533: A Conversation With Your Teeth

From Relay This is Upgrade episode 533 for October 14th, 2024. Today's show is brought to you by Deletmi, Unipizza Evans, Vitaly and Tip Top. My name is Mike Early and I'm joined by Jason Snow. Hi Jason. Hi Mike. 533 was... we are now, I can't believe I didn't mention this last week. 533, 2, 533 were our phone numbers when I was a kid. We had a 533 number, 530501 and 536753 was my phone number. Don't know all those numbers now. Probably

else. No and if you would and I haven't revealed the area code specifically to make it slightly more obscure for people but don't call those numbers. The people aren't there anymore. My parents don't have that number. My mom's number is a cell phone that she got when they

moved into a motor home because back then number portability wasn't a thing. When I was given my first corporate cell phone whenever even that was, I assume at IDG who knew that the number that they were assigning me randomly at that time would be presumably my phone number for the rest of my life. So weird times. Anyway, but classic. Shout out to 533 and 532. Shout out. I have a snow talk question for you that comes from Ben who wants to know,

what is your footwear of choice when at home? Weird. Weird question. Look, maybe Ben has a thing and he just wants to know about it. That's all. Okay. Um, I wear socks a lot. Okay. Bear. I want a little more cushion than bear feet. So unless it's like really hot, I wear socks a lot in the winter and often I and we're not a shoes off house. So I will also just leave my shoes on sometimes. If I for, you know, whatever logistical reasons.

And then the other, my other answer is that I've got these, uh, these slippers that you told me about all the mahabis. Yes. Yeah. Is that what they, is that what they are? Yeah. With the rubber on the front. Yeah. Yeah. Mahhabis slippers. I've been, I've

been wearing mahabis for years. I love mahabis. Yeah. So I have those and I, I, in the winter, I wear those, I used to wear, uh, slippers that were like, uh, like little sheepskin slippers that were really, really nice, but they, I, I wore them so much that they fell apart and it was very hard to find a replacement. And I didn't like all the replacements had

souls, like flat souls. And instead of it just sort of being a soft bottom, which I didn't like, uh, but these slippers, uh, and you're going to have to put a link in the show notes to these slippers now. Um, they are, uh, they're nice. And even though they've got flat souls, they're, they're different because they're, you know, slip-ons and all of that. So they have the rubber tips on them sometimes. So yeah, I like them a lot. I've been a fan of mahabis

for years. They have a bunch of different ones. These have the rubber tips and, uh, they're comfy. So I wear those, and especially I wear those to, um, for me, a lot of it is temperature regulations. Like in, when in the winter and it's cold and damp sometimes in my house and my feet get cold. Sometimes especially how I'm just sitting at my desk, my feet get cold. So it's nice. Like, I have them on right now because I was feeling like it's a little cooler in here than usual.

And my feet are cold. And so why don't I get the slippers out which I haven't worn in a while. So we're in slipper weather now. So that's time. You know, it's a variety. It's a variety. Do you have a footwear of choice when you were at home? Always mahab. I'm wearing mahabis now in the studio. I wear mahabis at home too. Oh wow. You have, you have, it's like a studio pair of slippers. I actually have two pairs of slippers at the studio. So I had an original pair that I bought when I

first moved into the studio here. Um, and something that I noticed was the very fronts of them were getting walled away. And I think it's because when I'm sitting at the desk recording, I kind of kick my feet on the ground in a way that I don't, I move a lot. Anybody that watches the video knows this. I, I fidget constantly when I'm recording. I don't know what it is that makes

me do that. But I do. And so they were wearing a way a little. So then I, I was going to buy a new pair and then saw that mahabis now make these ones where they, the rubber goes over the toe so that wouldn't happen. So now I have my in the studio pair. And then I also have my like going to the bathroom pair because I don't have a bathroom in my studio. I have to go out or like going to fill up my water bottle or whatever. So I put those ones on to leave. And then I have my good ones for

when I'm here. Um, so yeah, lots of slippers. Oh wow. This is, I just want to say you, you are, when you come into work and you've got slippers to put on there, you are getting so close to being Mr. Rogers. Okay. Like I need a cardigan too and again. Yeah. Well, that's what I was going to say is your next thing is that you need to take off your jacket or whatever else you're wearing and put on a nice cardigan. I actually do do that sometimes. Like when it's called in the fair, I have, I have,

I have hoodies that adjust studio hoodies. And so like I'll take off whatever I'm wearing and put on a studio hoodie, which could be a cortex hoodie or an upgrade hoodie depending on how cold it is. Oh boy. Look, it's really lovely here in the neighborhood. I don't want to. I cannot wait to one day visit the land of Make Believe by which I mean mega studio. It's amazing. I also have a sock recommendation while we're on it. Okay. Oh yeah. Sure. I really like a nice subscribe to

the awesome socks club, which is from Hank and John Green. And I'll put a link to that in the show. They have really weird and fun socks. I like socks subscriptions. I cannot let this go without making a couple of sock recommendations myself. Yeah. We've come to that. It has or dueling sock recommendations. I really like for people in the US, American trench makes really nice socks. Although they have gotten kind of away from the stripy socks. I like I bought them because I really

like the stripy socks. And now they seem to have decided that they don't like stripes anymore. And it makes me sad. Oh gosh. But you know, who does like strikes is another may a strips, another made in America company, Zekano, ZK and oh, and I've been buying socks from them and they are really good too. So I'm a big fan of finding non generic socks that come in interesting patterns and stripes and stuff like that. And they're pretty great. So those are my two favorites.

You might like the awesome socks club. I can be a weird sometimes, but I like it. What final sock recommendation, Bomba socks. Bomba socks, they're like, they're like ankle socks are incredible. And every couple of years I'll buy myself like 20 of them. And I'll just use those. Lauren and sometimes a sponsor. Lauren and Julian love, love, love the Bomba socks. I've never gotten the right size. So they've ended up taking them because I can never get them

to fit because that's part of it too. But the problem with the novelty socks is that often the socks aren't very good. They like they're it's a fun pattern because I got a sock subscription at one point. And it was really fun. And I like those socks, but they're kind of thin. And I just I really didn't like them. And I like the I like them stripy and I like them some of them like plush like fuzzy. That's also kind of nice. Especially some wearing around the house as we

which brings us all the way back around to the original style talk question. This is great. We've done some good work here. I feel like we could just knock off from the day right now. And and not but I guess we got to do a whole upgrade. I can't be at least socks. It could be, but I think I might run out of steam at about two minutes. It's the sock addict. It's a good podcast. We're going to have to start sock addict.

If you would like to send in a question of your own. And obviously it can be about anything. Just go to upgradefeedback.com and help us start the show with a snow talk. Thank you to Ben for that fun question. I have some follow up for you. Jason and everybody. We had a great time on Connected last week. You joined me in Federico and we had a really fun time. So if you've not

listened to that, you should go listen to that. I think people would enjoy it. It was a really good episode to connect to the worst thing about that episode was that I didn't have an episode of connected to listen to last week. Yeah. Because I usually listen. I did listen live. Yes. But in it right active live. Yeah. Yeah. But then it came into my into my overcast and I was like nope. Also, but by the way, I just not to not to pat ourselves on the back here, but I

consider that one of the all time great podcast titles. Yeah. It was real good. I consume all of my dark secrets. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which makes sense in context. And otherwise does not. Anyway, very good. So I hope people listen if they happen. The screen recording security dialogue prompt in macOS Sequoia has been changed. This is a quote from mac rumours, which I believe was from Apple saying users will see fewer dialogues if they regularly use apps in which they have already

acknowledged and accepted the risks. This was the exact middle ground that we were hoping for. Yeah. So it's trying to basically say if you use this app that uses these permissions on a regular basis, we are going to reduce how much we annoy you by this. Like I said, my understanding is that there's some degree of kicking the can down the road here where you, you know, it's like the timer starts and then you launch it and it goes, all right, and it resets the timer. And I

don't know if there is ultimately a non-resetable extension of that. I don't know the details. It's very hard to tell because this is all about like letting things happen over time. But better, it's a little bit silly, right, that we are we are at this point. But what it suggests truthfully is that Apple built a new thing and said this is the new thing. Everybody needs to do it. And we're going to deprecate the whole thing and throw up a thing that yells at users because they're

developer did something, which is always a bad idea. Throw the developer under the bus, right? But then they got feedback, which was like, yeah, but you made you made this decision in an error because there's actually a problem. There's a whole bunch of apps that people use that don't fit into your solution. And so what are they supposed to do? And two apples credit, you know, they didn't say, well, forget about it. They said, no, we're the reasons we're going

ahead with this. But since we didn't take these other things into account, let's mitigate that for now. And then the, you know, the next step is they need to adjust their trajectory with these features to get those other things to, you know, work in a way that works for users, works for developers and works for Apple security people. So it's not great because it's a sign that they weren't paying attention to some of these details early enough and didn't think them through. But it's good

in that they seem to have listened to the criticism. And that's, that's, that's good for users who have a lot of apps that use the screen recording permissions to do things that are not recording, you know, sharing windows over Zoom. And so it's better, not ideal and kind of ridiculous that we got to this point. But at least this happened. I mean, this is a, is you say, right? Like if you're going to actually think this is a really good system for doing it dealing with this, like being

smart about what I'm doing. Again, we'll see how it goes, right? Yeah. I wanted to mention something that I've been really enjoying. Just a little change that I noticed with my AirPods Pro. This either happened in iOS 18 or maybe it's in 18.1. I'm not sure exactly when. But I have noticed that the responsiveness to loud noises has significantly improved. Like for example, if I'm listening to a

podcast and I use a hand dryer, the audio level goes up immediately. Like I've noticed something, something has happened at least with my, my specific setup in that the, the kind of what it's supposed to be doing, like increasing the volume when it hears loud noises. Just in general, that has been significantly better for me since I was 18. So I'm really happy about that. Like it was always pretty good. But now I'm now it's really good. And I think that's great.

Yeah. I wanted to do a little while. We're on this subject. I want to do a little follow up. A little follow out, rather follow out. Because there are, ATP has been talking about this a little bit. And I've seen it in other places too. I don't want to just say it's ATP. But I've discovered that I seem to not be looking at the different modes of noise cancelling in AirPods Pro the same way other people do. Okay. And I'm trying to phrase it that way because maybe it's me.

Maybe it's not them. But I use AirPods Pro 2 every day to walk the dog. It's just me and the dog. And so I've had a chance to try this out. And I will admit it is in my noise, neighborhood noise profile. Right. I've got a busy road a couple blocks away and a freeway about like five blocks away. And so there's there's some background noise as well as busy road noise at different points in the walk and in other points in the walk. It's quieter. And then I've got cars.

You know, I'm walking on streets. So there are cars going by. There's a school in the back of my neighborhood. So there are people driving back in the back streets where I walk the dog to get to the school. So there's some traffic. Anyway, I feel like for what it's worth take us for what it's worth. There are these three modes that seem to be confusing people. There's transparency, adaptive, which is new and and noise cancellation. And the part that made me

wonder if I was going nuts was Casey Liss saying friend of the show. Good friend of the show. friend of the show. Saying he tried to use adaptive mode to mode the lawn. And I just thought, no, Casey. No, you wouldn't do that. Well, the lawn is noisy. Put it in noise canceling mode. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Adaptive is not that good. Right. I don't think it's made for that. So so here's here's how I view it. And maybe this is not how Apple views it, although I think it is,

but maybe it's not. Transparency and noise canceling. The idea there was it's a quick toggle since they've got microphones on it. They've got a very clever quick toggle. If you're concerned about being able to hear the world around you while you've got your AirPods in, you put it in transparency mode. And I know there are people like Stephen Hackett who just that's not good enough. I used to walk down the streets of San Francisco with in ear headphones in. Super dangerous, by the way.

At one point, I actually bought a little box that the sure made that was like in line with a little microphone to let you let in some of the noise from outside, but really practically, it was too much. It was too silly. It's like analog transpars. Yeah, yeah, that's what it was. Yeah, that's exactly what it was. So for me, AirPods Pro and AirPods in my ears,

I feel like they let in so much audio compared to the in ear headphones. Okay, so transparency mode is very clever, though, because it lets that stuff go through, which is why I don't really understand Stephen not having one of his AirPods in because I feel like when you've got when you've got AirPods in in transparency mode, unless your stuff is turned up too high or whatever, like you can hear everything. And if you pause your audio, you can hear everything. It's like

being, you know, with nothing in your ears. That's what transparency is. It's it's Apple trying to simulate all the audio it's blocking. It's it's repassing it through. It's this virtual transparency. Okay, great. And the noise canceling is we're going to listen to every noise out there in the world and we're going to notify it so that you can't hear any of it. It works pretty well. Not not perfectly, obviously, but pretty well. Adaptive, I believe

adaptive is what Apple would like transparency to be. I believe Apple thinks that adaptive is transparency 2.0. 100 percent. Yes. Because because what adaptive is trying to do is let through variable noises like a car going by. But smooth out so in my neighborhood, right, adaptive takes the freeway hum away. Because the freeway hum is just a background, you know, broadband noise. It has no information. It's just a noise in the background that's meaningless and it takes it out

and it's great. And it allows more clarity in what I'm listening to. Whereas transparency lets it through. But when I'm walking and everybody's going to be different, when I'm walking with the dog on the streets using adaptive mode, I can hear every car coming from behind me before it passes me by. I know where all the cars are. I can hear clearly every kind of random noise that are the noises that I need to hear to be safe. That's why I love adaptive mode and why when I walk

the dog, 98 percent of the time, I'm in adaptive mode. The other 2 percent is I'm not on a busy street and there's like a guy with a weed whacker or a guy with a blower or something like that where there's like noise, like loud noise or there's a bulldozer or there's a, you know, anything like that. Then I will put it noise cancelling and go past them and then go back into adaptive. But I think adaptive is the best, but the way to think about it is it's transparency but better because there's

some noises and transparency that you don't need to hear because they're not meaningful. And if the reason that you're letting noise in to your AirPods is to keep you safe and to hear the world around you, then that's why I think adaptive, I think Apple nailed it because it gives me everything I need to hear and nothing I don't. And like thumbs up, that is how that's supposed to work. So I would never use it to mode the lawn. Lawn mowing is a noise cancelling experience.

Blowing leaves off of my patio is a noise cancelling experience, but adaptive is great for walking the dog outside. Yeah, I am. I have my AirPods Pro in adaptive mode as the default. I never use transparency mode. And then I use noise cancellation for when I'm specifically trying to get rid of the most amount of noise. Right. So like, for example, when I'm cooking, we have like a, you know, like a

hob fan, like, you know, like a hood fan. Yes, I don't like that noise. So I go into noise cancelling and it cuts it out. Yes. Right. So yeah, no, I cook with, I cook with noise cancelling on because I don't need to hear there is not, I'm not, at least I'm not the kind of person who cooks meals who is like, oh, the, the nature of the sizzle from the pan will tell me it's like, no, it's not. I just need to chop some onions and have the fan going and all of those things. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. So anyway, I mean, use it how you like it, but like adaptive, the goal of adaptive is to be a better transparency that it makes it a more pleasant experience to listen to whatever audio you're listening to while still letting through what's important. Right. That's the whole idea there. Yeah. For what I agree. I agree. Don't know you along with it. Casey, come on. No. I mean, you know, give it a go. Like you see what happens, but don't sure. It wouldn't expect that to be what

is not great. It's not going to do the job. Not no, no. I will see his confessational awareness to just put that on there. Yeah, I can't do that. We talked about this on the show before, but like, I can't do that because I am giving my dog feedback. Yeah. And it will, it will, it will lower the volume and stuff every time because I'm telling the dog to go that it's because she does things like, you know, we come up to a curb and she's supposed to stop. And then I say, okay, and then she

then she crosses the street. And every time I do that, not to mention that her name is Maisie. And if I say Maisie a certain way, the vowel sounds sound like the name of a certain personal assistant. And Maisie and H-E-Y-S-I-R-I are very similar. And sometimes that triggers something too, which is also bad. So anyway, yeah, I don't use that. I wish I could because it's confessational awareness is very clever, but it doesn't know that I'm talking to a dog.

I want to give Apple a challenge. I want to give the Apple to see him a challenge. Okay. Conversational awareness that knows I'm singing. Oh, right. Like, if I'm wearing my AirPods Pro, I can't sing along to what I'm listening to. Because it dips the volume. Because it dips the volume and pulls it. That's not what I thought you were going for because I thought you were going to

for what my challenges. Here's my challenge to Apple. Now that we praise them for adaptive, yeah, my challenge is conversational awareness should be about dialogue, not monologue. So conversational awareness should be able to hear me talk and not worry about it because I can hear me talk. It should detect when someone else talks in a way that's very, I know that's hard, but like in a way that's very clever, like somebody else directly, you know, nearby who is talking.

And maybe it's after I've said something, there's a way to trigger it, but that's what I would like. Because if I'm just muttering to myself or talking to my dog or singing along, that's not a conversation. So you need to be more aware that it's a dialogue and there are other voices present. And then you're like, oh, your little machine learning algorithm says, oh,

there's people around. Yeah, I'm not sure how it works. Because like, for example, sometimes, you know, if I have my AirPods in and I'm brushing my teeth, that can actually lower the volume. So I'm not sure if it's even, I mean, I don't know. I'm not sure it's actually listening for speaking at all. What is that, but a conversation between the toothbrush? Me and the toothbrush. That's a, you know what? That is a really good point. Like brushing your teeth,

you're really just having a conversation with your teeth. If you think about it, that's right. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah, we've done boy, this episode, we have brought you into the first break. Yeah, my would. This is an award-winning segment right here. This segment alone would be enough, but no, there's a whole other podcast. We haven't even stopped it yet. No. Next week, the value. Next week, we're doing a presumptive draft for an October Apple event. We expect there's

going to be one. Yeah. So next week, we're going to do the draft. I mean, it's possible that by the next episode, we know there's going to be an event anyway, but even if we don't know, we're draft in next week. Yeah. So that's the idea is that we think there's probably something the week of the 28th. And so we're just going to go ahead next week and do this. And there are still a couple of ways where this could trip us up. If they decide they're going to do it next week and they tell us

tomorrow, we might have to do an emergency draft episode. We'll figure it out. But like, I think we've done this in the past. Actually, if I had thought about this a little earlier, we would have done it this week, because I think that would have been fine. But we didn't have enough time to plan it that way. I don't mind. We've been successful so far. In fact, you could argue that doing it a little bit in advance is better because there's a little more mystery in the draft. So we're going to

do it next week, regardless. And I'm looking forward to it. That'll be a fun one. So I'll get a chance to redeem myself. We'll see. A chance, I said. A chance. This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by Delete Me. Privacy is important to a lot of us. It should actually be important to all of us. Do you ever wonder how much of your personal data is out there on the internet for anyone to see? This is an incredibly uncomfortable thought.

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Riccio apples previous senior vice president of hardware has retired. So a bit of background. Riccio had been SVP a part where for a long time. And we'd seen him in tons of iPhone videos, you know, like the Johnny I've iPhone videos and lots of other products. He stepped down as senior vice president of hardware in 2021 and John Turner took the role since this time. And it was announced that he was going to be moving to quote a new project that reported directly to Tim.

And it was late to learn that this was the vision pro. So he was kind of like overseeing the vision pro. So like he sat say above microql, for example, the vision group now led by microql on a day today basis reports to john turnus. So it's kind of like left the special projects area. And it's just part of the overall hardware stuff. Interestingly, the way this information was found out was Dan Riccio divulged it during a like a presentation that he was making to an event at MIT. And he was

just like, I retired and I'm leaving on Friday. That was last week. So why not? I mean, I love it. Like the guys just live in his life. Like this is kind of how I believe these is should be able to live their lives rather than pretending it's a little secret of time. We've talked about this

before. And I think it's one of my favorite things that we talk about because it's not there's not a lot of conversation about that in our sphere, which is how apple deals with not just things like succession planning, but like dealing with corporate executives who've been there a long time and have been at a very senior level. And it had a lot of stock options. And it basically

made so much money that they don't need to work anymore. And what do you do with them? And I think there's a few, I mean, Bob Mansfield, he retired and then they called them back and he went back for a little while and then he retired again. Dan Riccio, I think you could really argue that when he was no longer SVP of hardware, that was part of the path to retirement. But they're like, no, no, no, don't leave yet, Dan, we've got a problem. We'd like you to work on. Can you do this

vision prothing for a little while and then retire? And he's like, sure, I can do that and they give him some more money. And he's like, yeah, I'll start building the retirement home now. Johnnie did too, right? So like they gave in that new role, which really looked like a big promotion. But it was actually to give him more freedom in his life and not have to be so hands-on. Lonely kind of uncouple from Apple because you get the sense too that some of this stuff,

it's like really high pressure and it's very intense. And then you get to a point where like, I can't do this intensity anymore. And that's when I think very intelligently for a company that's got a lot of money, you should do this, which is you mean like it's a senior executive retention program. Essentially, and the idea there is, look, you can step off the grind, the step off the bus of all of this stuff that's super intense as SVP hardware. But we want to keep your mind around.

So can we give you kind of like a special project a little bit less to do? And I know that sometimes that's perceived as being like we're putting you in a window somewhere to stare and, you know, not do anything. But I don't think that's the intent because they could just leave then. If that's what they wanted to. But it's more like you can wind down, but we can still tap your expertise. Maybe I give you a project to work on. Maybe we just keep you around to answer

answer questions and work on little things and all that. But it's like a it's a way out the door to retirement that is not peak. Everything's super intense. And then boom, it's done. And we never hear from you again because those people are really valuable. But but but the truth is beyond a certain point, you can't retain them. At least you can't do anything to retain them. You can retain them. Phil Schiller, it feels like to me is never going to leave Apple. Like they're going to have

to drag him out, right? Like, but and he doesn't need the money. As far as I can tell, Phil Schiller doing great. He's been he's been there longer than anybody else. Yeah. Except Chris Espinoza. And if you like as a senior exec, he's been the longest. And he's like an Apple fellow now, but he's still actively involved in all sorts of parts of what Apple is doing. So like, but but this is my point is

he wants to be there. Otherwise, he wouldn't be there. So if you can find some way to keep somebody who's great around in some role where they want to be there. Great. But ultimately, these people have made so much money that if they want to go, you kind of can't keep them. So you make it. Yeah. So you make it easy. It's and it's a brain drain, right? So you try to make it easy on them

to stay as long as they're willing to. And then at some point, they will still walk away. But at least you got to disengage and they got to spread, you know, share their knowledge with others because there's that dangerous moment when like, oh no, Dan Riccio is the only person who knows how to do this. Exactly. It gives them that. What do we do to help the people that are going to call them and replace him? I've told you the story before, but really quickly, my uncle was the

SVP of HR for a Fortune 500 company. And at one point, his accountant or his financial planner basically said to him, given your pension system and all of that, every year you stay after this year, you are going to lose money. So he retired. And like six months later, the company came to him and said, can we hire you as a consultant? Because we don't know how to do these union negotiations.

And he's like, sure, and they paid a more money plus his retirement as a consultant. But like, that's it's that thing is you don't want to get, you don't want to have to make that call, right? Where you're or big Bob Mansfield, please come back, right? Like, so you do this, you do this, kind of glide path to retirement. I think it's really interesting. I think it's, again, we don't know the details from the outside, but I think in general, it's really smart for Apple to do this,

because first off, they can afford it. And second off, this is a real problem for them. They made a lot of their senior people very, very rich. And those people don't need to work anymore. And so, what do you do? You want to develop the next generation of talent, but you also don't want to lose the people who have this important knowledge. And Apple is unlike, you know, unlike many other companies, Apple doesn't do a lot of hiring from outside because their culture is so different.

And so you really need to bring people up from within and retain those senior people as long as you can. So it's really, I mean, it's really interesting. But then at the same time, you can't keep these people forever because then you lose the people that would take those roles because they will go somewhere else. And so like, you have to encourage. And I think, I think what Tim Cook has actually started to do, I wouldn't be surprised if he is encouraging his senior leaders to

consider these changes because it's happening more and more. Yeah. Go on the glide path. Yeah. Yeah. No, there's definitely been a lot of retirements lately. And I think you're right. I think that the other part of this is you identify stars that are up and coming within your company. And you say, and this, I mean, this happens when I was a manager. I mean, you identify the stars. You want to identify the talent. The ones you don't want to lose and the ones that you want to

bring along and give experience to. And you know, I suspect that is what, you know, what's been going on with John Ternis as Mark German is reporting is that they think he's a rising star and they're trying to give him a lot of seasoning, regardless of where, you know, if he ends up as CEO or something else, like that, that's what goes on. And that's, that's developing your people. It's great. But there does come a moment where you say, we got this guy hanging on. And our star needs a new

challenge. And that may be the kind, that, that may be when you go to Dan Ritio and say, Dan, we're really, you know, we really need to bump John up. And, you know, and he may or may not express an interest in retirement. But you're like, let's, you know, you've been here a long time. You're not going to stay here very much longer. You can stay as long as you want, but we want to put Ternis in

this role so that he can, you know, he can get that. And so, yeah, some of it could be a little, I mean, you should be active because I think that there would otherwise be a tendency for somebody to just stay in their role, even as they're disengaging and getting ready to retire and all of that. And then, yeah, if I'm Apple and if I'm, I'm Deer Drow Brian and if I'm Tim Cook, I'm looking at that and saying, I want my senior senior people who are starting to think about drifting away.

I want to put them in a special magic bin of people that are still here and still working on stuff, but are not at that pinnacle because the pinnacle needs to be somebody who's 100% engaged. And I do believe that it's true that you get to a point when you start to think about retirement. You're not probably 100% engaged at that point. So part of the job here is to identify those people

and say, we don't want you to leave. Stay as long as you like, but we want to give you the opportunity to disengage a little bit and give a, a, an up and coming star their chance to grow into this job. And I mean, different people will react differently than that and all of that. That's the hard thing about managing people. But I think it's Apple's got an extra special

challenge because they can't really recruit from the outside. And they've got all these people who've been made very, very rich by this where if they really just want to go sit on a beach somewhere in Hawaii for the rest of their lives, they can do that. No problem. So what, you know, how it's, I don't envy them. This is really tough stuff. And it's tougher for Apple than almost anybody else. I think it is a testament to Tim Cook that these people stay around honestly.

I think any Apple culture in general too. I think, I mean, like, I think that that, look, Schiller, he believes in it, right? Yeah. Phil Schiller. I really, I don't, I've not seen into his finances, but given some of his, his stuff like his work at, at what is it, Boston college, Boston University? I can't forgive me, Phil. Like I got the sense given how long he's been there that he's probably financially just fine, right? But he stays. The Schiller

Institute is at Boston College. Yeah. Boston College. That's right. Yes. He's got, he's got an institute name for him because of his donations, right? He's doing fine, right? At BC, on the trusty board trustees. So what does he stay? And he stays because he believes in it. I think that there's some, it's about the culture, it's about the sort of the mission of Apple and, uh, and yeah, and also about leadership. The idea, look, if I was thinking of retiring and Tim Cook came to me and

said, I know you can retire. But what if we make it easier on you, but we keep you around? Because we really, like, what can we do to make this something that you want to do for another five years? Like, you that there are circumstances where the answer is there's literally nothing you can do. Goodbye. Thank you. It's been great. I'm going to Honolay and I'm going to go to the beach and do some boogie boarding and goodbye, right? Like that is a thing you could do to put it into context.

The, uh, the Schiller Institute was named off to him after he committed a multi-year total gift of $25 million. Yeah. So I think he's got more than that. I think he's got a lot more. No, I mean, obviously give a little of his money to the, to boss. No, no, I'm just saying. Yeah. That seems actually a little like, like to me. I mean, I don't think he's a billionaire,

but I think he's got hundreds of millions of, yeah, for sure. So anyway, I think I, it's a really interesting challenge because I think a lot of us would say, well, if you had the money that Napa, like, Zach has, what would you do? And the answer is I quit my job and retire. I don't think I would, but some, I understand this. This is the thing. Some people would, but some people wouldn't. Some people would be like, well, no, I, I like my job. I want to keep

doing it. It would, like if I got that kind of money, I would still do some stuff. I would probably not do the 10 different things I do right now. Sure. And I would probably do some of them from Hawaii. Yeah. Yeah. But, but yeah, everybody's different. So it's just, it's, so I look at this and I think this is, this is an interesting problem that Apple continues to have where they've got senior people that they have to deal with retention and retirement and all of that.

And so we've got the case now where they brought in Ternis. He stayed on for a while, worked on Vision Pro and is now kind of like moving away and funding a program at MIT back to another one back to Boston. And that's, that's, I mean, congratulations to him. And again, really interesting problem for Apple to solve in terms of their brain drain. 9 to 5 Mac is reporting on some potential details of the upcoming iPhone SE 4 that we spoke

about last week based on some early case designs that are coming out. Very simple stuff, it include what it would mean if there's a to be believed that he's a correct the iPhone SE 4 will have a single camera, a physical mute switch, not an action button and no camera control. Yeah. And no, and there was a rumor about an action button, but, but now it looks like no action button. Yeah. And I don't think this is surprising. I think that like those are all the bells and

whistles. Yeah. You keep all that stuff off. You you save a lot in terms of not having those parts and the whole idea of the SE is to save. But and besides which they're putting some of their, their price and their margin, presumably into using a more advanced processor and having more RAM so that they can do Apple intelligence, which I think is a is probably a given. So there's the, what we say, there was the notch, it's going to have a notch with face ID and sensor. So yeah.

You'll probably get an action button on the iPhone SE 5 or whatever. I mean, maybe. Yeah. Things move forward. Eventually. Mark come and has given a roundup in his newsletter power on of the products in development in Apple's vision group, which is now being overseen by John Ternes. Mark is aware of four products that this group is working on. This group is now getting some additional additional focus and attention inside due to what matters been up to, which makes sense.

And also he mentions that like a lot of people moved to this group from the car team and stuff like that. Like they've moved a lot of engineers around. So the four products that are on deck include a cheaper vision headset. We have cheaper materials to lower the price, slower processor and no eyesight feature. So when we're going to say, oh, let's play on the front.

This is set to launch as soon as next year, but they're aiming for a $2,000 price tag, which is like in our notes, I just wrote LOL sorry because it's like, yeah, people are thinking and hoping that this cheaper vision headset mean that there it's going to be within a range that you're, you know, you'd be willing to buy it, but I don't see that. If we consider the current vision pro, kind of a developer kit and a view of the future, but it's just not here yet, which I think is the

only way to view it. It's, it's, you know, it's, that's the only way to view it. It's, it costs too much and it does too little, even though what it does is amazing, it costs too much and it does too little. I'll never recommend it for anybody at this point. So getting it down to 2000. First off, I remember when those rumors of it costing the original one costing 2000, me saying it's too much.

And now here we are where the cheaper one will cost $2,000. Yeah, it just on one level, yes, that there's a line in German's piece that I really liked, which is with the lower price, Apple is expecting unit sales of the device to be at least double the level of the vision pro. But that's not saying much. And I think that's, I think that's exactly nailed it, which is one of the

things that this will do. If we are lamenting the state of affairs in the vision pro where there aren't that many developers and there aren't that many users and it's like, and we know that it's early days, but it's such a high bar, taking it down to $2,000 lowers the bar. It's still a very high bar, but it's a lot lower. And I think if you're viewing this as a long game, having a cheaper way into this product line in order to get some more users and also to get some more developers with their

hands on it, great. Like I don't think Apple's, Apple's plan for vision products needs there to be a $500 vision product. I don't. Because I think that they're trying to keep, maintain a level of quality that also keeps your eye on like the future where this product category is going. I think that yet, not yet. Right. Well, that's true. That's true. In the long run, sure. But we're not

anywhere close to that. And so people who want to judge these things based on like that, their regular Apple products, like they're really not like they're, they're not, they're not even close. The value proposition is not there. So I look at this and think, great. Like it would be better for us 1500. Obviously it'd be better if it was a thousand, but 2000 is better than 3500, especially if they have some more compelling content. So they pick up some more users and developers

who are more skeptical can actually get in and have it be a little bit better. I also think that the HomePod thing is happening here. One of those bullet points you read out is cheaper materials. And it's like, you know, they made a really nice luxury headset with the Vision Pro. But a lot of that stuff is not necessary. It's nice, but it's not necessary. And getting the price down is going to be helpful, even though it doesn't solve the problem. You know, it's a better place to be

with a $2,000 headset than a $3,500 headset. You know, not, not great, but better. I'm sure we said this already, but the idea just popped into my head. So I want to reiterate again, like, there's, you know, with the Orion, the Meta Orion, there was so much talk from Meta and then just like spoken about by everyone where they were like, oh, this costs so much money. Cost $10,000 to make it. It's not, we would sell it for $10,000. Cost $10,000 to make one.

It costs so much money that they were like, we're just not going to do this. They can't do it. I think with the Vision Pro app, we're like, this costs so much money, but we're going to do it anyway. Like, this is, because essentially, the Orion is their vision of the future. I think the Vision Pro has some of those elements to it, but Apple just decided to get it to the point where they could just ship it and ship it. They ship the OS and then say,

everybody knows it's too much money. Everybody knows that. Like, they know that. That's the problem I have with reporting that's like, oh, this is a real flop. And it's like, if there's anybody at Apple who thought that the $3,500 headset that doesn't do a whole lot, what's going to be an enormous hit, those people should be relieved of their duties because it's a delusion. It's very clear that this is playing by completely different rules from other

Apple products. And that's fine. Also, I'll point out again, Mark German did a report last January, January of 23 that said, Apple also had an AR glasses project like Project Orion. And they were like, there's no way we can ship this. It will be too expensive and it'll take too long. And let's do Vision Pro instead. Not thinking, oh, Vision Pro is the solution and people are going to be wearing these down the street. But thinking this gets us a product in the market,

the people can start playing with maybe we'll figure out killer apps for it. We'll experiment with content with the idea that in, you know, in five years, maybe this is more of a thing. And that is we have an ask upgrade question that maybe we'll get to this week that's more about this.

But it's that idea of like, well, which is their better approach to not ship something, but show it to the public and say it's coming or do what Apple did, which is ship something, but not talk about the other thing that is where they eventually want to go because Apple never talks about future products. And that's it's, you know, anyway, it is a $2,000 Vision non-pro would be welcome. I think would be good for what Apple is doing, but is not the solution to the problem of

why are millions of people not buying Vision Pros? I think, nor is it intended to be, but it's certainly, certainly like, German wrote more people, more than double the people who buy the Vision Pro would buy a cheaper Vision. I think that's true, especially if they can come up with something that's a killer app for it, whether it's entertainment or sports or, you know, whatever.

Like, I also think as well, I think some of the thing, something that people get really stuck up on and did is that Apple, when they released a product, they kind of make as much noise as they would any of their other products, right? Like, yeah, it got the whole big launch and that, but like, because they actually cannot do it another way, like they can't, Apple cannot release a new

product and not do the whole sun and dance. Like they have to do that. They put in probably more budget into like the launch marketing for that than they would have any of their max and it or iPads and maybe the iPhone. Like, they really went heavy on it because that's just what they have to do, no matter what the end result will be because it's who they are, it's the type of company that they are because it's out. Apple doesn't do anything. Can't do it half-heartedly.

They're too big at this point and there's too much attention on them for to do anything quietly. Literally, they can't. Wearing hardware, Meta can do this. Right? It's easier for them to do this because they're not the same company. Anyway, moving back to this Mark Gurmm report. Also speaks of a second-generation Vision Pro that would have a faster processor to be released in 2026 at the earliest. There is a version of smartglasses in the form of like meta-ray bands in there,

kind of like function on deck for 2027, which in my opinion is too far. I agree. I'm a little, I mean, maybe this is just because this is the Apple process, but like, it feels like this is existing tech that they've gotten a lot of ways in terms of cameras and connections to iPhones and AirPods and all of those things and that creating, you know, AirPods that are glasses, essentially is what we're saying here, right? They're AirPods that are glasses. They've got

cameras and they've got speakers or bone conduction or whatever. And you could use a lot of the same techniques that you use for AirPods and connect to your phone and connect to your personal assistant and all of that. It does seem like having to wait three years is a bit much for this. And yeah, because I'm, I mean, I don't know what they're working on, but like for a product of this class, I'm not sure that they really will produce something that is so mind-blowing, right?

That's right. That's so significantly better than the company that this point, you know, with Matthew had been doing this for years, right? Like, what is, what is, what is, what is the what is the Metra Rayman product in 2027? You know what I mean? Like, what have they gotten it to? If I were a person at Apple who believed in this product category, which there must be because they're thinking of doing them, I would say, how can we get a product ship by the end of next year?

Yes. And I know that's really fast, but I would say, what is that product and how can we do it? Because I think they could do it, but they've got to actually like, they got to do it. They got to try. 2026 for a pair of glasses that have decent speakers in them, which they know how to do even that kind of thing from the ear pods, whatever they're called, audio pods on the Vision Pro, right? Like that kind of thing of like angling it to you with decent cameras in them and

connected to your iPhone like an Apple watch is like Apple, I know how this is. I 100% believe that you have the ability to do that within the next 18 months. Yeah. I think I think they've got the technology to do it. I think the the danger and this is this is a constant danger with modern Apple. And like I said, I think the the home pod showed this and I think that the Vision Pro shows this, which is they need to when especially with new products, they need to be a little more considerate

of what the the minimum viable product is and not what the perfect product is. Because when I see we're going to do smart glasses in 2027, I think you've over engineered what you think these smart glasses should be. And I am thinking, here's what they should be. They should connect to your phone. They should have a camera. They should have audio output. They kind of like air pods. Whatever you're working on with the we're about to talk about it. The all those rumors of cameras

on air pods. It's the same idea. Whatever you're working on with visual intelligence on the iPhone, it's the same idea. You make a connection to your phone. It's a peripheral. It's available. You've got all the pieces here. Don't overthink this, right? Just ship something. And then iterate because iterating is what you do best. So ship something. Don't overthink it. Don't make it over over spec'd and overpriced. Get something out the door that's I'm not saying

bad. I'm saying something out the door that's good, but it is not the perfect thing. Like you have a partnership of an optic company now, right? You have the pieces in place to do this, right? You can work with the opticians that you're working with to create the vision lens, the vision pro lenses to help you create lenses for this product, right? Like the pieces of there you've got to bring it together because matter are taking this market. Like this is theirs now, right? Like they own it

and it's cool. It is a cool product. That is a problem, right? Like it's not just like this is a nerdy thing. They have legitimately created a product that people think is cool. And if they continue pushing down that road that becomes harder and harder to work against. Like and so this is an area they should go and you mentioned air pods of cameras. That's another thing for 2027. And for both of these products as well as the visual intelligence feature that's coming at some point

to the iPhone where you can point your iPhone. So like what's this? Mark says quote, the idea is to salvage the billions of dollars spent on the vision pros, vision intelligence technology, which can scan the environment around a user supply useful data. I don't really know what that means. But I don't know fine. I don't know because it doesn't seem very intelligent now, but perhaps that's a thing that's being worked on or it's just not exposed, right? That like division pro is aware of

so much stuff that's around us and it's identifying things. But it's not like we don't need to know that. But like the hardware knows what this sounds like though is that Apple is doing the Apple thing where they're like we are we are thinking of what if there are cameras on air pods, what if there are glasses, what if you have a camera that you can point at things and then you've got a device. I think one of the challenges too is it's got to be a device that works with your iPhone,

which is fine because that's like Apple's primary thing. I don't think it even needs to be as intelligent as an Apple watch. I think it could really be a connection to an iPhone and it's sending, you know, it sends the images back to the iPhone when you ask or when you're taking a picture or whatever. It basically is an iPhone peripheral. But they've got the pieces. I think that the Airpods with camera's project is interesting like it is going down a lot of the same paths that this is.

I'm not entirely if it's like meta is ahead, but it is still a pretty niche product. But I think the challenge is this is the point where you I think have enough signal of how that product is being received to say this is a thing and we should be there if you're Apple, right? And it sounds like they do think that they should be there, but I wonder about the urgency of it. I think this is a product that first of Apple should have probably embraced this idea sooner because it's actually

a very good idea. I'm skeptical of how good Airpods with cameras on them are actually going to be at capturing the world. I don't really know where that's what that's. I'm not sure I know what that like specifically is for. But this is the thing like how well is the meta Raybans doing? I don't know. They're not actually not even saying, but it is a product that is getting momentum. And I think right another three years from now, like where are we at that point? And is that

is that then a much harder challenge to fight against? We'll see. I mean, who knows what the Department of Justice was to say by 2027, right? If if something happens there, an Apple is forced to open up to peripherals, which is like a specific thing in the Department of Justice case, then where are the meta Raybans? Like if they have the ability to be able to talk more directly via a set of APIs like an Apple watch can, then that makes Apple's job significantly harder.

Because then you have an even got, depending on look, this is a lot of pie in the sky thinking here. But like if they're not able to as easily be like, they well get the Apple ones because it connects to all your stuff. Like if that becomes a harder sell, this isn't even more complicated project for them, I think. Sure. This episode is brought to you by our friends over Unipizza Evans. Unipizza Evans is the world's number one pizza oven company that lets you make restaurant

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of. Thanks to Uni Pizza ovens for their support of this show. So submerged. So we spoke about this a little bit last week and it was announced that Apple have now released their first short film, shot completely for Vision Pro with all of the immersive technology cameras that they have. There's a pretty cool making of as well that they put on YouTube that I'll put in the show notes. You watched it and wrote about it last week. I watched it today. I wanted to watch it

before we recorded so it'd be freshest in my mind. This is a very, very effective piece of media. I think so too. I think I was fast-standing by how it was made but I also really enjoyed it and at the end I felt like I would watch more of that. I did not have the feeling I'm like, we got to the end. It's great. It was more like, oh, I could see how there could be another hour of this movie with intense bits that are set pieces and also character things that are going on.

I was not sure what I was thinking it would be. I wondered if it would be a little more kind of like a ha, it's a submarine. There's water, like very kind of like, I don't know, showing off those details of it. It wasn't. I think it was really well done, really effectively made. The one of the things that this type of technology is the same for all VR stuff is balancing

movement, like how you handle movement, physical movement through space. Video games do this in a lot of ways where you're actually mostly just fixed on a specific spot and you like kind of teleport between places to place. This is a very hard thing to do to capture motion sickness. I think everyone that I've heard or seen watched it including me had at least one point where it was like, this is an uncomfortable feeling right now, like a movement. So Edward Burger the director

who did all quiet on the Western front, which is good movie. He obviously, I came away with a lot of respect for him because he obviously has given a lot of thought to how this is different from a regular movie. But one of the choices he made and I was surprised is how do you do camera movement in a format that you potentially are giving people motion sickness or vertigo or weird feelings when you move the camera. And he tried a bunch of things. He's got some slow push-ins

that I think work really well. In fact, there's one where it slowly pushes in and turns a little bit. And I was like, that's fine. He's got some slow pullbacks that I thought that works pretty well. Most of the movie doesn't, the cameras don't move. He has some setups where it's like one angle and then there's like a reverse angle or there's one angle and then you are at a close-up. But you're in the close-up for again a long time. They definitely learn the lesson. You can't do quick takes.

They have to be long takes long. The amount of time per cut is very high in this one. A lot of lingerie. However, yes. Yes. And it's fine. He also does a couple of fast pushes in and fast pulls back. And for me, the fast push-in, I was like, oh, we're doing this. Okay. And the fast pullback, I was like, I don't know. Where we was a little more aggressive. And I think that's really an interesting data point of like, can you move the camera? I think

maybe you can. Can you move it really fast? Maybe you shouldn't? I don't know. There is a level where that movement provided you do it right. And I'm sure there'll be a lot of people trying to learn how to do this. Well, you can instill a feeling in someone. But maybe you want someone to the viewer to feel uneased by what's happening. Sure. I mean, you're just a real fine line. You've got a walk between that and absolute motion sickness. But I would like the audience to vomit.

No, there it is. But there is, I'm sure, a level. Well, I don't get motion sickness, but there were parts of it. But never has it really suffered from it. There were parts of it. I was like, whoa, I don't know about this. I feel a little funny about that one. Yeah. That was part of it. The behind the scenes stuff is really interesting too. And like, I got a hand at Edward Berger because this was an incredibly difficult job to be given to do this. He is essentially a pioneer.

Like nobody's done this before. And like, you know, I came to him with a bag of money and said, would you be interested in doing this? And he's like, okay, let's do that. I mean, I was having a thought on this, right? Because they were talking about the sets. Like the sets were very, very detailed because they kind of had to adjust. Because the actual image quality was incredible. Like, I've not seen something in VR where the camera quality was so good. So I think they did the

right job in like trying to build this technology with partners because it looked amazing. But that because of the fact that you're able to really, you're able to choose where you want to look, to make it look good, the sets need to be very highly detailed. Yeah. It felt very much like going to Disneyland. Yes. To what, you know, where they have to build the entire thing. Whereas on a movie,

you don't, you only have to build little parts of it. They had to build the entire thing because you can look around just like if you're in a line on amusement park or you're on the Star Wars, you know, the Star Wars ride or whatever. Like, they're not building a movie set now. They're building an environment that people are going to stand in and you can't have parts of it that fall

down because people will look wherever they want. And that's true here too. So that was one of the thoughts I had is I felt like I was in the two things that it reminded me of were one being in something like Rise of the Resistance where you're, you know, it's not just a ride. You are, you know, you exit a portion. Yeah. You exit a portion of the ride and then you're in like sets and you move on to the next part. And, and it, so it reminded me of that. And then the other thing

it reminded me of is theater. Like the fact that you have these takes where there's a character or there are two characters and they're just sitting there. It's a guy getting up out of his bunk and all of that. Like that felt very much like theater because it's a long take and, and so really it's down to the physical performance of an actor. It's not what we usually see from movies because in movies, it's not just the actor. It's the actor and the director and the editor. Yeah. Making a story

in individual shots. Whereas this, it's like I'm sitting in a theater where the set is the bunks on the submarine. And I can look wherever I want, but all the physicality, all the movement, everything that's happening in that scene is the actor and what he's doing. And it's not, not movie like at all, but it's theater like it is familiar in a way. And so this is, I mean, it just struck me like this is a movie, but it's also a bunch of different other things. It's,

it's a new thing. It's a new thing. But like one of the things they were saying, like it again, about the expense is unlike a regular set, they actually can't, they have to integrate the lighting and the audio into the set. And they're like the audio, a lot, the audio is being recorded of the people actually moving, which is not typically how you would, how you would like create the audio for a movie. You can't hang microphones up. You can't have any equipment in the front 180,

right? Because they'll be in the shot. And that means lighting and all that. It's, I'm reminded of in Citizen Kane, famously, there are ceilings. And it's like movie sets don't have ceilings. So do you very rarely see ceilings in movie sets? But in Citizen Kane, there are ceilings and how they did it was, they're like, they're basically like sheets that are that are lit to make it look like

it's a solid ceiling, but it's not. It's a it's a fake. But that's the only way, I mean, it's very hard to do it where you don't where you don't have a traditional thing where we can hang lights and all that and like and they couldn't do it. So they have to have a lot of onset lighting. And also it wouldn't be realistic, right? It wouldn't look in a 180 degree environment. It would not look realistic to have a big light blasting on somebody from somewhere, right? Because that's not what

the space would be like. So completely changes again, it completely changes the the way you have to stage this. And and yeah, it's just very different. But it made me think there is this like weird, I think weird sometimes anti CGI movement, right? Online or people are like, everything was practical that made it was better. Like, well, I think well, if you are one of those people, this is the format for you, right? You want more. Yeah, except one way to solve some of

these technical issues is to use VFX to clear out things, right? But I just thought it was very fit when I was watching it and like seeing the sets that they built. Yeah, it was funny to me. And it, but it also, I think indicated that I expect it was essentially a blank check for this project, right? It feels like it feels like it's just like what is it? Let's let's let's build a floodable all metal submarine set. It kind of had that feeling to it. But like, I think for good reason,

I think this this movie serves to do what we are currently doing, right? Like it is essentially a marketing pace for people like us who have these and talk about this stuff to share with people like this is cool, right? Like because this is what we're asking for and have been asking for for all year, right? Give us cool stuff to talk about. And like this is a cool thing, a very, very cool thing to talk about. It is also I would say I have to assume that there are a lot of

filmmakers who are watching this thing and going, huh? Yeah, like, yeah, interesting. And one of those filmmakers will be the next person to talk to Apple about making something in this format. Yeah, so someone's going to watch this and be like, I would like to play, I would like to play in that toy box for a nice chunk of change, right? Like, yeah, there's going to be more short. I really hope, but I think this is successful enough. In fact, I think it is very successful.

Like I found myself quite emotionally attached to the story by the end of it. It's only like a 15 minute story. But I really wanted everybody to do well and I want to know more about these characters and I want to know where they go to next because I felt very intimate with these characters. Like I am very much with them. And that is a you mentioned in your piece. It's not just the visuals, the audio as well like that combination really, really sells this piece.

Yeah. Also, one of the things that impressed me because I know that some people will say, well, you know, it's it's it's good for spectacle and you can make an action set piece here. But I really do believe that one of the things about this that I like is the range of it that it's a character piece. It's a suspense piece and it's an action piece. And the character piece is good because again, it's theater life. I know a lot of people don't go to life theater.

We have a subscription to our local theater company and we go to life theater, you know, six, seven, eight times a year, something like that because we'll throw in a couple in San Francisco. Lauren really likes life theater and I've come to I really like it too. It's it's again, a completely different medium and is very interesting. So it has some aspects of that that I really

like you do make a connection with those guys. You're sitting there watching, you know, you're in the room with them as they're eating their like pickles and whatever else the terrible food is that they've stolen from the from the mess like it's really effective in doing that, which is why when I got to the end, I also had that feeling of like I could see a more hunt for red October or crimson tide or whatever else another you know claustrophobic submarine movie or something like

that. I could see that because it would again have the pacing of their some action set pieces and there's some character stuff and that you put it all together and does it work. I think it does. This is a short short short story because it's it is limited to a couple of character bits and then an action set piece and then that's the end of the movie. But I came up to up to the surface afterwards. It was no longer submerged. Wondering, you know, like, well, where does this go from here?

And I would love to see more like not just I don't need a sequel to submerge, but like the idea of like if this had been longer, I would have been in on on the ride. And I love so I loved I loved it as an experience. And I also loved it to see a smart director trying to figure out and his team trying to figure out what is an immersive movie of like literally like what do we do here? And I

think a lot of the choices I we haven't mentioned I mentioned in my piece. I think a lot of the particular shots he chooses are very interesting to there's some close-ups and I thought and there's some shots where the depth of field is very limited. So everything in the background is super blurry and I thought these are really smart film grammar things of saying how do you focus people's eyes on one thing when they've got a whole 180 degree range and the answer is you move the camera

really close to the actor. And there's nothing but blur in the background and all you can do is look at the actor's face. And I thought that's really effective right like that. I'm not distracted. I know where to look now and that's a different technique than you'd use in a regular 16 by nine

you know kind of film. But I thought it was effective and so it was it was a real joy to see all of these decisions being made because you know I everybody's learning this and we learned from the MLS highlights we learned what not to do with sports highlights as an immersive because they have another sports thing coming right. So they do they have NBA all star weekend all star weekend which was again eight months ago and it's just coming out. I don't know what's going on with

the production. They're just playing here right yeah they're messing around and so we'll see how that looks we'll see how that looks and see if they made some different decisions over the MLS highlights thing. The Super Bowl thing maybe that they did I thought was better I thought that the Super Bowl thing was was calmer. Yeah but I don't know I don't know. Apple I have a pitch if you want to bring the money truck to me I have a pitch I would like to make an immersive a movie version

of one of my favorite films Glenn Gary Glenn Ross. Oh wow. Very well because like that movie you're essentially just in one room. It's a play it's a play it's a play it was a play adapted to a movie and it still uses a play but also I in a lot of places you're just in different parts of

the same office so you have these like set pieces. I would say something similar which is I want to see a theatrical experience here on an immersive it doesn't necessarily have to literally be a stage show turned into immersive like Hamilton where it's like live from the theater but it also doesn't need to be a movie what I'm thinking is could you make a play but build the whole set. Yeah you don't have to sit in the audience you can just be live the specific scene you can just be in that scene.

Ideally in the very small number of sets that are used because plays can't really change the set that would be another way to do it I think trying it out just as a play where you've got the best seat in the house and you're just at a play would be cool but I think that maybe there is some

experimentation to do there but that is one of the takeaways I have from submerged is that live theater vibe is real and it's good like it's it's different but I really like it I love the the fact that I was watching that guy I was very aware of it but I'm aware of that when I watch

live theater too I'm aware aware that I'm watching a performance especially when at the start but I really enjoyed the fact that that actor you know he's just in a short film right like you wouldn't really make a connection to that actor in film but in theater or in submerged it's just like

me and that guy and that guy is performing and he's all that's moving on screen and it's his whole body and he's giving a performance and like that is it really got some strong theater vibes from that I think that there that is something I want to see Apple and creators explore with this format

the way that the format kind of exists and works kind of allows for a little more mundanity to occur right like things you can kind of sit in the moment a little bit more yeah I like it I think it's really interesting yep this episode is brought to you by vitally vitally is

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and really so it was announced last week at the I think the Bloomberg screen time event which is put on by Lukashore Bloomberg that Apple TV plus is going to be made available as an Amazon Prime channel so this means that you will be able to subscribe for $9.99 a month via Amazon Prime to get Apple shows. Yeah. Why do you think Apple would do this? I think Apple's strategy.

Okay so originally the strategy was we thought like oh get get people to buy Apple products and use content on Apple products but then they extended the TV app to other other streaming

boxes and stuff. Okay now it's you don't even need the TV app you can just get it within prime so I think the idea is probably that Apple is really tired of having such a tiny audience for their content and they have enough content now that they're trying to find more people to watch it because if you look as as I think as well as they're doing creatively if you look at the numbers from like Nielsen and otherwise they are not being viewed right very well. Except for Ted Lasso.

Well even Ted Lasso right. It usually schools pretty well and has schools won the streaming chance like I remember anything. Right right but that's for an individual show but if you look at overall like who's watching Apple TV. Yes not plus it's just the subscription numbers are just

not there. So I think what they've decided is they want more viewers. I think that is the bottom line and they're like look if we can get more viewers via Amazon channels let's do it let's just do it and so it's an interesting experiment but they they want so basically Amazon has this thing where you can sign up for other streaming services inside the prime video app and just watch them there and all the all the shows you can do Paramount Plus and you know whatever else and you can just get them

right there. So we'll see. I guess it asks the question and I think it kind of answers it but it's still an interesting question anyway as to whether Apple at this point truly see TV plus as a standalone service that people would seek out specifically rather than part of the bundle the

Apple bundle. Yeah it's interesting. I think this is a little bit of just realism which is Apple Apple's making TV plus content for certain reasons including having content that's associated with its brand, having content that's available in its app, having content that's available in its services bundle. All of that is true. I think what they've realized is it's not going to be

enough. Right. Like like even if it fulfills 100% of their strategy it's still going to be a tiny percentage of people and one way you broaden and get more interest in your platform and more interest in your content is by having it available elsewhere. So does this really I would argue putting

on a Amazon does not cut into potential future bundle sales right Apple one sales. Probably doesn't even cut into future Apple TV sales although part of the challenge here is also like the perception that Apple to use Apple TV plus you have to be in Apple right you have to be in the Apple

thing and it's going to be in Prime Video. So anybody who uses Prime Video is like oh I can get just get Apple here and even though the answer is you could have gotten Apple anyway like forget about that forget about that you can get it you can get it here and you can watch it here

and that that broadens their audience for it. So I think it's that's that's my take on it at least right now is that they are they are reaching the audience that they can reach and it's not enough they feel for various reasons and I you know maybe it's not enough for the creators it's not

enough for the money they spend and like it's all kind of experimental anyway so why not experiment with this I don't think Apple TV plus was ever meant to be like a brick wall where it's like unless you're in our ecosystem you can't watch Ted Lasso I don't think that was ever really the idea

was more like to make the ecosystem shinier and nicer and make everybody feel good about being in it and maybe drawing some people in and getting them to pay a little more money to Apple but I don't think it was ever really intended as being we're over here and you can't watch this thing

and ultimately they do want more people to watch Apple TV plus so they have gotten to the point that they genuinely can put up a subscription and other places and be like there is enough good content for you here like it's not going to be coming as quickly as a Netflix but like there is

good prestige content available on this service like without a doubt so they can do it. It's a good it's good I mean it helps now that it's now right now I mean I know it's $10 and not $5 anymore but like now there's a library they actually have we've been doing this long enough

talking about it that there's a library so now they can actually say you know come and we've got all these seasons of slow horses and all of Ted Lasso and all of foundation and two seasons of shrinking and we've got severance coming back and and Amazon you know what Amazon's pretty good

as a marketer right like there's advantages to being in the Amazon ecosystem because when severance comes back Amazon will promote it because Amazon does that Amazon doesn't just like hide all these things and only promote their own stuff because they can't do promote stuff that's on channels and if

you search for for for severance or Ted Lasso on Amazon when Apple's in channels it will come up and say yes it is available click here to subscribe to TV plus within channels and you get that show and so there's lots of side benefits because turns out Amazon yeah they're all about the marketing I

saw I think it was Benjamin Mayo from 95 Mac talking about this and it's just like a funny thought Amazon has succeeded at becoming the only one TV service in a way that Apple wanted to right like I think I don't have everything but like this is what Apple wanted this is what a TV app was

supposed to do and there are channels in there but it feels like Amazon has succeeded more with prime yeah I think unsurprisingly I mean it's a little different because Apple's goal is about I think in the TV app is about data I don't think they need to sell you a channel although they do have

them and I think Amazon has been more successful at that than Apple I think the real challenge is that you don't have to be a partner of Apple's in terms of selling reselling your service you just have to be on their platform and share their data and the problem of course is that nobody Netflix

doesn't share with anybody and you know you can't buy Netflix inside of of Amazon Prime either right because it's just Netflix doesn't want doesn't need to doesn't need to so that is a challenge Netflix wants to just be the be all end all because it's number one but but it's true like I don't know I

don't know how much of reselling channels was really Apple's primary strategy versus just having all the apps remember like that's the question right is an app is a channel kind of even if you're paying for max somewhere else if you've got the max app on your Apple TV or on your iPad or your

iPhone in the TV app it'll you know it works together it all works that the apps are like channels so it's okay right it's okay but yes Amazon seems to have done a better job probably in part because a lot of prime video customers are just there because they got prime and so they

have prime video so they've got the app and then Amazon's good at marketing and so reselling services fits into what Amazon does yeah I'm going to mention as well you published your iPhone 16 review 16 pro review yeah and there were two things I wanted to pull out the last yeah you know

it's so it goes sometimes we're busy well after you know the embargo reviews come out and it's like everybody's had more than a week or you know to deal with them and then what can I add having just gotten it yeah if I wait a week then I'm giving you a week late what everybody gave you a

week ago and so I end up turning it into what I described on social media as being a series of essays about aspects of the iPhone 16 because that's after you know several weeks that's what I'm left with there were two things I want to talk about one was just you know you mentioned that you know

people get a bit bored or again we get bored of the way that the iPhone looks but next year could be the monumental phone you know like whether it's this skinny phone or whether they do the flip phone or whether that comes in a year or two after but like this phone design that we have now

the way that it looks actually might be something akin to the iPhone 7 or the iPhone 8 of like hey they're going to look different after this one and that could be interesting and that also the idea of the iPhone Ultra that's gone like we were talking about that right like

are they going to do this ultra phone but it doesn't look like that is the case anymore in that regard of like the most iPhone where they might actually be going in a different direction with this super skinny phone right exactly that the the max has come back to the regular pro and it

feels like based on the reports this is the last year of this potentially of this very very long cycle where we are using sort of the same phone whatever that phone ends up being and it will be expensive and all that but a new look iPhone you know it just doesn't come the distance keeps

getting longer but it may be that in the next couple of years we'll actually have some really surprising iPhones but I feel like basic iPhone design Apple feels more or less solved it's it feels very much like the laptop thing where Apple's like no it's a it's a metal laptop in a

monochrome color but I mean it's like you know what it is it was the MacBook Air back in 2011 and now it's basically all laptops look like that and from Apple and they're satisfied with that more or less a tinker around the edges but nothing huge the generations was like original iPhone

iPhone 4 iPhone 6 iPhone 3 10 and 12 like these are like the the ways in which they have changed design and so it's actually been quite a long time yeah original iPhone and then the 3 and the 3GS and then the 4 I would I would I think yes they are different but I think like there are there

is enough for the large original one the 3G that you could kind of just like wrap them together that's sure that sure and then you get the 4 5 yep and then you get the 6 79 well no no and then and then things get a little bit money because 10 or muddy because 10 is similar to 12 and the 10 at 10

are went which came out the same years the 10s is sort of like the the base model a couple years later so it's a little bit muddied but I feel like from the 10 on you've kind of got a bunch of phones that are the same yeah but certainly from the 12 on I think I think the flat side of 12 like yeah

yeah yeah that's when it resolved into like a single product line after a little bit of muddiness which I think we're about to do again I feel like if if Mark German's reports are right yeah we're about to enter a muddy time where the old design is available and there's a new design and then there's a the next year there's another design and then how do those resolve down to being more like a right a a little tighter set of products that are available probably takes three or four years to get

there I think that's where we're headed given the message this is this is the end of kind of and and again the point I'm making a review is I actually say like here are all the iterations you get if you're coming from a 12 or a 13 or a 14 right like there are a lot of changes that have happened

since the iPhone 12 and you forget how many of them there are that's the iteration kind of thing and that's why people don't you know maybe our listeners do but most people don't buy a phone every year they it is every two three four years and they get a nice big upgrade but it's also not

as must have as it used to be because those upgrades are all smaller which is why you wait four years and then you get a really juicy upgrade the other thing the main thing I think that you focus on in the video but video in the review is the right the righty the woods is camera control where

yeah you're kind of like thesis is you don't feel like camera the camera control is bad but just wasn't executed as well as it could have been yeah that's that's exactly it I like the impulse to do camera control I like the impulse of putting a hardware button on and saying it works like the

button you would have on a camera remember cameras everybody which some people don't but you know cameras had buttons and if you pushed it all the way down it took a picture and a lot of them if you pushed it half the way down it would focus and some of them had a little ring or a little

for a mode or a little wheel that you could dial and stuff like that and so I get what they're trying to go here but it's a couple of things first off what I said was I think they plusped it too much you know that's that Disney concept which is you take a thing and then you're like let's add a

thing and another thing and another thing and now it's really amazing because we added all these jokes and this little extra wizzy thing and all that and I think that's a good instinct but I think that sometimes you can go too far and we know we've been talking about apples tendency to overdo

with something like the home pod or the vision pro and I would say the camera control got over done because that is a button it does not need to be a button with a haptic with a force sensor and with a touch sensitive swipe control on the top it's a lot and I'm impressed that they do it yes the prowess of the hardware design team is amazing but is it too much I would say they didn't necessarily need to be all of that but my big problem too is then on the software side and this is why when

we were in Memphis I said it had touch bar vibes is I think the software side is really misguided I think that I think while you can learn it it's way too complicated it's too easy to get wrong and as a pro feature great as the default feature for regular people I just think it's a mistake I

can't and as I was writing it I was increasingly like thinking about this and thinking like why is it this way by default camera button push it halfway down to focus now I know your iPhone is smart at auto focuses but the idea is monitor cameras are smart too when they still do this because the idea

is there's like a little crosshair somewhere and you're basically telling the camera no no I want you to I'm going to put it halfway down I want you to focus on this thing in the foreground and then I'm going to move it to the background or focus on this thing in the background or in the

midfield and that's the center focus point and it's a it's a metaphor it's like it's a it's a very commonly used thing and Apple has said that that feature is coming to camera control in a software update in the future I do not understand why that was not the first feature I do not

understand why flipping around through photographic styles or zooming or switching cameras is the thing that shipped by default but that the replicating classic camera of look and feel was not the first thing to try and then introduce more complexity for people who want more complexity at the very

least though yeah assume or what I have it said to is switching between the cameras yeah which is it's fine but anyway this is my feeling the good news is camera control can be fixed in software updates to be better but I do I do question Apple's choices I think that they made some questionable

choices love the ambition love the impulse to build a piece of hardware but fundamentally the more I've thought about it the more I think the camera control wasn't really executed right because I think by default it's too fiddly it's too messy it's too hard to learn and while you can learn it

and it's a great ultimately it's a great power user feature that it that should not be in the faces of people who are using it as a regular person because I think it over complicates it it's too easy to get it wrong and it's going to turn people off and I think it would be better if it was

simple and that normal people could use it simply and that more advanced people could say oh oh did you read that do you see story or I guess okay did you see that tick-tock about how you can enable this setting that lets you change the styles as you it's like yes that's what this should be

but it's almost like they're so proud of the fact that they packed all that technology in that button that they're like let's turn it all on by default and I think it's a mistake I just I do I think that they overdid it and they made something that should be broadly usable because the

whole idea of the button is it's a button you push down and they made it too much and I think that they I just I think they blew it I think that it is they need to do some extra work and the good news is they can they can change a lot of conception of camera control with software because

again impulse good some of the execution bad you can fix the execution software updates this episode is brought to you by tip top tip top is a completely new way to pay that makes everything you buy more affordable and sustainable with trade-in at checkout the way it works is incredibly

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saying that tip top tip top let's finish out with some ask upgrade questions first one comes from Braden this is a big question but it's a good question okay Braden says following your recent discussion on the meta Orion tech demo and not knowing

what apple is working on fully behind the scenes do you think that it would benefit apple to come from a more open approach in the future I'm not saying they should talk about products in the near term pipeline but should maybe do more things like the knowledge navigator demo from

1987 to show how tech could benefit human life and while being without revealing specifics about future products okay I mean it would be a huge cultural shift the problem that I have with it is when you're doing something like knowledge navigator I mean it's cool but what does it mean

like it's not real it's more like this is our vision of the future and this is where you'll be someday and while that's fun to look back like knowledge navigator like it's fun to look back at it but apple of 1987 was not capable of doing anything like it right and so it ends up being what

it's brand marketing yeah and and I see you could make the argument that it's brand marketing I think what apple would tell you is the companies that need to show you stuff that's not shipping and might never ship are trying to justify their existence and they've got nothing to ship

and I would say that Steve Jobs coming back to apple really intensified that right it's real art as ship product as shipping is what matters I I will agree vision pro is a great example where they would probably have been better off doing a low key you know we're working on this thing

we're going to make developer kits available they're very expensive but this is a direction we're going in the future and I feel like given as we said earlier today given apple stature the focus on apple it's almost impossible for them to actually do that nothing they do is low key nothing

they can't do can be low key will never be low key so they just kind of like do what they're going to do I think there's a good argument to be made potentially that if it hurts you to have meta out there doing Orion when you've got that you've done that work and you've got it internally

if it hurts you in some way could you discuss disclosing it and saying here's here is where we think the future of this products are going and we're on it but I think I would argue if I was inside apple that if we have it and are confident that we're going to get there around the same time meta is

why do we need to show it I guess the answer would be if there's a reason if you want to motivate developers if you want to get give people reasons that to view vision pro differently as I stepping stone to something else like you could do it but I think always the argument inside apple and I

think it's mostly a good argument is companies don't show products that don't exist out of a position of strength they do it out of position of weakness now the question is like well was meta showing weakness when they showed Orion and my answer is yes meta was perceived as have wasted money

on their entire VR and AR project it was a Mark Zuckerberg joke where people are like he should have been spending money on AI and steady was spending on the stupid VR stuff and nobody cares about and he changed the name of the company and it's dumb why did he do it and also meta is perceived

as having lesser products than vision pro all they try to high end model right which you bought and it was a flop and they killed it and now they're selling on like a $300 VR helmet which is great it's fun those games are fun and all of that but like there's this perception that they're down

in the kind of junk area making a games console and apple is making this sophisticated thing that's the future and all of that so I think there were some reasons why out the meta felt like they were in a position of weakness they said we've got this thing we need to show people that we actually are

on this and we're doing amazing stuff and so they showed it my question is does apple feel like they're ever in a position that's so weak that they need to release something or show something that they're working on in order to justify their existence and I would say thus far modern rich

post-Steve jobs return apple has never felt that way and so I guess that's my argument is it would be fun but I can tell you having covered 90s apple 90s apple was in dire straits they were a mess they were spending money on all sorts of things that were never going to ship and 1990s apple was great at showing you things from their design lab and product concepts they did it all the time we put on the cover of Mac user they put on the cover of Macworld like mid 90s apple was like sure

here are eight max that we're thinking of shipping someday or not and you know a couple of them look to kind of like what the 20th anniversary Mac ended up being but they just put it out there 90s apple was about to die right like it was not a good sign it was fun but it was not a good sign so I

I get the how exciting it would be and how we all want apple to say what their plan is in the long run for vision oes and vision pro but I they're not going to do it and if they do it I'd actually be really worried because that that's bad right because they're coming from a position of weakness they

they have to they they can't dazzle you with what they're doing today and they're afraid you're going to go away and stop paying attention to them so they're going to show you something shiny even though the shiny thing is not something that they're going to sell I just I just don't see it

Aaron asks how does the idea of products like meta ray bands compared to Google Glass from 10 years ago is it that we come far enough in technical capabilities for these products to be explored more or is it that these things are becoming more socially acceptable like why does the

ray bands exceed where Google Glass failed I know this is going to be weird but part of it is Google Glass was five or six years out from the first iPhone yeah and now it's 2024 yeah we've had a decade or more where every single person around you has a camera yep and when their

phone is out of their pocket they are taking pictures basically and so I think culturally it's very different also I would say meta ray bands especially because they're not AR products at all meta ray bands are sunglasses with a camera in them what they're not is glasses with like a weird

screen thing and a like that will you look like a cyborg part of it is that they're they're more stealthy and I know you could say that's they're sneaky but I'd say they aren't as disruptive to it and on top of that we are all used to this I mean that's that for me that's certainly my feeling

now is back then it was like who's this guy think he is walking into this meeting and taking video of all of us now it's like everybody everybody in this meeting has three different devices that can record audio and video like it's kind of over but also I think they don't look as disruptive and

that's part of it and that you know if you were and that's going to be one of the challenges in the long run with things like Orion or whatever Apple might want to do is they do need to not look disruptive if they look if it looks like there's a cyborg coming down the street people are going to

react much worse than if it's somebody with ray bands with a little circle in it like I mean because people wearing AirPods people have a reaction to that right like a sort especially in the early days people were like oh you're wearing you got these weird things in your ears but you watched

it was like oh like people you know you're checking your watch a lot you're not paying any attention yeah I just have to get over it we do the biggest change I agree with you like what people think about is their privacy I think on the holds changed and it's become less about you in the real world

and more your information that's online or in private places like I think the idea that somebody would have a camera and they can take a picture of you I think that that we have passed that like we have passed that line a long time ago now like a long long time ago right or wrong yeah

right or wrong and I would argue that yes of course there's still nuance here in terms of what's the right behavior what's the etiquette what what what is being transgressive versus being normal and like absolutely they're the conversations but I feel like it's just more accepted that

your the doorbells have cameras and and houses have cameras pointing out at the street and everybody's got a camera in their pocket which means any kind of behavior that can happen good or bad can be captured and and like the world has has just changed where I think probably wrongly

in a lot of cases the perception back in 2013 was that public space was kind of free from that even though it probably wasn't that much but like if you if you behave like a jerk on the street or in a park or something guess what there will be dozens of videos of your behavior because that's the world we live in now yeah that's gonna happen like I know there's that there's that video I know people are gonna send it to us and we'll talk about it or just just try and stop it like those

Harvard students who did that thing where they were wearing metha ray bands and it was streaming live to an Instagram page they would use the free show detection yeah like yeah that stuff is wild but like also I could just do it my phone and like I know it's less exactly it's it's less

exclusive when I'm just doing it with cameras on my face but like the technology that they were using was just coming to an iPhone like that's what was going on yeah there's stunt is literally it was not about metha ray bands it was about how much facial recognition technology

exists on the internet and how much data about every individual person is on the internet yeah the glasses were immaterial because you could absolutely just do it with your phone or just set a physical camera you set up a ringed all bell yeah just that yeah exactly like there are so many

ways to do yeah but yeah that's but that's not it and I I assume right like I just this is this is the world we live in is it's the panopticon right it is literally everything is being viewed and recorded or could be and and so I think at that level when you're living in that world having

some glasses that have a camera on it is not that I mean like everything's got a camera on it and everything's got a microphone on it and that's just how we are and it's only going to be more because as more of this these AI features take off that's what we're going to get is who is that

person you know what was the conversation that that was had like I feel like we talk about these companies that have talked about doing like I will record everything you do and then you can play back a transcript of everything you do later and everybody's like oh well that sounds illegal and

bad and all that and it's like yes but I I totally see a future where your personal assistant may not be able to give you a full transcript of that conversation you had but we'll say at 1030 you had a brief conversation with so and so about this thing a summary right and like that's stuff's going to happen it's just it's all going to happen and yeah yeah that's so I'm not making a value judgment necessarily but it's just saying I think that's the answer to Aaron's question is that the

world has changed in terms of this stuff and cultural acceptance of this stuff has changed at least plus I say don't undersell the cyborg thing which is I'm Google Glass look weird and Ray Vans don't if you would like to send in a question for us to answer in a future episode or you have any

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