeks. Oh yeah. Of everything happening, everything kind of like falling apart and being built back up again. And what a wild time that was then I feel like I told you I don't know if I've mentioned this to you before, but the email that you sent to me

to tell me you wanted to start this show. I was at my granddad's funeral. Right. Which definitely improved that day. And like I will we'll get to more of this in like oh a month from now when upgrade tons 10. Yes, we're literally releasing our our episode the week after presumably the Apple event. I'm assuming the Apple event is going to be on the 10th. But the week after that is our 10th anniversary. Yeah. That that that day. So we'll get to it then.

Us being able to to bring you on and bring over clockwise and bring on upgrade was an incredibly important moment in relay of them success because it was a you know like we we had a very very successful launch and I could not have been happy with the way that it went and we ended up with like all of the shows that we launched had bigger audiences than they had a five by five.

I think that's a lot of the way that they started. I don't know why I think we were able to I think cash in a bunch of favors and we had a lot of good will from people online and everyone was really excited for me and Steven. But then when you joined us too it was a bit like oh wow because you could just on your own thing, you know, and you know people wanted the Jason Snell podcast right? They people wanted that. Yes. Did they though? We've been doing this for a decade.

People wanted it and yeah. So it was a very important for us then. But yeah. So that that happened six and six plus which also started Bend Gate. Yay. Bend Gate. Was the thing that happened. It's not Bend Gate which is the stuff that you rub on your arm to make it feel better and warmer. There's a tea and it's Bend Gate. Bend Gate. When people said hey, you know, if I push on my iPhone I can get it to Bend. Yep. And they could and they did and lots of YouTubers bent their

phones and Apple said it didn't happen very much. Yeah. Then it ended up happening more. And then apparently it didn't happen very much but they changed the internals. It's a big struggle. I I saw a phone and I forget where because there was so much going on when we were in London. But somebody's phone was bent. It was like sitting and we're like is that bent? And they said oh, I don't know. And then probably it's just a and they pick it up and we're like no that's bent.

That phone is bent. I forget whose phone it was. Wow. Yeah. There was a bent iPhone out there. Still have a more modern vintage. I don't know. And of course there was the Apple Watch which was a fascinating launch. Remember not not released just announced. They didn't release it until the next spring but they showed it with that classic. What doesn't it do? It does everything digital touch. It will send your heartbeat. Oh, your kids are going to love it. Hey, it's time for

lunch or fish. Send it to your friend. And was it this event or the next event where they had like marathon runners and people coming on stage? I don't think it was this event. I think it was the next one. But of course we got the gold watch. Right? Yep. This one. Yep. That's what IDG and hindsight. That's what IDG should have gotten me. They should throw my years of service. They said we're going to give you a gold watch. Seriously one. We're going to lay off a little bit sooner.

You'll give you that gift. Your severance is being paid in gold watch. Gold watch. But of course the most infamous thing which I cannot believe this happened at this iPhone event but it did when Apple created their own malware in the form of a YouTube album. Yeah. That they infected every Apple device with songs and medicines. Technically YouTube created the malware and Apple just distributed it. That's true. That's true. They didn't they didn't check that one. Yeah,

this is the little finger touch between Tim and Bono. Yep. That was that event. I mean lots of Apple events are cringy. That was the cringy things have ever happened to an Apple event. Because it genuinely felt like nobody knew what was going to happen at that moment. But they just did that. Like and I'm not really sure how that came about. Right? Like we're going to touch our fingers together. It really felt like it was just a thing that started happening and they did it so they

committed to it. And it just truly it felt like nobody had a plan. Remember that? Well like yeah. So just the whole idea of it was just in hindsight very poorly thought out. So I'll just say so they did this at the Flint Center in Cupertino. Incredibly crowded and cramped. The seating was awful. We were in the back. I'm like just it was so my knees are hitting the seat in front of me and I'm not I'm not like tall. I'm just average height. I'm trying to type in my

elbows or like in at my side and like it was super uncomfortable. I'm also going through my head all the stress of knowing that you know this is the end for my job. Yeah. And the job of more than half of the people next to me. And I got to be honest. I missed this moment. I didn't I was typing something I was doing work on and typing something in and I never saw the finger touch until after. So I missed a memeable moment. Alas. Maybe you would have like turned to dust if

you would have seen it. Maybe maybe yeah. Dodge the bullet there. So because I'm sure there are people that maybe aren't completely familiar with what happened here. The YouTube wrote and had a new album called Songs of Innocence. And they did a deal with Apple where for some reason they would distribute this album to everybody that owned an iPhone. It was like to every iPhone. Everybody that had an iTunes account. iTunes account. It was it was this thing where they got

paid a you know blanket fee or a per a very a very low fee. But it was to everybody. So they got a big check probably more than they would have made otherwise. Yep. And this album and then they would have gone to number one on the on the charts probably because of it for this album. And that was the deal that Apple made. And Apple had previous obviously relationships with you too. And they had done the the YouTube iPod and they had performed with the California Theater for Steve

Jobs at that event. And they came out and they did this. I think ironically or maybe not as a long time YouTube fan. It's not a very good album. It's not very good. It's like one of my least favorite YouTube album. So that that's that's sad. It's just sad. So it was yeah malware in all senses of the word. I believe. So somebody wrote about this a while ago I think that there is a tool to remove it to remove it from your library. Yeah. There's a tool to remove it. You can go

to there's like or there was I don't know if it still works. But there was a URL they would send people to and it would remove songs of innocence from your iTunes library. For those people who didn't want to see that. I ran I ran to people who are like that YouTube album still there were people who like I never bought anything on Apple. But I have this YouTube album. I'm like well like if you know if you if you just had streaming right you're just like streaming.

But it's it's now you still have this like purchase. I'm in your in your in your library. Apple Pay launched in October of 2014. Hey which you know I think it's one of these things that is exciting when it started and now is just like could not be more you might put this. Do you remember this was a moment in upgrade history because I got to report first hand using Apple Pay to buy peanut butter and manchego cheese. I got you just at my local Whole Foods.

Of course using Apple Pay. It's true. The grind from the grinder peanut butter from that grinder and the manchego cheese. I ought to do that again to celebrate the 10th. I ought to go get some grind ground up peanut butter and some manchego cheese. You should do that. I should. Yeah. Obviously I love it and so do because of the tube and you know also like Apple Pay just rolled out significantly easier here. I think that the new us. We'll do a little preview of stories. I

feel like we need to do some 10th anniversary things on upgrade. Once we reach our 10th anniversary and one of them is we should cover this Apple Pay launch in a little more detail because I'll just say now Apple Pay like everybody else had tried this Samsung and Google tried this didn't work. Apple did it and it like it really set off a huge change in US transactions because the US was so far behind and this was a major driver in getting uptake of contactless payments

in general. We were so far behind. Well here everybody was using contactless cards. Like do your debit card had a chip in it and you just use it. Right. And that had failed in the US basically to roll it out. I know I've said it before but like I got a card with a chip in it and then like eight months later my bank said we sent you a new card without a chip. Like what just happened and then

like what we gave up on that. So yeah so now when I travel internationally like I just did used to be as an American when you travel overseas you'd be like whoa they really got it together. We're so behind and now not so much not so a little bit but not so much and I really firmly believe that Apple pay was the impetus for finally changing that. In May of 2014 Apple acquired beats for three billion dollars. Hey speaking of Dr. Dre who appeared in the Olympics closing

ceremonies. So this was the combination of beats music which had launched a few months earlier which is an app right. Beats music and music streaming service that me and Federico loved and also the electronics company too. And that started I think Apple's dominance in headphones.

I think probably came from this I'm sure they got some really good talent for helping them build things like AirPods and stuff like that but also they continue to have the beats brand but then it also gave them the underpinnings to create a music streaming service in Apple music. So another huge moment I will say there's a few more things in this list but I am very struck in going through this how important 2014 was for Apple. Yeah like

bigger phones the first Apple watch Apple pay beats. Deats Swift was announced. So WWE see which I remember that WWE see for me was a very boring one. Oh yeah it was very boring WWE see but for developers was a big deal and like that Swift was the thing for that WWE see and so it took a couple lot of time in the keynote rightly so but as somebody who is not

a developer this is one of the times where the WWE see keynote kind of one over my head which is I can't think of another one that was like this but they obviously spent a lot of time really focusing on Swift and like you know 10 years later Swift is it seems to be going great. Also in 2014 the European Union launches a formal investigation into Apple's tax arrangements with Ireland which ended up going to the point of Apple paying a lot of money.

I guess it's our second Apple pay story from this year. Oh hey there we go. There we go but this is also like it was funny looking back at this. Oh here at the European unions here and they got some stuff to say you know. Yeah very fun and the last thing I had was Tim Cook published an op-ed piece in Bloomberg Business Week where he comes out as gay that also happened in 2014. It's big yeah. Yeah an upgrade launched. Of course. Oh wait that's how we started this

is relay. Relay was announced and then it launched and then about a month later upgrade one happened so yeah it's good stuff. Well happy anniversary and there'll be more celebrations I'm sure but yeah we already have the big relay 10 event as well so just it's the fun it's fun season this is a good if we've reached if we're near the bottom of the of the of the parfait or whatever you say. It's a trifle. It's going pretty well so far now down here at the bottom it's

pretty nice. It's trifle like not a thing like do you know like when because you seem to have not locked into the trifle idea do you have trifles. I think it's a very English thing. I think we

probably do have it but it's very English it's not a common thing. Maybe it's something to help with Americans is an episode of friends where Rachel makes a trifle and she puts meat in it because she knows because she gets the recipe mixed up with another recipe and then that is a very funny episode of friends where Rachel is serving the trifle and everyone thinks it's

disgusting but of course Joey loves it. Of course. Oh right he like polishes it off right I think I remember that shot where he's like big on him and he's got the spoon and the bowl and he's like yeah this is great. He's having a great time. Yeah they make this sometimes I think on um Great British Bake Off but but great great British Bake Off as an aside is amazing in part as an American because there are the things that that that they make that we're like yes okay

that they treat as they're things that they treat as incredibly exotic that as an America I'm like well that's just a thing why is that exotic and it's because it's American it's not a thing that that happened in England for whatever reason or at least it happened in America might not be

from America but it happened and then the things that they say that uh as normal and as an American you go what uh what now because it's a very common English thing that um uh that or a thing that English people know about like in some cases they'll be like this is a Swedish cake and I'm like I have never heard of this thing. Oh no no no no no. Sometimes they showed the Swedish cakes

and I'm like I have no idea what that Swedish cake is. Yeah but this yeah the one in particular yeah that they they sometimes surprise the people and they're like I've never heard of this the one that made me laugh the most and we had this I should say we had this um Lauren ordered it

at uh as a dessert at one of the places we went when we were in in the UK uh because they announced Paul Hollywood announced that everybody was going to be making and I'm going to say it uh in a clear way they were going to be making tart tata which is which is a which is a which is a

French dish commonly known apparently in England as an American watching everybody starts saying tata tata tata tata tata tata tata tata tata tata tata tata and and Lauren and I thought we had lost our minds and we finally figured out what they were saying it was like turn on the captions

and see what it is so anyway Lauren had a tart tata it was nice tata tata that is actually a joke in our household because Indian likes tata tata and I was got tata tata so there you go there you go it's a thing we've reached the end of the trifle oh that's the end so that was the nice

the Joey was scooping out the bottom of the trifle right there all right great the end of the trifle we're going to do a couple of ask upgrade questions to finish out today's our episode that's right first comes in from chip thank you who says listen to chip listen to chip

I rarely see out in the world brightly colored cars premium phones or other big ticket items do you think Apple could push the market in a more color friendly direction or does their market research tell them that pro customers are in fact boring and it's not worth it is the colors are

leading or is the colors are following love the podcast especially the video version mmm oh I see which chip this is this is this is a nepotism question oh I see what you're doing chip I see it look I we don't know Apple knows exactly how many of each color of phone they sell

mm-hmm and in what markets I don't know though has the iPhone pro really ever been made in a bright color and maybe it's just because the materials they use are not conducive the premium materials they use are not conducive to bright colors they could they're really with the the

anodization and the coatings they use and all that that they can't make it be bright and maybe there's a very technical reason why I I'm not sure that they even have the data to say oh we definitely can't make one option that's fun because nobody will want that that's probably

you know maybe maybe so I just I feel like I think Apple has enough sway and we've seen it with you know even back in the iMac days Apple can make something that people really like and I think they could affect fashion so I think the colors are could push things in that direction if they

wanted to but again I do think it's you know in the end if they're going to choose a great premium material or they're going to choose a something that's the bright color they're going to choose the premium material every time and so maybe that's the reason what do you think back

I would put Apple in the category of kind of like fashion and in fashion there's lots of color options and I think that the thing that I keep coming back to and we come back to a bunch of times is that people put their phones into a variety of

high color cases the phones can also be fun to choose to right I don't think that just because it's pro it should mean that it is bland color I just I don't think that's the case yeah I I think choice is good and that if they have the ability to offer a choice that's fun

even if it's just one I wish they would do it because I would probably choose it um and the these rumored new base iPhones will look fun and and again I always hear from people I'm like I don't want to do color phones like they they're never gonna like there's always a black phone

and a white phone and a gray phone like that I my argument is just some more choice would be nice but yes I think to chip's point there are a lot of great cars out there we do live in that era and maybe Apple is following I do think that Apple could be influential here if it tried to push

things a little bit but you know Apple knows like if Apple puts out five iPhone 16s and the boring ones of the ones that sell best then I mean I understand it right they've got their sales data so maybe maybe but um I don't know or maybe they know that some people like pastels and some people like

bright colors and so they alternate years and that's how they do it and it's like okay that just I wish the pro stuff was more fun I wish I had a uh had the ability to get a more brightly colored phone or or laptop for that matter right and we have another question here it comes in from Brad

who says my wife and I live in a busy house with our three young children we have a shared google counter for all of our family events we currently transcribe this calendar onto a pair of white boards this week and next week that we stick onto our fridge I would love to replace these with

something digital and I'm thinking an eag display would be good giving there is no power on the front of the fridge do you have any suggestions about how I might go about this project do I ever um yeah so I've got a um I've got a post that we'll put in the show notes

about my eink calendar that I built I used a uh a bunch of python scripts from a German guy um and his 3d model I got a 3d printed model um and then I've updated it since then to do exactly what Brad is describing so the only difference is that I leave it by the side of my microwave and

it's so it's plugged in all the time and it updates every hour but you could very easily do something where um you you stick it on to your fridge uh but you'd have to plug it into updated every so often right because that's the that's the there's a raspberry pie attached there too and it does need power the screen doesn't need power but the device that does the updating needs power that's the thing you could do on a Sunday but whatever right you go yeah you update and you kind of publishing

if it if it can if it can show the whole week right that's the question if it needs to update midweek you would have to do it so if you know but I did it with a thing that's just setting to the side there are other things that use different technologies that I haven't liked as much that have like um

that that uh you can you can build with a that have a little battery in it and and so those will last for a while Dan moron's using one of those in one of his um he made a uh an on air display using a battery operated e ink device which is kind of cool um and so it's checking every

10 minutes it wakes up and checks to see if Dan is recording a podcast and all of that um and so that's a that's a different that's the ink plate six color uh but for what Brad's doing I would say yeah e ink is great and um at some point I should probably put a version of my modified

uh version of the German guys he his is like a portal themed calendar and I've stripped all of that stuff out but I've added a bunch of other stuff in it shows my calendar and our family calendar and Lawrence calendar and they're in different um formats like uh color or italics um

it's got a little uh symbol on the night for the trash to go out about whether we're taking out our paper or our glass and plastic that is great um it's got a little wet little apple weather widget in it it's got a bunch of stuff in it so and if you know python especially you can play

around with it and make it do anything you want really um so I think e ink is fun and it's a great way to do it but you do need power at least to update the display so if you've got a way to to you know if you can if you can get something that just displays your calendar you know yeah for a week or whatever you can plug it in on sunday have it reload and stick it on the on the fridge that would work too if you would like to send us in your questions for us upgrade or your feedback or follow

up you can always go to upgradefeedback.com you can check out jason's work over at six collos.com and you can hear him over the incomparable.com and here on relay where you can hear me too you can also check out my work at cortex brand.com you can find us online jason is at jason now jsne

e double l i am at i mic i am y k e you can watch video clips of this show on tiktok instagram and youtube or at upgrade relay thank you to our members who support us about gray plus if you would like longer ad free versions of the show each and every week please go to getupgrayplus.com

find out more and sign up and most of all as always thank you for listening oh and thank you to our sponsors this week delete me and uni we'll be back next time until then say goodbye jason's now goodbye everybody