MacBreak Weekly 1038 Transcript
Leo Laporte [00:00:00]:
It's time for MacBreak Weekly. Andy Ihnatko, Jason Snell, Christina Warren are here. We're gonna talk about the new versions of iOS 27 and macOS 27 that went out yesterday and what new features there are. We're getting close to Jon Ternus's debut. It's just a few weeks away with the new iPhone, what we might see September 9th. We think that's the day. And if you got a spyware notification from Apple, you are not alone. A lot of them went out.
Leo Laporte [00:00:27]:
We'll explain it. And a whole lot more next on MacBreak Weekly.
Leo Laporte [00:00:43]:
This is MacBreak Weekly, episode 1038, recorded Tuesday, August 18th, 2026: The Silicon-Controlled Cectifier. It's time for MacBreak Weekly. Hello, all you Apple lovers and haters too. You don't have to love Apple to listen to this show, um, but it helps. Uh, let us say hello to our wonderful panel. Christina Warren is here. She is Developer Relations at GitHub.
Leo Laporte [00:01:11]:
Hello, Film Girl.
Christina Warren [00:01:12]:
Hello, hello.
Leo Laporte [00:01:13]:
Hello, hello, hello. Uh, also with us, Andy Ihnatko from the lib— back in the library after his Couchsurfing adventure. Good to see you.
Andy Ihnatko [00:01:22]:
Yes, my back is nearly recovered from a week of—
Leo Laporte [00:01:25]:
Nothing like a couch. And that there is Jason Snell minus his Tom Selleck mustache.
Jason Snell [00:01:32]:
That's right. I'm fresh from Magnum P.I. day at the Detroit Tigers and back in my chair, back at home, just dressed like a normal person.
Leo Laporte [00:01:39]:
I think it's so cool.
Jason Snell [00:01:40]:
The Hawaiian shirt is— I would have worn the Hawaiian shirt today, but it is—
Leo Laporte [00:01:44]:
It's got mustard all over it.
Jason Snell [00:01:47]:
It's coated with humidity, sweat, and mustard from Detroit.
Leo Laporte [00:01:51]:
I can't bring—
Jason Snell [00:01:52]:
It needs to be laundered.
Leo Laporte [00:01:52]:
I wear a shirt to a ballgame and inevitably I get mustard all over it. I don't know why that is.
Jason Snell [00:01:59]:
I have a pair of light blue shorts that I stupidly wear to baseball games, and then you get some mustard on it and everything turns green. Yellow and blue make green. It's— and I'm like, oh, well, that's a color. Now I have a neon green stain on my shorts. Thank you, hot dog. Boy, I had a— that was a good hot dog, by the way. It's worth it. Shout out to Comerica Park sausage stand.
Jason Snell [00:02:19]:
They make a— in the Midwest, they make a proper hot dog. It was really good.
Leo Laporte [00:02:22]:
It's no Dodger dog, but that's all right.
Jason Snell [00:02:25]:
Well, the secret, Leo, is do you— do they like grill them or do they steam them? If they steam them, they're just not as good. But if they grill them, then it's good. So there are some steamed Dodger dogs too, and they're not good. But the grilled ones, this was a lot like the grilled Dodger dog. That's the— I think the epitome of a ballpark hot dog is they got to be grilled. And they did that.
Leo Laporte [00:02:43]:
They do that right. Steamed Dodger dog.
Jason Snell [00:02:45]:
They do that right.
Leo Laporte [00:02:46]:
I think it was George Will who said there's nothing like September for baseball. The hot dogs have been steaming all summer. All summer.
Andy Ihnatko [00:02:52]:
Yeah. Aging.
Jason Snell [00:02:55]:
And the steam. Yeah, you know, hot dog— hot dogs are extruded meat products. There's no denying it. But, um, a steamed hot dog really is just like, we're not going to even try to hide that this is an extruded product that you're going to now consume. Whereas you grill it a little, make it seem like it's food. Please, come on.
Leo Laporte [00:03:14]:
I actually bought— I don't know why we're doing— I'm gonna— we got stuff to talk about.
Jason Snell [00:03:17]:
Yeah, I'll tell them.
Leo Laporte [00:03:17]:
I'll tell you about my slot dog later. Uh, it's a special cutter for hot dogs to give them the crisscross crust that we all aspire to. I see.
Jason Snell [00:03:27]:
I see.
Leo Laporte [00:03:28]:
I'll bring it up next time. I mean, literally, I'll bring it up to the attic and show you. Andy's bringing up the hot dog. I didn't mean that. So let's see. I don't know where to start. We should probably start by the fact that the beta, if you're on the public beta, another version came out yesterday. I think we're getting close, kids.
Jason Snell [00:03:48]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:03:49]:
It feels like we're getting close. I mean—
Jason Snell [00:03:51]:
I think I saw somebody refer to this as maybe even being a release candidate. I don't know if that's, I think every, This time of year, every beta is a release candidate.
Leo Laporte [00:03:58]:
Somebody did say release candidate. I saw that. Yeah. But, um, but there's also a later developer version, so it can't be.
Jason Snell [00:04:06]:
Yeah, they're, they're working on it. And remember, they have to load these on phones is the challenge. So, you know, there'll be a final version that will ship to everybody and they will start the beta cycle again, but that's the one that, you know, will probably ship right after they announce the new phones and then the phones will ship with it, but that all happens kind of, you gotta, you gotta start loading those phones in advance so that there's some, some run-up to that that's required. I will say this beta fixed a lot of beta bugs that I've been struggling with all summer. I think the, the betas have been pretty good, but like the latest beta this week is, it feels like they're, you know, making sure all the screws are tightened and everything is aligned. And yeah.
Andy Ihnatko [00:04:50]:
Yeah. Sidebar to that though, doesn't, uh, Doesn't Apple have a, have a system backstage of the Apple Store so they can actually flash the, update the OS without taking them out of the box?
Leo Laporte [00:05:00]:
I was going to bring that up. That's magic, technology magic.
Andy Ihnatko [00:05:04]:
But that's just 12% of the people who buy it in the Apple Store.
Jason Snell [00:05:07]:
But the volume of a new launch, I believe they preload those phones. I think the system in the store is primarily designed so if they've got stock that's been sitting in the store for a while, that they can flash that to the latest version so they don't get the old version when they open their phone. But I, my understanding is that, New phones, they can't put all the new phones through that process because it still takes quite a bit of time. Yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:05:31]:
So, uh, if you want to get flashed at the Apple Store, do it later. Yeah, too busy to flash you today.
Christina Warren [00:05:37]:
Well, yeah, in fact, they even tell you at this point, um, like when you, uh— because it used to be when you would buy a phone, like if you were trading it in either as part of the upgrade program or just because you wanted them to give you the money, they would very frequently want to show me the money. But, but they— no, but no, but I mean, like they would give you, you know, $600 or whatever for your phone and then you'd walk out with a new one. It used to be be in the old days if you were doing that in the store. Like, I used to always try to have them ship me my phone so that I could do the transfer myself and not have to bother in the store. Because there was a time when if you'd go into the store, maybe this varied store to store, but at least in the stores that I frequented, there was a time where they very much wanted you to do that process of transferring from one to the other in the store.
Jason Snell [00:06:17]:
Why?
Christina Warren [00:06:17]:
Which you do not want to— I don't know.
Leo Laporte [00:06:20]:
Because it breaks maybe?
Christina Warren [00:06:21]:
I don't know.
Leo Laporte [00:06:22]:
They want to be there for that?
Christina Warren [00:06:23]:
Maybe. I don't know. Maybe there's a reason.
Leo Laporte [00:06:24]:
I remember that. It wasn't just your store. They did that to us. Yeah.
Christina Warren [00:06:28]:
And so when I went last year to get my orange iPhone, I could not get them to mail me one, but I could get one in the store. And I was again doing my trade-in. And I was like, look, I don't have time to stand around and do this here. Can I just take this and bring my phone back? And they were like, we would love it if you would do that. Please don't do this now. Please, please, please, please do this at home and do it. Get out of here. So I think that they are probably for the reasons like Jason's saying, They're probably now trained, I'm guessing, to just tell people when you get the phone, okay, we'll help you walk through the activation process in store if we have to.
Christina Warren [00:07:03]:
But if you know what you're doing, please just take your phone and go so that we don't have to do the flash process on launch date. And instead, they can do that for maybe older stock that needs to sit back, or maybe doesn't need to sit back, but is sitting back that like, okay, we can do that overnight. um, when things are, are calmer rather than, you know, when you are busy.
Andy Ihnatko [00:07:25]:
It really is a production. Remember that there was a couple of weeks ago, there was a story about how Apple had actually pursued the idea of, for the Apple Update Program, you know, where you're basically leasing your phone. Wouldn't it be great if when we send you your new phone, it's actually already synced to everything you've got in iCloud? But then they decided, okay, that's gonna be a privacy nightmare. That would be cool, but there'd be privacy nightmares.
Christina Warren [00:07:45]:
There'd be absolutely nothing cool about that.
Jason Snell [00:07:47]:
Yeah.
Christina Warren [00:07:47]:
Like, there's absolutely nothing cool about that.
Leo Laporte [00:07:49]:
Wait a minute, you have all my stuff?
Christina Warren [00:07:51]:
Well, no, it's not even that. It's just that, like, I mean, I understand that for some percentage of people that would be nice, but I think that there's the edge case, like percentage there is so large that there are people who are like, no, I actually want to set this up the way I want to set it up, even if it's a pain and even if I am just restoring from backup, you know?
Andy Ihnatko [00:08:11]:
Yeah, if every time you get a new device, it's always like, I would much rather start from zero because I, I saved 256, like 250 gigabytes worth of stuff by simply starting my new MacBook from scratch rather than simply backing up the old one and restoring it to there. It's like, you don't know how how much crumbs there are in there until suddenly there are no crumbs anymore.
Leo Laporte [00:08:29]:
Well, if the rumors are true, get ready. You'll spend some time in the Apple Store come September because, uh, I think we're gonna all be back to the old refresh the store button and is it— it's broken. And because the Ultra is going to be, according to rumor mongers, very hard to get.
Andy Ihnatko [00:08:47]:
Could be the return of like people lining up like a day in advance because this is the first time that you have pretty much a good idea that maybe if you want one in sometime in 2026, You are going to have to be there day one, or at least start paying.
Leo Laporte [00:09:01]:
We're talking the folding phone, I should mention. In fact, one rumor guy speculated— I don't know if it's just speculation— that it's not going to be called the Ultra. Although Mark Gurman says, well, that's what they're calling it inside Apple.
Andy Ihnatko [00:09:10]:
I know.
Jason Snell [00:09:11]:
Yeah, but they don't— but that's just it, is that everybody's calling it that, but only some people know what it's actually called. So it might be that and it might not be.
Leo Laporte [00:09:18]:
There's a lot of compartmentalization that happens at Apple. Could be the iPhone Begonia. We don't know.
Andy Ihnatko [00:09:21]:
The fact that Ultra is used by so many of their competitors just basically says that maybe they want to have a unique identity.
Leo Laporte [00:09:27]:
Doesn't say much, does it?
Andy Ihnatko [00:09:28]:
Yeah, but it's all guesswork. But again, this, this is the time, 3 weeks before, before the event, this is a good time to just pull these guesses right out of our ears. Because again, this, this is, this is, this is like we've got like dairy products in the fridge that are like 5 days before the use-by date. Like, if we don't make a whole mess of omelets, then we're just going to throw this stuff out. So any rumors, any idle thoughts, any wild guesses that we have, we need to make in the next 2 or 3 weeks before they become completely useless and invalid.
Leo Laporte [00:09:55]:
So, uh, which of you— I know, Jason, you're gonna get a folding iPhone. By the way, Apple has not said they're gonna ship a folding iPhone. We're just assuming that's the case. But you're gonna, you're gonna get one sent to you by the— maybe even handed to you by Tim Cook.
Jason Snell [00:10:11]:
Who knows? Well, that seems unlikely, but maybe. I mean, I, I've been on the— I've never assumed with Apple, but I've been on the review program before. So if that continues, then yeah. And I'm intrigued. I mean, I'm intrigued by it anyway because I'm a Kind of more iPad primary person than iPhone primary person. And the idea that maybe my phone and my iPad could be kind of conjoined into a single thing that I carry around and that I can, you know, have it in my pocket and then open it up and have something that's more of an iPad-like experience. I'm very interested in that. I'm interested in that.
Leo Laporte [00:10:40]:
Me too. My iPad mini is sitting on my bedside table because that's what I use at night to read. And it'd be really nice to have that be, you know, one device. But, uh, how much are you willing to pay?
Christina Warren [00:10:49]:
Well, Okay.
Leo Laporte [00:10:51]:
And Christina, I see you nodding. You're going to buy one.
Christina Warren [00:10:53]:
Well, well, again, I mean, I'm almost positive, almost certainly I'm going to buy one, but—
Leo Laporte [00:10:58]:
But— and it's a big but.
Christina Warren [00:11:01]:
Well, no, it's just—
Leo Laporte [00:11:01]:
$3,000? Would you pay $3,000 for it?
Christina Warren [00:11:04]:
Absolutely not. Under no circumstances will I pay $3,000. Can I afford $3,000? Yes, I can. I'm very fortunate that I'm in that position that I can. Will I pay that for a first-gen phone? Under no circumstances. Absolutely not.
Leo Laporte [00:11:14]:
What's your limit?
Christina Warren [00:11:15]:
I'm not doing it. $2,500.
Leo Laporte [00:11:17]:
Yeah, me too.
Christina Warren [00:11:18]:
That's my limit. And, and, and I—
Leo Laporte [00:11:20]:
Half a Spark.
Christina Warren [00:11:21]:
Yeah. And which, which is— and, and, and I feel disgusting even saying that because I think that that's too much. I, I know what brand prices are. I know what component prices are. I don't care. I'm saying in terms of value for a phone, I think that $2,500— I don't think there's any phone on earth that is objectively worth $2,500. Um, especially—
Leo Laporte [00:11:41]:
It's like $200 a month for 2 years, right?
Christina Warren [00:11:44]:
It's just, it's just—
Leo Laporte [00:11:45]:
Oh no, that's $100 a month.
Andy Ihnatko [00:11:46]:
Yeah.
Christina Warren [00:11:46]:
And, and, you know, So in those terms, if I could finance it over 24 months interest-free, and again, I can pay for it outright and just get the credit card points, whatever, fine. But I don't know. I don't have— our past experiences with Apple stuff, and look, there are some times when the first generation of an Apple product when they enter a new category is a slam dunk, right? I think that the M-series MacBooks are a good example of that, even if they arguably reused a chassis that they were already using before. the first iPod. I never used that one. I used the second gen, but I think that conceptually that came out really, really well. There are some other— I think the first Intel devices. No.
Christina Warren [00:12:31]:
Okay.
Leo Laporte [00:12:32]:
How much was the first iPod?
Christina Warren [00:12:34]:
First iPod, I think, was $500, I think, which was a lot of money.
Leo Laporte [00:12:38]:
It seemed like a lot for a music player.
Christina Warren [00:12:40]:
Certainly. And then I think the follow-up ones, I think, were $399. I think that was the one that I got myself. But I worked at Best Buy, so I, you know, was a teenager, so I was able to get a discount. But, um, I— it's not that there aren't first-gen Apple products that can be really good out of the box, but this is one of those where I'm kind of like, I know that they will work out so many kinks and so many bugs. And so you— I don't necessarily want to be caught in a position where I'm like, okay, well, now I'm stuck with this thing for, for 2 years, or I'm gonna have to try to sell it to get another thing a year later. I don't know. It just, it's, it's harder for me to, to justify.
Leo Laporte [00:13:16]:
Yeah.
Christina Warren [00:13:16]:
Um, the, the, the price, uh, differential, especially when, like, I, like you, I have an iPad mini. Mine is older. So it's, you know, not even like support. I mean, it's, I think it still gets iOS updates, but it's the, when they revamped the mini like 4 years ago or whatever it was, 5 years ago. Um, I have an iPad Pro. I have an iPhone 17 and I have an iPhone 17 Pro Max. So I have a lot of devices.
Leo Laporte [00:13:38]:
I didn't, I didn't say that to imply that you had spent a lot of money.
Christina Warren [00:13:42]:
No, no, no, no, no, no. I was just gonna say though, no, I was just gonna say it is true. But, but so when I look at that, I'm going, okay, well, what value is this going to other than just being the latest, shiniest thing that I might be able to use as a tax write-off? Um, what, what value do I get out of this for $2,500 that I wouldn't have versus another phone? And, and so, and I try to think about that for regular consumers too. And that, that's, that's kind of where I'm at, where I'm like, I think this has the potential to be really cool. But I'm also really concerned about the durability. I'm concerned about— I think there's just a lot of—
Leo Laporte [00:14:16]:
This is a real test of what, uh, the market will bear. Like, how devoted are Apple fans? Are they going to be willing to spend— because it's going to be, let's face it, it's not going to be $2,500, it'll probably be $2,200, I'm thinking.
Andy Ihnatko [00:14:28]:
Well, we don't know. It's, it's, it's, it's hard, it's hard to guess. And the, the thing is, like, um, I, I, Christine, I, I totally agree with you. I don't think— it's really, really hard for a device like this to justify if it's a $2,500 price tag. I think it's perfectly fine for people to buy it based on the fact that— I keep thinking of the Albert Brooks line from the movie Mother! when they're talking about— his mother is scolding him for buying this $8 jar of marmalade. He says, well, why can't I spend $8 on marmalade? She said, well, because I can afford it, thank God, and it might be good. But I think that if you're buying it as, this is a productivity solution and it's going to earn back all the money that I put into it. This— that's kind of speculative.
Andy Ihnatko [00:15:17]:
And you're also, you're also making a really good point about this is not just the first generation of a new hardware platform, it is the first generation of something that Apple has never made before.
Leo Laporte [00:15:26]:
True.
Andy Ihnatko [00:15:27]:
And so the, the only thing that kind of mitigates that a little bit is that it's— they have had 8 generations of Samsung foldables to copy from.
Leo Laporte [00:15:35]:
Uh, not even copy, they're using a Samsung. Right, exactly.
Andy Ihnatko [00:15:38]:
But, but not only that, but as well Well, it's the, it's the hinge mechanism that has, has gone through the biggest— one of the biggest—
Leo Laporte [00:15:45]:
Samsung's, or is it their own? The same mechanism.
Andy Ihnatko [00:15:48]:
I don't know. But, but you do see, but you do see both Samsung and Google with the Pixel Fold have both like hugely changed how the hinges work to make them more reliable. Uh, and you've also—
Leo Laporte [00:16:00]:
To reduce the crease, uh, visibility.
Andy Ihnatko [00:16:02]:
Absolutely.
Leo Laporte [00:16:03]:
Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko [00:16:03]:
I mean, remember, remember when, uh, when Apple came up with the, uh, introduced the iPhone Air And said, basically, we're challenging people in the press room. No, go ahead. Here's my— Jaws would say, here's my personal one. Try to bend it. Try to break it. I wonder if they're going to be that enthusiastic about, no, here you go. Try to damage this by bending the hinge too much.
Leo Laporte [00:16:25]:
Well, Jason will be one of the first to touch it in all likelihood. So we'll keep an eye peeled. We're thinking September 9th still, Jason?
Jason Snell [00:16:33]:
I still think so.
Leo Laporte [00:16:34]:
Yeah.
Jason Snell [00:16:34]:
Um, 'cause they don't want it to be like literally the day after Labor Day, 'cause people do need to travel, right, for this event from all over the world. Actually, this is a very international event. It's the toughest ticket to get as an event. If as a journalist, the, the, it's really constrained 'cause there are so many people, there's so much interest. It is an order of magnitude more interest to the, the new iPhone to any other event that Apple does. Even for us, it's another Apple event. For the world, this is the Apple event. So, well, you know, I think the 9th is the best guess, but you know, you never know.
Jason Snell [00:17:05]:
They could, they could do it early. They could do it on the 1st. Uh, they could do it later, but I think, I think 9th is the highest probability.
Leo Laporte [00:17:13]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko [00:17:14]:
Now what, now what do we think? Do we think that it's going to be announced and take, start taking pre-orders that same day, just as with the other iPhones?
Jason Snell [00:17:20]:
Yes, of course.
Andy Ihnatko [00:17:20]:
Do we think it's going to be announced, pre-orders start shipping by the end of this year?
Jason Snell [00:17:25]:
Pre-orders are usually like the Friday of that week, not right away.
Leo Laporte [00:17:29]:
But then they, and then you get the phone the following Friday.
Andy Ihnatko [00:17:32]:
But what I mean is that, are they Are they going to show it off, demonstrate it, prove that's a real thing, but defer on when they're going to open it up for orders until they've done that before?
Christina Warren [00:17:41]:
They have. Yeah, they have. They've done that.
Leo Laporte [00:17:43]:
When did they do that last?
Christina Warren [00:17:45]:
The pandemic. But, but, but they've done it in non-pandemic years too.
Jason Snell [00:17:50]:
iPhone X was like that.
Christina Warren [00:17:52]:
iPhone X was like that.
Andy Ihnatko [00:17:53]:
The iPhone was that. Yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:17:54]:
I—
Jason Snell [00:17:55]:
my, my— if I had to predict, I'd predict that it will be constrained in some way But maybe not the way we're thinking.
Andy Ihnatko [00:18:03]:
Maybe.
Jason Snell [00:18:03]:
Um, I'm thinking US only might be how they start. Not that it won't roll out elsewhere, but that maybe in order to get that first push of momentum, they do like a US only. Um, and then, and then start rolling it out in other markets over time, saying it's available for preorder in the US on Friday. It'll be shipping next week in the US. We— other countries coming soon as a way to manage volume. But who knows? Apple is so skilled at production and manufacturing that this looks like a heavy lift to us. Maybe it isn't. Maybe they'll be just like, yeah, it's everywhere.
Jason Snell [00:18:40]:
I don't know. But if I had to predict, it'll be that it'll be limited in some way, but maybe not you have to wait a month. Maybe it'll just be some territories.
Christina Warren [00:18:49]:
Yeah. And I think that— I think you're right, Jason. I also think that this is one of those areas where It probably would be like the more that there's a delay, at least for some subset of customers, like if you just ship to the US or whatever, I think that's fine. But this, I think, is one of those products where, especially if it comes in at the price point that we assume that they have to bring it in at, I was originally expecting them to start it at $2,000. Now I think it's probably going to be $2,299. That's my on-the-record MacBreak Weekly guess.
Leo Laporte [00:19:16]:
$2,299. We should have the—
Christina Warren [00:19:19]:
that, yeah, that's Bingo card. That's, that's my official guess.
Leo Laporte [00:19:23]:
Jason, you'll do that in the draft, right? In the, uh, upgrade draft.
Jason Snell [00:19:26]:
Probably we'll, we'll have to do like a price over-under.
Christina Warren [00:19:28]:
We should. We should. But, but, but I bet that, that's—
Leo Laporte [00:19:31]:
I hope that's the high end, I would say.
Jason Snell [00:19:33]:
What does the Samsung phone start at?
Leo Laporte [00:19:35]:
$2,200.
Christina Warren [00:19:36]:
Yeah, I was—
Leo Laporte [00:19:37]:
That's the high end though, and not the, not the little one that looks like the Apple one.
Christina Warren [00:19:41]:
But that one I think is, is $1,999 or $1,899. But, but I was always expecting $2,000, and now I think it's going to be higher than that.
Leo Laporte [00:19:49]:
But, um, $2,200.
Christina Warren [00:19:50]:
Wow.
Jason Snell [00:19:50]:
Yeah.
Christina Warren [00:19:51]:
I'm going to say $2,299.
Leo Laporte [00:19:52]:
$2,300.
Christina Warren [00:19:54]:
Yeah. And I think that's going to be for 512. I don't think they're going to do a 256. I think there'll be 512 and I think they're going to have, you know, fairly limited constraints. But I feel like even if this was able to come in at $2,000, which I personally don't think that it will be, I would love that, but I don't think so. I think that this is the sort of product that the more time you give people to think about it, the worse it is for them to make the decision to jump forward and buy it. There are too many unknowns. So I feel like you— I don't think that you necessarily want this to be a protracted preorder period.
Christina Warren [00:20:26]:
I think like to Jason's point, it would be fine if you said we're only shipping to certain markets first where we, you know, basically know there will be demand and then that can in turn kind of maybe even create add-on demand. But I think this is one of those things where if you drop it in September and say, and you'll be able to get it in November, I think that by November there are a lot of people who might go, you know what, I can do other things with $2,300.
Leo Laporte [00:20:51]:
My sense is that's exactly what Samsung's experienced, that they sell a lot of the folding phones right away and then it tapers off, so much so that they stopped making them last year.
Andy Ihnatko [00:21:01]:
Well, the Fold 8 has been doing very well. Like, the new passport-sized one has been doing extremely well.
Leo Laporte [00:21:05]:
See, I think that's a good form factor.
Christina Warren [00:21:07]:
I do too.
Leo Laporte [00:21:07]:
That's why I'm excited.
Andy Ihnatko [00:21:08]:
That's way more attractive to me than the candy bar style.
Leo Laporte [00:21:11]:
Yeah.
Christina Warren [00:21:11]:
Same. That's the sort of form factor that I actually want, right? Because when I first got the— when they redesigned the iPad Mini, again, like 5 years ago, I actually had the thought. I said, gosh, this is almost the perfect type of device. If this could fold in half and be a phone, this would be perfect because it really is kind of that perfect kind of size where it's a good aspect ratio if you're using it as a tablet. And you can almost use it if it had you know, if you've got a cellular connection on it, you could almost see like, okay, put this in a, in a small, you know, type of bag. Obviously most purses wouldn't carry it, but still you could do it. But when I got that, I really did think, gosh, if we folded this in half, this would be perfect. So I think if we could get something close to that, which the Fold 8 is, is very similar, I think then that to me is much more compelling than the other folding phone solutions we've seen.
Leo Laporte [00:22:00]:
Hmm.
Christina Warren [00:22:00]:
The one other thing I'll note just on, on the, Samsung devices, I think you're right, Leo. I think that they tend to sell in like early and then taper off to the point that they don't manufacture them. The other thing there, and this will be what will be interesting to see from Apple, um, Apple to a certain extent sets the resale prices because of they, they, you know, have their own buyback prices. But it will be interesting to see what the, I guess, value is on, you know, this device versus others because iPhones traditionally hold their value incredibly well. But the Samsung devices and the Razer devices and the Pixel devices too, those foldable devices, you can get them for, you know, I don't know, a third of the price usually after a year.
Leo Laporte [00:22:42]:
Is that because people don't believe that the folding screen is reliable? Is it robust?
Christina Warren [00:22:46]:
I think so.
Leo Laporte [00:22:47]:
It's like for a long time, EVs, I think maybe still today, EVs depreciate really fast because people don't trust the battery life. Which is actually not a canard, which is why it's probably a good thing to buy a used EV.
Christina Warren [00:23:00]:
Right. I was going to say, for EVs, it's not true. And I think it's a part of that. I think it's also, and this is an area where, again, Apple, I think, is in an extreme advantage over the others in that they have like a very well-oiled machine refurbishing process. So if you buy a refurbished device from Apple, it's basically going to be brand new. Um, I don't—
Leo Laporte [00:23:16]:
I keep looking for refurbished Mac Studio M5, 12 gigs of RAM.
Christina Warren [00:23:18]:
You're not going to find one.
Leo Laporte [00:23:19]:
It just doesn't happen though.
Christina Warren [00:23:20]:
Yeah. You're not gonna find one, I don't think. But, uh, well, no, I mean, at this point, I think they're probably— if they do get them in, they're probably like, all right, we're gonna hold this back for parts. But who knows?
Leo Laporte [00:23:28]:
This is one reason I don't— maybe I do mind the cost of the phone, but I mind it less because I thought I was also going to be buying an M6 redesigned MacBook.
Christina Warren [00:23:38]:
Right. And you're like, well, actually, that might be—
Leo Laporte [00:23:40]:
Well, I'm waiting for the M7 with 512 gigs of RAM, then I'll buy it.
Christina Warren [00:23:43]:
Then you'll buy it, right? But, but, but I think part of the reason that we see such a big price like jump down and like the foldables don't hold their value. I think part of it probably is people have concerns about the screen. Also, when you look at them used, they are in various degrees of kind of quality and you kind of don't have any assurance. And at that point, I don't know about you, but I would not be willing to spend anywhere close to list price on something if I don't even know if there's a way I can get it repaired officially or what those parts are going to cost.
Leo Laporte [00:24:11]:
Yeah.
Christina Warren [00:24:11]:
Um, at least with an iPhone, if you get it from Apple, their official refurbishment process, like I said, is, you know, like brand new. Um, and, and you can get AppleCare on, on refurbished devices.
Leo Laporte [00:24:21]:
So the smart thing, the smart move would be not to buy it right away. Wait and see if they show up on the refurb store. There'll be people with regrets. Maybe pick it up for a song?
Christina Warren [00:24:32]:
Showtime. Uh, I don't know.
Leo Laporte [00:24:33]:
I mean, you save, you save, there'll be people with regrets.
Christina Warren [00:24:35]:
There'll be people with regrets. You don't save a ton from the Apple refurb store, at least initially. So I don't know. I think this is one of those things, if you want it, Jump in and then just keep in mind that you have a 14-day return policy if you don't like it.
Leo Laporte [00:24:49]:
I have, uh, Jeff Atwood sent me the No Regrets tattoo somewhere. I have to— I'll put this on. Oh, that's not it. And, uh, go into the store without regrets. It's spelled R-A-G-R-E-T, right? Uh, and I, I was gonna put it on, but, uh, then I decided It's in here somewhere. He keeps sending me bags of stuff and I can never find it. Um, all right, well, uh, you know, Mark Gurman took the week off, so really there's no show today. Um, but thank you for—
Jason Snell [00:25:22]:
I hate when that happens.
Leo Laporte [00:25:23]:
I hate it when that— he must be, uh, vacationing. Yeah, this would be the good time to do it, right?
Christina Warren [00:25:29]:
This would— this would be a great time.
Leo Laporte [00:25:30]:
Yeah. Uh, we did get, as I said— now it's hard to tell what beta you got But I think the public beta is beta 4. It doesn't say on the phone, it just says you've got 27. Uh, and I think the developer beta is beta 6. It probably does say in the developer beta. Uh, but so are they this— they're converging, right? Is that, is that what's happening? Like, even though the numbers are different, because they're gonna have to ship this. They're gonna— when do they have to have it done so they could put it on the phones they're gonna ship? I don't know.
Jason Snell [00:26:01]:
Soon.
Leo Laporte [00:26:02]:
They're going to ship in a month. So soon.
Jason Snell [00:26:05]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:26:05]:
That's why we think it's the—
Jason Snell [00:26:07]:
we're getting close.
Leo Laporte [00:26:08]:
Master candidate, master release candidate. Yeah.
Jason Snell [00:26:11]:
Yeah. Release candidate. Maybe. I think sometimes you say, well, let's see if this works. And that's what release candidate means. And then you see, and if there are, because the question is like, did the worst bugs get squashed?
Leo Laporte [00:26:24]:
What were the bugs you were experiencing?
Jason Snell [00:26:26]:
Oh, mine were things like, I mean, I had Spotlight where it wasn't giving me results. It would, you could get the top hit, but there was no results list. Um, a lot of people experienced A bug in Messages where the there was the toolbar came down too far, so you couldn't click your top line of favorites. I had one where icons in Spotlight when you're searching for apps would just the name and icon of apps would disappear. There'd be like a little ghost, and you'd be like, "Well, let's tap on that and see what that does." You know, just just and you know I had some shortcut stuff that wasn't hooked up right on macOS, and like there's been a lot of stuff like that. And I you know I think. The, the, there's probably a real art to deciding what you're going to choose to ship and whether— my guess is whoever is making that decision, and maybe it's all the way up to Craig Federighi and, and people that directly work for him, you've got a like profile of the beta builds and say, well, this one's got these problems because there's always bugs, but the, the major stuff is fixed and we think that this is pretty good. Or do you look and you're like, oh, can we— I think at this point you're like tactically going like, can we fix these and then get a build.
Jason Snell [00:27:38]:
And then you get the next build and you're like, well, how did that do? And you look and you're like, yeah, okay, let's ship this. Because you do at some point have to, have to market and move on. And no OS ships with no bugs, right? They'll know that there are bugs there, and there's always going to be a 2701, right? Always. But, um, you got to start somewhere. You just don't want to make a bad impression right out of the gate if there's really big problems that you would like to, to block. Those are the ones that you want to try to prioritize right now, I think.
Christina Warren [00:28:07]:
All right.
Leo Laporte [00:28:09]:
Um, and I think if you're on the public beta, you should get it because there was also a regular 26 update that was a security update. And I have a feeling some of this might simply be serious security updates.
Jason Snell [00:28:22]:
There are, there, I mean, there was a very, I know you, you like talking about this. There was a really secure, serious, you're Mr. Security Update Guy. It's all your years covering PCs have made you very focused on security.
Leo Laporte [00:28:32]:
Maybe it's just, yeah, it's all that Windows stuff.
Jason Snell [00:28:34]:
I know it is because I know some Mac people who are like, what?
Andy Ihnatko [00:28:37]:
Security?
Jason Snell [00:28:38]:
This was, um, there, there's a security issue involving screen sharing that allows people who are not authorized to control your screen if you have screen sharing turned on, which, you know, my server does. And, and one of the—
Leo Laporte [00:28:53]:
But they have to be on your network, right?
Jason Snell [00:28:55]:
Oh, I don't, I don't know. I don't know about that one, but there are a lot of computers that are on a network, right? That are— Right.
Leo Laporte [00:29:01]:
If you're in a hotel, if you're at a hotel, if you're—
Jason Snell [00:29:04]:
there's lots of places And then screen sharing is pretty bad because that's like the keys to the kingdom. You are in that computer. So people should run the latest software updates for, you know, or turn off screen sharing.
Leo Laporte [00:29:16]:
Mr. Windows Security Now guy wasn't that wrong.
Jason Snell [00:29:20]:
I mean, this finally, finally, that's a real security issue.
Leo Laporte [00:29:24]:
Well, and the other reason I'm interested is because it's pretty clear Apple, like everybody else, is using AI now to find bugs.
Jason Snell [00:29:30]:
Yeah, they told me as much.
Leo Laporte [00:29:31]:
Yeah, they told you.
Jason Snell [00:29:33]:
Yeah, they, they absolutely use AI to find security holes. Yeah, in their own OSs and patch them. And they, they, they said, they said this pro tip, you know, we give a lot of advice, uh, in our security notes where we say thanks to this person, thanks to this person. And they said there are a lot of things we don't thank anybody.
Leo Laporte [00:29:49]:
I'm like, we don't need to.
Jason Snell [00:29:50]:
They don't, because they, they found those bugs and they fixed them because they're, they're the ones who don't have to reverse engineer it. They can walk through their own code. Right. With code assistants. And I'm sure they are, you know, fabeling it up in there.
Leo Laporte [00:30:03]:
Fabeling it up, baby.
Jason Snell [00:30:04]:
Finding bugs and fixing them, which is good. I mean, that's right. Like everybody I've talked to who is a longtime developer says it is amazing, these bugs I can't find. And then the, the LLM is like, absolutely, there's a bug here. And you're like, oh my God. 'Cause it's like one line in thousands of lines of code. Right. And a human brain like would skip right over it.
Jason Snell [00:30:25]:
Again and again and again. And then the LLM doesn't. And not to say they're perfect or anything, but they are really good at finding bugs that people can't see, which is huge. Yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:30:37]:
Uh, including, uh, Apple developers.
Christina Warren [00:30:39]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:30:40]:
Uh, let's see. Uh, even more transparency in Liquid Glass. That's nice. Uh, there's a new, uh, public beta firmware for your AirPods Pro 3. Actually, the AirPod story that is most interesting. is coming up because we're gonna take a break half an hour in. You're watching MacBreak Weekly with Christina Warren, Andy Inaco, and Magnum P.I.'s Tom Selleck.
Christina Warren [00:31:02]:
Yes.
Leo Laporte [00:31:03]:
Minus the mustache.
Jason Snell [00:31:04]:
Hi guys.
Leo Laporte [00:31:04]:
Yes. It will be a poignant September 9th in, in, in 3 weeks because it'll be John Ternus's first time on stage. Do you think he'll say, good morning? Or do you think it will be Tim Cook's— we've already seen, I think, Tim Cook's last keynote at WWDC, but do you think he'll make an appearance? Will there be a traditional handoff of the Macintosh or something, or of the clicker here?
Andy Ihnatko [00:31:32]:
If it was a live thing on stage, maybe, but no, no, he won't show up. He's gonna have a clean launch. Yeah, I think— I imagine that there's going to be an acknowledgment of thank you for your service. We thank the usual, like, uh, 2-minute-long, uh, valediction at the start, uh, is going to be essentially reflecting on Tim's, Tim's contributions, Tim's legacy, gratitude towards Tim, all of which are quite, are quite earned. It would seem weird if the commu— if they— if the Apple community did not have a chance to essentially again have that moment of silence, so to speak, for a man who's, uh, leaving Apple.
Leo Laporte [00:32:08]:
Let's say he, uh, was at— he was in Houston, uh, this week at the, um, opening of Apple's Advanced Manufacturing Center. CBS This Morning got an interview with him. The reporter, Jolene Kent, asked, as you look back on your time as CEO, in a word, what have you stood for? To which Tim gave her many words. You're asking a legacy question, and it's a good question, which is exactly what an AI would say. But it wasn't an AI, it was Tim Cook. But in my view, your legacy is described by others, not yourself. Good point. And so I hope that people would say I was a good man and decent.
Leo Laporte [00:32:44]:
And if they say that at the end of the day, if they say that at the end of the day, I feel like I've achieved something.
Andy Ihnatko [00:32:50]:
Oh man, he should, he should have said, I'm sorry, but Apple does not comment on future plans.
Jason Snell [00:32:55]:
On your legacy.
Leo Laporte [00:32:58]:
That would've been pretty funny.
Andy Ihnatko [00:33:00]:
Can you give us some color on your legacy then? What headwinds against your legacy?
Leo Laporte [00:33:04]:
It is pretty poignant. I mean, to see the guy—
Christina Warren [00:33:06]:
It's a good comment. It's a good comment.
Leo Laporte [00:33:07]:
Tim Cook, and it's exactly what he should be saying. But yeah, you're absolutely right.
Andy Ihnatko [00:33:12]:
There's gonna be so much— too much attention paid to like, what will, what will his opening comment be? Like, has he— I cannot imagine that someone as serious as him will have spent any amount of time thinking about, do I say good morning everybody, or hey, how's it going, or hey guys. Yeah, yeah, sorry, I can't imagine he's gonna spend any time.
Leo Laporte [00:33:30]:
Should say, hey guys, like and subscribe, just to be with the youngs.
Andy Ihnatko [00:33:35]:
But I wonder if there's, if there's any action on the prediction Oh, I guarantee you people are saying—
Leo Laporte [00:33:40]:
Kelsey has everything. You can bet on anything. I should— we should check. I don't know how. I don't know how to use it.
Christina Warren [00:33:47]:
I was gonna say, I don't know which ones we're allowed to legally access or not.
Leo Laporte [00:33:51]:
Um, and California, we're kind of limited. I don't know about Washington State.
Christina Warren [00:33:53]:
Washington, we are not either. We're not. And, and then I'm like banned from like, for corporate reasons, from—
Leo Laporte [00:33:59]:
Oh yeah, you can't use it on the corporate network.
Christina Warren [00:34:01]:
Oh boy. Well, I would never do that anyway, but I mean, I mean, you know that people do because people are dumb, but they— because they had to send out some sort of email a few weeks back being like, well, it's official policy, you can't bet on anything you know. I'm like, why did we have to— why did we have to send an email for that? How did anyone not know?
Leo Laporte [00:34:19]:
Well, because of insider trading.
Christina Warren [00:34:20]:
Well, yes, but that's the thing. That should be obvious. We already have insider trading training. Like, I don't know. I guess to me, it doesn't strike me as being like this service that you may or may not even be able to use in your state that absolutely constitutes insider trading. We're going to now have to send like a whole global email out to be like, by the way, guys, this is insider trading. It's like, yeah, how does anyone who works here not know that?
Andy Ihnatko [00:34:44]:
It's amazing that some people are willing to throw away a $280,000 a year job on trying to win $742 on these things because they just feel like they're so insulated against consequences.
Leo Laporte [00:34:56]:
The only thing I could find— I did a search for John Turness on Calci, and the only one I could find is who will visit the White House this year.
Andy Ihnatko [00:35:03]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:35:05]:
That's a little weird, uh, and he's way down the list.
Jason Snell [00:35:08]:
I don't think he's gonna visit the White House.
Andy Ihnatko [00:35:09]:
It's still Tim. Exactly, exactly.
Christina Warren [00:35:12]:
Yeah, it's like Tim's money is for—
Leo Laporte [00:35:13]:
yeah, this is so, this is so funny.
Andy Ihnatko [00:35:16]:
That would have been— if, if I, if I were in, in Turness's position, that would have been my conditions. Okay, I'll take, I'll take over, but I don't I don't have to deal with any of the politics things, any of the glad-handing stuff. I will show up and shake a hand and get a picture, but you're the person who has to take that phone call at 1:43 in the morning when somebody's upset.
Leo Laporte [00:35:34]:
You could bet against it, I suppose. You could short it. It's 32% right now, John Ternus. Um, when will Apple announce a foldable phone? Uh, that seems— there's not a lot of action on that one, I think, because everybody knows When will the courts consider Apple a monopoly? Will Apple release a MacBook with cellular connectivity before 2027? By the way, no is leading that one by 95%. I guess it would have to be this year, wouldn't it?
Andy Ihnatko [00:36:04]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:36:04]:
What does this want? I don't know. Kalshe wants something. What the hell? Just say allow, right? When will Apple release the iPhone 18? Who will be the next CEO of Apple? I think we I don't know what this is. I don't know why it's asking me. This is probably what you were talking about. There's somebody remotely accessing my Macintosh right now. And you ask why I'm worried about security. Anyway, enough Kelsey betting.
Leo Laporte [00:36:35]:
Good luck, Jon. We wish you the best.
Andy Ihnatko [00:36:39]:
It's exciting. It's going to be an exciting transition.
Leo Laporte [00:36:41]:
And we're counting on him for a lot, frankly.
Andy Ihnatko [00:36:44]:
We're not, we're not seeing someone that's, that's basically built in Tim's mold. It's someone that is capable as Tim but has different perspectives, different priorities. I'm really keen to see what bits of absolutely bedrock Apple dogma are now suddenly up for grabs and up for discussion.
Leo Laporte [00:37:02]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko [00:37:04]:
I mean, cellular Mac is right at the top of my list. Yep.
Jason Snell [00:37:07]:
It's like, I still cannot believe that I can't buy a 3G—
Andy Ihnatko [00:37:10]:
I got a, a 5G, uh, MacBook, especially given that, hey, we've just proven that you can put an iPhone CPU inside a MacBook and it works just great.
Christina Warren [00:37:19]:
Yeah. Do you think that part of that is about the fact that like, 'cause I don't disagree with you, but that I, when I, when I think about like a cellular MacBook, 'cause that would be great, but I feel like that's one of those things that in some ways would be better if you, you know, still had add-on cards, you know, the way that you used to be able to back in the day.
Andy Ihnatko [00:37:36]:
Like an M.2 or like an M.2 card, like on Windows. Yeah.
Christina Warren [00:37:39]:
Correct. I was going to say, or like Windows where you can replace the, um, you know, the the Wi-Fi, you know, you can put in a Wi-Fi 7 card instead of if it ships with 6E or whatever, but obviously Macs are never going to do that. So I wonder if maybe that's been part of the calculus for them. I mean, they could release a new version every year, but like, that would be my only personal maybe like caveat with ever buying a cellular Mac would be like, okay, is this modem going to work everywhere? Is it going to do all the things that I want it to do? Is anything else happening on the horizon that might change that? With 5G, I don't think we are, right?
Leo Laporte [00:38:11]:
Yeah.
Christina Warren [00:38:11]:
But, but I, I don't know if maybe that has been historically part of their, their calculus is, okay, we have our supply chain down to so much of a science now. Do we want to add this additional variable of also having to have some machines that have this, you know, component in it and some that don't, that we have to potentially then have different radios optimized in different ways for different markets? And is that going to sell enough for us to bother making it a SKU?
Andy Ihnatko [00:38:36]:
Yeah, but maybe if— if that— that's an excellent point, especially considering that Apple really tries to keep things pretty lean, uh, in terms of their product line and the variables, variations you can get. However, this could be an opportunity for them to put $53 worth of extra components inside a Mac and then kite up the price $300.
Leo Laporte [00:38:53]:
Oh yeah.
Andy Ihnatko [00:38:54]:
Um, also the— also, uh, like earlier this year I did the usual, you know, you, you absolutely have to with your mobile plan, with your home internet, with everything, do an audit, go back and see what, what, uh, what has changed because the offers just absolutely— or the capabilities change. And I discovered that I could get— I could switch from a mobile broadband mobile hotspot cap that was good enough, that was large enough for use of emergencies, but not so much that I couldn't— that I wouldn't run out at the end of the month, to, well, if I switch to this other plan, suddenly I've got so much that it would be hard to— it would be hard to overuse it. And now there seems— I haven't actually looked into it yet, but it seems as though there's a new plan that just got introduced, like, from my carrier just, uh, just last month that would make it— if I were to switch to this plan, it wouldn't cost— it would actually cost me less money. And it's not unlimited, but it would be so much bandwidth, so much, uh, so much, so high a cap that I wouldn't have to really think about, is there Wi-Fi where I'm going to be setting up? I could literally just take my MacBook, my iPad, anything anywhere I want and not even stream video, work wherever I want, not even care about it. And in this world, that's, that's a world in which having 5G and mobile, mobile internet on, on your laptop becomes a little bit more urgent. And that's— I really wonder why there is that kind of— why they haven't gotten into that, given that they have so much data on that option on Windows. But again, as you say, And on the iPad. Apple doesn't— well, that's the thing.
Leo Laporte [00:40:35]:
I mean, I think maybe if you're releasing an iPad-like phone, you think, oh, people aren't gonna—
Andy Ihnatko [00:40:40]:
Yeah, but an iPad isn't a laptop.
Jason Snell [00:40:42]:
No, but the iPad has had a cellular connection since the beginning. I think Christina's right. I think that there is some Mac production stuff going on here. There's probably some licensing and patent stuff going on that they didn't want the complexity of. And I suspect because it's been like 7 years now, I think once they decided to buy Intel's modem business, they just decided to defer for the entire thing until they built their own modem, but they have now. And if you're building a next-gen OLED touch MacBook Pro, sure feels like this is the time where you—
Andy Ihnatko [00:41:13]:
I think it does.
Jason Snell [00:41:14]:
You shovel that one in too and say, look, we're totally changing how Mac laptops work. I know that PC laptops have done this forever. And as somebody who is, I don't buy non-cellular iPads anymore. It's really nice. I would love to have a Mac with a cellular connection. Because, you know, Wi-Fi is in lots of places, but it's in— it's also not in lots of places.
Christina Warren [00:41:37]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko [00:41:37]:
And when you don't even care about it, that's the amazing thing.
Jason Snell [00:41:40]:
Tethering is a good hack, but it's not as good as having it in your device.
Christina Warren [00:41:46]:
Yeah. No, you're right. This was the first year that I, in gosh, maybe 15 years, maybe since the original iPad 2, this was the first year Because for the original iPad came out, I got the one that was Wi-Fi and then I had to wait. It was staggered. The 3G release came out a couple of weeks later. So then I gave the Wi-Fi one to my then-boyfriend, now-husband. I think the iPad 2 was maybe the only one that I've had since then that was not cellular. But this year, because of the prices on stuff, and I'm glad I made that decision, I went just for the Wi-Fi one on the latest iPad Pro.
Christina Warren [00:42:24]:
But you're right, I have found myself in a few instances where— and honestly, that was as much about not wanting to have to pay Verizon what I was paying them per month as it was anything else.
Jason Snell [00:42:35]:
Sure.
Christina Warren [00:42:36]:
But there have been times when I've missed that because you're right, tethering is great, but there are limitations and there are complexities to that, that it is really nice to have it built in. And to Andy's point too, yeah, if you wanted to say for another $300, we will, you know, let you, um, uh, get one with a cellular connection, I would definitely consider it. The only thing that would potentially give me pause there would be looking at it again, like, okay, well, how much is this service going to cost me? And am I going to be able to get that in an affordable way? Because unfortunately, like how they get you on the iPad, like they want $40 or $50 a month sometimes for the unlimited plans that aren't terrible. And the— The Indian knows, which is where you can get like the really good deals on like, uh, like Mint Mobile, Invisible, and things like Usually don't work with tablets. So there's—
Jason Snell [00:43:24]:
I think I'm paying $15 on AT&T, maybe $20 a month.
Christina Warren [00:43:29]:
That's not bad.
Jason Snell [00:43:30]:
That's— I mean, it's not zero, but it's not terrible. And that's unlimited plan too.
Christina Warren [00:43:36]:
Yeah, I was, I was on like some sort of legacy Verizon plan, and I think it was $20 because it was 50% off. But if I wanted to get an Apple Watch added onto it, then I would have to like choose which one, and then it, it had like a— it wouldn't actually Right. So I did the numbers and I just said, okay, Christina, the amount of times that you actually use the cellular connection on your iPad versus just tethering to one of your 2 phones, just try the cellular this year. But there's a better than 50% chance that when I replace this iPad in, you know, 3 years or so, that I will go back to the cellular model just because it's nice to have that option if you can.
Leo Laporte [00:44:13]:
Well, there are other things perhaps coming soon. Julie Clover at MacRumors. Uh, they always do such a good job of kind of digging into the source code, uh, taking a look at Tahoe, the latest, uh, Tahoe update, which came out yesterday, 26.7. And there are a number of unreleased products hidden away in the source code. There's references to Siri setup for a J490 home accessory. Others have already identified as the Home Hub. If you put that in Tahoe, it sounds like it might be imminent. A HomePod Mini Argentium, uh, has been— that's a B525.
Leo Laporte [00:44:53]:
This is kind of speculation because you only get the, the, the product number, not the name. There is a J229 architecture, which is an unreleased product which we've seen for almost a year now. Macworld found that one. Macworld said it was a device with multiple sensors and the ability to detect alarm sounds and capture images. Maybe a security camera? There's a reference to Pebble.
Jason Snell [00:45:20]:
That's HomeOS.
Leo Laporte [00:45:22]:
That's HomeOS, yeah. A tabletop robot, J595. There's also references to colors for a home accessory. Rose pink, silver, space gray, and starlight. I love it that this is all in the source code.
Jason Snell [00:45:37]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:45:38]:
It's amazing. Audio accessory visual reasoning. Hmm. AirPods with cameras. Now we have heard a lot about that. Gurman's talking about that. He says it's, uh, that the AirPods with cameras are actually now being seen around the Apple campus as, as people, uh, test them out. Uh, he says it's not a camera in the sense that you, you know, you say it's something you take a picture with, but it's something that can see things.
Leo Laporte [00:46:03]:
I'm not sure what that means. It can see things.
Andy Ihnatko [00:46:07]:
Well, for like, for Apple intelligence.
Leo Laporte [00:46:09]:
Also, for intelligence, yeah.
Andy Ihnatko [00:46:10]:
MacRumors actually found a like demo video inside macOS Tahoe, uh, the actual, actual demo, actual demo video of like walking you through how to use your AirPods with cameras. Uh, interestingly, the guy in the demo video has a beard. It looks like he's pretty like close-shaven, but it still makes—
Leo Laporte [00:46:32]:
does he have sideburns?
Andy Ihnatko [00:46:33]:
No, but it still makes me wonder, like, again, how if someone has a full beard, or as Christina pointed out a few weeks ago, what if you have long hair and it covers your ears?
Christina Warren [00:46:43]:
Right.
Andy Ihnatko [00:46:44]:
It's— I suppose that if and when it comes out, we'll hear more about the story that they want to tell about it. But it would amaze me if they basically said that, hey, this is only for people— this is not for people who wear their hair a certain way, or if you want to use our AirPods Apparently there is an alert that they found that basically says you'll get an alert that says, oh, you're—
Jason Snell [00:47:06]:
adjust your hair. It's covering the—
Andy Ihnatko [00:47:08]:
To get the most accurate information about things in your environment, make sure AirPods are not covered. Yes.
Jason Snell [00:47:13]:
So in other words, you know, hippies, cut your hair. That'll alert now.
Leo Laporte [00:47:17]:
Kerman said that they look like regular—
Andy Ihnatko [00:47:19]:
We're going to see that meme GIF from Homer at the bat. about the player that Coach Burns says, Keith, shave those sideburns up to the side of the ear. That's going to be like one out of every 3 posts we see. And now I'm not looking forward to the future at all.
Leo Laporte [00:47:34]:
Kerman said that the ones that you're seeing walking around have longer stems, that the— I guess the camera's at the end of the little microphone stem, which might help keep your hair out of there. I don't know.
Andy Ihnatko [00:47:46]:
Maybe. They've thought about it. I mean, I'm sure they have. I'm just curious as to how this would actually work.
Leo Laporte [00:47:50]:
He says this is late testing. So that means they're closer. Actually, no, this was in May he was saying this. So I don't know. Now I don't know what. I take it back. This is not a recent story. So we shall watch with interest.
Leo Laporte [00:48:08]:
What else?
Andy Ihnatko [00:48:09]:
If there's something you like, ask me to save it for later, Siri in the video says.
Leo Laporte [00:48:14]:
There's a tabletop robot. Let's see what else. AirPods with cameras. This Beats, uh, new Beats headphones, AirPod Pro 4. Well, it's AirPods Pro 1,4, which MacRumors says could be a 4th generation AirPods Pro. Uh, they also mention an Air 2, uh, 18 for the iPhones, 18 Pro, 18 Pro Max, 18, and iPhone Ultra. They don't say that word. They just, it's just V68.
Leo Laporte [00:48:46]:
Also new MacBooks. There's a lot of stuff in that code. Yeah. Do you think they put stuff in there just to throw people?
Christina Warren [00:48:52]:
No.
Leo Laporte [00:48:53]:
No. What's interesting to our Vision Pro, and this will be the only Vision Pro story of the day, so no, I'm not gonna play the jingle for it. It's just, it's just that there is an N109 in the code, which Bloomberg has previously said is a second-generation Vision Pro. The information called it a cheaper version of the Vision Pro. I don't see how it could be a more expensive one. Uh, although that one we think was canceled last year, so I don't know. I don't know where we stand on that one.
Christina Warren [00:49:22]:
Yeah. And at this point, how are we going to get cheaper anyway with like all these things? Yeah. So RAM prices have gone up, right? So like, I, I, it was, it's always been ridiculously priced, but now there's not even an argument to be made like, oh, we can somehow cut corners other places. It's like, no, one of your core component prices on your SoC has gone up tremendously. So I, I don't know how they even get lower now, especially since they already raised the prices on these things already.
Leo Laporte [00:49:49]:
John Ashley's feeling bad because I jingle-blocked him.
Jason Snell [00:49:53]:
No, no, we don't, we don't have to play it. We don't have to play it.
Leo Laporte [00:49:56]:
I feel like just, uh, no, just, that wasn't really as much of a story.
Andy Ihnatko [00:50:00]:
We're, we're not going to close our Vision Pro ring, uh, this week, and that's fine. I think we're, I think we're too focused on We're on streaks.
Leo Laporte [00:50:08]:
I'm looking through Andy's notes. Is there anything, Andrew? Nothing. In 2 weeks, we're gonna have baseball to talk about. 2 weeks, we'll be actually able to watch some baseball.
Christina Warren [00:50:21]:
I was gonna say, 2 of you will actually be able to talk to us about it.
Leo Laporte [00:50:26]:
2? Just Jason?
Jason Snell [00:50:27]:
Just me.
Christina Warren [00:50:28]:
Oh, okay. I thought you had one too, Leo.
Jason Snell [00:50:29]:
Oh, hell no. No, no.
Leo Laporte [00:50:31]:
I was, I was an early Vision Pro doubter.
Christina Warren [00:50:34]:
So was I. So was I.
Jason Snell [00:50:35]:
Yeah, early and often. Early and often.
Christina Warren [00:50:38]:
I got a lot of hate on the internet for it, for saying that it was a developer kit being masked as a mass market device. And I was correct.
Jason Snell [00:50:45]:
You were absolutely 100% correct.
Leo Laporte [00:50:47]:
I just said, no, ain't nobody want to put a computer on their face. I was— I just think the whole category is a dead category, but that's maybe me. Maybe that's just me. Maybe you want to put a computer on your face. If it were 3D baseball, maybe.
Jason Snell [00:51:03]:
If it's immersive baseball and it doesn't weigh what it does and it doesn't cost what it does, I'm open to the category as a category. I think it's very interesting and I've kind of enjoyed my time. But Christina's right too. I'm just, in my own defense, I will say my review of the Vision Pro said, this reminds me of the early days of computers where they were really exciting and incredibly expensive and nobody knew what they were for yet. Also not wrong.
Andy Ihnatko [00:51:27]:
I think it's the only area in which I think it's a really interesting category besides gaming is the idea of when you have some phones that also have a desktop mode if you connect them to an external display, the idea of having a really ultra-portable setup where you have a decent pair of glasses for, let's say, $500 that can give you a 4K or even just like an extended, larger, better than HD display so that basically you have this little like banana-shaped thing that's also inside your laptop bag so that when you do want to do something that's productivity-based, you can actually have what looks like a 20-inch screen in front of you. That's a— that to me, that's an interesting use case.
Jason Snell [00:52:12]:
Imagine, just throwing things out there, imagine if the M5 Vision Pro could run a, just a completely standard macOS virtual machine. So that thing that you toted with you is also your computer. Maybe, guys, or just remote— are we in the Vision Pro segment right now? No, stop, stop.
Christina Warren [00:52:30]:
No, but we are. We kind of are. Kind of our—
Leo Laporte [00:52:31]:
go ahead, Ashley.
Jason Snell [00:52:34]:
Okay, and now we're done with it.
Andy Ihnatko [00:52:36]:
Oh no, it's time to talk the Vision Pro.
Leo Laporte [00:52:41]:
We did the retroactive Vision Pro. Oh, I like those glasses.
Christina Warren [00:52:45]:
Hey, those glasses are nice.
Andy Ihnatko [00:52:48]:
Got them in Bushwick and I decided that these are the official ones.
Jason Snell [00:52:52]:
This is all basically accounting. It's, it's paperwork. We have to do it. It's part of the rules.
Leo Laporte [00:52:57]:
It's the Form B3.
Andy Ihnatko [00:52:59]:
They're very, they're very appropriate for the Vision Pro 7 because they really are. These are literally rose-colored.
Leo Laporte [00:53:04]:
I see people with those red glasses. Does everything look red when you wear them or everything look blue when you wear them?
Andy Ihnatko [00:53:09]:
It looks like I'm developing film. Yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:53:12]:
Everything's like, I don't get it. Why would you? I don't want to. What do you really want? Everything look like you're in a red room? Red room? Red room.
Andy Ihnatko [00:53:20]:
Well, I see, I see blood wherever I look anyway.
Jason Snell [00:53:24]:
I see. It's great. It actually, it hides all the blood.
Leo Laporte [00:53:27]:
It does.
Jason Snell [00:53:29]:
Like they're not even there.
Andy Ihnatko [00:53:30]:
The sun does its big fireworks.
Leo Laporte [00:53:34]:
I'm with you, Film Girl. I don't want creases on my face. I got plenty to— enough as it is. I don't need to add more.
Christina Warren [00:53:40]:
Yeah. No, I mean, honestly, one of my friends got one like the weekend it came out and I'd been pretty— I knew, I was like, I don't think this is going to be it for me. And I played with it and I was like, oh, this is one of the most impressive tech demos I've ever seen. I will never use this regularly. This will never be part of my day-to-day life. life until or unless like a killer app comes out. And, uh, and my friend, she knew this too. She— I, because I asked her, you know, a couple months ago, I was like, have you used your, your Vision Pro since, um, since you let me play with it longer than you played with it after you bought it? She's like, no, I have not.
Jason Snell [00:54:11]:
Yeah, yeah. But I had my—
Leo Laporte [00:54:13]:
Micah got one. We paid for it, and, uh, I— with the proviso that he would return it after he, you know, played with it. And he did. And he did. He's Kylo He didn't mind. He was like, it wasn't like he went kicking and screaming back to the store. He said, yeah, yeah, take it.
Jason Snell [00:54:28]:
I've got the pad up here and it's just like, I mean, this is what Christina's saying. It's like, these are the pressure points.
Leo Laporte [00:54:35]:
Yeah, you can't look like Tom Selleck if you look like a raccoon.
Jason Snell [00:54:37]:
It's not terrible.
Andy Ihnatko [00:54:40]:
If you put that on your upper lip, I think you're very close to Tom Selleck.
Christina Warren [00:54:43]:
There you go.
Andy Ihnatko [00:54:44]:
Okay, no, or Raleigh fingers.
Leo Laporte [00:54:47]:
Raleigh fingers.
Jason Snell [00:54:49]:
Now I am a late 19th century president.
Christina Warren [00:54:53]:
Oh yes, there you go.
Leo Laporte [00:54:55]:
Okay, Teddy. President Garfield. President Garfield, what do you think of the—
Jason Snell [00:55:00]:
Well, we know what the thumbnail is going to be.
Leo Laporte [00:55:01]:
Louisiana Territory. Um, uh, that's all gone my head. Oh, I was gonna say, I didn't buy the Vision Pro because I did buy the Meta Quest. I was actually on the Kickstarter for that and bought the Quest Pro for $1,500. I learned my lesson is why I didn't buy the Vision Pro. Yeah, I already knew I wasn't gonna, and then I didn't. Uh, let's pause. Uh, uh, boy, you got more Vision Pro than I ever, I ever have thought.
Andy Ihnatko [00:55:34]:
That one, it's like one number expands to fit whatever space we get.
Leo Laporte [00:55:39]:
It's like gas. It's desperate for—
Andy Ihnatko [00:55:42]:
check the weather stripping for air.
Jason Snell [00:55:44]:
Needy, very needy product.
Leo Laporte [00:55:47]:
And, and, uh, and all we said, uh, was, uh, what was it? Uh, I don't know the number anymore. Oh well, there's— may— I don't know, why would they put that in if they weren't going to make a cheap, uh, N109? Why would they put that in?
Christina Warren [00:56:02]:
I mean, they could have forgotten to remove things.
Leo Laporte [00:56:04]:
They forgot to take it out. Okay. I mean, developer in the Steam room tells us this happens.
Jason Snell [00:56:11]:
Yes, so much code gets left behind.
Leo Laporte [00:56:13]:
Yeah. It's archaeological. Uh, our show today— thank you, Christina. Christina Warren's here. Andy Inaco, Jason Snell, so glad you're here too. And we love everything.
Andy Ihnatko [00:56:23]:
Everything looks blue.
Leo Laporte [00:56:24]:
Everything's blue now all of a sudden. See, I thought those— maybe those are blue blockers. Well, they are. You only see red.
Jason Snell [00:56:32]:
All blockers.
Leo Laporte [00:56:33]:
They're— they block everything but red. So Apple, uh, in and out of court. Uh, the Supreme Court said no 20— Justice Kagan said no 24-hour pause. You've got to come up with a fee. So they came up with a fee. This is after Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rodgers said 27% ain't gonna make it, Apple. That's contemptible. So Apple's, uh, suggestion: 15%.
Leo Laporte [00:56:59]:
How about 15%? What, what do you think? Uh, it calls for 15% for standard apps. Those are the ones that would have been 30%, so they're cutting it in half. 10% for the video partner program. the News Partner Program, and the Mini Apps Partner Program. And I'm glad I got this pop filter. Also for subscription renewals, 10%, and the Small Business Program apps, 5%. Apple says fact and expert evidence with respect to these proposed commission rates are concurrently submitted. It appears the large number of U.S.
Leo Laporte [00:57:36]:
developers collectively accounting for the lion's share of App Store's revenue will be able to They'll link out profitably at the proffered rates. They'll be profitable, Your Honor, resulting in substantial competitive pressure on in-app purchases, a goal this court has repeatedly emphasized. You made us do it. At these rates, Apple can recover at least some compensation.
Jason Snell [00:57:59]:
Oh boy.
Leo Laporte [00:57:59]:
At least some compensation for the value that its IP-protected tools, technologies, and services provide developers. Which the court and the Ninth Circuit have also repeatedly acknowledged as legitimate and pro-competitive, Your Honor. Now, I guess we're waiting to hear back from Judge Gonzalez Rodgers. But what do you think? 15%? Good deal?
Christina Warren [00:58:24]:
No, absolutely not.
Leo Laporte [00:58:26]:
It's still rent-seeking.
Christina Warren [00:58:27]:
It is still rent-seeking. And then you look at this thing, they're saying, okay, well, you still have to jump through our hoops and go through our provisions to be considered part of the small business program or the video partner program or the news partner program or this or that. Okay, so why? I also, whatever argument you want to make about whether Apple is entitled to any of this money or not, and in many cases, the only case where I kind of can see some sort of argument is that if it is for something that is being unlocked like, like maybe like an add-on item, you know, for a game or like a feature that is intrinsically like a part of your application, like a feature and whatnot. And, you know, uh, like, okay, you know, I want to add the ability to set reminders to my to-do list app or whatever, and the only way I can do that is if I buy the pro version, which the only way Apple really makes it easy for me to do is using in-app purchase. And I don't like giving them 30% for whatever reason, so I want to use my own payment processor, which might not be be as convenient for, you know, the end user. And in that case, I can maybe see that there would be something that would be fair for Apple to say, well, we want to recoup some of these costs since the $100 you pay for the App Store is not sufficient for that. But when you look at like the video partner program where you're talking about services that exist independently from the App Store, from Apple, that were not built by Apple—
Leo Laporte [00:59:52]:
Like Netflix.
Christina Warren [00:59:53]:
Exactly.
Andy Ihnatko [00:59:53]:
Yeah.
Christina Warren [00:59:54]:
Netflix and Apple have helped each other. And I do not think you can make an argument that Apple has not been helped demonstrably by having Netflix on their platform. This is also why they had to make deals, backend deals with Amazon to get Prime Video on the Apple TV because Amazon was not going to be there if they had to give Apple a percentage of their income. And so Apple said, okay, well then no, no, no, no, we won't take your money. We will let all the charges and even all the content purchased on the Apple TV, that gets to go to you, Amazon. Why should that be allowed? Because it was so important for them to be able to have Amazon on Apple TV that they did that, but Patreon has to pay 30% or now maybe 15% or 10% depending on how it's calculated. That's ridiculous. Also, who is Apple to go through any of these other companies' financials and say, oh, we've done the analysis and they'll still be able to turn a profit this way.
Christina Warren [01:00:45]:
You don't know that. Again, why are you a party to this? I subscribe to Netflix. There might have been a reason where some people might have preferred to be subscribed to it using the App Store, but I could still access Netflix on non-Apple devices. I don't understand any of this. I think this is still rent-seeking behavior and it would behoove them to just take the L and know that most people are going to still use your built-in mechanism of purchase anyway. Most people are not going to to go to the, the secondary option, or they're just going to be like, like Netflix and Spotify and others, and they're just going to be like, nope, you can't sign up in the App Store, sorry, you're gonna have to go to our website.
Leo Laporte [01:01:27]:
When I, uh, when I first signed up for a, a Claude Max subscription, uh, I think it was $248, and everybody said, well, it's only $200. And I realized, oh yeah, I did it through the App Store, and, and Anthropic's, you know, taking a little extra to cover the, the fees.
Andy Ihnatko [01:01:43]:
I mean, that's always been patently ridiculous to me. The idea that every time I buy a comic book on Comixology or now Amazon, that if Apple— that Apple— the reason why I can't do it through the app is because Apple thinks it's entitled to 30% of the price of that comic book, as though there is 30% extra profit in this $5 sale that they can take money off of. And as the arrogance of presuming that, no, no, no, well, they wouldn't have been able to sell this comic book. I I, Apple, brought you this customer, and you would not have any ability to sell or read comic books if not for my munificence and being able to provide you with this app platform. It's like, no, you had nothing to do with that. Uh, you know, why, why are you sticking it to people? Uh, and now the fact that they are being such jerks about it, just absolutely such obstinate about it, is why they're now paying the price. The courts are basically saying that after all the— Uh, so Apple was basically forced, forced to meet this deadline of saying, okay, Explain, come up with a payment system, and now also explain why you're choosing those numbers. And they decided to take it all the way to the last minute of the deadline to—
Leo Laporte [01:02:53]:
They asked for more time.
Andy Ihnatko [01:02:55]:
Yeah, they asked for an extra day, I think, but that was about it. But that was mostly because the court wanted a little bit extra time. But that's just— and realize that's not like the new rule. That is basically what they're asking for. They could get as little as 0%. Because I think that— I can't remember which, which ruling or which paperwork was filed, but basically saying that, is it possible that they could basically be entitled to a 0% take on— well, they're gonna take something outside of the App Store for the—
Leo Laporte [01:03:25]:
like a credit card does for the financial. Yeah, absolutely. And 5% or something.
Andy Ihnatko [01:03:30]:
Just, just this morning they put something on the— on Apple's newsroom explaining new Uh, changes of, of how they're, how they're basically, uh, uh, uh, changes, changing in pricing structure, business terms for apps in the, in the EU, uh, so that if at the min— at minimum, uh, apps that are distributed via an alternative app marketplace or on the web, Apple gets 5% as a core technology commission. Basically saying that, well, we did create these APIs for you, we did build these tools for you. That's not fair. That does seem fair.
Christina Warren [01:04:01]:
No, that's fine.
Andy Ihnatko [01:04:02]:
thing.
Christina Warren [01:04:03]:
And if you want to do that as part of your subscription, or if you want to add that as a surcharge on top of your download fees or whatever as part of being part of the program, that's fine. But the fact that Apple arguably had their developer fee, which pre-App Store was hundreds of dollars a year, it was very expensive to be part of the developer program. They reset that. The fact that they haven't come up with a solution, especially for large developers who might have thousands of hundreds or thousands of seats per person, to be able to manage that in a more efficient way and make more money off of that or have some sort of technology fee that's built into that. That's Apple's problem. That shouldn't be to figure out. I don't think the solution is to say, oh no, we are entitled to 15% standard on every app that links out of the App Store. One of the most egregious ones that I saw, and this is a company that I don't have a lot of respect for, but I still think it's egregious, is with Meta, with the Facebook Ad Manager, where all of a sudden Apple said, okay, well, if you use the Facebook Ad Manager on iOS and you buy ads, keep in mind these are Facebook ads.
Christina Warren [01:05:10]:
These have nothing to do with anything Apple at all. They're going to be viewed by people on every other platform. Apple now gets 30% of that. Are you freaking kidding me?
Jason Snell [01:05:19]:
Yeah.
Christina Warren [01:05:20]:
It's obscene. And no one can make any sort of arguments to me that will make me feel like, yes, Apple Apple is owed that amount of money. He's like, what are you talking about?
Leo Laporte [01:05:30]:
This is where I have to channel Alex Lindsay. This is, this is the time in the show when Alex would say, but Apple has created this great platform, and if it weren't for this platform, you wouldn't have this market. And, you know, it's reasonable for them. I mean, it's certainly their business to charge whatever markup they want. If you, if you go to a beautiful store that's perfectly curated with wonderful salespeople, you know, a Nordstrom back in the Uh, there's gonna be a markup. That's, that's how business works.
Christina Warren [01:05:59]:
Sure.
Andy Ihnatko [01:05:59]:
Yeah, but that, but that's, that, that's essentially denying the fact that, fine, Apple, great. Why don't you create your own photo sharing app, your own social media apps, your own— well, you did create your own streaming app, but something as good as Netflix and Hulu? The thing is, like, there is like a, a two-way relationship here, that Apple benefits from all of these incredibly great services that everybody wants being available on your platform. If the iPhone was known as the platform where no, you can't get Netflix here. No, you can't get Instagram here. No, TikTok is not available on this platform. Let's see how, how wonderful people would think the iPhone is based simply on, wow, as a user, I love the fact that these are these wonderful APIs and this wonderful Xcode system that I don't use, but hey, what a win for Apple. Yeah.
Christina Warren [01:06:45]:
Or if Apple built them for those companies, right? But they don't. I mean, that's the thing. And it's like, you're exactly right, Andy. Like, this has been a symbiotic relationship between a lot of the larger app companies and Apple. Have they benefited from Apple's distribution and the fact that they make such good products that so many people buy? 100%. Has Apple also benefited from having access, usually day one, to those services? 100%.
Jason Snell [01:07:09]:
Mm-hmm.
Christina Warren [01:07:09]:
And we can look at the Vision Pro, not to bring that back up as another segment, but we can look at the Vision Pro and the fact that that is a platform where developers, the big ones, loudly said, no, we're not going there. We're not touching it.
Andy Ihnatko [01:07:22]:
Yep.
Christina Warren [01:07:22]:
And maybe that— I don't think that has anything directly to do— I don't think we can make a clear-cut argument to say, oh, well, if YouTube and Netflix and other apps had been on Vision Pro at launch, then sales would have been better. I'm not trying to make that argument. But I certainly can say that it certainly shows that it didn't help anything, right? And I just, I feel like they were able to get away with a lot for a really long time.
Jason Snell [01:07:53]:
Yeah.
Christina Warren [01:07:54]:
And especially when there were, you know, arrangements for some companies and not for others. That is incredibly unfair. And like I said, if you want to talk about something that's the, you know, I, I'm not even necessarily fully on Epic's side with some of that stuff. I feel like if I'm buying loot in Fortnite or something on my iPhone, that's going through the Apple system. And I don't necessarily love Epic trying to find the workarounds around that. But I'm buying a digital book that belongs in the Kindle ecosystem.
Jason Snell [01:08:22]:
Yeah.
Christina Warren [01:08:23]:
Or I'm buying a movie that belongs in somebody else's ecosystem other than iTunes, or I'm subscribing to a streaming service that, again, I can access independently from my Apple devices. Apple's not, in my opinion, obligated to that money because I could go to another and buy those things. Yeah. Um, like, they've done us the benefit of even allowing that to exist on that platform because those companies could have just said no.
Andy Ihnatko [01:08:46]:
Yeah, the, the arrogance from day one is why I'm really, really happy. I'd really have to see Apple just get smacked all the way down on this because it's not just 30%— 30% because you bought this movie and you wouldn't be able to buy it if it wasn't because it wasn't for us— but also the idea of, okay, well, you're not allowed to as the, as the As the owner of this service or as the owner of this app, you're not allowed to tell the user like where to visit your site. You can't even put a hyperlink. You can't give them an offer on the web. If you give them an offer, then you have to give us the exact same offer in the exact same terms, on and on and on. It's like, you are— how is this not some sort of like mob-controlled neighborhood where you're not going to be selling oranges on this street unless the local don has given you their blessing and you're paying the right tribute to the don?
Jason Snell [01:09:33]:
I'd be happy to see if they get it done.
Andy Ihnatko [01:09:34]:
I'd be happy to see if they get it done.
Leo Laporte [01:09:34]:
I'd be happy to see if they get a job in Cupertino. That's all I can say. I feel bad with that. You could have a good time trying to build that building without any concrete.
Jason Snell [01:09:45]:
And Alex, a lot of Alex's arguments were personal. He would say, look, I, I like the fact that I can just— I can— well, no, and as, as a user, he would say— sure, we're all channeling Alex today— he would say, look, I, I like that Apple has my credit card. I don't want to go somewhere else. I like, I like being in the, in the ecosystem. And I see those arguments, but my problem with them was always not everybody's going to make your choices if they are given other options, which they aren't being given other options. And you get this distortion like Andy talked about with things like Kindle books where like it doesn't— Apple is essentially eliminating competition for its own bookstore because Apple doesn't need to be the middleman for the Books app, but it needs to be the middleman for Kindle app, which means it has eliminated all competition for products that— I was thinking about this while you guys were talking in terms of what angers me about those stories about General Motors saying, we're not going to do CarPlay anymore. And what they're really saying there is, we think your car is your most important digital device, which is ludicrous because everybody's phone is their most important digital device, not their car. And it's a little like that where you're so high on your own supply that you think that you are the world and you're not.
Jason Snell [01:11:04]:
And there's an element of that here where where the Kindle example is a great one where Apple thinks that if you are reading a book on a Kindle and you wanna buy on the Kindle app on an iPhone and you wanna buy the next book in the series, that somehow Apple is owed money.
Andy Ihnatko [01:11:21]:
Yeah.
Jason Snell [01:11:22]:
In the book transaction. And it's, their suggestion is like basically like, well, you're reading that book on an iPhone, huh? And that means you're really our customer, right? And we're the center of your world, not the Kindle Store, which is where you buy all your books. And it's, it's ridiculous, you know. And this is the thing that, like, when Steve Jobs introduced this, a lot of it was like, oh yeah, it's like they're taking a cut, but it's from shareware and they're making it easy and it's a, it's a trade. But it has become refined as this machine to especially kind of like cadge money out of, uh, individual in-app purchase transactions and things like that. And I know why they do it, because it's very profitable. But in the end, there is also this kind of delusional moment where you think, no, no, no, we are the— obviously it's all about us. And the fact is, there's lots of things that happen on our iPhones that isn't about them at all, but it's sort of been lost to them.
Jason Snell [01:12:15]:
It's very frustrating.
Andy Ihnatko [01:12:16]:
I was talking earlier about how I hope that— I'm really keen to see if John Ternus's arrival on September 1st will cause a reversal Reversal of certain dogma. I wonder, I hope, I hope, I hope they will at least turn down the heat on this issue. Say okay, there is room for us to negotiate here. We are now kind of facing the fact that we keep losing, losing, losing, losing every time a court argues against us on this. We're going to have to figure out a way to coexist with the with a 2026 app environment because we just can't keep fighting these battles the same way we same way be doing. It's it's absolutely counterproductive.
Leo Laporte [01:12:52]:
Here's the deal that they made in Europe, which I think— I don't know. So if you buy an app through an in-app purchase, Apple takes 26%, but they also have that sliding scale. If you're auto-renewing subscriptions, it's only 15%. If you use alternative payment processing, some other credit card, it's going to be 20% down to 10% if you have a year subscriptions. For app stores that link out of the app to complete purchases, Kindle, maybe Netflix, the commission is still 15%, down to 10%. The only people who really get a big break are the apps in a third-party app store, which the EU has mandated. And Apple's still going to get what you were talking about, Andy, that 5% core technology commission.
Andy Ihnatko [01:13:43]:
Which is fair.
Leo Laporte [01:13:44]:
Yeah. So I guess this is something they negotiated with the, uh, the EC, right? I mean, this is, you know, it's their deal. I think they're gonna have, uh, not gonna have such a sweetheart deal in the US. Maybe.
Andy Ihnatko [01:13:57]:
Yeah, it's— I mean, it's like, again, I feel as though they could— that they, they kept gambling and gambling and gambling that if they just keep fighting this, they'll get better. And I don't think— and I think that that kind of didn't work out well. The Financial Times had a really interesting article this week based on analyst data data that App Store revenue in the U.S. is down 18%, uh, for a bunch of reasons, but also mentioning how in Japan and Brazil, where Apple has lost, lost, lost, lost, lost these, these bids to basically maintain exclusivity, like, well, if you give, if you give the market alternatives, they're going to take alternatives where they're going to work. So this is— I, on that basis, I can understand why they've been fighting so hard, where they see exactly where the blood is going to, is going to be let and how hard it's going to be to turn tourniquet that, uh, that wound. But again, they— at some point they must have seen— I, I, I wonder why they didn't see the exact same numbers that Google was seeing, saying that, okay, this is not going well for us, we can negotiate a new system that's— that hopefully will work for us worldwide, that will take our— that'll take Epic and the people in Epic-like, uh, uh, organizations off of our back, that we feel as though will— we can negotiate a peace in which Nobody is super, super happy, but nobody feels as though they're doomed. And I don't know if Apple is—
Leo Laporte [01:15:11]:
I love the Financial Times image that they included in this article because I think it's what they think Americans look like, uh, women in pink cowboy hats with pink wrappers on their orange phone, which is a very interesting combination. Um, 100 Apple antitrust attacks start to bite into Apple's $100 billion services business. That That is a nice round number. That was their last—
Andy Ihnatko [01:15:38]:
They got so many issues, including the issue we were talking about earlier, where you're— congratulations, you've got your own bookstore, but you don't have to pay the same spiffs that all your competitors are. And your competitors are going to be upset about that. They're going to pay lawyers to fight you on that. Why do you want—
Christina Warren [01:15:54]:
I have to say, I don't—
Leo Laporte [01:15:55]:
I'm not sure I'd credit that to Apple's 6% App Store revenue drop in the second quarter. quarter. Uh, times are tough. Maybe people aren't just not buying as many apps.
Christina Warren [01:16:06]:
Yeah, I mean, I was gonna say, I mean, I think it's really hard to kind of figure out like which, which is which. Um, but certainly I'm not, you know, I, I imagine that people having or being made aware of other options, especially if those options are less, less expensive, um, could lead to people making different decisions. And, and look, I don't know, I just feel like it should ultimately be the developer choice. There have been instances, uh, the New York Times, for I had subscribed originally, gosh, this was 10 or 11 years ago. They had a deal through the App Store that was for the equivalent of what like all access is now that was a lot cheaper than what I was paying them directly. And I called them and I said, okay, can I get this new deal? And they said, no, you can't. And so I had to cancel my old plan and then I signed up in the App Store. Well, that plan lacked a couple of things and over time I went, okay, The Times has one of their holiday deals where it's like $45 or $50 for the year or whatever.
Christina Warren [01:17:02]:
I'm just going to cancel my in-app purchase plan that I've had for a decade and move on to something else. When I did that, they gave me an offer that basically said, okay, well, if you renew, we will give you the year for, I don't know, $40, and then next year also for $40. Okay. And you're not going to charge me for that for another year. Okay. So the New York Times kept me in the App Store where they have to pay a 30% tax to Apple. If the New York Times wants to make a deal like that because they feel like the distribution network in the App Store is so great that they can make those concessions, by all means do it. That's great.
Christina Warren [01:17:40]:
I would much rather cancel through Apple than in the old days. Now I think you can do it through a form, but you used to have to call the New York Times to cancel. I'm fine with that. If developers want to look at that as a marketing cost, more power to them.
Leo Laporte [01:17:53]:
But I think it's important to point out it's not just the developers who are paying, as with Anthropic.
Christina Warren [01:17:58]:
Oh, I agree.
Leo Laporte [01:17:58]:
Often it's passed on to us.
Christina Warren [01:18:00]:
This is what I'm saying. This is what I'm saying. If consumers want to make that decision like Alex did, which is I would rather pay a 30% surcharge, 25% surcharge because I don't want them having my information. Okay, cool. But that's not going to be every everyone's situation.
Jason Snell [01:18:16]:
Right.
Christina Warren [01:18:16]:
So, you know, the fact that, you know, until very recently, you could not even let people have a link to go and even investigate, can I sign up for this service independently from your app? That's what becomes egregious to me. If this was a service that only existed entirely within the Apple ecosystem, maybe you have more of an argument, but that's not the case. And I said this in chat too, it would be one thing if Apple hadn't gone out of their way for many, many years to completely lock down the web APIs and other sorts of things that people could do on mobile because they insisted on people being in their ecosystem. And there might be good reasons for that. There are some reasons that are not as good. So it isn't even a matter of, oh, well, you needed to be on the iPhone, so you had to build an app because that's the best way to do it. It's going, no. They wouldn't even let progressive web apps for a long time, and they still don't allow progressive web apps the same way other services do.
Christina Warren [01:19:10]:
And But they really limited what types of DRM content and other things Safari on mobile could process. There are plenty of situations where people would have been very happy, I think, to allow people access through their website, and they couldn't for many, many years because of decisions Apple made. And so they were forced to use an app and use Apple's APIs so they could give users a good experience. That to me is not the same as saying, oh, well, we wouldn't have been able to do all of this and operate our service if Apple didn't exist. That's, that's just not true.
Leo Laporte [01:19:38]:
Yeah, this is— it's interesting, this graph. Uh, this is, by the way, Sensor Tower's, uh, numbers. Apple does not talk about these numbers. Uh, but that's the first time that red is— the first time you've seen that red. Uh, it's interesting because it's showing the same dips, peaks, and valleys that you see with, uh, iPhone sales. And of course, it makes sense. People buy a new iPhone, they buy apps for it. But those peaks and valleys are, you know, shrinking.
Leo Laporte [01:20:05]:
And for the first time ever, uh, actually smaller spending in a quarter.
Jason Snell [01:20:10]:
Yeah, for the record, in its statements in the earnings call that are legally binding, it said that in this most recent quarter it set a record for the June quarter in App Store.
Leo Laporte [01:20:21]:
Okay, so in other words, this is maybe an error in Sensor Towers.
Jason Snell [01:20:25]:
We don't know. They, they did say that there were some issues, especially with, I think, mobile gaming revenue. So maybe they, they've seen a hit in in-app purchase, but I don't know if the Sensor Tower is conformed to what Apple has publicly disclosed since they said it was an all-time June quarter record. I'm not sure whether that maps or not.
Leo Laporte [01:20:46]:
Take it with a grain of salt. You're watching MacBreak Weekly with a salty crew. Jason Snell.
Christina Warren [01:20:53]:
Arrr, matey!
Leo Laporte [01:20:55]:
And, uh, and, uh, Christina Lauren. Um, continuing on, let's see. Uh, camera-equipped AirPods, we mentioned that. Uh, bunch of rumors here. Apple's iPhone 18 won't be out next month. It'll probably be out next year. That's the iPhone Nothing. They're going to do the high-end stuff this year, save the SE and the 18 Nothing for next.
Jason Snell [01:21:22]:
And the Air probably too.
Leo Laporte [01:21:23]:
And the Air, Air 2.
Andy Ihnatko [01:21:25]:
Yeah, have 2 mountains over the course of the year instead of just one. Yeah.
Leo Laporte [01:21:29]:
Yep. I'm paying attention, uh, to this. Uh, this is from a leaker that the new A20 Pro chip, which you'll get in your iPhone 18 Pro and whatever they call the folding phone, uh, will be significantly faster and significantly more efficient. Uh, the leaker said 18% faster and 30% more efficient. It's a 2-nanometer process. Which is pretty amazing. Uh, even if it's not really 2 nanometers and that's just, you know, a kind of marketing term, it's, it's, it's very small. It's going to use something called wafer-level multi-chip module packaging, WMCM.
Jason Snell [01:22:08]:
Oh yeah, this is the new thing. We talked about this when this rumor came out. This is a, like a new level of doing, being able to build chips out of little components and put them together in a package that is I think TSMC's equivalent to some other companies that are competing with them. This, this trend now to be able to build these chip packages in and I think stacked too, I think it's in 3 dimensions to build a more sophisticated package because that's another innovation that's happening in chips right now is you, you can build smaller parts and then package them together. Some of that's going on here.
Leo Laporte [01:22:41]:
Yep. This is from Weibo, the Weibo leaker. Fixed focus digital, uh, based on supply chain. And again, as you get closer to the phone coming out, you're going to see these kinds of rumors, and their accuracy probably is improving. Yeah, yeah. You know, there were—
Andy Ihnatko [01:22:59]:
there was a whole— there was a whole bunch of just conversation because, uh, uh, there was a leak about a maker of, uh, screen protectors, of all things, for the iPhone Ultra, the foldable. And taking— oh well, gosh, these screen protectors, they have like right angles on the inside. So, and I mean, it's like, okay, uh, that could mean that— that could mean that the screen, yes, has this weird shape, or it could mean that that's just simply a flush panel for the— for the— for one side or the other. But it is— it is the— it is the fun time where lots of things have to basically come up, because as we keep saying, that this is the time which they have to— the number of people who have to know things has— is far exceeded the— the list of people that Apple actually trusts. So this is when, like, when you find find out certain things, you certainly can believe it. It's a very weird time, particularly given that we're now pretty sure that we're only going to see the premium phones in September. If you really are on the edge right now where it's like, I have been limping along with a 4-year-old, 5-year-old iPhone right now, I really need to upgrade, it is a hard, hard time to walk yourself through that decision. And I'm sorry that people don't have the option of the less expensive iPhone 18 Nothing to consider.
Andy Ihnatko [01:24:14]:
Because the thing is, holding out until March, April, May might not be a very comfortable option for some people. And who knows what the specs of that iPhone 18 Nothing are going to be? Whereas we could always— this is the first year in which flagship phones are basically, you're getting a downgrade, particularly with system RAM and price increases. You don't know what those prices are going to be like. It's a very, very hard sequence of variables to navigate. I think it's kind of unprecedented.
Leo Laporte [01:24:44]:
Christina's got the, uh, actual post on Weibo from Fixed Focus, uh, which also points out that Apple's procurement costs are going to go up, that this is not going to be a cheaper chip, this is going to be a more expensive chip.
Christina Warren [01:24:57]:
Yeah, I mean, which, which I guess would make sense. I mean, I, I don't pretend to be an expert on anything with that, but that would make sense. I mean, TSMC, for a long time, I think Apple could basically kind of, you know, set the terms of that relationship, and, and they were able buy so much, you know, time in advance and production capacity in advance as compared to anyone else. But now lots and lots of other people are wanting to use TSMC for other things. And so, um, they might not get the same deals that they got before. Who's to say? But I think Andy makes a good point, which is that this is a very interesting year because, um, you know, I think that last year, and I know I'm repeating myself because I've said this before, was one of the first base iPhone years that we've had in quite some time where like the base model iPhone was just a really tremendous phone where they gave you for the, especially for the money, like even before the Ramageddon stuff. I, my comment to people last year was the Pro Max is great, but if you don't need a bigger screen and if you're coming off of something else, like the basic iPhone is actually for the price difference that you're saving, I is, is a tremendous value. That is now going to be a little bit more interesting.
Christina Warren [01:26:07]:
And, and we still don't know if they're going to adjust the prices on older, you know, iPhones or, or not. Um, but this is one of those weird years where, yeah, we used to always tell people never buy a phone in August ever. Now it's one of those weird things where you're going, okay, well look and see what the carriers have going on, because if you're not a Pro Max person or Pro or Pro/Max person, you might be able to get a good trade-in offer or something else from your carrier that it might be worth even getting last year's phone, you know, in August now. What I will say though, and Jason, you would know this I think better than anyone, if I'm not mistaken, I think that, and I know they don't break out the sales, but I'm pretty sure that Apple sells the vast majority of the phones they sell are the Pro or the Pro Max. So, and I don't know how much that distribution is. But I remember hearing that anecdotally, that it seems like that is the bulk of their spend. So it will be interesting, I guess, to know if that's going to impact anything, especially as times get harder and money gets tighter, or if maybe that's why they are doing the Klarna tie-up and looking at other types of financing things so that they will still have the bonanza September quarter that they've always expected, and then they just get another bump of sorts in the spring that they used to reserve for the SE.
Leo Laporte [01:27:34]:
All right. Well, we'll see. Lots of gossip going on about the M7, which is also a TSMC chip, being a much better chip for AI, and that's why Apple's kind of skipping the M6. Um, should I wait for that, Christina, do you think?
Christina Warren [01:27:58]:
I mean, I don't know, man.
Leo Laporte [01:28:00]:
With 8 gigs of RAM, it ain't gonna be that great.
Christina Warren [01:28:02]:
No, I was gonna say, I mean, look, you've got 2, uh—
Leo Laporte [01:28:05]:
I'm okay. I'm doing all right.
Christina Warren [01:28:07]:
I was gonna say, I think you're okay with compute right now.
Leo Laporte [01:28:08]:
I'm doing all right. Well, one never has enough compute.
Christina Warren [01:28:12]:
Okay, fair. But you just got—
Leo Laporte [01:28:13]:
Let's not go crazy.
Christina Warren [01:28:14]:
But you just got 2 Sparks. So, you know, I think we're—
Leo Laporte [01:28:17]:
I know. It's, yeah, my, I should be satiated. appreciated. But I think I— everybody knows this: the more you eat, the more you want. Apple's back-to-school offers have been extended, but says William Gallagher at Apple Insider, you can do much better. Well, that's too bad if their back-to-school discounts aren't the greatest. Uh, by the way, they are now verifying educational credentials.
Christina Warren [01:28:39]:
Yeah, so, and, and it's only for, at this point, college students, um, uh, or not high No. Or elementary school or parents who homeschool or teachers. So if you are a teacher, if you are a college student who's entering college, or if you are a parent who homeschools, then you can get the discount. But otherwise, you can't. And I think that's a shame. We talked before, I don't like some of the verification stuff and there might be issues around that. And if you need to verify for fraud reasons, fine, whatever. I think that's ridiculous, but fine.
Christina Warren [01:29:10]:
But it really does I, I don't know. I think it's disappointing that if you're a parent for an elementary school or middle school or high school-aged child, yeah, it is going to be much better to go to Best Buy or go to Amazon than to go to Apple because you can't get a student discount anyway.
Andy Ihnatko [01:29:26]:
Yeah, especially if a trade-in— trade-ins are getting a lot more aggressive as they're really, really trying to press people to get back. They're— lots of makers are aware of the prices have gone up. Also, people are stretching out how much, how much time they spend with their older phones. And so it's— I've, I've been shopping around around for my own, uh, phone upgrade. And it's like, I usually— I'm not even— okay, well, thank you for $53 for the phone that's 4 years old. But now it's like, oh, that's $100 more than I can get for it on eBay even.
Leo Laporte [01:29:56]:
Mm-hmm.
Andy Ihnatko [01:29:57]:
So it's a— again, like I said, it's a complicated calculus. And I'm glad— I totally agree with what you said. This— the idea of— again, it's unprecedented to say that the, the, the advice of maybe if— maybe if you've got an iPhone 11 or 12 or even 13 upgrading to last year's iPhone 17, you should consider that because it's a, it's, it's a pre-Ramageddon design model. So it's got pretty much everything that you'd want it to have. It will be less expensive. It's a damn nice phone. And maybe there will not be as much to the iPhone 18, even the iPhone 18 Pro, to make it worth it. Again, maybe the $300 or $400 you might save will be best spent elsewhere, like on a better, you know, better plan or something like that.
Leo Laporte [01:30:42]:
So shop around because there'll be, you know, variable discounts all the time. Apple is apparently, according to the Wall Street Journal, in talks to pay publishers for their content to improve Siri AI. This is not unusual. Google does it, um, Anthropic does it, OpenAI does it. This is what you do. You go to these companies like the New York Times and say, hey, we'd like your content.
Andy Ihnatko [01:31:07]:
They're doing it in an unusual way though. Those other companies are basically paying a license, an umbrella licensing fee to access the library, to basically for permission to use this library content. Apple is proposing kind of a pay-to-play sort of thing where if Siri uses a piece of information that it feels that the, the trail comes back to your piece of content, it will basically pay you a spiff for that usage. Uh, and I think the Wall Street Journal, uh, article mentions like a, a 9-figure kitty for that payment plan, which could be $100 million, could be $999 million.
Leo Laporte [01:31:45]:
It's more than $10 million, but less than a billion dollars.
Andy Ihnatko [01:31:52]:
More than $99,999,999.99.
Leo Laporte [01:31:56]:
Whenever they say the number of figures, I have to in my head go 1,000,000,000,000.
Andy Ihnatko [01:32:02]:
I do the same thing. Like, oh, I have to count it out. You're right. 10 to the power of what?
Leo Laporte [01:32:08]:
It's a lot of money anyway.
Andy Ihnatko [01:32:10]:
But essentially, I wonder how they're going to do the bookkeeping for that though. It's easy to just simply say, New York Times, here's a check. We'll negotiate again in a couple years. But I can't imagine suddenly I get a check for 18 cents for the 5 years in which things that I might have written and published got used by Siri for God knows what, because I make up most of the things that I publish.
Leo Laporte [01:32:32]:
Well, and aren't we giving Siri all of our information? I've, you know, I updated my iPhone this morning and it's still going through the Siri indexing. I mean, they're getting all our emails, all our text messages. What does it index? Photos? What does it index for the Siri AI? Do we know? It's got to be at least text messages and mail.
Jason Snell [01:32:51]:
Mail messages. It's technically, it's anything that's in Spotlight. I'm not sure whether it's going to look at the contents of photos, but that metadata is there. So it's possible. And I'm not sure it's doing it in this version, but, you know, anything that photo metadata is all accessible by Spotlight. Lots of any app can kind of make their metadata available. So, you know, there's a lot in there, but most of the stuff that this seems to, you know, where it really seems to work right now is Mail and Messages.
Leo Laporte [01:33:17]:
Yeah. Yeah. Apple is training its own model in China as well. We thought that they were going to use Alibaba was Quen, but apparently, according to Reuters, 3 sources described the Chinese-specific module as a departure model— I'm sorry— from Apple's strategy on relying on third-party models. Not Gemini, not, uh, Quen. You say Qwen or Quen, Christina?
Christina Warren [01:33:43]:
I say Quen. So yeah, I say Quen. I say Quen. So I—
Leo Laporte [01:33:46]:
No matter what I say, dictation gets it wrong. So It doesn't really matter. So that's interesting because we had heard earlier that they were going to use Alibaba's Qwen, which is a very, very good model.
Christina Warren [01:34:00]:
It's a very good model.
Leo Laporte [01:34:00]:
Yeah, I'm running it right now.
Andy Ihnatko [01:34:02]:
Well, yeah, there was actually temporarily Apple released a document saying, here's how to hook up your Apple intelligence to work with Qwen. Wasn't that something? And then they pulled it.
Leo Laporte [01:34:15]:
Yeah. Part of this is because of China's own regulatory process, the Cyberspace Administration of China. Uh, that's probably a poor translation of a much better Chinese phrase. But anyway, um, you have to get through them, uh, before you could put it on Chinese phones. And presumably some of that is so that they can censor it on things like, uh, Uyghur labor, forced labor camps and Tiananmen Square. There, I said it. Now this podcast will never be heard in China again.
Christina Warren [01:34:46]:
Or Winnie the Pooh. We can't, we can't, we can't.
Leo Laporte [01:34:50]:
Oh, you said Winnie the Pooh.
Christina Warren [01:34:51]:
I did say Winnie the Pooh. He's my favorite cartoon character. Sorry.
Leo Laporte [01:34:55]:
You know, I haven't tested my— the Chinese model I'm running to see if I could ask it about Winnie the Pooh. It doesn't come up so often, so I'm not really too worried about it. There are versions you can get, what they call obliterated versions, which will take out any of those restrictions.
Andy Ihnatko [01:35:11]:
Yeah. I was trying to understand the Reuters article because they had— it was their story, and I was trying to figure out if If what they were saying was that just as they were using Gemini to train— in the US, they're using Gemini to train Apple's models. Were they using Alibaba to train Chinese Apple intelligence models?
Leo Laporte [01:35:31]:
Reuters is just as confused. The final sentence in the story is, it's not immediately clear what role Apple's self-trained model would play alongside third-party Chinese models and how those are working together. Just like in the United States of Amer. Yeah, they might be doing distillation.
Jason Snell [01:35:48]:
I think that's what it is. I think they're doing exactly with this what they did with Gemini, which is how to train your generic model to be better as a Chinese model is train it against an approved Chinese model, right?
Andy Ihnatko [01:35:59]:
Or hire a Chinese teacher to teach you Chinese. Yeah.
Leo Laporte [01:36:02]:
Yeah. Which is a perfectly respectable way to do it. But obviously it's the regulatory agency in China that they have to appease. So, you know, I'm not sure what the requirement would be. I bet you mostly they just don't want you to mention Winnie the Pooh.
Christina Warren [01:36:19]:
I mean, it might be that. Well, there's the other interesting component too, and I don't know if there's any validity to this, but it could be in addition to China potentially having, you know, issues they have to get through. Do we know how the US government feels about any of this? Because they've been really, really ornery about US companies doing anything with, with Chinese models.
Jason Snell [01:36:38]:
Ah, interesting.
Leo Laporte [01:36:40]:
Yeah, well, if they— yeah, yeah, they don't want them to have Chinese RAM. They don't want them— I mean, you— would they train the models in China, or are they training them?
Jason Snell [01:36:49]:
I think that's it.
Christina Warren [01:36:50]:
Well, I'm sure that they would, but, but my, my point is more broad than that, is that would that be the sort of thing that, like, would, would that potentially anger people in the administration, even if you're training it in China for Chinese users the fact that you're using a Chinese model at all and you have a relationship with the Chinese government, uh, by extension because you have to do so to work with Alibaba. Is that a thing that the administration is going to be okay with? I don't know. I, I do know that they— the administration is very ornery, is again the only word I can say, about, uh, U.S. hyperscalers and how they serve Chinese models, um, in the United States.
Leo Laporte [01:37:27]:
Even Apple has sent out an unusual number of warnings I don't know if any of you got this. Apple detected a mercenary spyware attack targeted at your iPhone. There are actions you can take now to protect your data and device. Apple told TechCrunch it sent the notifications out Thursday to users in 110 countries. Uh, that means what? That they are seeing an attack on your personal device? That's wild. And maybe this has— I don't know what this has to do with, uh, which particular vulnerability they've patched this has to do with, but we've seen these before.
Andy Ihnatko [01:38:09]:
Yeah, there are a couple dimensions to this, one of which that this— that security experts are saying that they haven't seen this, uh, this quantity, this flood. And also that apparently they have a new mechanism where they can actually put the apples— now, for these, for this way They've— they were actually putting alerts right on the lock screen, uh, which is something they've never done before.
Leo Laporte [01:38:29]:
Uh, Citizen Lab's Scott Railton told TechCrunch these new push notifications are a big improvement. Notifications create a critical signal that a community is being targeted, he said. People get an alert and then some of them reach out and seek help. Often this kicks off an investigation that reveals many, many more cases. So in fact, it happened in Poland. There's an ongoing scandal over the former government's use of spyware against its rivals, including journalists and dissidents. And it was Apple's notifications that kind of revealed that and triggered the investigation. So, you know, good on Apple.
Leo Laporte [01:39:11]:
I think this is, this is great. And as Zack Whitaker says in TechCrunch, if, if you get that that, take it seriously.
Jason Snell [01:39:18]:
Yeah, that's my talks with Apple security people. This is the stuff that they're most worried about is like mercenary, um, because that's also your state level. That's targeted. That's because if you're getting a warning like that, it's because somebody thinks you are a target. Yeah. And that is not a lot of people. But this is that we talk a lot about Apple security features where the truth is for a lot of this stuff, you're not going to be targeted as a regular person. But there is this whole other tier that is like the, the A-list of targeted people, and they're the ones who should have encryption turned on everywhere, and they should probably be in that extra mode that make— that, that turns off a lot of functionality but also locks down your phone.
Jason Snell [01:40:04]:
I— what is that? Lockdown mode is actually what it's called, I think. You know, like, there are some people for You got to do all of that. And you know who— you probably know who you are, but if you don't, you may have gotten an email about this because this is somebody actively with resources is targeting you specifically. That's not a, not a, you know, a big fishing net to try and get a bunch of data. It's like somebody wants to do something to you.
Christina Warren [01:40:27]:
State level.
Jason Snell [01:40:28]:
It's, it's usually a state-level actor. It doesn't necessarily have to be because it could be a big corporation or something. But yeah, this is the serious stuff.
Andy Ihnatko [01:40:34]:
Yeah, I mean, this, this, this could be— this could be your life is in danger. This is the scale of that. And, and bravo to Apple, because I'm sure that a lot of the people they talk to in government are upset that— are operating some of these campaigns and are upset that Apple is more than willing to tip off their users inside their country that they are being— their devices are being attacked on that level. And the fact that they still have this service running says a lot about Apple's integrity. Yeah.
Leo Laporte [01:41:04]:
Uh, Apple's got baseball, Major League Soccer, and now maybe golf. Golf's Open Championship could come to Apple TV in its latest sports bid. This is from Apple Insider. They're in talks with, uh, the owners of the Open Championship. NBC has a license, but it runs out in a couple of years. There are other people bidding. Oh, I forgot F1. So you got soccer, baseball, racing, and golf, which is of course a dying sport because it uses more water than data centers.
Leo Laporte [01:41:40]:
Okay, no, it's not. It's doing fine.
Christina Warren [01:41:42]:
I was gonna say, my dad plays golf. Well, actually right now it's too hot for him to play golf, uh, but he usually plays 2 or 3 times a week. Yeah, golf is— golf is, uh, golf is big. Golf is very big.
Jason Snell [01:41:52]:
Yeah, and it's international. That struck me about this too, is that it's got an international appeal, and Apple seems to like sports that they can think globally about, even if their rights that they buy are initially not global. F1, they got the US rights, but that's a global sport. They show the Major League Baseball stuff in multiple countries. Their MLS, although their MLS is worldwide, it's not the World Soccer League, but it is the world sport. So I think a part of what they do with a lot of this stuff is try to think big for the long term. And that's what struck me about the golf thing is I don't The people at Apple don't strike me as being big golfers, to be honest. They do seem to be more like, I'm going to buy myself a race car, than they are, I'm going to go golf, because I don't think they got the time for that.
Jason Snell [01:42:35]:
Even the Type A personalities at Apple probably do not spend a lot of time golfing. But I do think they view this as it's got a very wealthy demographic, which is nice.
Andy Ihnatko [01:42:45]:
It's an upscale audience.
Jason Snell [01:42:46]:
And it's an international thing. And I think Apple Sports ambitions are More global than you might think.
Andy Ihnatko [01:42:53]:
Also, on top of that, I think it was a report from analysts. I don't think it was from Apple. Analysts were basically saying that one of the reasons why this sort of thing is such a great play is that if you have this big, big sporting event, or even if you just have the big baseball game from the big rivalry between these 2 baseball teams, people will sign up just to get that series of games. who maybe weren't Apple TV subscribers to begin with, and then they'll actually keep their subscription going on forward. So if you have people who sign up for F1 and then decide that, hey, I'll just, I'll just keep it long enough to watch this series, then, oh, I didn't realize Harrison Ford was— okay, I'll just keep it long enough to watch that series too. So they might sign up to get the US Open and then wind up keeping it for at least 6 months or even forget forever. So the sports is such a huge, huge win.
Christina Warren [01:43:40]:
No, it's the HBO model, frankly, right? I mean, HBO pioneered that. Um, like more than anybody else where, A, they would have, you know, both with sports and with, with series where they would have, you know, series. Okay. You're always going to have your big flagship, you know, in January and then it ends up, you know, in May and then Sex and the City starts in May and then, you know, something else is going to be in the fall. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's very good continuous programming and like there's a lot of money in golf, especially internationally. There's a lot of money in that. And so great. the more content we can have on the platform, the better.
Christina Warren [01:44:13]:
Because selfishly, I feel like, okay, well, if they can make, you know, money, be in the black a little bit, then maybe they won't be as far as Netflix is on the, okay, well, if these shows don't perform to the numbers that we need, we're gonna cancel them, you know.
Leo Laporte [01:44:29]:
Not being a golfer, I had to look up the Open Championship. You might know it as the British Open. It's one of the 4, big 4 major golf tournaments. And it's British, which is interesting. It's in the UK. So they didn't bid for the US championship game tournaments.
Christina Warren [01:44:47]:
No, I think that those are already owned by various networks and stuff. So that does not surprise me.
Leo Laporte [01:44:54]:
This is the one that's coming available.
Christina Warren [01:44:56]:
Yeah. And then there's— what is it? Is it LIV Golf or somebody? That's the Saudi I was going to say, that's the Saudi thing, right? Right, right. And LIV collapsed. Yeah, right. Yeah, it already collapsed. But I knew— yeah, but I knew that they had things like that in the works, and I could see them wanting to be a part of something like that. But being part of the PGA, for instance, that's— you're gonna have to spend a lot of money to get something like that.
Leo Laporte [01:45:17]:
Oh, that's interesting. It's cheaper to get the British Open. Oh yeah, at least get your foot in the door.
Christina Warren [01:45:22]:
Which, which is— I mean, honestly, that's what a lot of other, um, companies who, as they break into sports, that's what you do. You start with the lower tier, um, leagues and then you move higher up. I mean, that's, that's kind of the history of— again, go back like in history of Fox Television, right? Like, they, they didn't start out with the NFL. They were doing some smaller leagues first, and then when they finally got the NFL, I think it was in '96, you know, that was, uh, a big deal to get one NFL game a week for them.
Leo Laporte [01:45:48]:
PGA is owned by, uh, jointly owned by CBS and NBC through 2030. Yeah. So if Apple wants to get into that, it's going to have to wait a few years.
Jason Snell [01:45:56]:
But again, maybe you take a crack at what's available, see what you can, and then go from Yeah. And I actually think golf, some of these things like golf and tennis, F1's a little like this too. Like there's also the power of this for streamers is great. Like golf, there are 18 holes that people are playing on and it gives you the ability with a streamer to have different announcers at different holes and let the, let, you know, follow a golfer through their whole match, you know, in a way that linear TV can't do. there's an opportunity, just like with tennis, there's a bunch of different courts going on early in a tournament. And ESPN, yeah, ESPN's done some great work with that. Like this is one of those things where you could really do some really cool stuff as a streamer, uh, with a nonlinear platform.
Leo Laporte [01:46:46]:
Plus you could put a Blackmagic camera at every, uh, immersive golf if you really want to.
Jason Snell [01:46:51]:
Yeah. But that, we already did that segment though. So we'll just never mind.
Christina Warren [01:46:55]:
But, but that's, but that is the sort of thing that I think could entice people to, again, stay in your ecosystem more, especially if they really like it. And there have already been standalone— I mean, we saw this with Formula 1 already too. I think it's a great example. But there are specialty streamers oftentimes dedicated to these sorts of sports. And so, I mean, it's a real opportunity if you have the money to make a play for it to get the people who are really, really into it who will pay for maybe that specialty streamer, but also get the Apple TV as well if they really want to watch the British Open. And then if you see the results, if the results are good, then maybe you do make that bid in 2030. Um, to get the PGA.
Leo Laporte [01:47:31]:
Well, Jessica Chastain said we were going to see The Savant in July. We didn't. I don't know if we're ever going to see The Savant.
Christina Warren [01:47:42]:
We might not ever see it.
Jason Snell [01:47:43]:
Yeah, I think we will. I think it's— I think it's— I think it's just a matter of Apple putting it back in. They seem to be tiptoeing back toward The Savant.
Leo Laporte [01:47:51]:
Must bug the heck out of her and Jessica Chastain, the star, and the others who made show that it was supposed to open September, and then after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Apple pulled it back. And I don't know, they're still waiting. She was— what did she say? She, she, uh, disagreed with the Apple decision but respected it. I respect it.
Andy Ihnatko [01:48:15]:
It was weird because that same year they had 2 similar situations where a breaking news— a news event made it inappropriate to air something like the, like, uh, the, the Peanuts, uh, Camp Snoopy special.
Leo Laporte [01:48:27]:
Oh, right, right.
Andy Ihnatko [01:48:28]:
Because there was a tragedy that— the floods. But the thing is, like, they, of course, they pulled it, but they rescheduled it almost immediately. Basically say, here's, here's the new date for it. So it was kind of— I mean, Jason at the time said something that I hadn't considered was this: it could be as simple as they need to be able to get all of these actors together so that they can do press to promote this thing when it goes. And maybe they're just waiting for all these schedules to line up. But I kind of would— I kind of definitely want to see a show of confidence from Apple that we are definitely committed to airing this. No, we are not just being weasels who are very afraid of angering the White House or angering any political party. We are actually absolutely committed to having this wonderful piece of artwork shown before the audience that deserves to see it.
Jason Snell [01:49:13]:
I mean, it doesn't— I don't think I've heard anything that suggests that this show is anything like that either. It's more like they were— it was a proximity to a specific event that made them feel uncomfortable. Like how that— there was that, you know, Buffy episode about a school shooting, and then there was a school shooting, and they're like, we're not going to show that episode for 3 months because it's too, too proximate. I will also point out though that like Apple TV drops new seasons of Tehran, which is a show that is both about Israel and Iran. Nothing going on in those countries.
Christina Warren [01:49:44]:
Right.
Jason Snell [01:49:45]:
So I don't, I don't know. I, I— something weird's going on here, but I do think it's more Like they did a snap decision to pull it, and now there are it's hard to put it back in the box.
Christina Warren [01:49:56]:
Exactly. Yeah. And and I'll say this too: like yeah, the snap decision they made, which we can agree or disagree with, that's that's not unique to Apple. I mean, I remember like plenty of networks, television networks, even back in those days, would make similar decisions or edit things, right? So that's not unique to Apple. But I think you make a good point about. out, okay, they had to completely basically halt the launch, and then you have to figure out, okay, well, where in the schedule does it go? I will go as far as to say at this point, I think that when you are almost a year from when it was supposed to premiere, whatever contracts you've had in terms of cast for promotion, I think you have to eat. And I don't think that you can force anybody out of their contract. I'm pretty sure that most contracts actually would have some sort of language that says within this period of time, you know, we will be available for promotion for this project.
Christina Warren [01:50:42]:
So when it does come out, I, I don't know if we'll see any sort of splash.
Jason Snell [01:50:47]:
I wonder, I wonder though if— and this is the thing that makes me think maybe they are trying their best— is I think the easiest thing for them to do would probably just to dump it out and say, there it is. And they haven't done that, which makes me feel like they do feel like— because, right, if you, if you've got this thing and you want to roll it out and you like it, you'd want to promote it, right? You wouldn't want to dump it. It would be easier to just dump this thing and forget about it you think it's a stinker or you think that it's too controversial. So it makes me think that maybe they actually do want to give this a proper push, that they want to mend their relationship with Jessica Chastain, and that that might be one of the reasons why this is going on. But we— until they say something about this, we just don't know.
Andy Ihnatko [01:51:30]:
Exactly. More than anything else, it's Apple's and Tim Cook's behavior in early 2025 before the announcement that, hey, we're moving this on the schedule. That makes me say I'm not going to give Apple the benefit of the doubt. Many things are possible, including this is completely innocent. This is completely— they're just, again, there's factors that we can't consider. I'm not going to simply dismiss the idea that this is politically motivated and they're waiting for the temperature of the room to change to favorable winds. This is not something that I would've considered in 2024 or 2023 or 2022. But given how Tim was acting towards the administration for the first half of 2025, I am not going to draw any— jump to any conclusions, but I'm also not willing to simply dismiss the possibility that this is politically motivated.
Christina Warren [01:52:18]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [01:52:18]:
Uh, I was wondering why all of a sudden Apple TV was promoting an old Bruce Willis film, Looper, and now I understand why. It's one of 19 free movies that Apple TV— this is, uh, this is to This is exactly what you were talking about, Christina, of how you get people to keep that subscription. You got to keep stuff fresh. So there's— these aren't the latest movies, although I think a lot of people who watched Project Hail Mary might want to say, oh, let's watch The Martian. I know we did. Titanic, if you haven't seen it yet, spoiler alert. Well, maybe I shouldn't.
Jason Snell [01:52:51]:
The ship sinks.
Leo Laporte [01:52:52]:
Oh, Jason.
Christina Warren [01:52:53]:
I mean, look, this is a pretty good list. Gone Girl, which is a great movie. Great, great movie.
Leo Laporte [01:52:59]:
Forgetting Sarah Marshall, E.T., which I just recently watched. I, Robot. A couple of Will Smith movies. I guess he's, he's back in the, in the game. Yeah, a couple of Bruce Willis movies. The Sixth Sense.
Jason Snell [01:53:11]:
It's different in different countries, but like, I, I think this is just— I think they must have gotten a deal or something where they're like— I think they like to experiment with this because Apple doesn't have a lot of catalog that isn't their stuff. And I think this is an experiment Will people want to watch it? If you do a search for these movies in the TV app, it'll just have a play button and you're like, oh, well, that's kind of nice.
Leo Laporte [01:53:30]:
I love it when that happens.
Jason Snell [01:53:31]:
And, and I think that's— I think they watch the data and they feel they're bringing value to the service. I don't know. I mean, I think they'll look at the data and say, are there, are there advantages? If I were them, movies— I mean, maybe having— they feel like having movies on the service just in general is a nice thing to do and they can create little film festivals, they've experimented with this before. If I were them, I would also start looking at TV series that are close to my TV series because they have so much TV. And one of the ways you keep your service sticky is saying, now that you watch that, maybe you should watch this. And like, are there series that are good fits for the series that they're about to run or are running? Like, or movies. And this, this seems like a grab bag, but like, you got Slow Horses coming out. Are there some spy series or movies that you could put out with Star Wars? Or Gary Oldman spy movies, how about that? And, and, and because they're never probably— unless they buy a studio with a catalog, they're probably never going to have a Netflix-style back catalog.
Jason Snell [01:54:33]:
But I think there's room for them to tactically buy stuff that fits in with the content that they already have that makes it more expansive and Yeah.
Christina Warren [01:54:42]:
No, and it's a great thing when you have that. I mean, Amazon kind of started doing that, and this was, you know, early, early on before Prime Video like had its own streaming thing where they were basically just, they had catalog, you know, titles. They didn't have an agreement with studios. And that I think is kind of how you build the loyalty a little bit by saying, okay, we had this number of free included things too that you get as part of your subscription. And so I think they should do that. What I'm curious about is that, you know, you mentioned TV made me think of this, Jason. Jason, is if we're going to see them try to get into the FAST space at all. On the one hand, it seems to be an anathema to everything they stand by, which is not ad-supported.
Christina Warren [01:55:19]:
On the other hand, this is very clearly where the industry— FAST is free ad-supported television. Yeah. And so on the one hand, it seems to go against them. But on the other hand, I'm like, I think you're leaving money on the table by at least not having those services easily accessible in your application and in your interface. Because I might go out of my way to pay a premium to not see ads, but that is not how most people operate at this point.
Jason Snell [01:55:43]:
Everybody's, everybody's doing it and they're very successful, you know, Pluto TV and Tubi, and they're very successful. And it also, like, it is, it is a good model. I mean, you make money on ads. It's also a good model to, to, to promote your content. If you can imagine having a Ted Lasso marathon, but it's really just season and you can tease some of your other shows, and then you can maybe toss some other stuff in there that's promoting your content. There is some value in doing stuff like that, whether— yeah, and it doesn't have to be a free tier of Apple TV with ads. They could do that too.
Christina Warren [01:56:19]:
Yeah.
Jason Snell [01:56:19]:
But another approach would be to not do that, but to offer a fast channel so people could tune in and say, you know, this weekend you're gonna get to see whatever show is maybe coming back. You know, see, see, Slow Horses season 1 is gonna be on this weekend. Like, it's a classic case of, cable model of the free preview weekend.
Christina Warren [01:56:36]:
Yeah.
Jason Snell [01:56:36]:
But you're exposing your content and then making people wanna watch it and finding value in, in that subscription that they maybe didn't find before. I, yeah, I'm as good as Apple TV has been in terms of the content decisions they've made and the shows they made, I think exceeded my expectations by a lot. I am a little curious. This goes back to other conversations we've had about like the Apple Watch last week, the talk about maybe they should have been a little more curious, like Ted Lasso, and tried some other, you know, wearable fitness devices, not just the one Apple Watch form factor. I feel that way about Apple TV too. It's like what they're doing is great. They've done really well with it, but it is based on the initial premise that they had when they launched. And I haven't seen a lot of iteration from it.
Jason Snell [01:57:21]:
Whereas doing a fast channel or a free ad tier or something else like, or a low-cost ad tier would be Let's try something else. They're not really trying anything else, right? This is, this is trying very lightly trying something else, which is licensing some movies, but like there's zero risk there. I would love to see them experiment with some of this other stuff.
Andy Ihnatko [01:57:41]:
Yeah, but that Apple has a big problem that Netflix didn't have, that Hulu didn't have, the HBO didn't have, Disney didn't have, in creating an ad-supported tier. They've been honking their own horn for years and years and years about how privacy is a God-given right and it's most important element. You cannot have an ad system without telling the advertisers, we know the demographics of your audience. We can basically— if you're trying to place an ad towards these people, we've collected enough information about our users that we can deliver that segment to you.
Jason Snell [01:58:09]:
I don't agree because there are ads in the App Store and they're gonna be ads in Apple Maps and there are ads out and there are ads in Apple News and they are building an ad platform and they have a VP of ads, and they said that they set quarterly records in advertising revenue. So I think they're already, I think they're already there. I am frankly shocked that there isn't an ad tier of, of Apple TV already because literally everybody else has one. And I, I think, I think we're already there. And the, the privacy argument would simply be, you know, we have a really great first-party ad platform that we're using.
Leo Laporte [01:58:42]:
Mm-hmm.
Jason Snell [01:58:42]:
And if you don't wanna, you know, be measured as part of the ad platform, pay for the version that doesn't have ads. And, you know, they don't— I mean, they don't even offer a version without ads of Apple Maps or Apple News or the App Store. You just get ads. So the ads are already there and they have an ad business that's growing. That's— I don't think there's any impediment to them doing it. But then again, they haven't done it yet. So maybe they're afraid.
Andy Ihnatko [01:59:08]:
I just don't know that I trust them that much. Also, the people who are placing ads for TV content aren't the same marketers that are placing ads for other platforms and other services. All I'm saying is that I'm not, I'm not willing to, I'm not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm— I basically say that anytime that you have an ad platform, it doesn't run unless you're collecting information about your users. I don't understand whether or not Apple is going to cross a line. That's a good question.
Jason Snell [01:59:34]:
What does the benefit of the doubt have to do with this at all? I mean, every— literally everybody sets up a TV ad platform and they are looking at at information. And I just, I don't— are you trying to give Apple the benefit of the doubt that they don't want to collect? I mean, they're going to play this game. I think it's almost certain they're already playing it in other places. They will continue to play it here if it serves them. I just, I don't think it's an issue. I don't think— I don't think they're saying, oh, we can't do ads on Apple TV because if there are ads on Apple TV, then people will believe that we don't believe in privacy. Like, I don't know, I feel like the horse is out of the barn. Um, and, and it is a disconnect that happens far enough away from the rest of their iPhone, that's privacy, that it doesn't matter to most people.
Andy Ihnatko [02:00:19]:
I just think that this is where making such strong umbrella statements about how no other company cares about privacy, which is never true— this is the— where we believe this is sacrosanct— that kind of thing kind of bites them in the But I don't mean that they're now untrustworthy. I don't mean that they are hypocrites. I'm saying that this is when you— this is where they can now, just as there was a time where they used to advertise the Mac as, well, you don't have to deal with malware, you don't have to deal with viruses. Well, that was never really true, and now it's super not true, so you can't say that anymore. So all I'm saying is that this is a tricky— this is a trickier line for Apple to navigate than it was for other companies to navigate that simply never pretended to be be, uh, not to be— sorry, that never pretended to be super, super, super privacy focused.
Jason Snell [02:01:05]:
I feel like they blew through that stop sign a long time ago. Yeah, true.
Christina Warren [02:01:08]:
The only thing I would say is just kind of as devil's advocate a little bit, Andy, is that because I don't disagree with you, I think that it's trickier for them. Although to Jason's point, I think that horse might already be out of the barn or whatever the expression is. But you know, you can still watch these other platforms that do the other things. You can still watch most of those platforms on Apple TV. That's the thing, right? Like, just because I, you know, if I have the ad-supported Netflix plan, I'm not sure that there's any demonstrable difference between what information Netflix is capturing about me because I'm using the Apple TV app versus if I'm using a Google Play box. Maybe there is, but I kind of doubt it. So I don't know how strong that is. For me, I think if I could see any reason why they've held back, it's that I think that's been one of their market differentiators so far has been that like they, you know, we're trying to be more, um, prestige and high tier.
Christina Warren [02:01:58]:
But considering that everyone else has an ad-supported tier that is still paid for, I am surprised, especially with raising prices, that they haven't gone in that direction. Um, the only other reason I could think about is just that they might not have enough content, um, still at this point for their library to be able to meaningfully, you know, have, have an ad-supported thing. They just genuinely might not have enough content to be able to do that. I don't know.
Leo Laporte [02:02:22]:
If you've ever wondered what a silicon-controlled rectifier is, I have found a young man, very talented, who can explain it all. You can bid. It's only $3,222 for Steve Jobs' 8th grade science fair project being auctioned off right now. Look at that. Submitted by Steve Jobs, Cupertino Junior High, 8th grade. He did a nice job. He put some, uh, put some work into this sucker.
Jason Snell [02:02:52]:
This really helps when you live on a street where every dad on the entire block is an engineer at HP or an engineer at the, you know, Moffett Field for the government, which is the truth of Silicon Valley at that time, is that for Jobs and Wozniak both His dad, Jobs's dad wasn't, but Woz's dad was. But like, literally all the dads, and it was all dads back then, were working at those places. And Jobs would like go around and like people would take them under their wing and be like, oh, you can have these electronic parts. And like, this is very— this is the story of Silicon Valley. This is how Silicon Valley came to be, is, is an environment that would give the opportunities for people like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to, to do these just completely bananas science projects that no other 8th grader in the country would ever do, but you do it in, in the Santa Clara Valley.
Leo Laporte [02:03:45]:
And he had to type the card, which is probably why he said, I'm never gonna type anything ever again, and created the personal computer shortly thereafter. You know, I hope a museum gets this. I hope the Computer History Museum or somebody gets this because it really is is an historic piece, and it doesn't deserve to sit in somebody's basement or garage or even, you know, desktop. This is just really super cool. So you can, uh, it's on— it's lot 4006 right now at rrauction.com. They've auctioned off a bunch of other Steve Jobs memorabilia. Uh, it's actually— they have an auction called Steve Jobs and the Computer Revolution: The Apple 50th Anniversary But I thought the science— there's, you know, there's a signed NeXT business card with a note to his dad.
Christina Warren [02:04:34]:
$25,000.
Leo Laporte [02:04:36]:
Yeah, I would think the science project is worth so much more, but I'm glad it's not going that high because maybe a museum will get it, because that belongs in the Computer History Museum for sure.
Andy Ihnatko [02:04:45]:
The auction closes in 2 days, so there's probably a lot of—
Leo Laporte [02:04:48]:
They'll be sniping at the end.
Andy Ihnatko [02:04:49]:
From experience, there's people who are holding back. Yeah, yeah, they, they They—
Leo Laporte [02:04:52]:
the auction house expects $20,000. So yeah, there you go.
Andy Ihnatko [02:04:56]:
It's, it's worth— it's, it's worth— it's rrauction.com. It's worth checking out because there's, there's lots of cool things, some silly things, like as you say, like, okay, here's things that autograph things. Here are things—
Leo Laporte [02:05:06]:
Nothing as silly as Steve's bow tie collection, which they auctioned off the last time around. That was really silly. Yeah. All right, we're taking a break. We'll come back. Guess what? Prepare your picks. Because the picks of the week are coming up next. You're watching MacBreak Weekly.
Leo Laporte [02:05:23]:
Now, Andrew and not co., your pick of the week.
Andy Ihnatko [02:05:26]:
A really, really big one. One of the oldest, most venerable, most trustworthy, and best utilities for the Mac, SuperDuper, my favorite backup app, has gotten an amazing update to version 4.
Leo Laporte [02:05:39]:
It's SuperDuperer.
Andy Ihnatko [02:05:40]:
SuperDuperer. This might even be the SuperDuperest. Because this was a full, like, top-to-bottom rewrite.
Leo Laporte [02:05:48]:
I've been recommending this program since it came out. I can't believe it's 22 years. That's amazing.
Andy Ihnatko [02:05:53]:
I mean, it's amazing. You should— so Dave Nanian, the creator of SuperDuper, had a blog post that basically went through the whole history of, like, why this took so— every single dream that he's put into this for the past 20 years, he basically wanted to tick everything off the list. So the, the interface has been completely updated, but it still has that same really, really friendly conversational tone to it. Even when you install it, there's like— it's basically Dave. The text is all like, here's what's going to happen and here's why we have to install this helper, because now we've split the app into the interface which you control, but then there's a helper app that can do things in the background.
Leo Laporte [02:06:30]:
The most important thing, Andy, tell me it does this, is make a bootable external drive if my hard drive inside dies.
Andy Ihnatko [02:06:39]:
I have not checked that yet.
Leo Laporte [02:06:40]:
That was a hard thing to do in the— after APFS came out.
Andy Ihnatko [02:06:43]:
It does, it can, it does, it does create a bootable, uh, a bootable mirror to Neo Backup.
Leo Laporte [02:06:48]:
So that's there.
Andy Ihnatko [02:06:49]:
I mean, what the blog post is great to read because it's, it's about, it also explains about how like just getting this to work has been such a moving target as Apple keeps changing so many things.
Leo Laporte [02:07:00]:
It was really hard to do this.
Andy Ihnatko [02:07:01]:
I know it was, again, almost impossible. Again, Dave's a friend of mine and the number of times that like I have not been able to like really hang out with him for the past 2 or 3 months because he's been working on this full time. He does not have time. Our favorite comic book shop is closing. I said, well, let's get together like before it closes up. Oh God, I don't even have like one hour.
Leo Laporte [02:07:20]:
So if you have Time Machine, you've got a good backup, but what you don't have is a bootable backup. And this will make it for you. You just get, I'm gonna do this right now to my Mac mini. I'm gonna put an external drive on it, upgrade, 'cause I've had SuperDuper forever to version 4 and make a bootable external drive so that if my Mac mini internal drive dies, I am not So you can be up and running almost completely. Huge.
Andy Ihnatko [02:07:43]:
Yeah, so it supports shortcuts. The speed is 2, 3, 4 times what it used to be. Uh, the workflow is a lot simpler. It will back up not just, uh, it'll basically, it'll back up anything that the Mac can recognize. So if you've got like exFAT volumes or if you've got volumes that are on a NAS, it can interact between those, those 2 very, very easily. Again, I can't—
Leo Laporte [02:08:06]:
Shortcut support.
Andy Ihnatko [02:08:08]:
Yeah, I mean everything. This was again, a floor-to-ceiling rewrite.
Jason Snell [02:08:13]:
Yes.
Andy Ihnatko [02:08:14]:
He basically started all over again. And my God, it really— there were times where it was hard. It was kind of hard to recommend. I mean, it wasn't— it's never been hard to recommend SuperDuper. However, I would have to give the caveat that, okay, when you go to the website and when you download it, it's gonna look like an old app that's never been updated because it still had its original sort of like one-panel interface with buttons on it. And now it's a very, very modern-looking app. It was, it was never not a modern app, but it looked kind of like— it's, it's, it's had that avocado green kitchen appliances. They work great, but you know that this has not been updated since the 1990s, you know, this sort of thing in the kitchen.
Christina Warren [02:08:51]:
Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko [02:08:51]:
But now it's like, it's $44 apps and you own it. It's not like $44 a year, it's not a subscription. And once again, as you say, any— you need to keep backups. You need— what SuperDuper does is it allows you to create backup systems that work for you, not just simply Time Machine backups that work within Apple's constriction of what it feels like backups should be. The times when, again, I just want my MacBook to be backed up to my NAS every single night on a certain schedule. Even, it's so fine-grained too. I won't go into an hour about how much I love this app, but it will even do like a simulation run. Because so many times it's like, I'm not sure, like, because sometimes it's complicated where I want these folders, but not these folders.
Andy Ihnatko [02:09:31]:
I want this only if it's been updated. I want this under these circumstances. And the thing is with backups is that unless you meticulously check them after they complete, you don't know if you've set them up correctly. So this will actually do it. You can actually run it after you set up all your rules and set up a new type of backup. You can actually run it in simulation where it will basically step through what it has done and what the results were or what the results will be without having to commit to like a 2-hour-long backup and meticulous going through. And it's also, it's just the friendliest interface. Again, it is conversational in nature.
Andy Ihnatko [02:10:06]:
It's not written by a Unix system administrator. It was written by somebody who wants their father or their cousin or their kids to have good backups. And just, okay, here's what's going to happen. It's going to start like this and the result is going to be like that. And you don't worry about that. It's the best $44 you're going to spend. It's going to save your butt in so many different ways sometime over the life of any of these machines that you're working with.
Leo Laporte [02:10:28]:
Ms. Christina Warren, your pick of the week.
Christina Warren [02:10:33]:
Sorry. First of all, thank you, Andy, for that. I just bought it. There's another app that I have used for years too, but I've always liked both.
Leo Laporte [02:10:40]:
Carbon Copy Cloner?
Christina Warren [02:10:41]:
Yes. But I've always liked both. And so I just bought the Super Duper 4 app to support it.
Leo Laporte [02:10:48]:
I always thought it was the slickest of the two, slicker of the two.
Christina Warren [02:10:52]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think they're similar. There are some variances, but I like to support both devs. I like to support indie devs when I can. So thank you for that. This one actually was a question that somebody on, on Twitter had earlier, and I was trying to come up with like a pick of the week. And yeah, I will go ahead and pick them because I realize I've bought these 4 times over the years from Amazon and they're great.
Christina Warren [02:11:13]:
Um, these are the headphones that I'm wearing, which are the just the Sony MDR-7506 headphones.
Leo Laporte [02:11:18]:
Very nice.
Christina Warren [02:11:18]:
I am using replacement pads because the only thing with these— they've been making them I think since the '70s—
Leo Laporte [02:11:24]:
is, uh, yeah, I used to use them in radio.
Christina Warren [02:11:25]:
Yeah, I was gonna say, everybody, if you go to any radio station all over the world, doesn't matter the budget, they have these headphones because they are fantastic.
Leo Laporte [02:11:32]:
Very comfortable.
Christina Warren [02:11:33]:
The only thing is that the pads tend to fall apart, but you can buy replacement ones on Amazon relatively inexpensively. I will say, and this just shows you what inflation has done or component pricing or whatever, they're $115 right now, which is okay. I looked and I saw that the last time I bought a pair, which I guess was in 2019, they were, uh, they were $78 then. So, um, you know, a little bit of an increase, but I will say if you need something that goes into a plug, I'm not claiming they're going to be audiophile quality, but they give you a very balanced sound. They're very comfortable. You can wear them all day long. I have, this is, like I said, I think this is my 4th pair that I've bought. And I have only bought them because in one case I did actually snap the end of the connector off because I was doing something dumb and like it, it came out of something.
Christina Warren [02:12:23]:
In other cases, it's just been a matter of I wanted a pair for the office, I wanted a pair at home, I wanted a pair at my, my parents' house, um, when I go there to podcast. Um, but, uh, probably the only headphones I can say other than like something like AirPods where I, I don't know if there's been a single pair of headphones that I've worn for a longer period of time for more years than—
Leo Laporte [02:12:43]:
And because, uh, these are so widely used, I just noticed there's quite a few options for, uh, replacement pads, including cooling gel ear pads, Solwit mesh ear pads, Brainwaves colorful ear pads. You got many, many choices in, in ear pads.
Andy Ihnatko [02:13:03]:
They're so popular that you can't— you can get basically any accessory you want. Like, again, I, I've, I've got the exact same ones.
Leo Laporte [02:13:09]:
Oh, you do?
Andy Ihnatko [02:13:10]:
I've got that, and I've also got a brand new pair like in the closet so that if these were ever to break, which they haven't in like 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 years. But yeah, when it came time to, hey, if you want to travel with these, again, they're— a bunch of people make little hard cases for them that fits, and they, they fold up very, very nicely, very, very neatly. And like Christina said, the, the advantage of it is that they're not like Beats headphones where there's like a— it's a very, very neutral sort of sound. They're neutral. Exactly. And comfortable as hell.
Leo Laporte [02:13:38]:
And I'm, I'm guessing based on this I see on this Amazon listing that you have the Brainwaves turquoise ear pads.
Christina Warren [02:13:45]:
I do. I do. And, I will say, I think sometimes you might be able to get them cheaper through Brainwaves. Brainwaves will never stop emailing you, so be aware of that. But, yeah, I bought those because, yeah, that's my only thing I've ever had except for the ones that I did snap off the end, which was my bad. That was user error. That wasn't anything to do with the quality of the headphones themselves. The only part that will wear out will be the pads, but they're easy to replace and they, these things last forever.
Christina Warren [02:14:11]:
I mean, that's why I think they've been used for so long. And even at the price increase, if I had to, you know, if these, if the pair that I'm wearing right now broke tomorrow, I would without hesitation buy another just because they're, they're great. They're just great general all-around headphones. It's what I work from most of the time because if I need to record something, I want to be able to hear playback as, you know, neutrally as possible. and, and they don't hurt my, my head if I've got them on, so they're great.
Leo Laporte [02:14:37]:
Uh, and, and I can't forget our, uh, last but not least, Jason Snell and his pick of the week.
Jason Snell [02:14:44]:
Very exciting news, by the way. Um, uh, there was a water main break in my street while we were recording. I checked my home cameras and there's a giant, giant flood of water outside my front door.
Leo Laporte [02:14:54]:
Oh dear.
Jason Snell [02:14:54]:
And now there are men with jackhammers. Men with jackhammers have arrived, so apologies. For the jackhammers in the background, I'll be very quick. My friend Marco Arment—
Leo Laporte [02:15:02]:
Pool is open in Jason's neighborhood.
Jason Snell [02:15:04]:
Yeah, man, it's muddy water though. Um, uh, Marco Arment came out with a new app called Unforgettable. He's a— he's an undiagnosed ADHD person and basically said he loves the Reminders app, but it doesn't work the way his brain works. So he wrote an app that works with the Reminders database. So there's no— you— there's really no risk in trying it because it just uses Apple's Reminders database. And if you don't like it, you could just delete it and your reminders are all still there. But what he said was, if he says remind me to do something but doesn't specify a time, Reminders never notifies him, and that means he'll never check the app, which means it's gone. If he inadvertently dismisses a Reminders notification without snoozing it, it will never remind him, and then it's gone.
Jason Snell [02:15:45]:
And if he does click snooze, one of the things that happens is the options don't work for him. He's also done a bunch of really clever things, like instead of saying remind me when I go home, it reminds you 5 minutes after you're home, which requires a different permission setting. But it means the thing that he's being reminded about is suddenly actionable instead of forgettable. And he says he built this app for himself and it has really helped. And if you're somebody for whom reminders don't work because out of sight, out of mind, Unforgettable is designed to solve that problem. And it's a, you know, he's got a thing, but there's a free trial and you can basically figure out if this is for you or not. But I know a lot of people for whom this will click with their brains because reminders have been great. Computer reminders have saved a lot of people, including Marco, from a lot.
Jason Snell [02:16:33]:
But the more you think about it, you're like, ah, but a bunch of stuff falls through the cracks. How do I deal with that? And this is, you know, Marco basically fixing his own problem and then thinking, I think this maybe will fix other people's problems. And he's a, he's an indie developer who takes a lot of care with this. And he also built this for himself, and it shows. So, you know, if that— if this rings any bells for you where you have a very big out-of-sight, out-of-mind to-do problem, the whole point of this is if you have a to-do and you haven't done it, it is going to remind you again about it. It's not gonna let it just fall off the cliff and be lost to time until somebody says, why haven't you done this thing? And, uh, I think that's really clever. And the fact that it uses Apple's reminder system instead of some proprietary database or something like that is also really good.
Leo Laporte [02:17:22]:
That's where Marco is a good coder because he figured out how you could do that.
Jason Snell [02:17:26]:
And yeah, he's just using the Reminders API instead. Perfect. Not— don't reinvent the wheel, use the Reminders API. See, basically to try it, you turn off notifications from Reminders and turn 'em on for Unforgettable. That's it. And then if you don't like it, you delete Unforgettable and you turn Reminders notifications back on.
Leo Laporte [02:17:42]:
Do you think he's, uh, doing this, uh, with AI or is he still hand—
Jason Snell [02:17:45]:
Yeah, I think so. He, he is. And he is, I, I would say maybe even the prototypical great indie developer who is able to multiply what he's capable of because he's got AI assistance, but is also a brilliant coder. He says he doesn't love coding, but like, he knows the system, he knows the APIs, he knows—
Leo Laporte [02:18:03]:
That's the information that makes such a difference when you're using AI.
Jason Snell [02:18:07]:
Exactly. So there's AI assist here, but I would also not call this app vibe-coded because Marco, Marco knows enough that he doesn't have to go just on vibes, But he's able to do a whole other app on top of Overcast because he also is using, uh, you know, I think Fable for this. Yeah.
Leo Laporte [02:18:24]:
Yeah. And I could— it really helps if you can say something like, use the Reminders database, let's provide a front end for it that does notifications. I mean, that makes a huge difference that you know that.
Jason Snell [02:18:36]:
Yeah. And he also knows enough about interface design at this point too. Oh, it looks beautiful. If we know, if we know anything about AI, app builders is that they are terrible at interface design. So, uh, he's put a lot of work in there too. And, and obviously if there's something that he doesn't like that he can fix, he can just fix it because he knows Swift and SwiftUI and he can do that, right? Um, yeah, definitely worth checking out if, if any of this has rung a bell with you that you have. Uh, yeah, everybody's brain works differently. And for me, I look at this and I'm like, this wouldn't work for me at all.
Jason Snell [02:19:04]:
This is nothing like how I approach the world. But, you know, everybody's brain does work differently. And if If that sounds familiar, you should give this a try.
Leo Laporte [02:19:13]:
Patrick Delahanty, our CIO, says Overcast, Marco's podcast app, is now the number 2 app for downloading this show, which I think is pretty good.
Jason Snell [02:19:24]:
It's probably number 1 for MacBreak Weekly is my guess.
Leo Laporte [02:19:26]:
It might be number 1 for MacBreak Weekly. It's the 2nd most popular app used by TWiT listeners, he says.
Christina Warren [02:19:31]:
Wow.
Jason Snell [02:19:32]:
That's pretty good. And Marco has— Huge Overcast updates have happened recently, also due to him being able to use AI to find bugs in his app that he wouldn't found before. So yeah, big, big stuff happening with Marco these days.
Leo Laporte [02:19:44]:
Nice. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes this thrilling, gripping edition of MacBreak Weekly. Jason Snell is at sixcolors.com, the ultimate Apple weblog, if I might use that phrase. Please. I think it's available. Great. You really should go there. So all the best people have Dan Moran, Glenn Fleischman, some of the best.
Leo Laporte [02:20:10]:
The, the Jackalope.
Jason Snell [02:20:11]:
John Moltz.
Leo Laporte [02:20:12]:
John Moltz.
Jason Snell [02:20:13]:
No, not the Macalope. The Macalope is still at Macworld, but John Moltz, who writes the Macalope, is at $6 Every Friday.
Leo Laporte [02:20:20]:
So the Macalope in person, you see, without his Macalope costume.
Jason Snell [02:20:23]:
Yeah, yeah, he's just a regular guy. Just the guy from Crazy Apple Rumors.
Andy Ihnatko [02:20:26]:
Calvert DeForest, not Larry Bud Millman.
Jason Snell [02:20:28]:
Exactly, exactly. He's legally distinct.
Christina Warren [02:20:32]:
The Mackalope's close friend, right? Isn't that what the Disney people say?
Jason Snell [02:20:34]:
And a good friend. Yes.
Leo Laporte [02:20:37]:
Jason's podcasts are at sixcolors.com/jason. Yes, Patrick says Overcast is the number 1 app for this show, number 2 for all shows combined. Uh, Apple Podcasts still huge even though he says it's terrible.
Andy Ihnatko [02:20:50]:
Well, don't use it.
Jason Snell [02:20:52]:
People differ on that one.
Leo Laporte [02:20:54]:
I'm surprised it's not Pocket Casts. For a long time, number 2 was Pocket Casts, so Marco has moved up the charts. That's really Congratulations, Marco. Christina Warren is at GitHub where she is in charge of all you developer types. Get the Copilot app, make amazing apps like Christina's. What do you call it? GitHub Bird?
Christina Warren [02:21:16]:
Oh, it was Flappy Copilot. But I mean, honestly, the better thing to do would be to like do like what Marco does and use the models to, you know, help improve your velocity. I like that. Prove your velocity.
Leo Laporte [02:21:31]:
Yeah, I like that. Thank you, Christina. Wonderful to see you. And of course, Andy Ihnako. His blog is up and running at ihnako.com, I-H-N-A-T-K-O dot com. And if you become a premium member, you'll get lots of wonderful benefits, including the satisfaction of knowing you're supporting Andy Ihnako. Thank you.
Christina Warren [02:21:51]:
Yes.
Leo Laporte [02:21:52]:
And Jason's going to run out to the swimming hole.
Jason Snell [02:21:55]:
Man, there's a big hole in my street now. Just as we've been sitting here, there's just like a giant hole in my street. It's amazing.
Andy Ihnatko [02:22:02]:
For all you know, up from the hole comes a bubbling crude.
Jason Snell [02:22:06]:
We can only hope.
Leo Laporte [02:22:08]:
Next thing you know, Jason's a millionaire.
Christina Warren [02:22:12]:
You know what that is? Texas tea. Black gold.
Leo Laporte [02:22:15]:
The skin folks said, no, move away from there. Thank you everybody for joining us. We do this show every Tuesday, 11 AM Pacific, 2 PM Eastern, 1800 UTC. You can watch us do it live if you want in the Club Twit Discord or YouTube, Twitch, X.com, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Kick. Yes, we are in all those spots. But really, the best way to watch the show is to either go to the website twit.tv/mbw and download audio or video, or so you can watch it At your convenience. YouTube, where you can also watch at your convenience. That's the video.
Leo Laporte [02:22:50]:
Great way to share clips or subscribe. Get yourself a copy of Overcast and download it. Although if you want the video, you're gonna have to use something else. I think that Overcast is still audio only. Am I right?
Jason Snell [02:23:01]:
Correct. So far. I mean, who knows?
Leo Laporte [02:23:04]:
You know, anything's possible with AI. Yeah. So do get that subscription. It's free and you'll get it automatically every Tuesday, and you'll be all set for the rest of the week with your Macintosh good and Apple goodness. Thank you everybody for joining us, but now it is my sad and solemn duty to tell you, you gotta get back to work because break time is over. Bye-bye.
