MacBreak Weekly 1013 Transcript
Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.
Leo Laporte [00:00:00]:
It's time for MacBreak Weekly. We welcome our newest panelist, Christina Warren, to the fold, along with Andy Ihnatko and Jason Snell. Uh, happy birthday to Steve Jobs. He would have been 71 today. We'll talk about some memories. A deep red color for the iPhone 18, that's the rumor, and very poor marks on the Apple report card. Jason has the details. All that and more coming up next on MacBreak Weekly.
Leo Laporte [00:00:28]:
This is MacBreak Weekly with Andy Ihnatko, Jason Snell, and Christina Warren. Episode 1013, recorded Tuesday, February 24th, 2026. Boopgate. It's time for MacBreak Weekly, all the Apple news, boys and girls. Great to see everybody here. Thank you for joining us, and we have to make a very special welcome to the newest member of the MacBreak Weekly panel, the wonderful Christina Warren.
Leo Laporte [00:01:06]:
Film girl is in the house!
Christina Warren [00:01:10]:
Woo! Woo-hoo! Woo! I am, I am so excited to be here. Thank you so much for, for asking me. I know I have like very, very big shoes to fill, um, uh, with, with Alex, but I'm, I'm honored to be here. This has been one of my favorite podcasts for as long as it's been around, so I'm so excited to be on this panel and to be on the show.
Leo Laporte [00:01:26]:
So Jason Snell and I both had you on our list, right, Jason?
Jason Snell [00:01:29]:
Yeah, absolutely.
Leo Laporte [00:01:31]:
And, uh, and, uh, Jason said- I didn't think you could get her.
Jason Snell [00:01:34]:
I didn't think you could get her.
Leo Laporte [00:01:35]:
Yeah, I thought there's no way, but I said, you know what, it's my dream, I'm gonna try, and if she says no, well, we'll go to plan B. And thank you for saying yes, I appreciate it. Also here, Andy Ihnatko. Andy, welcome. Andy now, I think, is the longest tenured, uh, member of our panel.
Andy Ihnatko [00:01:53]:
Yeah, uh, if we had parking spaces, that would be a really great thing.
Leo Laporte [00:01:56]:
Unfortunately, you're at home, which is something else. You don't even need a parking space.
Andy Ihnatko [00:02:02]:
Yeah, there's something about 30-plus inches of snow that says, you know what, why don't I not go- why don't I do this from the home office today? It's like, oh man, it's a good move.
Leo Laporte [00:02:10]:
Yeah.
Jason Snell [00:02:12]:
Uh, so yes, so Christina, you got to bring the snacks now. I'm off the hook finally.
Leo Laporte [00:02:15]:
Okay, the newest person has to bring-
Jason Snell [00:02:16]:
like 3 years at this and I'm tired of bringing the snacks.
Christina Warren [00:02:19]:
Okay, all right, noted. Does anybody have any dietary restrictions?
Jason Snell [00:02:23]:
Well, the good news is we don't have a studio anymore, so the snacks are for you, right?
Christina Warren [00:02:28]:
Yeah, well, well, but sometimes, you know, like on Reddit, like how people like will mail each other snacks. Like, maybe that would be fun. I could mail you guys snacks. Does anybody have any dietary restrictions or anything?
Leo Laporte [00:02:35]:
No, you don't need to mail us snacks. I, I, well, really too- that's too much.
Andy Ihnatko [00:02:40]:
I should also point out that the thing about having to deliver them in the inflatable dinosaur costume, that was just a joke that Alex and I kind of pulled on Jason. That was never a thing. So if you-
Leo Laporte [00:02:49]:
if Jason's telling you that you'll never forgive you for that, he looks good with those raptors.
Andy Ihnatko [00:02:54]:
Just totally I was just hoping it wouldn't fall over because it just- that was- February was always the best month on the, on the TWiT calendar because that would be like the- they always have the photo of you in the, in the snack room with the dinosaur costume.
Leo Laporte [00:03:07]:
Live and learn.
Jason Snell [00:03:07]:
Live and learn.
Leo Laporte [00:03:09]:
Anyway, it's great to have you, Christina. Welcome.
Christina Warren [00:03:12]:
I-
Leo Laporte [00:03:12]:
you've been pretty, uh, public about, uh, your situation, so I hope it won't be remiss if I mention, uh, you're at GitHub now, which is great. Uh, kind of your return to GitHub. Yeah, which was a return to Microsoft, so you've Kind of, yeah.
Christina Warren [00:03:27]:
So I've kind of come back. Yeah, I was at Google for about a year and at DeepMind, and, and now I'm, uh, I'm back at GitHub.
Leo Laporte [00:03:33]:
Are you, are you totally NDA'd about your experiences over there?
Christina Warren [00:03:36]:
I mean, not really, but like, I don't think anybody cares all that much.
Leo Laporte [00:03:41]:
Oh my God, do I care. Okay, I just- we just were dying to know what was going on. See, all these AI companies are such black holes. Not that Apple's not a black hole, but-
Christina Warren [00:03:51]:
well, yeah, I mean, well, that's the thing, even inside of it it's, it's really limited how much you know, right? Like, you might know depending on the week and what launch you're working on and whatnot, but like, you don't know much beyond that. And, and, and at this point, you know, because I've been gone for a couple months, everything that I, that I did know-
Jason Snell [00:04:09]:
that's true-
Christina Warren [00:04:10]:
completely out of date, right?
Leo Laporte [00:04:11]:
It's already changed.
Christina Warren [00:04:12]:
Yeah, genuinely, right? Like, because there's so many ships and so many changes and all that stuff. And so even, even like working there, and I'm sure this is probably true for all the Frontier Labs, it is one of those things where- and I'm sure it depends on your role, right? Like, some are going to be really plugged in on everything. But I think a lot of people, it's like, okay, I know what I'm working on. And I know what's coming in the very near-term future. And that's about it. And everything else, it's like, you get to know people and talk to them and maybe hear some things and see some things. I got to see some really cool robotics stuff that, that was incredibly impressive, that the, the DeepMind, you know, team is working on. But beyond that, like, I don't, you know, I didn't know anything, right? So other than what we were trying to launch.
Leo Laporte [00:04:55]:
I know nothing, she says. Uh, actually, interestingly, DeepMind just yesterday released a new model that scored almost 50% on humanity's last exam, which is the best test of AI intelligence.
Jason Snell [00:05:11]:
For those who don't know, I just want to say, uh, people are like, well, why is a person from developer relations on this panel? It's like Christina is old school Mac blogger from the unofficial- yes, Apple weblog among others, as well as you did Rocket on Relay for a while. Like, there was so much podcasts of all time, so much, so much, uh, old, old school Mac credibility going way back.
Christina Warren [00:05:34]:
So yeah, no, you can't see what I'm wearing right now, but I'm wearing like a- I'll see if I can adjust my camera.
Leo Laporte [00:05:39]:
It's a During-
Christina Warren [00:05:39]:
it's a During Firewall shirt.
Andy Ihnatko [00:05:42]:
Oh, the baseball-
Christina Warren [00:05:42]:
it's the baseball one. So I don't even know how old it is except that it was- it's so old that it's like it's American Apparel, okay? Like, American Apparel was still a company, right? So like, I am- I have- I have like- I, I still have like somewhere one of the, the, the Twitterific, like, like plushies that Icon Factory made. Like, they made like, like the vinyl figures. Um, I had those up for years. No, I'm like-
Leo Laporte [00:06:03]:
yeah, I see a Teddy Ruxpin behind you. That's how old you are.
Christina Warren [00:06:07]:
I know, I know. I have that. That's, uh, that was, that was my husband's. But, um, but I, uh, yeah, does it still talk? Um, no, it's broken unfortunately, and we probably could fix it, but I don't know. But I just kind of like-
Leo Laporte [00:06:20]:
I'll get Burke in on it because he's very good. He's fixing my old Mac, uh, original Mac.
Christina Warren [00:06:24]:
Oh, that's cool.
Leo Laporte [00:06:25]:
Yeah, he's had to replace all capacitors. He's now replacing diodes. He says his voltage is low. It's, it's a great story. Anyway, Christina, welcome.
Christina Warren [00:06:32]:
Oh, I-
Leo Laporte [00:06:33]:
you can't- thrilled to have you.
Christina Warren [00:06:34]:
I, I do have a- because we're going to talk about that. I have it. Yeah, you can. I have the Steve Jobs plushie.
Leo Laporte [00:06:38]:
I see that. Well, that's a good thing because today would be Mr. Jobs' 71st birthday. He, he died. He passed way too young.
Christina Warren [00:06:49]:
Okay.
Leo Laporte [00:06:49]:
Uh, uh, cancer is so terrible. Yeah, it's so terrible. You know what's really sad is I just saw- he's the kind of cancer he had, pancreatic cancer. Uh, they have, uh, uh, uh, what might be a cure in progress right now. Uh, and so he not literally did pass too soon. Um, anyway, I think it's appropriate to recognize that this would be his 71st, uh, birthday. Uh, you have the plushie. I had the plushie somewhere.
Leo Laporte [00:07:16]:
I don't know what hap- when we cleared out the studio, I lost many things. The Steve Jobs Archive, which is a great place to go to. I have the book that they released. They have, released something they call, uh, Letters to a Young Creator, uh, including submissions by Tim Cook, Jony Ive, uh, and more. This was in the, the print version, which I have, but you can also go to Steve- letters.stevejobsarchive.com and- wait, while it slowly writes out- Yeah, there's a-
Andy Ihnatko [00:07:56]:
yeah, good web design is there's a skip button at the bottom of it. That should have told you that maybe- but, but once you get through your- once you get through, it's a really good time. There are dozens and dozens and dozens of little essays like that. It's not just Apple people reminisce about Steve. It's more like, here is just interesting general advice from people who are- who definitely put some thought and put some time into what they were going to say.
Leo Laporte [00:08:17]:
There's quite a few of these. Uh, Tim Cook's, uh, letter which he wrote, uh, last August- actually, two Augusts ago. So they've been collecting these, uh, for a while. I think this was collected for the, uh, for the book. I won't, I won't read them all, but you might want to check it out at Steve Jobs Archives-
Jason Snell [00:08:37]:
letters.stevejobsarchives.com. I was thinking about this today, seeing that it's his birthday, and there's no way- I mean, we've been saying this since the day he died, which is don't play the what would Steve do if he were alive game, because especially the, the longer you go, the less you know. But I will say this, I- with all of our talk about Tim Cook and the way that he's chosen to approach the Trump administration during this term, I, I couldn't help but wonder what Steve Jobs would have done in this. And I don't have an answer. I don't think anyone really would know for sure, because I would say I feel like people who believe, oh, Steve would have stood up for what was right and all of that. Like, I feel like Steve Jobs often made decisions that people were like, hmm, I don't know about that, Steve. Uh, but at the same time, I also know that he didn't suffer fools gladly. And it makes me think that, you know, my best shot of it would be that I think he would try very hard to basically like manage- like literally manage Donald Trump.
Jason Snell [00:09:36]:
And if there was anybody around who could maybe do that and like get him to do what he wanted, maybe it would be Steve Jobs. But I, I, you know, I keep thinking about that and thinking that that probably would have been like throwing gasoline on a fire to get those two guys together in that situation. But we'll never know, and, uh, maybe it's all for the best. But, um, he, he- to have been robbed of so much of his- like, I mean, we were not just robbed of his, uh, life since the day he died, but think about how long he fought cancer and how hard that was and how that sapped him of his energy. And I feel like with some of these, these amazing people that we lose too soon, especially because of cancer, that's what I keep coming back to, is it's not just personal tragedy for him and his family. But as a person in the world, I feel like we got, we got robbed of more of Steve Jobs's time on this earth with a, with his very interesting brain who, that made very interesting decisions. And, uh, you know, on his, on his birthday, I feel like that's the, that's the best tribute I can pay him is, is that I wish he had been here a lot longer.
Andy Ihnatko [00:10:41]:
Yeah. You, you hear a lot about how Most of, most of the more interesting stories about him from people who worked with him were all about how once somebody that he respected explained the importance and the potential of something in a way that he could understand, he- and if he agreed, that was it. The pivot was in place and Apple was committed. And I think back to, there's the, the story that came out a couple years ago about how Apple's original foray into large language models, uh, the reaction to, uh, Google's breakthrough AI paper, uh, in the late teens caused the, the, the, the basically the, the engineers who are working on the photo pipeline to not just simply say, oh, well, here's how we're doing machine learning to improve photos. Here's another technique that we can now use to try to improve photos. They immediately saw the import of this. And it makes me think about what would've happened if they had had had enough contact with somebody that could talk to Steve or get a meeting with Steve. And what if Steve had seen that and had decided, you know what, that is gonna be super, super important.
Andy Ihnatko [00:11:47]:
Not that Apple would become the chatbot company, but, uh, the reason why Google can do what it can do today is because back in the teens, its CEO said, you know what, this is going to be important. We're gonna basically restructure our company to make this into a priority. And it's interesting to imagine that and so many other topics. What would've happened had Steve said, you know what, this is interesting. We're going to have to re- we're going to restructure our company to, to put resources into it and try to make this an Apple product or an Apple service.
Christina Warren [00:12:15]:
Yeah, I think that's a great point. And I, and I, I do think that, like Jason said, like, it's the longer you go, the harder it is. And we didn't know him. We don't- we can't say like, what would he have done, right? And I hate to play that game, um, but I have found myself weirdly, like, in the last couple of years, like, thinking more and more, okay, what would would things be like if there was different leadership, right? Maybe even if it's not Steve Jobs, but if it was more product-forward leadership. And I think that's the thing that we've lost the most, right? Just not just for Apple, but just for the industry, for the world, right? Having someone of his caliber with his creativity. And to your point, Andy, the ability to listen and change his mind on things when necessary, right? Which I think was a great skill, even if he would kind of turn around and kind of make it seem like, oh, well, I had this idea all along, right?
Jason Snell [00:13:04]:
Which is-
Christina Warren [00:13:05]:
which is fun. It's fine, um, as long as you get to where it needs to be. And, um, and, and I- it's a- he's gone far too soon. Um, cancer is terrible. To Jason's point too, you know, just having to fight while he was sick, right? Like, that, that's such a loss. And, um, it's- it's depressing to think about what types of things we would have had he- had he still been alive. Um, I think that that's the thing that I think about more than like, oh, you know, Steve wouldn't have done this or that. Like, No one knows, and, and that's, that's a what-if, but it's, it's just more, I think, more of like the loss of, uh, what the potential could have been.
Leo Laporte [00:13:41]:
Yeah, one of the things we got from that book, uh, Becoming Steve Jobs, is there really were two Steve Jobs. I'll even say three Steve Jobs. There was the young, uh, Steve Jobs who was brash and, uh, and mean and, uh, and ruthless in his, in his pursuit of his, uh, vision. I remember was saying every time I'd come up with an idea, Steve would say, "I could make a business out of that," which was kind of characterized the early Steve Jobs.
Jason Snell [00:14:06]:
For sure.
Leo Laporte [00:14:06]:
Uh, there was the Steve Jobs, uh, who went to NeXT, was exiled into the wilderness, and then came back somewhat wiser and a much better leader. I think that's the premise of Becoming Steve Jobs. I'd say there's even a third Steve Jobs, the kind of the- the wisest of the Steve Jobs, which is after he got really, uh, sick. We will never know. I think had the young, brash Steve Jobs had to interact with the current administration would be a very different thing-
Jason Snell [00:14:30]:
Sure.
Leo Laporte [00:14:30]:
-than the, the later leader Steve Jobs, who understood his responsibilities as an executive. But I will show you this. This is from that book, uh, Make Something Wonderful, which I thank Jamison for sending me his copy because they were very hard to get. But in here there is a, a piece from a notepad, a picture notepad that says, "Steve, President Clinton is holding." So while Jobs didn't talk a lot about his interactions, uh, with, uh, presidents and kings, uh, I have a feeling that he was asked a lot and he did interact with them a lot. We just will never know exactly.
Andy Ihnatko [00:15:04]:
Also, I mean, it's- he's- the stories about him being really, really hard to get along with and being abrasive and aggressive and kind of a jerk are famous because they are, they're pungent stories. They're easy to repeat. But also he, he had the ability to lay on the charm like nobody. So if- Absolutely. So I think, I think that's a, that's an interesting observation. The young one, what the young Steve would have said, this guy's a bozo. We want no, we want no part of him. The older guy might have said, I, I know, I know how this guy ticks.
Andy Ihnatko [00:15:35]:
I know how I can- I know what buttons to push and I know what carrots to lay in front of him to get-
Leo Laporte [00:15:41]:
look how Mom Donny has handled Trump. I think it would have been a Mom Donny kind of thing.
Jason Snell [00:15:45]:
And also if Steve Jobs is there as a, you know, fellow billionaire titan of industry, I think that, I think that that is exactly what Donald Trump reacts to in a way.
Leo Laporte [00:15:55]:
I just wear another suit. That's also-
Jason Snell [00:15:57]:
I mean, not just, not just Trump, but like, I do wonder, you talk about the, um, Um, in the Discord, somebody said he would have been the leader of the tech bros and would have led them in a different direction. I think that that is- that's Jammer B in the, in the Discord. And like, honestly, I, I know how much Mark Zuckerberg looked up to Steve. I know how much Sam Altman looked up to Steve. And I do wonder, even if Steve was alive and just a chairman of the board of Apple or had retired entirely from Apple at this point, although I kind of can't see that happening, I wonder what kind of advice he would have given today's tech titans that might have steered them into better places than they are now. I don't know, I- you know, who can say? But I think that's interesting to think about as well, that they, they really viewed him as a, as a mentor, uh, and, and then they lost him. And really, what that guidance would have been, who knows?
Leo Laporte [00:16:51]:
Might have been a better Silicon Valley because of, uh because of him. Certainly we are all better off because of Steve. So, uh, happy birthday, Steve, on your 71st.
Jason Snell [00:17:01]:
Especially we're coming up to the 50th anniversary of Apple. Yeah. And so a lot of thinking right now, certainly by me, about, you know, the- what- why Apple is what it is and how that started 50 years ago. It really did. And like that journey that Steve took, that on one level, getting fired by the guy you hired and the board who was supposed to support you It was, uh, just a brutal thing to happen. And, and there are a lot of what-ifs about what Steve might have done to Apple if he had stayed. But I think you're right, Leo, that it's the right thing to do to say he needed to be laid low. But more than that, he also needed to learn a bunch of things about how brutal business was.
Jason Snell [00:17:44]:
And by the failure of the, the factory- I mean, he had Apple set up a bunch of US factories that failed, and then he had NeXT set up that beautiful factory that failed. He learned a lot about manufacturing. I think that maybe was why he was so simpatico with Tim Cook in the end, is he, he, he got a lot of, uh, his innocence wiped away by being a CEO, especially at, you know, when he was at NeXT. And Pixar, I think, taught him a lot of fundamentals about business, uh, working closely with Disney, uh, in the, in the really rough film business. Like, boy, what- in hindsight, what an education he got. And then he didn't really want to be the CEO of Apple, right? But in the, in the end, he felt like he had to be, that there was no one else. And, and he had just gotten such an education in those years. So it, it was all for the best, but it's like really interesting to look back at the, the span of 50 years of Apple and realize that journey that he kind of had to take to be in the right place at the right time.
Leo Laporte [00:18:36]:
We should mention April 1st will be the 50th anniversary of Apple's incorporation. April 1st, uh, 1976. March 10th, just a couple of weeks from now, is the day David Pogue's, uh, big book. Yeah. On Apple's 50th. David posted a little video. I guess his, uh, his galley copies arrived at the Poe Castle. Anybody who's written a book knows this is a very-
Jason Snell [00:18:59]:
it's a special moment, isn't it? Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko [00:19:01]:
And also, oh, using the wrong knife, you're going to cut all the covers. It's the only free copies the publisher is ever going to send you.
Leo Laporte [00:19:08]:
That's true.
Christina Warren [00:19:09]:
Of apple.
Leo Laporte [00:19:10]:
So this will be, uh, prize. And look at Steve on the back of that. Yeah, this will be a prize.
Jason Snell [00:19:15]:
I've read it. I'm not supposed to Have you? I don't know if I'm supposed to admit that yet, but I have read it. It's good. I mean, more to come about what I think about it, but it's a, it's a, he, he, uh, he put a huge amount of work there. A lot of interviews. He did a lot of original interviews plus all the archival stuff we have. And like, he wanted it, clearly wanted it to be a definitive history of 50 years of Apple. Oh, okay.
Jason Snell [00:19:33]:
He put a lot. Well, he was there through it, so lots of photos. Yeah. It's funny. The, the photo, I actually got contacted. I first knew about this book because of the photo research. We got contacted cuz I had, uh, in my, back in 2020, I did this 20 Max series and one of the Essays and videos was about, um, the Duo and Stephen Hackett, uh, who co-hosted the videos with me and is one of the co-founders at Relay. He has lots of old Macs and he has took- he took photos of lots of them.
Jason Snell [00:20:00]:
And basically, um, David's photo researcher contacted me and was like, where did you get that photo of the Duo in the Duo doc? And I'm like, it's Stephen Hackett, go talk to Stephen. And that Stephen's photos in the book, which is awesome.
Andy Ihnatko [00:20:12]:
So yeah, I found about the same way. He wanted to validate a quote of something- was something I wrote in a either review or something.
Jason Snell [00:20:19]:
I I saw you in there. Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko [00:20:20]:
Was it, was this in the Sun-Times or was this- and I, and I had to be forensic about my own stuff.
Jason Snell [00:20:24]:
I think it was the Sun-Times.
Andy Ihnatko [00:20:25]:
I was like, uh, yeah, exactly. I was like, okay, this definitely sounds like me. Uh, and I'm trying to remember like where was my- I think he was trying to identify like which publication I'd written it for. And I said, yeah, I was able to, I, I, I have him to thank for having like making, made sure that my backups of the backups of the backups are still working. Cause I did actually find it. Yeah.
Jason Snell [00:20:45]:
Amazing. It's, it's, yeah, well, I'm sure we'll talk about it more when it comes to, to release.
Leo Laporte [00:20:48]:
I'll try to get David on actually.
Jason Snell [00:20:50]:
Yeah, that would be- say he's making a tour. I talked to him. I think I'm, I think I'm interviewing him for Upgrade. Yeah, he's definitely available.
Leo Laporte [00:20:56]:
Oh, you already got him?
Jason Snell [00:20:58]:
Oh, I got him.
Andy Ihnatko [00:20:58]:
I got him.
Leo Laporte [00:20:59]:
You and Hurley have him.
Jason Snell [00:21:00]:
No, you should, you should get him too. They want him on every possible channel to sell that book.
Christina Warren [00:21:05]:
They're trying to sell a physical book at that, right?
Leo Laporte [00:21:07]:
He knows he's going to sell plenty of books to this crowd.
Christina Warren [00:21:09]:
Yeah, I mean, maybe, but But still, it would be great to talk to him.
Andy Ihnatko [00:21:12]:
I can imagine, like, hundreds of people that we all know at least say, I just need to check the index.
Jason Snell [00:21:20]:
Is my name in the index anywhere? I can, I can tell you, I, uh, I, I am not quoted in the book. So there is that. Uh, I did have a moment where I was like, ah, David, you quoted Cult of Mac, but you never called it- you never quoted me. But I'm over it. I'm- it's okay.
Christina Warren [00:21:38]:
Um, no, David, I love you.
Jason Snell [00:21:40]:
I love David. Um, Um, uh, you know, Andy and I have- and Leo, I think- I mean, we've been- we were on a bunch of cruises with him back in the day, and I was for a little while his editor, um, at Macworld. He wrote a bunch of features for us back in the day before he went to the New York Times. So, um, it's kind of-
Andy Ihnatko [00:21:58]:
he, he's again talking about- I took over his column when he left, went for the New York Times. We did a whole bit about it at the Mac User Idiot Awards, I think.
Jason Snell [00:22:05]:
Yeah, that's absolutely so. So, um, just like I talked about Christina and her bona fides, I gotta say, like, David Pogue is one of those people- if you just think of him as the the guy on NOVA or the guy on CBS Sunday Morning or the guy from the New York Times back in the day. Uh, he wor- he worked for Macworld for a billion years and then also did all of those missing manual books. So he's- there's- when I heard that he was doing it, I was like, oh, that, that's the right person to write that book. Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko [00:22:27]:
On top of everything else, he was, uh, he was on the list of getting that phone call from 2:00 AM from Steve Jobs personally about something that he wrote. He was with a list that I don't think anybody else wanted to be on. No, no.
Jason Snell [00:22:41]:
At, at, at IDG, it was the president of, of, uh, Macworld. It was Colin Crawford who got those calls and all the senior editors there were so happy that Steve just didn't want to talk to editors. He just wanted to talk to Colin. And we're like, you should be offended as an editor that they don't want to talk to editorial. What are you talking to the business guy? You should be talking to me. And all of us were like, nope, talk to Colin. We don't want to- nobody else wants to be in Steve Jobs's Rolodex. Nobody.
Andy Ihnatko [00:23:05]:
I got my, my, my one personal interaction face- I wouldn't even call it a face-to-face interaction with Steve Jobs was when I was talking to Colin at the opening of the first Apple Store. And then suddenly Steve was there starting a conversation. Conversation with Colin as though I was not there, standing, standing literally like 20 inches away, wondering at what point do I say, what the hell, Steve? Or what?
Christina Warren [00:23:28]:
Right, well, it's classic like famous person behavior.
Andy Ihnatko [00:23:31]:
Yeah, it's like, is, is it- what are the risks? What are the risks to my ego versus the risks of still being employed by anything that Colin has the power to publish if I say, dude, I was just looking for some pictures of MacMania 2004 with David Pogue.
Leo Laporte [00:23:49]:
I haven't found it. Yeah, but there were some-
Jason Snell [00:23:51]:
I did some snorkeling in Bermuda with David Pogue. Like, I mean, we go way back. It's great. So he is- and his, his, um, his tone, like, just as a writer, he's always like just- he's just a good writer. He writes really easy-to-read prose that I think for- that's why he was so good at covering tech at the New York Times is because that's the- it's like a super right level. You don't want to go too far down and get too keki because it just puts the brakes on it. And, uh, this book is, is like that too. So that's my- that's like my pre-review.
Jason Snell [00:24:20]:
I am writing a full-on book review of it that'll come out later, but it's, uh, yeah, it's great. His style is perfect. It's-
Leo Laporte [00:24:27]:
yeah, people should check it out. Hard work. You're watching this- here he is on a cruise working on his book.
Jason Snell [00:24:34]:
Yeah, well, the missing manuals, that was a whole business unto itself. I loved the missing manuals. Yeah, he's, uh, it's, uh- if you're watching MacBreak Weekly, um, that book should already be in your Amazon cart. Absolutely.
Leo Laporte [00:24:45]:
All right, um, let's see, you- I will talk about- you're gonna go to New York City, so we're going to talk about the upcoming event. That's the next thing on the Apple calendar in just a little bit. You're watching MacBreak Weekly with Jason Snell. Are you going to New York City, Christina?
Christina Warren [00:25:00]:
Oh no, I- no, I, I, I am not on the video list.
Leo Laporte [00:25:04]:
You don't get there? Good. I won't feel bad then, because I often, when people join the show, I figure I'm going to furnish them with-
Jason Snell [00:25:10]:
hasn't happened to me yet, Leo. So I think you got- I think the, the stink only goes so far.
Christina Warren [00:25:16]:
I don't even know. I think, I think that honestly it'd be weird to invite me considering I, like, you know, work for a subsidiary of Microsoft. I think that that would be- so I- they, they did- I will say this- for a number of years, um, the, the comms team continued to send me holiday cards to Microsoft's office, which was actually quite nice.
Leo Laporte [00:25:34]:
I don't think they're- I don't think they're that way. I don't think they're way.
Jason Snell [00:25:36]:
We're all grown up.
Leo Laporte [00:25:37]:
Just don't record them during the iPad announcement.
Jason Snell [00:25:40]:
But I will- I will not be here next week because I will be literally on a plane going to New York. As long as it doesn't snow, I guess, next week. We'll see.
Christina Warren [00:25:49]:
I think it'll be fixed by then. I think, I think it'll be good. Just, just take a major airline that isn't like based primarily in, in-
Andy Ihnatko [00:25:56]:
yeah, just, just don't connect through TF Green Airport in Providence because they're 37 and a half inches, man.
Jason Snell [00:26:03]:
Nice. San Francisco to New York, right? There are lots of them. Yep.
Christina Warren [00:26:06]:
Yep. I mean, I will get you there. Yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:26:08]:
New York will be safe. We think. Actually, they- didn't they shut the airport down? They also- they shut down on-street parking so they could plow the thing. Yeah. But the worst thing is no Uber Eats. I mean, I don't know how they're surviving in Manhattan.
Christina Warren [00:26:19]:
People are gonna have to- have to use the old, uh, old school, you know, um, bike delivery stuff.
Leo Laporte [00:26:26]:
But I did see some pictures. People were going out in the street. Paris got some great pictures of, of of delivery drivers.
Christina Warren [00:26:32]:
Oh yeah, no, I mean, I, I haven't lived in New York in a number of years, but I remember the blizzards like that would come down like this, and that would be the sort of thing you would have. Like the guys who still- like some of the, some of the local guys nearby who still would deliver, and like you tip the hell out of them if you don't-
Andy Ihnatko [00:26:48]:
they're the monster. Modern-day Valkyries. I've seen them too. It's like modern-day Valkyries. It's like, nope, they hear that music swell and they are on that damn bike.
Leo Laporte [00:26:59]:
Our show today brought- we'll get back to MacBreak Weekly in a moment. Our show today brought to you by a new sponsor. We want to welcome Pebl. Not, not that pebble. P-E-B-L. Quick question, uh, for you: are you hiring in another country right now? Once you do, things can get complicated fast, but that's where Pebl can help you. Pebl can help send offers to anyone in the world in minutes, get them onboarded Fast. Pebl is an AI-powered global human resources platform built for founders, HR leaders, and operators who are hiring and supporting teams around the world.
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Leo Laporte [00:29:10]:
Now if we can only get Simone on here to do the ads, we would be set. I, uh, is she- is she still, uh, doing anything? What is- what is she up to, Christina? Uh-oh, am I all alone?
Jason Snell [00:29:22]:
I think she's muted.
Christina Warren [00:29:23]:
Oh yeah, I'm, I'm muted now. Um, you, you know, I haven't, I haven't talked to her in, in a little bit.
Leo Laporte [00:29:28]:
I know that she's still at Polygon, uh, and, uh, you know, but such a good job.
Christina Warren [00:29:32]:
Oh no, she's the best, absolute best. And, and like, I miss, I miss doing a podcast with her all the time, um, for many reasons. But honestly, the ad reads were like always the funniest and the best. And like, I know, and nobody did it like her. Nobody.
Leo Laporte [00:29:44]:
I'll try, I'll try to emulate her in future.
Jason Snell [00:29:46]:
Just the only time I ever got recognized at my curling club, because I do curling, we've established this, is, uh, one of the members came up to me and said, oh, you're on Relay FM with Simone. And I said, what? She's like, oh yes, I am a childhood friend of Simone's.
Leo Laporte [00:30:02]:
I'm like, wow, what? Amazing.
Jason Snell [00:30:05]:
Yeah, hilarious. But, uh, that was- so it turns out I'm only really basking in the, uh, the, the reflection of the glory of Simone de Rochefort.
Christina Warren [00:30:13]:
I mean, look, we all are, right? I, I actually, um, Um, Ben Sandusky, uh, who, who I think, um, uh, most of us know, um, the, the, the, um, uh, developer of Halide, uh, and, um, and other things who's great. He was so excited because he was- he lives in New York now and he texted me and it was the most random thing. He was like, I finally met Simone. And then Simone texted me. She's like, I met this guy, Ben. I was like, okay.
Leo Laporte [00:30:34]:
That was a little weird. Uh-huh. Okay.
Jason Snell [00:30:39]:
Uh, am I safe?
Leo Laporte [00:30:39]:
Is it okay? Yeah. Yes. It's okay.
Christina Warren [00:30:42]:
I was like, no, he's, he's, he's great. I was like, I was like, you probably- it was like, you travel in the same circles. He's cool. Like, I promise you. He's cool. He's great. But he was like, I finally met Simone.
Leo Laporte [00:30:50]:
That's pretty funny. Actually, you must have enjoyed the curling, uh, on the Olympics, the Winter Olympics. Sure did. I think a lot of new fans of curling.
Jason Snell [00:30:59]:
Our, uh, our club has been inundated with, um, people who wanna, who wanna- some of them it's they wanna take lessons, which is great. We're filling those up and making more lessons whenever we can cuz it's all volunteer, but there's so much interest in it. And we also had- I, I have to say, being in the Bay Area, it's probably not surprising that our curling club is very online, capital V, capital O. But like, people were showing up to the club, which we're all volunteer, there's no staff, sometimes there's nobody there. People were showing up and saying, can I just watch? And we're like, I guess. And now we're like, do we need a phone number? Do we need a sign out front, uh, that beyond just the name of the club? Because we hadn't really thought about walk-ins, but that- it's that level of interest where people's kids are being like, whoa, there's a curling club, why don't we go see them curling? And, um, it's great, it's great that people are interested in it, uh, because this is our big shot. And as a volunteer organization and a nonprofit, like, we need more members, right? More members makes the club healthier. So this is, you know, my wife and I, 4 years ago, this is what we did.
Jason Snell [00:32:00]:
We saw that there was a curling club in Oakland and we went over there, and now we do it twice a week. So, um, so it's great, it's great for- great for the sport of curling. It's especially great in America that we got a a, uh, a medal in curling again, in mixed doubles this time, and that the women made it to the, uh, the semifinals. That was an exciting- and so that, that kept American interest in curling as well. So it's fun. If you, if you're near a curling club, you should try it. It's, uh, you can do it at any age, any skill level. You can, uh, if you can't squat down, you can use a stick.
Jason Snell [00:32:29]:
You can- there's wheelchair curling, uh, curling for kids and, and for seniors. Like, the whole- we run the, run the gamut. So yeah, a really exciting time. This is peak curling for us right now.
Leo Laporte [00:32:39]:
Bay Area curling curling.com if you're interested in the San Francisco Bay Area. And actually, I was scrolling down and I see there's a wine country curling club.
Jason Snell [00:32:48]:
Yeah, they're, they're up in- it's the wrong- I mean, they, they're, they're in like Placerville or something, Roseville.
Leo Laporte [00:32:56]:
Yeah, I think I did this once before.
Jason Snell [00:32:56]:
Yeah, they're far, they're far away. But yeah, if you- and, and if you do go to the Bay Area Curling Club, look at sheet 4 and see that it's sponsored by sixcolors.com. The hog line is the Six Colors logo.
Leo Laporte [00:33:07]:
So yeah, Yeah, it's my friendship, community, and ice. It goes together. Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko [00:33:14]:
Did the Canadian Donnybrook like cause like an uptick? Cause finger- it raised a finger on this- too many conversations. I need more people coming in.
Leo Laporte [00:33:22]:
Um, they call it bootgate. Boop, boopgate.
Jason Snell [00:33:25]:
Because you're booping, you're booping the rock there. No, I, I would say, um, no, uh, you could not formulate a better faux scandal to generate interest in your sport because it didn't matter. It was pointless. Um, it didn't advantage anybody, was literally just a rules violation. It didn't actually- it wasn't cheating in the sense that it wasn't an attempt to, uh, nor could it have really affected the outcome at all, but it was technically not something you're supposed to do. And then they yelled at each other, which is not in the spirit of curling. And, and like, it's all a tempest in a teapot, but the fact is every curler I know has had people come out of the woodwork, even more than the existence of the Olympics, to say, what about that thing where they touch the rock? I'm like, okay, so perfectly formula- I would I'd be- I'd be- I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if world curling was like, why don't you boop the rock once? It's fine. It's good to get people talking, just to get people talking.
Leo Laporte [00:34:18]:
Yeah, I, uh, I'd watch it and I think I'm amazed at how you guys scramble around the rocks and you're pointing at stuff and don't touch anything. I know I would slip and fall and I would be cast aside.
Jason Snell [00:34:29]:
This came up on, um, John Gruber was talking about it on, uh, with Ben Thompson on the Dithering podcast that they do about like how couldn't believe how curlers step around all those rocks. And I'll just tell you, after you do it for about 2 months, it's, uh, the self-preservation instinct kicks in and your brain makes a map of where all the rocks are so you don't step on them, uh, and then you're fine. But it is one of those things where you're like, you, you, you, you're walking down the ice and suddenly you kick a rock and you're like, oh no, I better never do that again. And then you learn and you figure it out. But yeah, sorry Christina, you probably didn't expect to come on the show and talk about-
Christina Warren [00:35:03]:
no, I actually- no, that's fantastic. I, I didn't that you, you curled, Jason, and I think that's so fascinating. Um, I-
Jason Snell [00:35:09]:
You're the last one to hear it.
Christina Warren [00:35:11]:
Well, I, I watched it on the Olympics every year and, um, and I'm always fascinated by it. I'm always like, this is really fun. And this year I watched and I thought it was really, really good. The Olympics in general this year, like actually were, were so good. The women were so fantastic. I was, I was like having like the time of my life, like last week, like watching the Olympics and Peacock.
Jason Snell [00:35:28]:
I mean, NBC has nailed it, I think, about how to do Olympics on streaming. They've got their stuff that's on cable, but like for the last couple Olympics, The Peacock experience has been so good, pretty much immaculate. Yeah, they do a great job.
Christina Warren [00:35:41]:
No, everything was there. Yeah, no, they've nailed it. To your point, like, because it used to be hard, like, um, you know, free streaming- NBC would use all of their stations. They'd use USA, they'd use, you know, um, the MSNBC, even like- they would use the E! Network, right? Like, they would literally, like, use- like, I mean, I'm not joking. Sci-Fi Channel. Yeah, yeah, they would literally use, like, everything.
Andy Ihnatko [00:36:02]:
Joan Rivers on the Alpine Express.
Christina Warren [00:36:06]:
Great. Um, you know, so that they- so that people could try to tune in live. And then obviously they have the, the primetime broadcast and they're still doing the primetime broadcast, but increasingly it's just like, you already know what's happening because in the app you can immediately go to the sport, you can immediately go with what you want. It's a great experience. Um, uh, on, you know, Apple TV, on the iPad. Um, when I was in the hospital actually, cause like the Olympics started when, right when I had surgery, I had my iPad with me and I was kind of still a little bit like conked out, but I was like, oh, I can, I can see what's happening. And yeah, It was great to watch.
Jason Snell [00:36:35]:
Yeah, they did a good job. It's-
Leo Laporte [00:36:37]:
they, they-
Jason Snell [00:36:37]:
I mean, they have to. They spend so much money on the Olympics, it's so important to them. But, you know, in those early days, we're like, how are they gonna fumble this? And, you know, the first try wasn't the best, but like, at this point they've got it locked in. They do the Gold Zone channel, I want to mention, which is like- they got the guy from the NFL Red Zone and the other guy from the NFL Red Zone, and they do like- it's a whip around where they're like, if anybody's going to be with a gold medal on the line, they go there live and they just- so you can watch one event all the way through, or you can watch this thing like NFL Red Zone where you just turn it on and just, just sit there in the hospital maybe. And yeah, exactly. And they just take you over here and then, so no, now we're snowboarding and oh, now we're ice skating. And it's- yeah, they did a great job. It's- there's so much we have to complain about, about the world of streaming and about the world of traditional linear television and TV networks and all that, that I- yeah, I think it's worth pointing out when they, when they nail it, and they did.
Christina Warren [00:37:31]:
Yeah, I would also- I also want to give them like a shout out for how quickly they were able to get their clips edited for social and get those up, which, um, it was, was really fantastic because in- I remember even like a little over a decade ago, probably 3, you know, 4 Olympics ago, 3 Olympics ago, I guess, you know, they were still really, really hesitant to- they- and they still do, you know, people cut their own clips and get too popular, they will get DMC notices and get taken down. But NBC wouldn't even put anything up, and so it was really hard for people to see the moments as happened, and now, like, their teams are on it. Like, they're clipping that stuff. They're clipping it immediately. They're putting it on social, and that's great to see. And frankly, I think- like, I know for me anyway, like, I would see something on social and be like, OK, I need to open up the Peacock app and watch the actual broadcast.
Leo Laporte [00:38:14]:
So good stuff. March 4th, which is not long- not long off, Jason Snell's heading to New York City. Other Apple journalists going- and mostly influencers are going to Shanghai and London. Yep. For, uh, unveilings. Actually, it's March 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, isn't it?
Jason Snell [00:38:33]:
So, well, no, no, no. So March 4th is the event. Nobody knows about the rest of it, but the speculation-
Leo Laporte [00:38:38]:
I'm looking at Mark Gurman's, uh, predictions.
Jason Snell [00:38:42]:
John Gruber and Mark Gurman both have said this, and, and I think that they've got to be right, right? This, this has the vibe of, a, they'll announce something small on Monday and something slightly larger on Tuesday, and then something larger on Wednesday, and Wednesday is when everybody will get the hands-on about out all of those products. That's- there's no confirmation for Apple because Apple's never going to say. Apple is the company that just drops a newsroom post at 6 AM Pacific and everybody scrambles, um, and other than the invitation to be at a physical event, which takes a couple weeks of warning. So we don't know, but that, that's- it makes sense to me, right? Like, why not make 3 days worth of news instead of putting 3 days worth of news in 1 day?
Leo Laporte [00:39:23]:
So we'll be covering it, I guess, next Tuesday, whatever they announce on Monday and Tuesday, first two-thirds of it. German says, from what I've heard, Apple is planning a 3-day flurry of announcements.
Andy Ihnatko [00:39:34]:
Don't say flurry, please.
Leo Laporte [00:39:35]:
Not a, not a good word.
Jason Snell [00:39:39]:
Uh, that's a trigger word. Guy on the West Coast says what? Yeah, yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:39:43]:
Uh, yeah, Gruber says a Wednesday product launch is out of character. Most of them are, as we know, are on Tuesdays.
Jason Snell [00:39:49]:
Uh, yeah, I mean, my best guess is that it'll be like maybe iPhone 17e on Monday and and then the new iPads on Tuesday, and then new Macs on Wednesday. But that's just a guess. I mean, that, that part of it is still shrouded in mystery. But, um, it seems to me like the most weighty things they've got are the Mac, because they're going to have MacBook Pros, they might have a new MacBook Air, they might have that new MacBook that's using the A-series processor.
Leo Laporte [00:40:14]:
What does Apple want the most attention for? Is it that new MacBook?
Jason Snell [00:40:16]:
I bet it's that new- yeah, well, the new MacBook is the thing that's new and is going to make a splash. But also, again, they sell so many Airs That's their most popular computer. They, they sell so many MacBook Pros and they make a lot of money on those. And then if the Studio Display gets an update as well, that's the perfect time for that is to have that conversation. So yeah, I think over a- remember it's like gonna be base iPad and maybe iPad Air and, uh, and the low-end phones. So those are less interesting than all those Mac announcements. This feels to me, it feels like a more like a Mac event. Uh, but I mean, but we don't know.
Christina Warren [00:40:48]:
We don't know. Yeah, because on the phone, I mean, look, I had major problems with the 16E to begin with. I thought it was $100, uh, too expensive. I thought that they made a lot of compromises that didn't need to be made. And that was even more clear when the 17 came out. And I have a base 17 that I use as my work phone and it is phenomenal phone. And I, it is a genuinely like really good value for a phone, like not even for an iPhone, but just for a phone in general. And so I do wonder with that, like, I feel like like that's a press release, release, because no matter- unless you price it at $499, which they're not going to do, um, there's, there's no reason.
Christina Warren [00:41:27]:
Um, I do understand that for some people $200 can be a big deal, and they- $200 might be the difference between getting the phone and not getting the phone, and I, and I respect that. But for people, especially if you're gonna be buying something on a payment plan, which most of these carrier plans are over 3 years, you're talking about $5 a month difference between like whatever the 17e is and the full 17. And so I just, I feel like that's a press release. Um, you know, uh, the iPads, I'm excited to see what they do with that. Um, I, I liked the base iPad update they did last year, so it might just be an Air, who knows. But yeah, I agree with Jason. I mean, I think this is gonna be about the MacBooks. The MacBook Air is such a huge hit and it's such a great value and such a great machine.
Christina Warren [00:42:04]:
If they do do the lower priced MacBook, I do think that that'll be a big deal, right? Yeah. That'll be- if they do do the A series. Series MacBook Air type of thing to replace the M1 that Walmart sells for, you know, um, uh, $599 or whatever the price is, $699. I feel like that is the sort of thing where you're like, okay, that would be significant. And you want hands-on time because that's going to sell like gangbusters because will that ever replace Chromebooks in schools? No, but this is the sort of thing where now you actually have like a true genuine, entry-level, low-cost machine that you can point people to, to say, why would I bother getting these low-end Windows laptops? Why would I bother getting, you know, a, a Chromebook at this point that is capable of doing anything is going to cost about that when I can get, you know, a Mac?
Jason Snell [00:42:53]:
Yeah, it's literally a place that Apple has never sold a laptop before at that price. And there, there is- I mean, Andy is going to say the same thing as me probably, which- but it's like There's an audience we think, you know, as Mac users especially, we're like, oh, you know, you know, maybe some people will buy it or buy it instead of an Air. But it's like, there's a whole collection of people that have not been properly addressed by Apple who just are not gonna buy- they're not gonna prioritize a computer to the point where, where a $1,000 laptop makes sense for them. And Apple has never- the, that M1 Air that they've kept around at Walmart is the first time they've even even experimented with addressing that market directly. And so just, it could be a big game changer for that segment.
Christina Warren [00:43:36]:
I'll say too, you know, Apple has not sold in that market directly, but because of sales and other things, the, um, some of the older MacBook Airs have fallen that way. Even this year, even, you know, uh, holiday season, you know, Amazon, other people had like the, the actual, like, you know, the, the M4 MacBook Air for $750, which is unreal. Deal. I got my sister the 16GB version of the M2 Air, I think for $600, um, at Best Buy as a Cyber Monday deal, which was amazing because it replaced a 10-year-old MacBook Air for her. And I'm telling you, I fully agree with you, Jason. There's a whole segment of people who, for a variety of reasons, like you said, don't want to- can't spend $1,000, but they can go below that. And Apple has, for various reasons, not gone after that market. Now I feel like if their machines are good enough, especially now that prices on everybody else are going up and, and Apple will be hit by that eventually, but right now they seem insulated by it.
Christina Warren [00:44:28]:
I feel like this is a massive opportunity.
Andy Ihnatko [00:44:31]:
Yeah, especially if it's gonna be cool to see how Apple decides to market and sell this. Like, they could- I, I think they're going to stay away from the idea of, oh, you know how we have all these MacBooks? Well, now we have a super cheap one. It- I think they're going to really go all in on saying that, no, no, this is- it's going to be called a MacBook iBook. I'm still holding out for iBook, but I'm- it's going to be called- still going to be called the MacBook. But they're going to say, no, no, this is an entirely fresh, new, interesting take. They're not going to- they're not going to broadcast, oh, assuming the rumors are correct, that's using an A-series CPU instead of, uh, instead of M-series. They're not going to broadcast, oh, we're using the same CPU as the iPhone. But they're- they might be able to flex that into, we have the longest battery life of any MacBook we've ever made.
Andy Ihnatko [00:45:14]:
They're gonna basically be pushing every single button they can push to say that this is a special experience, that you're not getting a lesser than- you're getting a different MacBook, you're not getting a lesser than MacBook. And the opportunities that they have at this moment, there's a- Microsoft has handed Apple a big opportunity in discontinuing Windows 10 and suddenly rendering entire collections of older perfectly functioning Windows machines, Windows laptops, none basically non-tenable. So now, not that they're going to scoop up every single Windows user and convert them into Mac users, but a lot of them are going to be saying, well, you know, if I'm going to- I haven't bought a laptop in 4 or 5 years, I wonder what's out there. It's probably going to be another Dell, probably going to be another Lenovo or an ASUS. It's like, wait a minute, Mac- I can get a MacBook now? Well, that's what, what's that like? And, and again, this is, this isn't- and also let's let's not put, uh, too big of a golden crown on Apple's, Apple's head. One of the problems with the MacBook line has always been that for $1,000 you can get a really nice Windows notebook. It's not a- that's not a budget Windows notebook by any means. That's a major manufacturer, really great build quality, really good longevity to it.
Jason Snell [00:46:27]:
Again, if you've-
Andy Ihnatko [00:46:28]:
if you want- if you're okay with Windows, that's gonna be a very, very good time you're gonna have with $1,000. Uh, and that, and it won't even be like necessarily a base model mid-range laptop. But it's, I mean, what we've been talking about, about this event, now that we have some rumors about how it's going to be, uh, an extravaganza, it's gonna be a festival, it's going to be a, a three, it's gonna be a Mardi Gras where there's gonna be two or three, there's the big parade, but then there's gonna be like two days of drinking, like before it. That really does indicate that they've got a lot of things that aren't gonna mean very much. And they decided that rather than do it as a press release, we may as well do this as a preamble cuz We haven't been hearing anything about the iPads that's just that, oh my God, that's going to transform- if you've been holding off on an iPad, this is why you've waited 6 months to buy a new iPad. It's gonna be- no, it's gonna be incremental. It's, I mean, it's gonna be nicer than the last one, but it's not gonna be revolutionary. New MacBooks, uh, MacBook Pros, again, same thing.
Andy Ihnatko [00:47:21]:
Everything that is on the rumor list is not suggested as, hey, this is a whole new design, a whole new capability, a whole new redefinition. But the idea of, well, if we're gonna be- I don't want to say taking out the- use the take out the trash day analogy, but it's going to be what if we were to- if we're getting people- if we get people in for just the, the budget level MacBook, why don't we get a lot of attention on this other stuff too? And we can basically flex the entire product line. So it's kind of- I, I gotta say that my, uh, again, rumors are rumors, nothing's confirmed until it's actually real, but that's actually got me kind of interested in how Apple decides to put on the show, uh, because the- how Apple decides to put on the show has always been an inter- one of, one of the more interesting parts of Apple's product line. Not just the product itself, but what kind of a show are we going to be put on and putting on about this?
Jason Snell [00:48:12]:
Yeah, I always say it's about storytelling with Apple, and like, what is the story that they're trying to tell? I think if the rumors are true, they're going to have a MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro at this event, which means they can tell a whole story about their range of laptops. And, you know, we know that 3/4 of the Macs at least that they sell are laptops, right? Like, that's, that's what a Mac is. It's a laptop. The, the desktops are a smaller- a much smaller audience. So the laptops matter. The MacBook name matters. And then how do they tell that story? I agree 100%. The last thing Apple's ever going to do is say, hey, we got you this cheap crap, uh, right? Like, that's not- but, but what it-
Andy Ihnatko [00:48:47]:
don't get, don't get it wet because the case is water safe.
Jason Snell [00:48:49]:
They're gonna say, they're gonna say it's powerful, even though we all know even though it's, it's not as powerful as the others, they're gonna say it's powerful. They're gonna say it's fun. The, it, it, the rumors are it's gonna have like colors and stuff that the other ones don't. It's gonna, they're gonna say it's fun. They're gonna say it's accessible, uh, and affordable in a way of like you can buy this, not in the way that this is cheap. And, and this is, I think, a really interesting dynamic to watch. Apple's brand means something. It's one of the most important brands in the world.
Jason Snell [00:49:16]:
And I think there is an audience for whom Apple's brand is absolutely aspirational, but also a turnoff because it's just not in a price range that they're willing to go to. But what it means is that if there's an- if there's a MacBook, that's a MacBook, it's an Apple product that's priced at whatever it is, it's not, it's not meant to come across as cheap. It's meant to come across as a, a real value because now you can get into a high-quality Apple computer and it's going to be aluminum. It's not going to be plastic. It's going to be it's gonna- I'm just gonna go out and say it's gonna be really nice, right? Yeah. No matter what the price is, it's gonna be nice. And that allows that brand to come down a little bit. And I mean, I- forgive me for repeating myself from a few weeks ago, but like Apple Silicon made this happen.
Jason Snell [00:50:02]:
The Apple Silicon is so good that it took what used to be like the bar of we can't really make a laptop less than this cuz it's not gonna be very good. And that bar like dropped a long way to the point where they look at the A series and they're like, why not? Right? And, and there will still be a good computer. So I, I just, I can't wait to see the- about the product, but I also am just really interested to see in the long run how they tell this story, where they try to reach with this product, because I, I, I know we all have gotten excited about this product over the last couple of years while it's been out there as a rumor, but like, it is an area that Apple has just not gone in before. And that's- that doesn't happen that often, honestly. This is really interesting for the Mac, especially.
Andy Ihnatko [00:50:45]:
Yeah, there's, there's another dimension here that, uh, again, we don't, we don't know what A-series chip will be in there. Of course, rumors, rumors, rumors. We don't know if it's going to be- for a fact, it's going to be an A-series chip. But it would be interesting if when they take a- when outsiders take a look at what this design is, this is an A-series chip based on older fab technology that could reasonably be manufactured inside the United States. One of the limits, one of the gates they have that they're working on right now is about how do we get more CPU production out of Taiwan for a number of reasons, both, both foreign and domestic, uh, pressures to make that happen. It would be a very interesting observation if the, if that, if that design were to, were to be examined and we said, you know what, TSMC is not- TSMC is, is right now under certain obligations to the government that, uh, Taiwan gets first grabs on manufacturing of their latest, uh, latest fab technology. That's, uh, something they have to deal with. But if Apple designed a chip that would allow TSMC to manufacture this inside the United States, given how big the MacBook line is, uh, as, as Jason said, Apple Macs- the Mac market is essentially MacBooks.
Andy Ihnatko [00:51:56]:
It's nice that we have desktops, but the Mac market is MacBooks. If they were to make a blockbuster selling laptop that they could man- manufacture most of the components inside the US, not necessarily this year, but in the next 2 or 3 years, start to bring all these other factories online. That would be a very intriguing development. Yeah, Tim-
Leo Laporte [00:52:17]:
Trip Mickel reporting in the New York Times that in 2023, the CIA briefed a bunch of executives in a secret briefing room in Silicon Valley, including Tim Cook, uh, Lisa Su from AMD, Jensen Huang of NVIDIA, India saying, our intelligence says based on a Chinese buildup that they are looking to invade Taiwan probably in 2027. Cook said, I- after that briefing, I slept with one eye open.
Andy Ihnatko [00:52:49]:
I, I, I read that scene. I'm like, what, what was- what was- I hope they had like video capture seeing 4 of the most important CEOs in the entire world doing a spit take at the same time, turning pale.
Leo Laporte [00:52:59]:
20, 20, 20. Turnip nail. Yeah. Uh, afterward, Mr. Cook told officials he slept with one eye open. That was probably- you could probably date to July 2023, uh, Apple's serious efforts to move out of Taiwan as best they can. And well, we'll see. Um, there are gonna- it- I think this is gonna be the year of color for, uh, Apple.
Leo Laporte [00:53:23]:
Apple had such success with the orange iPhone Mark Gurman, uh, says that he thinks they're going to be- there's going to be a deep red iPhone 18, which I would, by the way, probably buy. I think that's a nice color.
Jason Snell [00:53:37]:
Uh, we're all showing our orange iPhones now.
Leo Laporte [00:53:40]:
Christina, orange gang, rise! Orange gang! Okay, everybody got them. Oh, you got a little- you got a little one. I got a big one. Show them. Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Andy. All right, we got to get the, uh, we got to get the thumbnail. Everybody hold up your orange iPhone and make some sort of YouTube What? Okay, good.
Leo Laporte [00:54:00]:
Okay, that's very important if you're going to be on YouTube.
Jason Snell [00:54:03]:
Audio listeners are loving it.
Leo Laporte [00:54:04]:
Oh wait, wait, I'm sorry, I can use your imagination.
Andy Ihnatko [00:54:07]:
I'll use, I'll use my, my iPhone, iPhone 4.
Leo Laporte [00:54:10]:
Like, that's great. Okay, in a nice yellow spec case.
Christina Warren [00:54:13]:
So you got the color in there. I did get the, uh, the classic, uh, case from, um, uh, who's this, from Spigen, that they made it look like a, a Mac SE.
Leo Laporte [00:54:22]:
Oh, that's cool.
Christina Warren [00:54:23]:
I like that. Yeah, it even came with like a- I even, uh, got a little, um, I guess wrist thing that says- let me see if I can show this- it says hello in the, like, the Apple font, which is pretty cool.
Andy Ihnatko [00:54:36]:
Yeah, um, so I do like that. I, I wish they'd bring that- I'm sorry for an aside, but Speck, please bring this case design back.
Jason Snell [00:54:41]:
That's a great-
Andy Ihnatko [00:54:42]:
I love it. It's so grippy. It's, it's- you, you feel like you could just basically throw it in anger, then pick it up and nothing will happen, which is not such a good thing, but it's a good thing for if you're spending money for a case. Which makes you wonder why-
Leo Laporte [00:54:54]:
similar to but not quite- Apple would put any effort into making color phones since everybody's gonna put it in a case. Apparently though, in the Chinese market, the orange phone did really-
Andy Ihnatko [00:55:02]:
it did.
Jason Snell [00:55:02]:
That was, that was-
Andy Ihnatko [00:55:03]:
well, in the US it did, and in the US too, but it was particularly cited in China as a reason why it, it's a, it's this visible flex that, hey, this is, this colorway has not been available in an, in a phone ever, so therefore if I visibly have this orange iPhone, it means that I have actually I'm absolutely capable of buying and owning the latest and the greatest. Yeah.
Christina Warren [00:55:24]:
Well, I said from the beginning, I knew, um, and everybody told me on the internet told me that I was wrong. And obviously Apple doesn't break out, you know, like, like product sales, but I had a very good gut feeling. I was like, the Air is not going to be a big seller. Um, everybody is going to buy the orange iPhone. And, um, and, and then you're right, boy. And I was completely right because my mom got an Air. Um, uh, really? The solid- yeah, for her for her, it's perfect because she wanted a lighter, smaller phone. So she wanted thinness, she wanted something that was lighter.
Christina Warren [00:55:50]:
She'd had a Pro Max before. And she doesn't, you know, take a ton of photos. And so the downsides- I got her the little battery attachment. So the downsides, you know, for her, it's not a big deal. For her, having the sleek, small phone- not small, but you know, but like thinner phone was perfect.
Leo Laporte [00:56:05]:
Um, she probably doesn't draw a lot of battery. She probably gets through the day.
Christina Warren [00:56:09]:
She gets through the day. And then I got her the battery, you know, um, add-on pack, right, which obviously increases the, the stuff, but she can keep that in her car. And so for her, like, it's perfect. And the way that I kind of looked at it, I was like, oh, well, this is like, this is your second phone. This is the second phone that executives have because they have someone else who can manage their calendar for them. So this is like a great phone for Tim Cook, but for the rest of us, to Andy's point, you either want to show off that I've got the latest and greatest and that I can afford to buy the latest and greatest, or, you know, they did a hell of a job with the, the base iPhone this year, which was so good that it's like, okay, Okay, you're asking me to pay more money to get a worse phone? That, that doesn't track. Um, but yeah, I mean, I do feel like they, they nailed it with the color thing this year. I'm a big orange fan, but even if I wasn't, there's no way I was not gonna buy the orange iPhone.
Leo Laporte [00:56:56]:
You know, I'm disappointed because the rumors are, and Gurman reiterates this, that the folding phone, if it does come out- by the way, all- we're gonna start getting much more serious rumors now because this is the time when they start building.
Andy Ihnatko [00:57:08]:
Manufacturing.
Leo Laporte [00:57:08]:
Yeah, the folding phone is going to be in more subdued grays and blacks and stuff like that, which they, they kind of have to.
Andy Ihnatko [00:57:15]:
Like, for when you're charging what was going to be $2,000 for a phone, right, you can't take the risk that there's going to be, ah, people- I love it, but I can't be walking around with a sky blue phone. That's the thing is I make a lot of fun about how- but now, now the new MacBook is available in two exciting new colorways, slightly not gray and slightly less-
Leo Laporte [00:57:34]:
you're saying rich people don't like color?
Andy Ihnatko [00:57:37]:
No, I'm just, I'm just saying when you're manufacturing these things in bulk, you, you know for a fact what you're gonna sell. Black, you know for a fact what people are buying. And when you know that, okay, the thing is, it's the reason why you don't see a whole lot of yellow cars, you don't see a lot of purple cars. You see what- you see a lot of boring colors because a lot of- most people are gonna choose the boring color and decide to just put like a really cool thing hanging from the rear window, the the front mirror instead as a way of customizing it. Because, because, because the other problem that people are- I, over the past 2 or 3 years, I've had to really remind myself that a huge, huge factor in, in the marketing of these phones is people turn in their old phones to trade in for the new ones, or they try to sell them or something like that. And once again, try- again, you'll enjoy your, your pink phone for the 2 or 3 years you have it, but then when you're trying to find someone to buy it for you, they're- you're going to wish you had something that was more conservative. Again, you can always sell a gray phone. You don't necessarily have the ability to sell anything that's not a gray phone.
Leo Laporte [00:58:37]:
We're going to take a little break. When we come back, we'll talk about other Apple rumors. So nice to have you, Christina Warren, on the panel. Thank you for, uh, putting up with us. We're thrilled.
Andy Ihnatko [00:58:47]:
Christina Warren, developer- she's already a member of the group.
Leo Laporte [00:58:49]:
This is awesome. I- she fits right in, doesn't she? Develop- well, she always has developer relations, film girl. Developer relations at GitHub, and always glad to have her in the, in the house with the snacks. Jason Snell from Six Colors- the report card is out, we'll talk about the results in just a little bit. Andy Ihnatko, who is in his home proving that he doesn't have to go to the library. I'm very-
Andy Ihnatko [00:59:14]:
there's sufficient snow. I'm barricaded in. If anybody has like canned goods, any, any wood that will Burn, just go FedEx it over, drop it. No, the car-
Leo Laporte [00:59:25]:
you got the sweater on, that's good, that's good.
Andy Ihnatko [00:59:27]:
I got the sweater on, I've got- and I've got my Relay FM blanket.
Leo Laporte [00:59:32]:
Oh nice, in my lap. Very nice.
Andy Ihnatko [00:59:34]:
Because I, because I'm sitting- when I picked this location for my, for my desk, it was because, well, I've got a nice neighborhood, it'd be nice to look out the window. The windows of a 120-year-old building, not the most like insulative property, so So I just realized, uh, this is how incestuous the podcast business is.
Leo Laporte [00:59:51]:
All three of you had or have shows on Relay FM. Uh, well, that's the way it- yeah, that's the way. Okay, you don't have to show off the swag.
Christina Warren [01:00:01]:
I was gonna say, you got more swag than me, Andy.
Leo Laporte [01:00:03]:
I love that.
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Andy Ihnatko [01:02:28]:
Leo, I'm sorry for offending you. I've- so I've gone and put on my, my, my-
Leo Laporte [01:02:35]:
oh, thank you. Okay, we don't do a lot of swag anymore these days. We do have a Twitch store, I guess you could-
Andy Ihnatko [01:02:40]:
but this is, this, this is one of my- this, this is actually my, my usual house coat during the winter.
Leo Laporte [01:02:44]:
I love that.
Andy Ihnatko [01:02:45]:
It's, it's warm enough. Really, really beautiful.
Leo Laporte [01:02:47]:
Thank you very much.
Christina Warren [01:02:48]:
Thank you for saying- you know, a, um, a, a listener, Leo, um, a while back- I, I wish I could remember who- sent me a bunch of old shirts they had, including, um, some TechTV stuff. Oh, nice.
Jason Snell [01:02:58]:
I know you collect-
Leo Laporte [01:02:59]:
oh, good times.
Christina Warren [01:03:01]:
You collect, uh, I collect vintage stuff like that. Exactly.
Leo Laporte [01:03:03]:
That's why they especially from defunct companies. Yep.
Jason Snell [01:03:07]:
I'll just take a drink from my, uh, Relay FM water bottle here.
Leo Laporte [01:03:11]:
I just, you know, I don't even have a TWiT mug here or anything. I do have a ZDTV mug downstairs. I'll say-
Andy Ihnatko [01:03:18]:
oh man, that's amazing. Actually, I, I still, I still have my- one of my Mac Week, uh, uh, I can't remember what it's called, the mug you got when you-
Jason Snell [01:03:26]:
I tipped off Mac the Knife.
Andy Ihnatko [01:03:28]:
There you go. I got- oh, I still got one of those. Oh, that's cool.
Leo Laporte [01:03:30]:
When you give them What happened to that? All the magazines had those, you know, uh, kind of-
Jason Snell [01:03:36]:
I guess Mark Gurman has replaced that. When I was, uh, when I was at Macworld, we made a mug for the Macalope that was inspired by the Mac, that said, 'I'm the Macalope,' right? And I, I have one, but I have one, but so does the Macalope.
Leo Laporte [01:03:51]:
So, you know, it's great. I have- and, uh, I'll send this to you, Christina. This is a ZDTV- amazing yourself- cute Oh my gosh. And for no apparent reason, a TechTV Super Ball. Oh my God. But it lit up when you-
Christina Warren [01:04:04]:
there's electronics inside.
Jason Snell [01:04:05]:
That's so cool.
Christina Warren [01:04:06]:
I remember that.
Leo Laporte [01:04:06]:
I think I had one of those. Yeah, it lit up when you bounced it. It's good times.
Jason Snell [01:04:10]:
Put that back on the- Somewhere on the internet, there's that great clip of me giving a Macworld Mac tip on, uh, TechTV to Leo. And we- there's a lot less gray hair in that clip, let me tell you, on both sides. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
Leo Laporte [01:04:24]:
More hair, less gray. Gurman says the next big thing for Apple is a push into visual artificial intelligence. Do you think this will be one of the announcements, or will they talk about this next week? No, nope, nope. Not even- will they talk about the new Siri?
Jason Snell [01:04:37]:
I guess they-
Andy Ihnatko [01:04:39]:
no, no, no, no promises, no promises of any kind until they have actual working stuff to do an actual live demo. Yeah, they were burned so badly, they burned everybody so badly a couple years ago that they are not going to touch that stove again.
Leo Laporte [01:04:56]:
So do- why do we think that the visual intelligence is the next?
Jason Snell [01:05:00]:
Look, I think Apple is placing bets assuming that future AI will be really good at a bunch of stuff. And the problem is, because look, isn't the story of Apple right now that they are killing it on hardware and then they're struggling on software? I like that.
Andy Ihnatko [01:05:18]:
That's what's happening.
Jason Snell [01:05:18]:
And we know know from German that they, they've had like home products built around, uh, Siri, basically built around good AI that they can't ship because the AI isn't any good. And they're still waiting for that. And, and this seems very much like the same idea, which is they've got these amazing hardware people and they're like, okay, let's imagine having working AI. What would that be like? And one of the thoughts is if you can get cameras in glasses, in a pin, in AirPods, wherever we could do stuff with that. But you need to be able- if the phone's in the pocket, you can't see out, you don't- you can't see what's going on. But once we can see out, we can use our AI to do stuff. So the hardware people are like, okay, we're on it, because those people are very competent at Apple and they are building great stuff. But right now it feels like they just kind of have to imagine that and put their faith in the fact that the AI stuff will catch up, because I can imagine that, right? I, I can imagine how valuable it might be to have my personal assistant see what I see, know where I am, know who I talk to, know what I'm reading, all of those things in a sci-fi kind of context.
Jason Snell [01:06:25]:
But, um, and it takes a long time to develop hardware too. So I think they play some bets and they're like, maybe this is a direction we'll go because they think that there's a lot you can do once you can see what's around you. The problem is that, uh, Um, they have to- they, you know, the, the software has to come along too. And for Apple, that, that's killed so many things up to now. Yeah.
Leo Laporte [01:06:45]:
So in the report card, it says, in fact, hardware reliability- Jason, we- if those who don't know, uh, surveys, uh, fellow- his fellow, uh, Apple journalists every year.
Jason Snell [01:06:55]:
How long have you been doing this, Jason?
Leo Laporte [01:06:57]:
11 years for that now. Yeah. Uh, and, uh, of course Andy and Christina and I were all asked, but only one of them replied. Uh, but Christina made up for both of them.
Christina Warren [01:07:09]:
She wrote enough for everyone.
Leo Laporte [01:07:10]:
I, I wrote to you, she typed a lot. But I have to point out hardware reliability got a great score, 4.5 out of 5.
Jason Snell [01:07:19]:
Yes, people will appreciate that 3 different panelists, uh, individually made the joke that maybe the guy in charge of hardware should be put in charge of the company. Hmm.
Leo Laporte [01:07:28]:
Because OS quality, 2.7. Yeah, app quality, 3.1. I mean, really poor, poor scores on And, uh, yeah, this is the story.
Jason Snell [01:07:37]:
I mean, this- just look at the rumored home controller device. Apple finally says we're going to make a home product, and they base it on Siri and App Intents, neither of which have shipped, and it's now a year and a half since they were announced. That product is- according to Gurman, was ready to go last year at this time, and they can't ship it because the software is not ready. By the way, my understanding is the same was true with the Vision Pro, where they had the Vision Pro hardware locked maybe a year before and the software is just no good. So they had to wait until the software was good enough that they could make an announcement and then ship it. Like, this is a recurring story, and I don't know- they have made changes and maybe those changes will be effective, but, uh, right now this is the state of Apple, which is they have this amazing hardware group that can build whatever you want, it seems, but is the software going to be there to support it? Because you, you end up with that moment where you have put, you know, a bunch of home controllers in a warehouse somewhere because there's no software to run them because they assumed it would be ready and it, it failed completely. So that's- I mean, it's right there in the numbers. Apple right now, as a company that fuses hardware and software, one side of the house is, uh, doing great and the other side not so good.
Leo Laporte [01:08:51]:
Yeah. Uh, is it liquid glass? I know a number of people- Brett Simmons, uh, said of, uh, liquid glass- let me see if I can find it. I-
Jason Snell [01:08:58]:
yeah.
Christina Warren [01:08:59]:
Oh yeah.
Jason Snell [01:08:59]:
Yeah, Craig Hockenberry had a good line too. There were a bunch of good- a lot of, a lot of good one-liners. Christina did a 100-liner, but, uh, a lot of good-
Christina Warren [01:09:07]:
I had a good one-liner for the Apple TV. Okay.
Andy Ihnatko [01:09:09]:
Yeah, yeah. Promise over deliver.
Jason Snell [01:09:11]:
It's the Apple way. There's a lot of like, this is a, you know, this is a- the hardware is really great and the, the software is a really great mess, basically, is what everybody said. I think, I think Liquid Glass came up a lot. I think Liquid Glass is the straw that broke the camel's back, honestly. I think Liquid Glass is more a symptom of a larger disease. I don't think it's like, ah, with Liquid Glass they've lost me. I think it's more like Liquid Glass is the breaking point where people who've been grumbling about Apple not- yeah, for years, uh, the last few years, especially the last 5 or 10 years, about Apple deprioritizing usability for, um, for Flash, you know, or- and just not worry- being worried about computer interface design as much as, uh, as the look of it all. And then Liquid Glass was like- everybody's like, okay, them's fighting words, we're gonna get into it now.
Jason Snell [01:10:01]:
And if I look at the panel, that's my diagnosis, is I think that it just broke a lot of people where they're like, can we finally admit that Apple has lost the plot when it comes to usability?
Leo Laporte [01:10:09]:
Yeah, Christina's comment on the Apple TV was, Apple TV continues to be a product in the Apple ecosystem. Yep, it does. It's kind of like- Connor Roy was interested in politics from a young age. Exactly.
Christina Warren [01:10:21]:
That's exactly it. No. And, and no, I mean, look, what is there to say about Apple TV? It exists. Um, it exists. That's it.
Leo Laporte [01:10:29]:
You know, it's the best. It's the best of, of the bunch.
Christina Warren [01:10:32]:
Well, this, okay. This, this is to me, if I can go on a rant for a second, this is what is so frustrating to me about the state of Tahoe, the state of Liquid Glass, the state of software at Apple. It is so degraded and it is so bad compared to what we had a decade ago, let alone 15 years ago. Like I've never seen like such a degradation in our usability and, and whatnot. And we've all accepted it and we've accepted it because as bad as Tahoe is, as bad as these decisions are, as, as much like lack of care there is in the usability, like when you see things about resizing windows not working and resizing, you know, like, like, you know, columns not working and then the fix not really even being a fix. The fact that like on the latest beta, um, HFS+ drives don't work. I'm sorry, what are- what type of testing are you doing? This is still the way that Apple even recommends that if you have, you know, a non-SSD, you format your drive. This is only a file, you know, format that Apple like maintained for what, 20+ years? Okay, as bad as all these things are, it is still better than the alternative, and that is what is so frustrating.
Jason Snell [01:11:38]:
Yes, yeah, that's the- actually, and the Apple TV is the perfect example of that where I, I bought bought all the boxes last year and tried them all. And Google TV is okay.
Leo Laporte [01:11:47]:
Um, the, uh, but, but my favorite is Nvidia's, uh, Shield. Excellent. But the software is so limited, and it's not because Nvidia's fault, it's Android TV or Google. Yeah.
Jason Snell [01:11:57]:
So, so, and that's the thing, that there, there does seem to be complacency. And the Apple TV is the worst of it because that's a product you can look at what Amazon has done. And Amazon, uh, their stuff is- their TV streamer is garbage because it's just full of junk because they're trying to sell you stuff, but, uh, functionally it's got amazing features. And, and the Apple TV is just- it's like they think it's fine and therefore they're not going to do anything with it. And I, I do wonder if some of that complacency happens on especially the Mac, where they're like, look, it's the Mac, it's great, you don't want to use Windows, you want to use the Mac. It's like, okay, but it also should be better, right?
Christina Warren [01:12:30]:
Like, it should be better, it should be better. Well, and I'll tell you this, we can be complacent now because the alternatives aren't good, um, but I'm telling you, you know, there are companies companies who are younger, who are coming up, you know, Apple is about to celebrate its 50th anniversary. There are companies out there that are going to develop another operating system that is going to be AI first. That is not going to be Windows, that is not going to be macOS. And I don't know if it's going to be OpenAI, I don't know if it's going to be Anthropic, I don't know. It might be Microsoft. It could be Microsoft, right? I mean, I think that would be hard. Uh, I obviously, I, I don't know.
Christina Warren [01:13:03]:
I think, I think for Apple or Microsoft it would be difficult because you have encumbered, like legacy stuff, right? And unless you're willing to do what Apple did in 2000, 2001 with macOS X and do a clean break, that can be really difficult. But there will be companies that are going to come out with like AI-first operating systems and re-envisioning what these things look like, probably based on Linux. Who knows?
Leo Laporte [01:13:24]:
The same thing that happened to coding. Yes. Is going to happen to computing where it is no longer have to mouse around and click and have a Finder and look at files and documents.
Christina Warren [01:13:34]:
You just tell it what you want. Right. And when this happens, the complacency that Jason talks about and the fact that they're willing to- like, Apple TV again is the perfect example of, oh, well, this is good enough. We don't have to bother and even try any harder. What will happen is the same that happens anytime things get disrupted. Your, your, you know, your stuff gets rocked, um, uh, because, because I don't wanna wanna wanna curse, right? And that's what's good. That's what's gonna happen. And I -and I feel passionately about this because I'm such a huge Mac fan.
Christina Warren [01:14:03]:
I love the Mac so much. I will not put Tahoe on any of my main machines. I have it on my work computer because I have to. I will not do it. I think it's terrible. And it's just- it's such a regression in usability. I won't touch it. I've never felt that way about a main OS before.
Christina Warren [01:14:17]:
I'm like, no, I'm waiting for, you know, 27, and we will see what they will do then. But it angers me, and it frustrates me, because this complacency will have negative consequences far beyond this because it's not about like, okay, well, I can't go to Linux because that's still too Linuxy and I, and I, I'm not gonna use Windows. Okay, well what about when like another OS entrant that doesn't have the encumbered legacy that is given more chances because it's new and so we're not gonna hold it to as many standards as we hold other things to. What about when that comes out and it turns out that everybody realizes what's been true for a while, which is almost every application we use is a web app. And these apps that we love and that we depend on, these niche things, can be recreated, even if it's not perfect, in a way that's still usable. And I might be more efficient and get things done. And, and for those of us, you know, on this panel, it might be frustrating. I mean, I can only speak for myself, be like, okay, the younger generation comes in, they don't even know what files are.
Christina Warren [01:15:16]:
So what, what happens when like you really do have a ground-up rewrite operating system that can take on these new paradigms. What happens to the Mac then? Because the hardware is perfect, they can do anything with the hardware, but if the software sucks-
Leo Laporte [01:15:31]:
yeah, at a certain point you're stuck. Well, also, according to the, uh, reviews that you garnered, Jason, in your, uh, report card, the same thing that Amazon has done so wrong, Apple is kind of doing. You, you took- you call it upsell fatigue. And Casey Liss said, enough with the upsells, my God. Apple's focus on subscription revenues led to many nagging pleas to subscribe and spend money with Apple. This is Joe Rosenstiel. I mean, it- people were-
Jason Snell [01:16:00]:
yeah, it is, it's definitely an issue, and I think it's a cultural issue. I assume there is probably somebody at Apple who's arguing for the user experience. It reminds me of, I mean, my last few years in a corporate media job, I spent a lot- I don't, I don't want to say most of my time, but it felt like most of my time in meetings where I was the only person in the room arguing that maybe slight amounts of incremental revenue that destroyed the user experience was bad for our business and mostly not getting listened to. I'm sure that there's somebody at Apple who is doing this, but they're clearly not getting listened to. And this is the issue is, look, I understand the, the difference is that Amazon's marketing not its own stuff only, but like all of its partners because it just wants you in the funnel to buy stuff. Apple is just promoting its own stuff, so it's a little bit different. It's self-marketing. The problem is, while I admit that Apple needs to have the latitude to reach its customers and say, hey, did you know we're doing F1, that somebody needs to be- have a conversation about like, what does that look like? It's like, well, you can interrupt it once, or you can be on this carousel, but like, it definitely feels like there's nobody to say, you are destroying the user experience of the TV app on Apple TV.
Jason Snell [01:17:11]:
You, you are are inserting the Creator Studio, like, as ads in Pages, like ads in the UI, like literally a panel that opens and there's an upsell in Pages to the Creator Studio, which is not only the wrong product for most users of Pages, but it's the only way to get these features that are now in the UI. And, and this is that where everything is just a little out of balance. And, and what needs to happen is that there needs to be more advocacy Advocacy? I can't actually say that, 'cause, uh, it's a black box. There probably is advocacy. People in positions of authority need to understand- I mean, forgive me for going back to my ho- Hawaii hotel analogy from a couple of weeks ago, but it's the idea that you can't be a cut-rate fly-by-night operation and a premium brand. You have to- if, if, if you're a premium brand, you have to have standards and there has to be a limit and you have to have respect for your customers. And that's what I think Apple has lost the plot on. Apple thinks it's okay to heavily market to a captive audience in its ecosystem.
Jason Snell [01:18:12]:
And again, a little bit of that I'm actually okay with, but I- but it's got to come with choice, and the user's got to be able to say, I don't want to see this again, I want to hide this, stop showing this to me.
Andy Ihnatko [01:18:23]:
And Apple seems to have just completely lost that. One of the ways that you can keep a customer for life is when the customer regards you as this- this company is a- or this product is a safe refuge from from fill in the blank. And for everybody, it's going to be a list of different things. And when you start erasing things off of this thing, like, okay, so, but you know, uh, the reason why I use a Mac, it's a safe refuge from software that just doesn't work. Okay. That's not really true. It's a safe refuge from being treated like a, like a, like a mark. Okay.
Andy Ihnatko [01:18:56]:
Or being, be being advertised against for everything. Okay. Uh, be- I said refuge against being treated like, like I'm supposed to basically put all of my money, uh, all my money and more of my money into things as a consumer, as opposed to being given a compelling reason to, uh, dang it. And so you're gonna, as those things get removed one by one by one, when you get into a situation where, uh, I'm almost, I've, I spent, uh, one of my little tasks last week was to update a 19- a 2017 Chromebook that I bought at the MIT flea market for $35 to the very, very latest edition of Pop!_OS, uh, which also runs a, a bunch of the same apps that I rely on. Every single day. It was annoying. It was almost annoying to me that comparing this to the like $2,000 MacBook Pro that I usually, uh, run the, the Joplin text editor in, there was really no difference in how easy it was, how reliable it was. The biggest difference was that the keyboard was way, way, way better on the $35 flea market version.
Andy Ihnatko [01:19:58]:
Okay. So you get, you start to get down to when, uh, and it's not just, it's not really, I would put the blame as much on the thing is that other operating systems, including open source, including Linux, have had now 10 years to fix all of the problems that they were having. And now the difference between, uh, Windows and- Windows and, uh, uh, and, uh, and macOS, and even macOS and certain versions of Linux, is thin enough that the fact that this is a Lenovo-grade laptop keyboard is enough to make me think, you know what, I really need to work for 2 or 3 hours here. Maybe I want to use the, the flea market laptop and not the That's a really, really nice one. What is Apple going to be left with? And the thing is they're going to be left with is clinging it to like the branch that the coyote is desperately clinging onto at the end of the Warner Brothers cartoon is going to be security and privacy. That's one card that they can always play. And as soon as they start to compromise on that too, that's when the branch is going to start to weaken and crack. And I would like them to be hanging onto something more substantial than one single branch that is only there because their, their business marketing, their business plan is such that it's irrelevant to collect personal information.
Leo Laporte [01:21:08]:
I hate to say it, Andy, but if that's all you care about, I think Linux is probably more secure and more private. So yeah, I know, I won't bring it up, but, uh, the, the-
Andy Ihnatko [01:21:16]:
but my- I will say the difference between- for myself is that I'm not interested enough in Linux as a hobby to learn everything I feel as though I would need to learn to make sure that I I have to understand what the security layers are and how to make sure I'm engaging them properly.
Leo Laporte [01:21:30]:
But yeah, you're absolutely right. Your hobby should be AI. Papa was- I have Claude Code do all of that. Does a great job of that. Locks it down and knows exactly what to do. Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko [01:21:39]:
But, but, but Christine was absolutely right.
Leo Laporte [01:21:40]:
The thing is like more and more often- 'Cause I'm giving Anthropic all my personal information. Exactly. So that's another matter.
Andy Ihnatko [01:21:45]:
But, but more and more often a phone, a laptop, a desktop, anything, it is the container in which we use the services that are pretty much platform agnostic. There are a handful of apps on my MacBook that I absolutely cannot find a substitute for on any other platform. And I still, again, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not using this as a long, uh, diatribe against Apple. I still love my MacBook. I still love macOS. I still use it because it is the best operating system for everything that I want aesthetically and for all kinds of other reasons. But the thing is, the fact that as soon as Apple forgets that, the thing is my, my, my company runs on Google Docs. It just has to run Chrome.
Andy Ihnatko [01:22:25]:
The thing is, I I do so much of my work through Claude Code or, or an AI, and that's an app that's available on anything or through any web app. As soon as Apple loses sight of the fact that I know, you know, 2004 was a great year to be a boastful Apple person, but that was so very long ago and you can't just simply give us the same thing each and every season without thinking about giving us something that is, that is absolutely materially an improvement upon all the rest.
Jason Snell [01:22:56]:
Jason, is this the worst Apple report card? Uh, it's funny. I feel like we've come back around to the first few, uh, years of it where we were in a, the Mac was in hardware doldrums. The developers were really up in arms about a lot of App Store policies that, uh, Phil Schiller came in and, well, no, it did. Phil Schiller came in and made a lot of things more transparent and they in introduced the 15% cut for, uh, for independent developers, and things got better. But that- all of that has eroded away. I think, you know, it- look, this is a challenge for Apple in terms of what it stands for and what its brand means. And I, I hate to say it, but remember when Steve Jobs said that thing about the problem with Microsoft being that they let the sales guys in there to run it? Um, it's, it's not- Tim Cook's not a sales guy, but I would say is I get the that Apple has made so much money over the last 15, 20 years that they have become very revenue-focused, which is not fundamentally bad, but I think what has happened- and again, I just get the scent of it from the outside because I lived in an organization the last 5 or 10 years I was at IDG that was, that was driven like this. It's the same idea.
Jason Snell [01:24:10]:
Um, The people, the leaders were all people who came from the sales side, not the editorial side. And they were- the good ones understood that we were selling a product and the product was the editorial. And the bad ones just thought that it was a sales machine and the, the, the, the, the product was meaningless. And I get the whiff of that from Apple, that they're so focused on driving revenue and they've- and they don't have enough people or enough people who've been empowered to stand up for the product and the brand. And, and the problem with it is is, you know what, it's very hard to be the person in the room, uh, take this from me, to say, I know that this will make us more money, but it will intangibly degrade our product or our brand because the, the money is tangible and the brand erosion is intangible. And so tangibility is a real easy choice. Well, we'll add this ad unit. We'll, you know, it's fine.
Jason Snell [01:25:02]:
It's, it's not going to erode it that much and you can't give me a measurement for it. But you do that long enough and you build a culture where you don't care about your brand anymore. And I would say to anybody who's watching this inside or outside Apple, Apple's one of the most valuable brands in the world. If you do not have very strong representation for the quality of your products and living up to your brand promise, you are squandering your company's single biggest asset, which is what Apple means. And right now, if I look at everything that is going on, uh, and I- it goes to the top, obviously it goes to Tim Cook. Um, I think that is the, the root of a lot of Apple's problems is that they have lost the culture that Steve Jobs emphasized. And Steve Jobs wanted to make money too, right? But he emphasized the brand and what it meant and that products had to be good and that that was why people bought Apple products. And right now it feels like Apple feels like, uh, sorry for getting on a rant here, but like it feels now that Apple feels like people use Apple products cuz they're trapped in the ecosystem and because, uh, and so they can do what they want to them.
Jason Snell [01:26:09]:
And that's a mistake. And, and as Christina quite rightly points out, you can get away with that for a while, but there will come a time when the reaping will happen and you won't be able to get them back because you've treated them so badly. And that, you You know, the, the iWork thing where they're putting ads to upsell you out of free apps. I'm sorry to keep coming back to that, but that is a- that is a sign of a company in, uh, in deep distress in terms of what its brand promise is.
Andy Ihnatko [01:26:38]:
Yeah, that's, that's the reason why after I download a free app off of a, off of a phone app store, I will re- I will stop using it after the first 15 seconds because the pop-up that they ask for, hey, what if we buy this free? So hey, get this, we got those. Hey, hey, become, become a subscriber. It's like, this is a low quality, low interest sort of thing, and I don't wanna use it anymore. It is such a tacky thing. It is, it is the panel gaps in a car that's, it makes you think, makes you think that they aren't really paying attention to quality in here. And I don't need to pursue, even if I'm wrong about that first impression, it just basically makes me think that, you know what, I don't need this. I, I, I also come back to, there's a, there's a line from The Sting, uh, that keeps coming back and back and back to me where where the senior con artist is basically mentoring the junior con artist, and one of the biggest lessons he teaches him is that you can't treat your friends like marks, son, meaning that you cannot make the people that you are trying to be working with feel as though they're there to be exploited by you. And that is the fundamental fraction in most relation- most business relationships.
Andy Ihnatko [01:27:42]:
The moment that, if I think that while you've got a business plan, you're pursuing that business plan, and you trying to increase revenue per customer, and I'm your customer, I understand that. I understand commercialism and capitalism. However, once I feel as though a company is treating me like a mark, boy, you better be giving me something that I cannot get anywhere else to keep me as a customer.
Leo Laporte [01:28:04]:
If there's anybody, uh, who you would think would be pro-Apple, it'd be Pixar. But in the latest Toy Story 5, the evil LeapFrog tablet is apparently running macOS. So- Yup. I don't know if that's a comment or what, but, uh, I wonder if that's-
Andy Ihnatko [01:28:23]:
that's in the trailer. You can see like it's using the same, the, the same like stoplight in the upper left-hand corner of the window. So he's the same Windows man. I wonder if that's going to survive through the actual release. I mean, I bet it must be too late to re-render anything, but I wonder how that got past the goalie.
Leo Laporte [01:28:39]:
It's, it's interesting. It also seems to be running, uh, Python, so in a terminal window. So I don't know what's going on there.
Andy Ihnatko [01:28:47]:
Like, like every kid's tablet computer should make them, make them write their own code. No AI says, and the console is your main interface to all the games.
Jason Snell [01:28:56]:
Right. Also, also toys are alive and talk.
Leo Laporte [01:28:58]:
So there's lots of things wrong with Toy Story. Yeah, it could be. Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko [01:29:00]:
It could be just a bad- Well, also there's a, there's a Toy Story- they made two movies after Toy Story 3. So there are a lot of problems with this, with this movie.
Christina Warren [01:29:08]:
Let's just say, let's just agree along with that. This is true. This is true. Look, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm tentatively excited about Toy Story 5, I just- to get on a completely different rant, uh, I did not like Toy Story 4. Um, so it'll be interesting to see how they try to kind of-
Leo Laporte [01:29:20]:
is Toy Story 4 like The Matrix 4? Is it kind of that kind of, uh- yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Christina Warren [01:29:26]:
Also Toy Story 3, it's also hard because Toy Story 3 was like a perfect movie. Yeah, that was such a perfect way to go out. Like, it was so good. I'll never forget, we were- I was in the theater and I was, I was kind of cried, and this woman like came up to me, she was like, were you crying? Were you crying? I know I was. I know. Oh, it's funny. I was like Yes, yes, I was.
Leo Laporte [01:29:41]:
I got some catching up to do. I think I've only seen the first one, so I don't have children.
Andy Ihnatko [01:29:46]:
Oh, wait a minute, you guys don't either? It's, it's kind- it's kind of a perfect trilogy for seeing. It is, honestly.
Christina Warren [01:29:51]:
And the third one is like-
Andy Ihnatko [01:29:53]:
it is, it's so good. It felt like you, you put the final brush stroke on the painting. The master puts the paintbrush down, say, if I put one more mark on this canvas, I will not necessarily ruin it, but I will degrade it. It. And then again, I'm- if you've liked Toy Story 4, that's great. If you- if you're- some Toy Story 5, that's great too. But I just felt like they could have ended it on perfection, but yes, they made more movies. Also, as a side- Christina, this is your first episode.
Andy Ihnatko [01:30:20]:
I- we should reassure you that getting off on tangents is kind of our brand, so go for it.
Leo Laporte [01:30:24]:
Yeah, go ahead. Did you, did you buy the steelbook version of the Toy Story quadrilogy or Pintology.
Jason Snell [01:30:33]:
No, I mean, you'd have to buy Toy Story 4, which she doesn't want. Well, no, I will-
Christina Warren [01:30:38]:
no, I'm trying to think though, because like I bought like so many special editions over the years. Like there was like a big Toy Story Toy Box, like a DVD special edition that had like extra features that was great. And then I bought like- definitely I have all of them on Blu-ray. I don't know if I had the steelbook. I probably would even if it had Toy Story 4. Um, I, you know, it would depend on the extra features, I guess.
Jason Snell [01:30:56]:
So I did, I did buy the Indiana Jones box set, and that has movies in it that are non-
Christina Warren [01:31:00]:
uh, oh yeah, no, I mean, look, this is how that goes with like box sets, right? It's like you would- you acknowledge that you're going to be getting- like, if you're buying the Rocky films, you acknowledge Rocky V is going to be there. It's good.
Jason Snell [01:31:11]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have the- I have the Star Trek box set, and, uh, you know, Star Trek V is-
Christina Warren [01:31:15]:
Star Trek V is in there. Hard one too.
Andy Ihnatko [01:31:18]:
Yeah, yeah. Curly Joe Dory is technically one of the Three Stooges, so I suppose that a complete set would include Curly Joe Dory.
Jason Snell [01:31:23]:
I guess Shia LaBeouf is an Indiana Jones actor. Exactly.
Christina Warren [01:31:27]:
You're like, okay, all right. This is weird. And, and, and, and, and why are you- why are you- yeah, exactly. But you need to perfection. So yeah, it happens.
Leo Laporte [01:31:37]:
You're watching MacBreak, uh, Weekly. Our, our vaunted- and we haven't explained this yet to Christina, I don't know if you got the briefing- but our vaunted Vision Pro segment coming up. It is in fact- we are in fact the premier Vision Pro podcast.
Jason Snell [01:31:53]:
Yes, podcast in the whole By default, but yes.
Christina Warren [01:31:57]:
Yeah, only by default. Well, congratulations. I, I do not have one wasting space on my collecting-
Jason Snell [01:32:02]:
it's just still just me. Still just me then.
Leo Laporte [01:32:07]:
All right, uh, this is MacBreak Weekly. Great to have Christina Warren, uh, with us, uh, as a regular member of the panel. What a- what an improvement, uh, that has been, uh, to us, us three. Uh, that's Andy Inako in his home for a rare treat.
Andy Ihnatko [01:32:23]:
And it's a lot warmer at the library. It was, it was built a lot more recently than the late 19th century, let's just say that.
Leo Laporte [01:32:30]:
And Jason Snell from SixColors.com, where you get the entire Six Colors report card. It's worth reading, all 32,000 words.
Jason Snell [01:32:37]:
Yes, 30,000 of them by Christina, but that's fine. I'm happy to, uh, provide her the space.
Leo Laporte [01:32:45]:
Uh, she was just happy to be out of the hospital. She said, all right, I'm right.
Jason Snell [01:32:48]:
You know, you can just genuinely- you can tell, you can take her out of the blog, but she's still going to be an old school blogger, and she's gonna, she's gonna, she's gonna write.
Christina Warren [01:32:56]:
But I felt so bad. I like looked at like the thing, I was like, oh my God, I really did go on because I felt it at the end, and I was like, should I go back and edit? And I was like, no. And, uh, uh, thank you, Jason. I apologize.
Andy Ihnatko [01:33:07]:
I think Jason will agree, you can always tell somebody who, when they grew up as a writer, they never had a- had the idea, the concept of column inches. Like, it's so true. Why not? If, if 400 more words will enhance this, why not another 400?
Leo Laporte [01:33:23]:
Yeah, those are coming in. David Schaub on our YouTube channel. Christina, great to have on the show. It's made better by a bit of rocket energy. Ah, yeah, but not too much, just a little bit, just, just enough, just enough. Yeah, yeah. Uh, all right, let's, uh, let's continue on. It's time for the Vision Pro segment.
Leo Laporte [01:33:43]:
What do you see?
Christina Warren [01:33:44]:
What do you know?
Leo Laporte [01:33:45]:
It's time to talk of Vision Pro. There is- yes, you even know the dance. Gosh, she's just fitting right in. You gotta get the vibes, get the vibes. There's only one story and it is from Andy Ihnatko, oddly enough, but he found it. Disneyland's Muppet Vision 3D will be released on Apple's Vision Pro.
Jason Snell [01:34:07]:
Yeah, yeah, and other platforms, I guess. But, um, isn't it great? Like There, there are all of these. So I, I bought on Vision Pro, I bought Dial M for Murder, the Hitchcock movie, because it was shot- that was a 3D movie.
Christina Warren [01:34:21]:
Um, did- I don't think they ever released The Birds on, on, in a 3D format.
Jason Snell [01:34:25]:
I don't think they did. I think it's just Dial M. But like, this is, this is- and you know, there's a lot of 3D stuff out there that's just dead. And in this case, the MuppetVision 3D was in Walt Disney World, right? And they, and they, they pulled it, so it's not available anywhere. And I, I guess it turns out the story that Andy linked to from Daily Dot is sort of like, fans wish that instead of this, it was back, which is like, well, yeah, I get you, I get it, fans.
Andy Ihnatko [01:34:50]:
I get that you wish that it still exists. There's what, 1996, that we would like to revisit? Yeah, Disney-
Leo Laporte [01:34:58]:
it was the last thing Jim Henson worked on before he died.
Jason Snell [01:35:01]:
It's a, it's an open question about how Disney's been as a steward of the Muppets. I, I'm encouraged by the new Muppet Show. I thought it was really good. And I like the idea that, like, why not make that available on VR platforms so people can actually see? I've never seen Muppet- MuppetVision 3D because I've never been to Orlando. So this is great. I mean, I have seen Captain EO, and I don't need to see that again, but although I would if I got that- oh no, I mean, I would totally watch it again.
Christina Warren [01:35:26]:
I was gonna say, I was gonna say, like, as somebody who spent a lot of time in Orlando as a kid and has seen the Muppet 3D thing many times, and actually I saw it, um, when I was there a couple of years ago with my girlfriends before they dismantled it. It's a, it's a fun thing. I'm glad that this is a thing that's available on Vision Pro.
Andy Ihnatko [01:35:41]:
Francis Ford Coppola, you gotta, you gotta be a, you gotta be a Francis Ford Coppola completist, and that's why you want, you want the Michael Jackson movie to run. But this is true. Why not? I love this because it's one of the things that I think is kind of heartbreaking as society is when you allow something that has been created, particularly something by such an important creator as Jim Henson, to simply disappear and go away. Yeah. And just only live on in the recollection Collections and essays and critics' reports. These things need to live on. This is one of the reasons why I'm compl- I'm in complete support of, uh, people, uh, pirating certain types of apps, pirating games, because otherwise, yeah, no, you know what? The, this video game platform from 1994 is not going to be remade ever again, and people are not going to keep trying to buy them just to play this game. We need to re- keep, uh, keep them in emulation.
Andy Ihnatko [01:36:25]:
So anything that's, that allows these movies to continue to exist. You think I, I came across an alarming statistic. That estimates are from anywhere from 25 to 50% of all the movies that were made, uh, in the 1920s simply don't exist anymore, simply because again, the film stock just simply disgraded- degraded. They weren't preserved. And now there's, uh, there are like Norma Talmadge movies, the, uh, the, the, the, the Call from the, from the Minaret, uh, that like, again, lots of stills from it, a lot of reviews saying, oh my God, this is one of the most amazing- does not exist anymore. So anything that can be done to preserve any piece of serious creative work, even if it's a silly creative work like the Muppets in a 3D theater, what is more valuable than Muppets being silly in any, in any format? Do it, do it.
Leo Laporte [01:37:12]:
So it was a live show, it wasn't a-
Christina Warren [01:37:14]:
it was a show, it was a show, but it was like pre-recorded. So like, so like, so like there were animatronic Muppets there and then they would play like a video segment, which I guess is what's been preserved. And so you would have your 3D glasses on and you would have like the, the, the pre-recorded aspect that you would see, kind of like Captain EO. And then there are things in the theater that would happen and that you would experience. It wasn't quite a moving ride thing, like some of the stuff- but yeah, exactly, it was kind of things like that. And, and, and, and, and it was, it's, it was fun. It was always air-conditioned, which is a, a big plus. So it's one of those ones where like the line would often get long in the afternoons because it's air conditioning and people want to get inside.
Christina Warren [01:37:49]:
And then it's fun for family members of all ages, right? It's It's the, the- it's definitely not the adult Muppet humor, but it's like the, the family-friendly Muppet humor.
Leo Laporte [01:37:58]:
So they, uh, the Daily Dot went to- apparently Jim Henson's son Brian Henson does a live improv comedy show starring puppeteers at the Montalbán in Los Angeles, and they went and asked Brian Henson what he thinks. He says better than it not coming to VR. He also said- yep, yep- that they did a thorough job capturing the show. He said users will be able to sit in any seat in the house house while watching MuppetVision, changing up the view, which is a good use, I think, of, uh, of the Vision Pro.
Jason Snell [01:38:28]:
Yeah, I mean, you can like or dislike 3D movies or other stuff like that, but, but, um, bottom line, if you've got devices capable of playing them, it would be really nice to make them available so that they don't just vanish. Like, there's- I've got a- was it the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who? They shot in 3D, and it was only- it's, I think, only ever released on like a DVD where you could get the 3D and the not, and I had to rip it myself using like a Windows app and emulation to get it in a format. It's like that, that is- and I can see that on my Vision Pro now, and I can watch it on my Meta Quest, and it's cool as a Doctor Who fan to have that. But also it's like, what a shame if that thing that they built was shown in a- in, in movie theaters, right? And then never seen again in 3D. Like, it just went away. Like, no movie should- like, Dial M for Murder is such a great example. It's like, it's Alfred Hitchcock shot a 3D movie.
Andy Ihnatko [01:39:20]:
Why would we lose that? And he shot it intentionally in 3D.
Jason Snell [01:39:24]:
It wasn't like, oh, well, gosh, well- Wasn't the SCTV-
Christina Warren [01:39:27]:
No, no, it was, it was digital. And it was released that way. I mean, this is what's- I'm so glad that that is available, like, in 3D, like, on iTunes and in those ways. I wasn't aware of that. I actually saw The Birds in 3D, which was, I think, one of the only times they've ever done it that way. But that was in a theater. And this was-
Leo Laporte [01:39:43]:
That would be scary.
Christina Warren [01:39:45]:
Yeah. Years ago. Oh, it was fantastic. Um, Universal Studios used to have a thing in, in Florida, uh, Universal Studios Florida. They used to have, um, it was replaced by I think the Simpsons area, but they used to have like a classic Hollywood section because that was kind of their motif. And one of the areas was they had like an Albert Hitchcock exhibit and there was like a, a museum and there was like a gift shop, which was great. And then they had, um, you know, like an area where they would show parts of his classic films and they showed The Birds a portion of it in 3D. And with the birds flying at you, it was incredibly scary.
Christina Warren [01:40:17]:
And then they would do, um, a demonstration of- from, from Psycho. It was, it was, it was a great, you know, all-around kind of thing.
Leo Laporte [01:40:24]:
Um, and are you in the shower and he's coming up?
Christina Warren [01:40:26]:
No, they would take somebody from the audience who would like put on like the outfit, be mother, and they would have somebody who was, you know, playing like Janet Leigh. And they explained how they shot it and they explained how they used, you know, chocolate sauce as blood and all that stuff. It was actually very informative.
Leo Laporte [01:40:39]:
And I was my favorite part of the Universal Studios, uh, tours, uh, studio tours, uh, in LA. Yeah, go by the Psycho house, and as you go by in your little tram, an Anthony Perkins look-alike comes out with a knife, looks at you, then goes back in the house.
Andy Ihnatko [01:40:55]:
But, but one thing is important to see- I actually saw the Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline actually got the original, like, 3D print. And it's not like red-green glasses, it's actually there are two projectors inside the, the lamp house. And so when I say he uses intentionally, like, you think 3D, you think, and now, would you like to see a menu? Right, right.
Christina Warren [01:41:16]:
He was using shots.
Andy Ihnatko [01:41:18]:
Yes, I remember it in ways where, like, it's frustrating because an important conversation is happening, but he decided to put something in the foreground to increase the tension of- and I, I still remember Coolidge Corner Theater like 500, 800 people at the same time leaning to the left to see around the obstruction. And that's what I mean about, like, the intentions of directing a movie this way. Totally. Yeah, fling things at the camera. It's like, I'm going to make people even more nervous because they are being deprived. They, they feel like they can't see something they're supposed to be seeing. Uh, anyway, amazing.
Christina Warren [01:41:51]:
No, I fully agree. I mean, Psycho was a similar thing. And, and so that famously- he- 3D became out of fashion by the time- not Psycho, the Birds became out of fashion by the time it was released. So they removed the 3D element, but they were able to restore it, um, 10 or 11 years ago. And I saw it, um, at the AMC at Union Square in New York. And, and it wasn't, you know, it's really cool. You had to wear glasses though, right? Yeah, you had to use the glasses and it was a fantastic experience.
Leo Laporte [01:42:15]:
Green glasses or what?
Christina Warren [01:42:16]:
Um, I don't know. I think that it was actually like more the modern ones. So I think that however- I, I think that whatever they did- yeah, the shutter one. So whatever whatever they did for the, for the transfer was quite positive. But I'm sad that that hasn't come to home video in any way. But to Jason's point, if you wouldn't even want to rip these things, you have to use these very weird esoteric tools. Extremely weird. Like, you have to run it through a converter and all these things.
Christina Warren [01:42:41]:
Because I looked into this when I was considering getting a Vision Pro. I was like, if I got one, it would just be for movies. How many 3D movies are out there? What's the situation? I had a come to Jesus moment with myself and I went, this is going to sit on a shelf and, and I'm not going to use it. And I'm going to be mad that it's heavy on my face and I'm going to be mad about like the, you know, lines it's going to put on my face. So I'm not going to buy this, but, but I did like look at probably the same forums that Jason looked at to figure out how to, how to do that.
Jason Snell [01:43:07]:
Yeah. You have to, you basically have to take something like Make MKV and you have to pull off the, the, the 3D version and then you have to run it through this app that's only available on Windows. Yep. That converts it into a side-by-side. Uh, and the quality is okay. It's more like HD, it's more like a 720p. It's not, you know, you're not going to get- and then you have to sideload it to your Vision Pro, and then you have to sideload it. But, uh, but it's all doable.
Jason Snell [01:43:29]:
Or, or to the Meta Quest is where I actually started with this, and it's perfectly fine in that too. But I will say this about it, um, uh, that we, we've litigated the how impractical the Vision Pro is so many times in, in this this very segment. But I will say this, as somebody who's not a fan of going to the movie theater and seeing a 3D movie because you have to wear the polarized lenses, which mean that by definition it's half as bright as it should be, um, 3D movies on the Vision Pro or on the Meta Quest are great because it's full brightness and then you just get the 3D effect. And I watched Avatar, uh, recently on the Vision Pro and it looks great. Um, that- there aren't that many 3D movies No, this is Vision Pro. This is-
Christina Warren [01:44:12]:
this segment-
Andy Ihnatko [01:44:12]:
this-
Jason Snell [01:44:12]:
I think our producer is getting a little bit impatient. Yeah, he closed- look, that's good.
Leo Laporte [01:44:17]:
They opened and closed the rat hole. I, I didn't touch it. I didn't touch it.
Jason Snell [01:44:20]:
Anyway, it's good. 3D movies are good on, on headsets. It's way better than they are in movie theaters. That's all I'm saying.
Leo Laporte [01:44:26]:
I think it's an opportunity for Apple. I mean, there is a- I guess I didn't realize much more content out there that they could take advantage of.
Jason Snell [01:44:33]:
They got to find a market for it. Although somebody dropped- who was it- that, that, uh, was it, uh, uh, uh, oh, Netflix guy Sarandos who said that, that, uh, that Cameron is working with Meta on a movie viewer headset, which I don't know. I mean, interesting. There's an argument that you don't want a spatial computer, you want a thing you can use to watch, uh, 3D movies. And also I would say like live sports events and things like that. There's a product there.
Christina Warren [01:45:00]:
There is. And, and weirdly, I mean, I think that those are the people who are going to be willing to- like, I think that initially Meta especially kind of thought, okay, gaming is going to be where the audience for this is. And, and at a certain point there was, but that's expensive. Having, you know, full room stuff isn't a thing a lot of people can do. Um, so that kind of fell off. And more casual gaming, I don't think people care as much. So what is the primary use case of these headsets if you're not going to use it as a computer? It is going to be to watch films. That's why I would buy a Vision Pro.
Christina Warren [01:45:28]:
I have a massive library in iTunes, and that's why I would use it. Yeah. Um, but- and I have a massive DVD and Blu-ray library as well, which, which I, I would rip, you know, to, to do things. So if Cameron and Meadow worked on something that worked, I, I would- that would be something that I would be much more considering buying, you know, especially if they said this is what this is the use case for, than, oh, I want to be, you know, your, your super, your super Mac and it's kind of not really a Mac.
Leo Laporte [01:45:54]:
Apple doesn't do this with stuff it produces. Like Monarch's coming out this week. I would think Monarch would be a perfect, uh, use of the Vision Pro. This is the Monarch The landmark, uh, drone show that they did in Los Angeles to promote the really, the new release of the Series 6.
Christina Warren [01:46:10]:
Well, the Olympics, where, where, where, where is Vision Pro in that, right? I mean, there were so many opportunities with, with, with, with big sporting events where you could partner with people and you, even if you can't do the whole thing, create some sort of experience. So, okay, I can be watching these things and feel like I have some sense of place and I can kind of move around and I can see different shots. 'Cause it's not like they weren't capturing a million different shots. Yeah. With the Olympics. Like, that could have been a great partnership opportunity. This, this drone thing you're talking about would have been fantastic.
Leo Laporte [01:46:33]:
Is Kurt Russell the poor man's Jeff Bridges? That's the first thing. Yes, yes. Okay, I'm just checking.
Andy Ihnatko [01:46:38]:
This is the drone thing.
Leo Laporte [01:46:39]:
Jeff Bridges was not in The Thing, sir. This would be really good for Vision Pro, wouldn't it? You know?
Andy Ihnatko [01:46:45]:
Yeah, but, but the thing is, like, this is why, like, I really think that the future of this sort of thing is always going to be something along the lines of the Meta Quest, something along the lines of, here is a dedicated screen for watching movies, because that's a great- it's a great suggestion, it's a great pitch. Say, well, who's gonna be able to watch it? All the people who spent $3,500 on the most top-of-the-line headset that exists. They said, that's gonna be a great demo for Apple, it's gonna be a great way for Apple to sell another 18, uh, of these things this quarter, but it's not worth our time and trouble to now figure out. It's because, again, if you just say we're gonna shoot this in 3D and that's it, you're they're not doing it. I am still lobbying. You have to design it in a way that makes sense for 3D.
Leo Laporte [01:47:27]:
For next week at the event, a little just aside saying, oh, and by the way, Formula 1 Vision Pro will be coming out, uh, when it'd be great because the Formula 1 race starts a week from Sunday.
Christina Warren [01:47:39]:
So it'd be perfect timing, right? Okay, he- here's a genuine question I have on that. Obviously they can- they would be doing it over streaming and I'm not, but the, the base Vision Pro only has 256 gigs of storage, right? I do wonder because of how much space is taken up by the operating system and by other things, if that inhibits what they can realistically do for some of these streaming things because they're so bandwidth intensive and you need to have certain caching.
Jason Snell [01:48:06]:
Like maybe I'm wrong on that. No, I, I've got the base model because I wasn't going to spend a dollar more than I had to, to cover it. It, and it's got so much empty space in it.
Christina Warren [01:48:17]:
Okay, because I know that that was a problem with, like, in- at least that was what I perceived the problem to be. Like, when they released the Metallica thing or whatever, which I was like, okay, I guess you know your audience, um, it was only a partial set. And that I felt like, okay, that's because they couldn't guarantee that there would be enough space on the, on the things. But, but for streaming, it might not be an Yeah, I mean, F1 is, is live, uh, right? Exactly. I mean, I was just trying to think from a caching perspective, but, but if Jason's saying that he has plenty of space free on his, then, then that, that-
Andy Ihnatko [01:48:48]:
Apple did announce they're going to put, uh, 5 of the races on IMAX, which will be kind of nausea-inducing, but that, but that's a, that's a good thing if, if, if the messaging for F1 is that, oh, by the way, if you ever want to see one of these shows live again, you're going to have to buy into Apple. You're going to have to have a subscription to an Apple thing. The idea of- and also, I can't I would kind of watch that at least once. So long as I'm- so long as the, the audio is not like roaring in my ear. It will. We want you to be as deaf as anyone who's working the pit crew. Like, I don't want to be as deaf as anyone who's working there. The people who work in the pit crew have protective headgear.
Leo Laporte [01:49:20]:
I don't want to have Formula 1. It's unimaginably loud.
Andy Ihnatko [01:49:23]:
It really is. I've been to NASCAR once and it's like, yeah, that's a lot. That's a lot of noise for 4 hours.
Leo Laporte [01:49:31]:
Um, and that's That's the Vision Pro segment now. You know, we're done talking the Vision Pro. In other news, Apple has said this is all. Remember Apple promised $600 billion worth of investment into manufacturing the United States. It's going to be hard for them to do that, but they are going to start manufacturing the Mac Mini in Houston. It'll be assembly right It's gonna be a Foxconn facility.
Jason Snell [01:50:01]:
Sure, this is where they're already building, um, their servers for private cloud compute. And there's actually a photo of somebody assembling a server, and it's this like giant rack computer, and you're like, what is in there, right? Like, what is- like, what is that? What? That's like X server baby. Um, but yeah, they're gonna- this is like the Mac Pro, uh, except a higher volume product than the Mac Pro. Uh, especially now with AI. Yeah, the way they put it is it'll be assembled- they said something like assembled for the local market, which I think is just so funny. So it's like, well, make it in America for America. Isn't that nice?
Leo Laporte [01:50:34]:
You can have a nice thing made in America, but just for America. They should make it- look how big this plant is though. This is a-
Andy Ihnatko [01:50:41]:
oh, it is a-
Leo Laporte [01:50:42]:
you could make a nice, uh, ICE detention facility out of that.
Andy Ihnatko [01:50:47]:
That is huge. Uh, but yeah, it's an ambitious- the, the, the Apple press release also mentions it's not just going to be for manufacturing. They're also going to be doing like training. They're also going going to be using it for like a whole bunch of things that, that boost the idea of, hey, Apple is all in on helping American manufacturing grow. Uh, it's, it's an interesting step. Like Jason said, that's an interesting cutout saying, oh, for the local market. So that could mean that certain build-to-order stuff inside, uh, in that shipping inside America will be going to this stuff. And even if it were that much of a limited thing, realize that the Mac Mini, as much as we love it, as much as it's terrific, as important as it is for the Mac lineup, it's still Like, um, Apple doesn't release, uh, uh, shipments, uh, shipment, uh, data, but it's less than 5% of the entire Mac line, less than 1% of all their revenue.
Andy Ihnatko [01:51:36]:
So it's a very safe- rather than making fun of, oh, well, this is just all for show. They have to start with something. They're going to start with something that's very low stakes. And it seems like an interesting place to start.
Jason Snell [01:51:46]:
Also, I would say, um, they mentioned as a part of this, they're going to do another one of their kind of like manufacturing engineering institutes in Houston. And they already have one of those in Detroit. And I think this is- I think, yes, it is in some ways eyewash, in some ways trying to please, um, the people in power about them investing in America and all of that. But I think it has another motive, right? Which is how do you build up American capability to do manufacturing? One of the ways Apple's decided to do it is to build centers where they can literally teach people in America what goes into manufacturing and, and, and try to create if, you know, a, a new generation of Americans who are knowledgeable about this stuff that we have kind of lost or never had in the US. And, and it, I, I would argue it serves some other motives that they don't talk about as much given the demographic compositions of Houston and Detroit, that it is Apple's way of also sort of like feeling like it's living up to some of its diversity promises without saying so out loud, cuz it's apparently not allowed to do that anymore. More, but I think that it, it, and simultaneously pleasing the people in power by having them invest in American workers. So I think that there's, it's not just that they're building some Mac minis, it's that they're trying, like, again, maybe this will amount to nothing, but like, if they're ever going to have to do more manufacturing in the US, they're gonna need people who know about manufacturing. And if Apple just decides to start training them, just starts shelling out money to train Americans to understand tech manufacturing.
Jason Snell [01:53:20]:
Processes, uh, I mean, that's a necessary requirement if you're going to do more of this in the United States.
Christina Warren [01:53:25]:
Yeah, 1000%. I mean, that's been the biggest problem with- for years everybody has said, well, you know, why can't you make an iPhone in America? And there have been lots of reasons, and obviously price was a big one. But the thing, the thing that came out over and over and over again when anybody would do these assessments- and I used to talk to, um, uh, you know, manufacturing specialists about this and whatnot, and they explained to me, and this- this was a long time ago, but this is, I think, still true. Obviously, if Apple's having to train people, it came down to we- there's not- you don't have the people. And it's not that you don't have the quantity of workers, although that's part of it. It's that you don't have the skilled labor in this particular field to be able to do it. When- and, and, and this is the problem that, you know, um, uh, the fabs have had for a long time. And so I, I, I do- I think that if Apple is actually going to train people, to your point, Jason, how to do this, what to do, that's a really good thing for a lot of reasons, right? And we shouldn't be reliant on one part of the world for manufacturing, period.
Christina Warren [01:54:17]:
And that doesn't come down to any sort of, you know, like, like geopolitical thing. It's good to have more people knowing how to do this. And obviously manufacturing left the United States for a lot of reasons. But because of that gulf of the last 30 years, you don't have the labor force that knows how to do these things. And so I think building that up up becomes necessary. And if you can do it for a product that is relatively low volume, even though the volume might be increasing because of data center usage and whatnot, that's a really good training ground to say, okay, now we can move on to another thing and another thing. And maybe eventually, you know, again, like, I just don't think that- we don't actually have the number of people to be able to do, you know, the high volume products, but you could do some of the, some of the things.
Andy Ihnatko [01:55:02]:
Yeah, it's, I mean, The- it's, it is a very, very good goal to try to diversify your manufacturing globally. It is a very good idea to be able to do some manufacturing inside the United States, uh, for any number of good reasons. So, and the thing is, this is an example, as, as inclined as I, being a cynical Gen Xer, are to make fun of this, oh, this is all just for show. The thing is, you gotta start with something. It's the, the, the Taiwan became a powerhouse of manufacturing because because they didn't do something for one year. They came up with a, a plan that went on for decades. Uh, you gotta plant a, you gotta plant a tree, the fruit from which you will never taste because it takes a while to grow these things. So this is, this is a very, very good thing.
Andy Ihnatko [01:55:42]:
One thing that kind of, I wouldn't say worried about at this point, but observant about is that there are a lot of reasons why, uh, manufacturing in the United States is more difficult than it is in Taiwan. One of them is simply the regulatory environment. You have to treat your workers a lot better by- by- as bad as- and my worry is that, and this may not- this was not necessarily a worry that I might have had 3 or 4 years ago about Tim Cook or whoever's gonna be running Apple, is that are you now going to pressure the government to say, we would like workers in the United States, or at least in our plants, to have fewer rights and have us to have fewer obligations towards those workers, uh, because that would help us to bring more manufacturing in. Great. Let's weaken labor laws. Laws. I don't know if Apple is capable of doing that. I- that's- but it's certainly a question that has to be in play as we discuss, like, what happens when Apple keeps trying to move more manufacturing in the United States.
Leo Laporte [01:56:37]:
So, uh, it- I don't think this is going to make it into an Apple ad. We had a great tragedy, uh, up here at Lake Tahoe, uh, where 8 skiers died in an avalanche. They were backcountry skiing. 6 survived though, and according to the New York Times it was the satellite feature on the iPhone that allowed them to seek help and allowed, uh, emergency responders to find them on the hillside. It's not going to make a good ad, but, but still, is-
Andy Ihnatko [01:57:07]:
but isn't it great that this is just part of the chipsets of almost every phone that is not $100 and no name from AliExpress? Yeah, the table stakes is because emergency SOS via direct-to-satellite is becoming table stakes for almost every phone, and that is such a welcome advance.
Christina Warren [01:57:25]:
Yeah, it really is. I, I hope though, I hope that when these things happen that that can help convince Apple to like- and I know they keep extending how long they're gonna do the free SOS stuff and they haven't started charging for it and haven't made it part of a subscription. I really hope that they don't ever do that. Right. Uh, I don't see how they can. Right, right. We could, because it's to this point, right? Like with this example where like literally people were found because of this feature, right? And it was such a tragedy that it happened. And this is not the only time that this has happened.
Christina Warren [01:57:49]:
I mean, Apple has found like better cases where people have said, okay, I was, I was stranded, I was someplace and this was able to help me. Um, I just hope that as we were talking about before about the revenue-driven things, you could see very clearly how this could become part of like, oh, well, if you're part of, you know, um, Apple, you know, uh, you know, one, uh, you know, Premier Plus, whatever, you, you get this feature. I hope that they will maintain that for the life of the iPhone, this is just a cost that they eat because I think it's important.
Andy Ihnatko [01:58:18]:
Yeah, I, I, I don't want any tragedy to befall anybody, but again, now, now let's get the Gen X cynicism kicking back in. The worst, the worst day, a bad day for Apple would be if someone was rescued and they survived, and amongst the, amongst the coverage is, is that survivor saying, I have a, I have a Garmin watch that has an emergency SOS, but I wasn't able to connect because it's incompatible with the iPhone. Phone, and then Apple has to say, why is it not compatible with the iPhone? Well, because we didn't want- we didn't want the, the SOS people to get access to the user's personal information. We were just protecting him. Uh, not that that's something that's likely to happen, but that is- I- that's something that's always on my mind, that as we- if- as we continue to become more and more reliant and more expectant of the services that are on our watches, the limitation- the artificial limitations Apple's- Apple puts on to third-party pretty, uh, smartwatches. I'm wondering how long it's going to be before it really bites them in the butt.
Leo Laporte [01:59:15]:
Here's a watch that will not save your life, but designed by Apple employees and then Google employees too. They customized their own Tudor watches. The Apple Watch has the pirate flag that flew over, uh, the Macintosh, uh, development building on Bandley, uh, and the, the Google version has that little Google dinosaur Terra Rex. Isn't that cute? This was done by the Swiss watch brand Tudor. Uh, two of them on the market for auction. The watch made for Google recently sold at $10,000. Before you rush over, the Apple Watch will conclude tomorrow at the watch auction house Loup. This current bid, $13,500.
Leo Laporte [02:00:03]:
Yeah, dollars. It's the pirate limited edition. Beautiful. It is, it's pretty nice.
Christina Warren [02:00:07]:
I'm not going to spend $13,000. Oh no, absolutely not. I mean, and people can spend far more than that on watches. Me, I'm like, I bought the Hermès, like, Apple Watch last year. And I did. And did you get the band too? The Hermès crisscross? I did, I did. I- well, actually, I got a couple bands, but the main one I got was the, the, uh, the titanium, um, or, or the metal, whatever the- I like the metal band. Yeah, it was, it was beautiful, and it was very, very difficult to get.
Christina Warren [02:00:30]:
Like, I had to to go to multiple countries to be able to find it in stock because they hand make it. So it's- well, it-
Leo Laporte [02:00:35]:
yeah, it was for the-
Christina Warren [02:00:36]:
it's kind of the Hermès metal band. Yes, exactly. And, um, uh, you know, it's like $1,200 or something.
Leo Laporte [02:00:44]:
It's stupid, but more expensive to fly around to many countries.
Christina Warren [02:00:47]:
Well, that just happened to be a side effect. I happened to be in many countries. Yeah, while I was there, I would go to- go to an Apple Store and go to the Hermès store and be like, do you have this?
Leo Laporte [02:00:56]:
And finally in Italy they did.
Christina Warren [02:00:58]:
Satiné, is that the one you got?
Leo Laporte [02:00:59]:
Yeah, it was the, the Grand H. Was the one.
Christina Warren [02:01:03]:
Oh, um, oh, that's pretty. Yeah, it's really, really nice. Um, I, I don't have it on right this second, otherwise I would show it off. Um, I'll show it off next week, but, um, I'm- oh, look at that. Yeah, but it's beautiful. Yeah, it's- that was the thing when I saw that, and then I saw it, I think iJustine or somebody like had it on. Yeah, I was like, oh, it makes it more dressy. This is nice.
Leo Laporte [02:01:23]:
I was like, I have to have this.
Christina Warren [02:01:25]:
Yeah, you got the narrow one. I didn't get the narrow one, I got the, the regular one. Now, now I'm kind of kind of at the point where I'm like, oh, maybe I kind of want the narrow one. I think the narrow one's pretty. It is beautiful. But yeah, but the problem is, is that like they're sold out of them everywhere because again, like they only make them in like limited quantities.
Leo Laporte [02:01:44]:
So.
Christina Warren [02:01:45]:
Yes, currently unavailable. Sorry. Right. So you have to go to the Hermès store or you have to like actively watch the Apple, um, uh, webpage. There's a, there's a forum thread on MacRumors of like, I think like the very dedicated amongst us like Hermès, like people, they're far more dedicated than me. They, you know, collect the bands who will like add- like avidly like watch and be like, oh, this country has it, this country has it, you can buy online. But like a lot of times you've got to go to the stores and be like, do you have this?
Leo Laporte [02:02:12]:
So, and I again will credit Andy for, uh, this story. The, uh, Paul Brainard, one of the creators of PageMaker, which was the legendary page layout program that Aldus related- released- he was the Aldus founder, uh, passed away, uh, A little young actually, '78.
Christina Warren [02:02:31]:
Um, yeah, so all this was so important. PageMaker was so important, right? Didn't Adobe eventually acquire it?
Jason Snell [02:02:37]:
Yep, yeah, it became InDesign, right? Well, they rewrote it.
Christina Warren [02:02:41]:
InDesign was the basis of- right, right, because, because it was- I was trying to explain this to somebody a few, a few months ago, like it was Quark first, right? Like everybody was on Quark, it's like Quark or PageMaker.
Leo Laporte [02:02:50]:
Was that the big battle? I think PageMaker He was the first one with the LaserWriter, right? Then Quark, QuarkXPress. Yeah, yeah. He- it says in this GeekWire, uh, obituary that Paul Brainard coined the term desktop publishing. Oh wow, thank you, thank you, Paul. Look at that, that's an original classic next to the original LaserWriter with PageMaker.
Jason Snell [02:03:11]:
Amazing to see the people coming out of the woodwork this week talking about how they- so many people- Harry McCracken, I, I saw several Glenn Fleischman and I'm one of them too. Like, PageMaker was a formative part of me becoming a Mac user. I went to my college newspaper and they just converted to Macs and they all were laying out with PageMaker. And my ability to pick up PageMaker really fast basically led a path that I could draw a pretty straight line between that and now in my career. It was a huge part of the beginning. We used it for our college paper. I did it- one of the first internet magazines, um, on- we- I did a text version, but I also did PostScript version that you- before there was PDF, that you could dump to a laser printer, right, and get a magazine out of it. I laid that whole thing out in, in PageMaker.
Jason Snell [02:04:01]:
Like, PageMaker was a huge part, even though it got eclipsed by QuarkXPress, uh, in the professional sphere, it was just a huge part of that desktop publishing revolution. It made such a difference. And, you know, in that era, you went from paste-up to just composing everything on the computer. And it was transformative. And just a huge, a huge part of so many people's lives and careers came out of PageMaker.
Andy Ihnatko [02:04:23]:
And just for power to the people, create- giving power to people who have not enough of it. That's one of the effects that PageMaker had, because just, uh, it's- I- it could almost be as transformative as publishing on the web, where, okay, great, I want to- I've- I want to create a newspaper, I want to create a magazine, or even I want to do a zine How do I do that? Well, you have to have access to lots of technical knowledge about how do you actually paste wax- print out these things and wax- put, put wax on the backs of them and paste them up and then send it off to a printer to have X, Y, and Z done versus do you have a Mac? No, but I know someone who has a Mac. Great. Here is where you can download a bootleg copy of PageMaker. And now you can actually just create a professional looking- it's a, a, a publication that is A, going to be easy for you to put together. It does not require a lot of technical training or knowledge. And most importantly, maybe when you actually publish it and hand it out to, uh, like a comic book shop to say, you, you want it to, you wanna carry my zine, it will look like a professional, serious publication that its creators invested a lot of thinking into, as opposed to, no, well, I have an Epson FX-80 printer and I did have it printed at high quality when I took it down down and photocopied it at my dad's- at my dad's workshop. The- I'm being a little bit glib about this, but that really is a lot of what this was about, that it gave power to people who do not have access to the infrastructure of publishing, and suddenly you have access to the infrastructure of publishing, and that is transformative to so many communities.
Leo Laporte [02:05:57]:
I remember my good friend Tom Santos, who later, uh, founded MacAdam, which was one of the great Mac third-party stores in San Francisco, in San Francisco when he spent a huge amount of money. I think, what is it, $5,000 on a laser writer and a page- a copy of PageMaker and a Mac, put it in the back of a van and drove around doing mobile desktop publishing for people who needed it. Brilliant. Talk about an entrepreneurial vision. That was back in '85. PageMaker came out in July of '85.
Andy Ihnatko [02:06:27]:
So it was really early. We should also point out that this, when, during the first 2 or 3 years was really, really struggling as a niche product that could not do one half of what an IBM PC could do at, at more money than it cost for an IBM PC. This got people to finally stand up and take notice that this is something unique that cannot be done by anything, by any other computer. And even people who are not in- not interested in desktop publishing were able to take a look at this and think, yeah, there's something new and different about it.
Leo Laporte [02:06:55]:
It justified the GUI, right?
Christina Warren [02:06:57]:
Suddenly a GUI made sense. You know, well, that was the thing, right? I mean, like there's kind of a conversation in, in, in the chat right now about like, which was first. And I, I don't think anybody can reasonably argue that, that, that PageMaker wasn't like the granddaddy of all of this. And yeah, I think that obviously this was before my time, but from what I've read and seen, like nothing, I mean, you, you, you could say spreadsheets, right? And that would be like a good way, but you had a way, you know, VisiCalc or whatever, to be able to kind of do that before Excel on the Mac. But, but desktop publishing, be able to actually see, you know, on a monitor, this is what this is going to look like. And then having like a laser printer that wasn't out of the range of, of expense for, you know, universities or, or for, you know, home users if they really want to spend a lot of money, or inkjet printers, and be able to go, okay, I can actually create something myself. I mean, I remember as a, as a kid, I was probably PageMaker. I, I don't know what it was, but like creating like my own newsletters like in elementary and, and printing that out and like having the joy of that, right? Which, which is, you know, with Jason and his point is so important to be like, okay, I can actually have this idea.
Christina Warren [02:08:03]:
And now I can put it out there. And I would draw a direct line between that and the web. Like what drew me to the web as a kid was the exact same thing, which was I have this idea, I can use HTML and, and I can create what I want and I can then publish that and people can see it. And, um, I, I think that there, there is a direct line, you know, between desktop publishing and, and the web. And this is such an important, um, innovation. He was such an important figure in so many of the things that all of us do because we all come from, you know, writing and publishing and, and we wouldn't- I at least feel like I wouldn't have the type of career that I've had if it weren't for, uh, those, those-
Jason Snell [02:08:43]:
I mean, we didn't have an internet back then, right? This is how you had to get your words out. I mean, we did have an internet, like, and like I said, I didn't have It wasn't, it wasn't the same thing. It was not like this where, where this is how you commute- distributed things to whatever your group was, whether it's a zine or, you know, or whatever.
Leo Laporte [02:09:00]:
Um, this was that you were cutting stuff out and I, I'm putting it on a piece of paper and xeroxing it.
Jason Snell [02:09:06]:
Yeah, you get some hot wax on the back and, and, and we're- yeah, we're debating about, uh, about who was first and all that, but it is-
Leo Laporte [02:09:13]:
oh no, PageMaker was first. I'll resolve that argument. PageMaker came out July '85, Ventura publisher late '86.
Jason Snell [02:09:20]:
Yeah, also wasn't even close. Also, and it wasn't gonna be a fair fight because the Mac at that point, yes, with the graphical interface, with font support, with PostScript, PostScript, because, uh, you know, Apple made the deal with Adobe and PostScript laser, laser printers. It was always going to be the Mac software, and PageMaker was the one that had the stranglehold. You know, QuarkXPress came in and they gradually just basically bumped PageMaker out of all professional publishing. Um, but in those early days, I mean, in fact, just in terms of the classic Mac magazine thing, um, uh, when I was at MacUser is where I started, and Andy was a columnist there. We used PageMaker. Yeah. And then we merged with Macworld and they used Quark.
Jason Snell [02:10:04]:
Oh my God. You're like, oh my gosh. I'm like, I didn't even know, uh, cause I had, I had used PageMaker all the way from college. So, uh, that was, uh, you know, Boy, talk about two magazines that were exactly the same and yet completely different.
Andy Ihnatko [02:10:16]:
But, um, fortunately that was the only cultural clash of the merging of those.
Jason Snell [02:10:18]:
Oh yeah, there was no- there were no tears and bitter recriminations beyond that. Uh, no, but I mean, like, so, so, you know, Quark ate their lunch and then InDesign ended up actually kind of-
Christina Warren [02:10:27]:
we ended up switching to InDesign after a while. I was gonna say InDesign killed Quark. That's what's so interesting. Yeah, Quark had the whole market. Adobe bought, you know, this, this lack, you know, that this, you know, lagging, uh, company, um, I, I guess for some of the IP or whatever, and then rebuilt it and then had the creative Cloud, or Suite at the time. Yeah. And completely just like decimated Quark. Like Quark was so huge.
Christina Warren [02:10:50]:
I remember like, um, going to a Macworld, uh, probably in 2009 or, or, or something. And Quark still had a booth. And, and I, and I did not ask this, but I very much wanted to ask, why are you here?
Jason Snell [02:11:04]:
Yeah. So Quark, Quark was a- I don't want to say they were a badly run company, but I certainly would say they were deeply arrogant about their position in the market. And I think what they, what they failed to realize and that Adobe realized is every single QuarkXPress customer was an Adobe Photoshop customer. Bingo. And an Adobe Illustrator customer. And that if Adobe could build a new version of PageMaker essentially, uh, that was, that could match all the things that their customers told them that precluded them from switching from QuarkXPress, then that would be the end of QuarkXPress. And that's what happened.
Christina Warren [02:11:35]:
Like bottom line, because if you're- They built a better product and then they integrated the -sweet.
Jason Snell [02:11:38]:
Yeah, and you already were paying Adobe for Photoshop and Illustrator, and that was the end for Quark really at that point.
Leo Laporte [02:11:44]:
So to fill people in on the history, the young people amongst us, the LaserWriter was announced at Apple's annual shareholder meeting- this is from Wikipedia- January 23rd, 1985. '85. The same day Aldus announced PageMaker. The laser- now the Mac in the meantime had been kind of lagged, right?
Jason Snell [02:12:03]:
But the LaserWriter completely changed things.
Leo Laporte [02:12:05]:
Transformative. Yeah, it came out in March of '85. July of '85, PageMaker comes out. Postscript. Yeah, by the way, the LaserWriter costs 7- I got the number wrong-
Andy Ihnatko [02:12:15]:
$7,000. Because- and this is when I, when I used to write, uh, the, the trivia competitions for Macworld Exposition. When my- one of the, one of the questions that got everybody was, what's the most powerful computer that Apple makes? They say, oh, the Mac SC- like, no, the LaserWriter is actually-
Leo Laporte [02:12:29]:
has the most computing power of anything that Apple ships. So that's certainly the most expensive.
Christina Warren [02:12:33]:
Well, yeah, because they had to have the most memory to be able to store all those fonts and to be able to process the, the, the PostScript- rasterize it-
Leo Laporte [02:12:39]:
for all that. So that's- it says the combination of the LaserWriter, PostScript, PageMaker, and the Mac GUI and built-in AppleTalk networking would ultimately transform the landscape of computer desktop-
Jason Snell [02:12:52]:
it gave them 15 years, um, of success in certain markets when they really desperately needed it at the end of that time. Yeah, it's funny, I just wrote a piece for Macworld a few weeks ago about the Apple's history with Super Bowl ads and, uh, and the Super Bowl in general. And, and that, that 1985 announcement was the Lemmings ad, which is famously a bust because it was for this thing called the Macintosh Office, which was like a truest sign that the suits were in charge at Apple, right? Where they're like, oh, we're going to do a file server and it's going to be really exciting. And, uh, and it was not. But the LaserWriter was part of that announcement. It turns out that the, the vision that they had for the Macintosh Office was a bust, but they- the seeds were there. That got picked up, and it was for the DTP revolution, and that's what made the Mac what it was.
Christina Warren [02:13:32]:
Well, I mean, it's so fascinating to think about, like, how transformative it must have been for, for magazines, for newspapers, for, you know, which again, we're pre-internet, right? Like, the internet still technically exists, but we're pre-web, we're pre-that revolution, and all of a sudden you're talking about taking things that would have cost so many multiples of $7,000 to then be able to, you know, do on like, uh, you know, like consumer equipment.
Andy Ihnatko [02:13:58]:
Yeah, we should- we- I want to take half a step back and remind people that at the time we had the internet, but the internet is what you use to email somebody to warn them that, hey, I FedEx'd you a floppy with the information.
Jason Snell [02:14:08]:
Hey, I FedEx'd you the document that I printed out. It was not a media- it was not a mediascape back then, right? Oh, when I- I mean, like, I literally-
Leo Laporte [02:14:17]:
when I mentioned- no, no, let me get this. Let me make sure I would I was alive back then. In 1985, you were using MCI Mail, which only emailed to MCI Mail, or you were using CompuServe, which only emailed to CompuServe. That's true. That's true. Only colleges had the internet. It was very, very limited in 1985. Yeah.
Leo Laporte [02:14:35]:
Uh, the internet was not on anybody's radar at that time.
Christina Warren [02:14:38]:
It was not. No, you might have BBSs.
Leo Laporte [02:14:40]:
You might have the- Yeah, BBS. I ran a BBS. That's why, I mean, I know I was running a Mac BBS.
Jason Snell [02:14:47]:
In 1985. I tried to explain to somebody- I tried to explain to somebody, um, a while ago about this magazine that I started in 1991, in January of '91, Intertext. I still- that's still my email address. Um, and I had to explain to people the concept. It wasn't just that I published a magazine on the internet in 1991 when there was no web and there was not even any gopher really at that point. I had to explain to them the reason I did it is because there was a short story magazine on the internet, and the guy who did it said, I'm not going to do it anymore. And that meant there was no short story magazine on the internet. I want you to think about that.
Jason Snell [02:15:22]:
It was a time in the internet where there could not be a thing on the internet. That, that time rapidly ended where they're like, there's always- whatever you're thinking of, that's already on the internet, right? But in that moment, it- that was it. Like, there wasn't- there literally, it was an empty space. I was like, okay, I'll fill it. I'll do Intertext. And I did it for like years, but like, it was a very different time. And, and I had to distribute it by posting it to newsgroups and making it available via FTP so you could dump it to your LaserWriter. It was so primitive.
Jason Snell [02:15:52]:
And that's what we're talking about is that, is that it publishing on the internet content that everybody could see was a mid-'90s thing. And, uh, and so '95, '96. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So this is, we're talking about a decade. And then for every magazine and newspaper, right? Like I know magazines and newspapers in print are now kind of irrelevant, but like it was a, it was a game changer for all of them. And then I'll throw in one other thing, which is the best demo I've ever seen in my life, which was Sal Segoean at WWDC, where he realized that there was a database full of classified ads and he wrote an AppleScript. And this was his job until he got hired by Apple.
Jason Snell [02:16:27]:
And it w- you literally double-click this thing and it queries the, all the classifieds in the database for the day in question. Question and automatically lays them out in QuarkXPress without any human involvement other than double-clicking. Uh, most amazing demo I've ever seen.
Leo Laporte [02:16:42]:
So transformative in terms of productivity at the newspapers as well. Uh, you're watching MacBreak Weekly, and a bunch of internet historians here.
Jason Snell [02:16:52]:
We're glad you're here. We do this too.
Christina Warren [02:16:55]:
We do this. I feel at home like you don't even understand. I, I'm I'm so excited. Like, I found my people.
Leo Laporte [02:17:02]:
Like, you don't even know.
Andy Ihnatko [02:17:03]:
Can I just say, in the, the 24-hour period, I have, A, explained what the internet was like in 1986, and also explained to a neighbor in their- who was in their mid-30s what- how this storm compared to the blizzard of '78.
Leo Laporte [02:17:18]:
I have never felt more dried up, used up. My poor sister. I wish I could show you the videos of her house in Providence, Cranston. It is, uh, it is a nightmare. And apparently there's more to come.
Andy Ihnatko [02:17:32]:
It's not even done.
Leo Laporte [02:17:34]:
I didn't hear that. Yeah, she says, uh, another 6 inches on the way next week. I mean, I, I can't show you on the screen, but I can, I can hold up- that's, um, that's my mom's house. Wow. And there's- it, it's 3 feet. Yeah. I mean, it's incredible. To me, it looks beautiful.
Leo Laporte [02:17:51]:
Beautiful. I said, gosh, I'd love to be there. She said, no, you wouldn't. We're waiting, we're waiting for the snowplow. If it doesn't come, we're gonna have to dig ourselves out tonight.
Andy Ihnatko [02:18:01]:
Again, I'm, I'm super lucky in that I'm in for- I'm in what is essentially like the Times Square of my sleepy little village.
Leo Laporte [02:18:10]:
That's a little overstatement, but okay. I'm saying, I'm saying it is the center of town. Yes. Access to things.
Andy Ihnatko [02:18:17]:
So, so that's the thing is like their businesses here, and so there's the plows. I have to absolutely prioritize coming through here. And, uh, and I have not seen a single car, a single- I haven't seen- oh man, pedestrians outside my window. And I know- and I have friends who are also like kind of nearby who are like, yeah, we're not getting out of here until like Thursday at the most. We could- we can shovel our driveways, but at the end of the driveway there is 3 feet of snow. So there is immobilization as default setting for this. Unbelievable. Part of the community.
Andy Ihnatko [02:18:46]:
I've never been- again, I've lived in New England my entire life.
Leo Laporte [02:18:50]:
I have never experienced 30 inches plus of snow. It's incredible. Yeah, this is big. Yeah. Uh, let's continue on with the picks of the week. And, uh, I don't know if they warned you about this, Christina, but I bet you you could pick something.
Christina Warren [02:19:05]:
I do.
Andy Ihnatko [02:19:05]:
I have one.
Christina Warren [02:19:06]:
It is- I have, I have one, and then I have like a, a, a better backup if you haven't already talked about it.
Leo Laporte [02:19:13]:
No, go pick away.
Christina Warren [02:19:13]:
We, we don't mind repeat picks at all. Okay. All right, so the, the Mac app, uh, Mac Updater, um, has ceased to exist as of, um, January 1st. Um, it still kind of works, but the server isn't being maintained anymore because it's expensive to do. And I don't know if, if you've ever talked about that. Um, no, I didn't even know there was such a thing. Yeah, there was a great app called Mac Updater, um, and it would basically check all of your, um, uh, Mac apps, uh, from various sources, not just from Sparkle, but from other sources too. But the- it costs money to run the server and, and the, the guy who was running it, he wasn't charging enough in my opinion for his software.
Christina Warren [02:19:50]:
He didn't want to go to subscription. He ceased running the, the server. Um, I'd actually inquired about, uh, me and Brett Troster inquired about how much it would cost to buy because he said it was up for sale. It was a figure that was far, far higher than than I, I could, uh, even think about. I'm like, I can't get a loan for this because I, I think there's a business here, but I, I don't know if there's a business of this size. So, um, there have been a number of different, um, people who've been trying to kind of build, um, I guess kind of replacements for this. And the best one that I've seen is called Updaterst, and it's-
Leo Laporte [02:20:24]:
I was guessing.
Christina Warren [02:20:27]:
Yeah, I guessed right. Yeah. And, and, and, and, and, and this guy, he, uh, he posts a lot on Reddit and he is actively developing, uh, this app. Um, I bought it, um, at the beginning of the year. I like it.
Leo Laporte [02:20:37]:
It's called UpdatUs and, um, it is $13 once only, which is great.
Christina Warren [02:20:42]:
Yeah. Yeah. Now I am a bit concerned about the no subscription thing because I think if he, he's looking at wanting to potentially add like a server element into it, and once you do that, like you have ongoing costs, which is the same problem MacUpdater had.
Leo Laporte [02:20:53]:
But for now, I use Brew for this and I- but it's on the command line.
Christina Warren [02:20:57]:
Is this different from that? Well, this does Brew, but it also does Sparkle. So this is what is great about this. This is that you can, A, you can convert your existing installed apps into Homebrew casks and then Brew will handle it for you, which is great. But not all apps are on Homebrew and it will also check, you know, to see, okay, well, is this a Sparkle app? Can I update it that way? And then now recently they've introduced like a community database where community members can kind of say, hey, there's a new version of this app just in the event that like the, the updater they have their own update mechanism in it and it's, you know, not something that you would naturally find. So I think that it's the best- it's not as good as MacUpdate, I'm gonna be honest about that, but it's the best replacement that I've seen. And there have been a number of them out there that have been trying to kind of fill that void. And I think it's the best out there. And I like the fact that it recently, like I said, introduced the community aspect.
Christina Warren [02:21:49]:
You can turn it off if you don't want it where people can, you know, kind of submit their own versions and say, okay, this is the version that I'm using and, and give you a shot to at least- even if it doesn't have a direct link, you can be like, okay, I can open up the app or I can go to the, you know, developer's website and see if I can get an update.
Leo Laporte [02:22:07]:
Nice. Updaterst. Yeah, $12.99 for up to 3 Macs, which is great. Yeah, I understand your concern because we saw what happened to Updater, but- Mac Updater, yeah.
Christina Warren [02:22:18]:
This is the replacement. But so far it's great, and I like- I really like the homebrew aspect because that's what I already use to manage a lot of things. And I like the fact that, that it with one click lets you transfer your existing installed apps into Casks.
Leo Laporte [02:22:30]:
Into Casks. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. Because I have to do Homebrew and then go to the App Store and check the App Store.
Christina Warren [02:22:35]:
Right. There is, there is a Homebrew command. I'm sure you have it installed.
Leo Laporte [02:22:39]:
MAS where you can-
Christina Warren [02:22:40]:
I use MAS. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say where MAS will let you, uh, at least open up the, the apps.
Leo Laporte [02:22:46]:
And I use brewfile. I export all of the installed stuff into a.brewfile, which makes it very easy to set up my Mac. But I still think it's missing things. So this is good. I will, I will check this out. Updatist.
Andy Ihnatko [02:22:58]:
Uh, Andy and Natko, your pick of the week. A really exciting, a really exciting app that is also very, very timely for me. Uh, it's also a brand new app because if you type in the name of this weather app, Acme Weather, into Google, it will not give you links to this. This- it will give you- it will tell you that it Akmi, Washington. It is 44 degrees, participation 0%, humidity 61%. Uh, what I'm actually recommending as pick of the week is this new app called Akmi Weather, which is an iOS app made by the same team that made Dark Sky. Uh, and they basically went to Apple, then they left Apple, and then they decided to create another new weather app. It really- again, I'm so ready for- I, I'm so- the pump is so primed for me to appreciate how well this app is conceived.
Andy Ihnatko [02:23:40]:
The idea is that there are so so many models out there for figuring- trying to predict what the weather is going to be. And oftentimes it's not just the models that, that a forecaster chooses, but also their own sense of intuition about having done New England weather for the past like 10 or 15 or 20 years and figuring out that I think this model is going to be more appropriate than this other model. As a result, you can get a lot of fluctuation in like what you think the storm is going to be. Again, in this- in my exa- in my example, I, I will, I will, I will confess that I was shopping for the best forecast. I was like, okay, well, you know what, this forecast says that maybe we'll only get about 14 to 18 inches. Maybe that's going to be it. And so this app decides to say, you know what, there is insert uncertainty in all weather forecasting. So the central tenet is going to be that we are going to give you not just a pronouncement of here's what the weather is going to be tomorrow, but here is essentially be a visualization of the range of all the different forecasts for what's going to happen tomorrow and over the course of the week.
Andy Ihnatko [02:24:42]:
So if you see, if you take a look at the weather, like what's, uh, what's the temperature going to be, uh, like 2 days from now? And if you see in this graph that all of these, that all of the different like graph lines are sort of converging towards one common line, then you have the idea of, okay, it is definitely going to be 42 degrees, uh, 2 days from now because every single forecaster seems to agree, 'cause these are all like lining up. But when you see that there is sort of like a median line, but it's surrounded by all kinds of little gray lines showing you here's the divergence that's happening, all these sort of things, then you know that, oh goodness, there is some- this is a situation that is not fitting any current model very, very well. And so therefore, don't be, don't be surprised if things are a lot different Thursday than you think it's going to be. Uh, it, it has a whole bunch of other Another nice features that I really, really appreciate. Again, as, as I demonstrated earlier, when we were all holding up my phones, I am not gonna be able to benefit from this app on my Android phone. However, I am, I do have plenty of iOS devices and this was, I felt as though this is definitely worth the $25 a year because there are so many times over the course of the year where I really do need to know, not just, oh, do I don't, I should I, should I make, should I wear a sweater on Thursday? Should I make sure that I clean one of my best sweaters for Thursday? Sometimes it really is, especially during the winter, do I have to simply do my normal, uh, grocery shopping a day or two early, or do I have to be necessarily ready for maybe 2 or 3 or 4 days of not being able to leave the place? And if you are in any way in that same boat, this seems like exactly the way to go for, for everybody. It's, uh, so Acme Weather, again, don't Google Acme Weather. Acme Washington will give you the weather report.
Andy Ihnatko [02:26:18]:
Port, uh, but they did- they are funded well enough that they actually were able to get acme-weather.com as their URL. So, uh, clearly they left Apple with a good enough pay package, I'm guessing.
Leo Laporte [02:26:27]:
Really nice to see these dark sky guys come back, because that was- besides a great looking app, their real secret sauce was figuring out how to make weather more accurate. I really like the way they do the graphs and stuff on this. This is $25 a year, 2-week free trial. Uh, I immediately subscribed. I Yeah, yep, me too, me too. It's good.
Jason Snell [02:26:47]:
Sure, we all did. Yeah, living in the Bay Area where there are microclimates, I, I've- what I've realized is that, you know, when I get a forecast, sometimes it's for Mill Valley, it's Sausalito, it's San Rafael, it's places that are in the summertime especially very different temperatures. So seeing a range and getting the idea that, that, um, it's not even necessarily the models, it's the nearest place that they'll do a forecast. Yeah, might disagree because that happens a lot with me in the summertime, being able to see that and go, oh, it might be 75 or 65 today. And like, being able to know that is great because we do- in the Bay Area, we sometimes have those ranges where you could drive 15 minutes and, and gain 20 degrees. And so I really want to know, is this a real 80-degree day or is it a fake 80-degree day? So this is-
Andy Ihnatko [02:27:32]:
I can't wait. And that's another thing that really attracted me about this. It also, uh, took a trick from way- from the Waze map app where you can actually just simply say, here is what my weather conditions are at my actual location, actually right now. And because this is a- where the, the makers of the app are so good, I'm sure they're- I'm sure they've got some protections against somebody who does not know what they're doing. Gee, it really feels like 38 degrees now, I'll just put in 38 degrees. Uh, but that's, that's exactly the sort of thing that you're kind of looking for, where somebody who has boots on the ground- I don't, I, I don't need the weather at the air- at the airport because I'm not going to the airport right now. I need to know when I, when I drive past this, when I drive through this really, really rough stretch of I-95, am I going to be dealing with a deluge of whether this is going to make travel hazardous or not? And nope, seems to be very, very- seems to be clear enough right now. It's not raining over there.
Jason Snell [02:28:21]:
Good, let's go. Yeah, nice. My only complaint is it's a- needs an iPad layout. Doesn't have one. It's iPhone only right now. I mean, it'll run, it'll run on your Mac, but, um, only an iPhone shape.
Leo Laporte [02:28:30]:
The fact that they've already said they were going to do an Android version of this implies to me that they've got some development chops and they're probably going to do an iPad app.
Jason Snell [02:28:38]:
Good place to start.
Leo Laporte [02:28:39]:
The iPhone's the right place to start. It's got widgets, which is the most important app to me.
Christina Warren [02:28:43]:
It's got some very nice- I do hope they have like an iPad version sooner than later. It was a little annoying to be like, yeah, me too. Like, I, like, I'm like, look, I'm not even asking for a well-designed app. I'm just saying, can I like get, like, can you just use the viewport?
Jason Snell [02:28:56]:
Like the defaults?
Leo Laporte [02:28:57]:
Please? A little bit? Yeah.
Christina Warren [02:28:58]:
That was weird that if they didn't. Yeah. Yeah. Cause, because again, like widgets are great and I was like, okay, I can deal with it this way. But I was annoyed. I was like, ah, all right, I'm gonna pay you because I love Dark Sky, but can, can, can I please like use this on my, on, on my iPad?
Leo Laporte [02:29:10]:
By the way, look at a visitor, uh, from the, uh, north. Renee Richie popped into our Discord, uh, and our YouTube channel saying throwing huge love to Christina and the whole panel. She, she, she's glad to welcome you, uh, to the show. He of course now works works at YouTube and, uh, he's amazing, is no longer part of the show.
Andy Ihnatko [02:29:29]:
Also, he's, he's a, he's a, he's a fellow Hermès bro.
Leo Laporte [02:29:32]:
So you've got your-
Christina Warren [02:29:33]:
he's got everyone, he's got them all, I think. Oh yeah, totally. No, he, he way outclasses me. And, and I was fortunate enough to be able to see René a couple of times when we were both at Google, and, uh, he's, he's the best.
Leo Laporte [02:29:44]:
Yeah, René's fantastic. He says this panel keeps getting better and better. No, no, we lost you, René. That was a loss. But we did get Jason Snell in your place, so we're glad to have him.
Andy Ihnatko [02:29:53]:
We seem to have no trouble keeping the quality level of the panel up.
Leo Laporte [02:29:57]:
Yes, some of you may not like Jason Snell so much after his-
Jason Snell [02:30:01]:
yeah, I have decided to be a rascal. The report card came out and everybody hated macOS Tahoe, and, uh, my pick is macOS 26 Tahoe.
Leo Laporte [02:30:11]:
Yeah, yeah.
Jason Snell [02:30:12]:
And Christina, he's an edgy guy, you know, he pushes the buttons and he doesn't care. Here's Here's, here's, uh, what I have to say, which is, look, um, Liquid Glass is a regression. The good news, I guess, for Mac users is they, they did a half-hearted job of converting macOS to Liquid Glass to the point where I thought- I don't think it's the worst implementation of Liquid Glass because I think it's the least implementation of Liquid Glass. Also, I've been running Tahoe since developer beta 2, and what I will say is I think It's- I think it's a design regression, but I think it's- it can be overstated. And I think the- it is the best productivity set of new features in macOS in a decade, and that a lot of people should not get too worried about Liquid Glass, which you can- with- you can change the view settings. Also, you'll get used to it. Like, do I like all those icons in the menu? I don't. They shouldn't be there.
Jason Snell [02:31:08]:
It's annoying. But what I do like is, uh, all the new features. Access to Apple's cloud models from within Shortcuts, uh, the new Spotlight, which is really, really, really good. It's so much better. Clipboard history for the first time as a standard feature on macOS. Um, the new Control Center that allows you to have, uh, much more control, and I would say more Mac-like control over what goes in your menu bar. There are lots of really good things in Tahoe. It's a shame that it's been poisoned by Liquid Glass, but what I would say is, as somebody who's been using Tahoe since last July, you know, it's- should it be better? Yes.
Jason Snell [02:31:51]:
Am I disappointed by parts of it? Yes. Has it interfered with my usability of my computer at all? It hasn't. It's fine. It's still usable. It's still the Mac, and those new features are really good. So I am kind of blown away that people like Christina and John Gruber are like, I'm just never gonna update to Tahoe and wait for the next one, because I think it- I, I just don't agree that it's so bad that you need to bypass it. I think it's perfectly usable and has a bunch of nice new things in it, and it's a real shame that the Liquid Glass rollout got conflated with a really good update in terms of functionality. So here it's me, you can listen to me or not, I'm gonna say I say, don't be afraid, Tahoe's fine.
Jason Snell [02:32:33]:
Wow. Yeah, I said it.
Leo Laporte [02:32:35]:
I'm a rascal.
Jason Snell [02:32:36]:
You're brave. You're making trouble.
Leo Laporte [02:32:37]:
You're right.
Jason Snell [02:32:38]:
I'm making trouble.
Leo Laporte [02:32:39]:
Yeah. Uh, I don't, I don't think we've recommended, uh, this before. Uh, as somebody who has a notch on my screen on my laptop and a menu, uh, bar that just extends well beyond the notch, it's- you need something. I've used a variety of tools. Uh, I think Jason, you recommended Ice at one point.
Jason Snell [02:32:59]:
What do you use for your menu? I am using Ice right now instead of Bartender. I moved to Ice, which is-
Leo Laporte [02:33:04]:
I moved to Ice with you, but Ice has been somewhat neglected, and there is a fork of Ice out.
Christina Warren [02:33:08]:
Good, I know what you're going to talk-
Leo Laporte [02:33:09]:
I know what you're going to recommend. I love it. It's called Thaw, and it has an ice cube logo, which is good. It is free, and it is very complete. They have added- I mean, this goes well beyond beyond, uh, I mean, this is really nice. He's added quite a few features and has many more on his roadmap. If you need to make room on your menu bar so that you don't have hidden icons under the notch, if you want your menu bar to do more, if you'd like to be able to drag and drop to arrange menu bar items, if you'd like to customize its appearance, you can even change its spacing, and it has search. So if your menu bar is so out of control you need to search for something, you can now search for items on your menu bar.
Leo Laporte [02:33:54]:
Best of all, it's open source and free. A fork of Ice, it's called Thaw. And it's- great idea. It's on, uh, oh yeah, it's on GitHub. GitHub, huh?
Christina Warren [02:34:05]:
It's on GitHub where all the best projects- genuinely, genuinely. You know what's so funny, Leo? I literally had this, and like, this was one of mine that I had like on my short list of ones that I was going to recommend. I was like, oh no, I'm sure they they've already talked about all the- no, we hadn't. So, so I'm so glad you mentioned Thaw because Thaw is one that I started using recently because similar thing, like, was Bartender when Ice, Ice stopped getting developed, and I was like, I'll try out Thaw.
Leo Laporte [02:34:27]:
Barbie is another good one, but I really like Thaw. Yeah, and I like it that it's free, so that's, that's another reason, uh, to like it, and in active development. And I like GitHub a lot. Let me- I don't know how many projects I have on GitHub now because I do a lot of vibe coding, uh, and Claude just always puts everything up on GitHub automatically. Of course, uh, I live- look at all these repos. I even have a few stars, which I'm very happy. Hell yeah, I have 7 whole stars. So there.
Leo Laporte [02:34:54]:
Whoa. Uh, Christina, it's so great to have you. Thank GitHub for letting you, uh, participate on this show. I really appreciate it. Uh, we mentioned the hospital. I should probably mention- or you, do you want to mention what's going on? Uh, you've been public about it.
Christina Warren [02:35:10]:
It's not- yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, not a big deal. Um, you can actually see my, my healing scar. Holy cow. Wow.
Leo Laporte [02:35:15]:
Yeah, looking pretty good, huh?
Christina Warren [02:35:16]:
They had to go into your neck? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No, this was major.
Leo Laporte [02:35:19]:
So I had-
Christina Warren [02:35:19]:
Was that to get to your spine? Yes. So I had a, um, basically a bulging disc, um, herniated disc on, um, C5 or C7, I guess, C6, C7 of my, um, cervical spine. So that's like your neck. And where it was hitting was hitting a nerve and it was cutting off my spinal cord. And so I had, I didn't have a lot of movement, uh, or a lot of feeling rather in my left arm. And both of my hands, and I had weakness in my left arm. And so to, to fix that, what they do is they go in through your neck and they shove your esophagus and your larynx aside. Oh my God.
Christina Warren [02:35:53]:
And then they, they, and then they find the bad disc. They, they, they dig in, they find the bad disc in, in, in your spine, they, they pull that out, they put a new disc in, and then they like rearrange everything, and then you're, you're, you're done. So yeah, well, I'm-
Leo Laporte [02:36:06]:
and it worked.
Christina Warren [02:36:07]:
Your hands are great, your arm is great. Yeah, I mean, I'm feeling like- look, I, I still can't lift anything more than like 5 or 10 pounds. Like, I'm on like-
Leo Laporte [02:36:12]:
well, you shouldn't.
Christina Warren [02:36:13]:
That's what you have a husband for. Right. Well, but, but, you know, but I'm having- I'm gonna be starting physical therapy, um, soon. Um, it was, uh, it was, uh, uh, 3 weeks ago, um, today.
Leo Laporte [02:36:23]:
And that's why, by the way, we couldn't get her right away.
Christina Warren [02:36:25]:
That's why. Exactly. I was gonna say, I was gonna try to like join like the week after, but then I was like, oh, but then the following week I've got my follow-up appointment. So like, we- that's why we decided here. Perfect. But yeah, the, the reason I, I, I didn't- I, I I did not join sooner was I literally had major surgery. I literally had neurosurgery. So, um, and the reason neurosurgery has to do it is because it's connected to, you know, your, your, your spinal cord and, and, and all the nerves and all that.
Christina Warren [02:36:50]:
So, um, but I'm, I'm fortunate that things seem to have gone well. I'm still in pain. Um, at this point it's primarily on my, on my right side, not my left, but I'm hoping that's just muscular and we'll, we'll, you know, deal with all of that. But, uh, but yeah, no, things are, things are going well.
Leo Laporte [02:37:07]:
And yeah, I'm so happy, and we're so glad to have you. Welcome.
Jason Snell [02:37:10]:
And I'm gonna waive the snack requirement. You don't have to-
Christina Warren [02:37:16]:
hey, come on, man!
Andy Ihnatko [02:37:16]:
No, I'm gonna-
Christina Warren [02:37:16]:
I look-
Leo Laporte [02:37:17]:
I will have snacks next week, okay? Jason Baker wear a nuclear beanie.
Andy Ihnatko [02:37:21]:
That's, that's for sure. That's just a reflection on how good a job you are as the snack person that we want to continue that service onward.
Leo Laporte [02:37:28]:
Uh, we're so glad to have Christina, so glad to have you, and Any- not trudging through the snow today. Stay warm. Uh, don't do any shoveling. That's bad for the heart.
Andy Ihnatko [02:37:38]:
And we will see you next week. Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll stick with that when people ask, like, oh no, that's the healthiest. You know, you know what a bastion of health I am.
Leo Laporte [02:37:45]:
I hope, you know. Uh, and Jason Snell, of course, SixColors.com, where you can read his review, his power review of macOS 26.
Jason Snell [02:37:54]:
Maybe it will convince you. If you want to, or you can read the Mac Report Card and find out why, uh, everybody else is not using it.
Leo Laporte [02:38:00]:
Oh, you can do that too. Uh, like Andy, uh, uh, Jason's also on the Replay Network with Upgrade with Mike Hurley. Uh, Andy does Material on the Relay FM Network with- Flo Ion. Yep, with Flo Ion, right? The wonderful Flo Ion. And, uh, Christina, you don't have any other podcasts on the Relay Network?
Christina Warren [02:38:21]:
Um, no, on the Relay Network, no, I don't. No, I don't. Um, I do do a podcast occasionally called Overtired with a Brett Terpstra and, uh, Jeff Sorensen-Kunzel. And, uh, that's a great one. That's a good name for a podcast. It is. It is. Because we were frequently overtired.
Christina Warren [02:38:34]:
Um, and like, I think I came up with it like when, when we came up with the show a million years ago, we were like both in San Francisco when I think we were leaving like the Twitter offices and it still was Twitter at the time and they still had an office in San Francisco and we were in the elevator and I was just like, what about overtired? I love it. Overtired. The Overtired Pod. Overtiredpod.com. And, uh, um, so that, that's not- we're not as frequent, uh, or consistent as, as we used to do, but hopefully we'll be, um, more consistent in the future. Um, and, and I used to have a show on Relay FM that was, it was great. And classic show, classic show, one of the, one of the first ones. Yeah.
Christina Warren [02:39:13]:
And, and I still obviously listen to Jason and Andy's shows.
Leo Laporte [02:39:17]:
So yeah. Uh, thank you, all three of you, for joining us. Thanks to our wonderful audience. For supporting us. I see you all in the chat rooms and we appreciate it, especially Renee Ritchie. Nice to see you, Renee. We do MacBreak Weekly every Tuesday, 11 AM Pacific, 2 PM Eastern, 18- sorry, 1900 UTC, although that's only for one more week because we're going to summertime.
Jason Snell [02:39:38]:
Daylight saving time starts in a, uh, it's always the same UTC though.
Leo Laporte [02:39:43]:
UTC doesn't change.
Jason Snell [02:39:44]:
Never moves.
Leo Laporte [02:39:46]:
We do, we do. Sorry.
Jason Snell [02:39:48]:
So it does change the time. It's very- oh yeah, we move in there, so the UTC does move, right?
Leo Laporte [02:39:52]:
There were a few Refuses to move. Yeah, terrible. As a result, we have to change anyway.
Andy Ihnatko [02:39:58]:
If you could figure it out, more power to you. You can call this time change 'Andy Inatko is a stupid idiot' so long as I get sunsets at 6:30 PM. That's all I want.
Leo Laporte [02:40:07]:
I, I feel the same way.
Christina Warren [02:40:09]:
I, I, Pacific Northwest here, I definitely would like all of that.
Leo Laporte [02:40:13]:
Yeah, that's- I mean, that's a big deal. People, you know, we people in the southern latitudes say, 'What do we change the time zones for?' We do it for people like Christina who are so far north She'd be waking up, but it would be dark until 10 in the morning.
Christina Warren [02:40:27]:
Yeah, so totally. It's, it would mean- it's been some time in Finland, um, especially like in December, and they have like, like 6 or 7 hours of, of daylight. Oh no.
Andy Ihnatko [02:40:35]:
And, uh, it's wild. Yeah, I got so bummed out about- I'm sorry, we're winding up, but I got so bummed out about it that though the latest thing that I like- I had Gemini did was create me a visualization of how much later daylight is ever- the rate of change of sun set over between January and April. 'Cause it wasn't just- I just didn't- I didn't just need to know that it was, oh, it's a sunset is a minute and a half later. I need to know, is the rate accelerating? Oh good, the rate is accelerating. We're actually at the maximum rate of change.
Leo Laporte [02:41:06]:
Okay, this will get me through March 8th. I have to point out, scooter X is reminding me that earlier this month, the House proposed a compromise where we would change our time by half an hour and just leave it. So it's halfway between daylight saving time and half between standard time. That will-
Jason Snell [02:41:23]:
not only will it not pass, that's awful. Hard no, hard no.
Christina Warren [02:41:27]:
This is, this is, this is like how Arizona refuses to ever change. Yeah. And, and makes it a pain for anybody who's like dealing with Arizona stuff. No.
Andy Ihnatko [02:41:36]:
And, and no, we're not doing that. Sounds like a B-story on an episode of The West Wing.
Leo Laporte [02:41:41]:
Bartlett is like, what about- I got a compromise.
Christina Warren [02:41:44]:
Mize, what about half an hour? Um, the, the B-story in The West Wing, or like a full-on plot on Veep. I could see this being like a, a Veep storyline. I know how I'm- Selena's so excited. I know how I'm gonna win people over. I'm gonna propose the, you know, half, you know, time zone thing, and it becomes the face of it and everybody hates her.
Leo Laporte [02:42:02]:
Absolutely. Oh my gosh. Uh, the reason I mentioned the live times, despite the fact that I have to do math every single time, is we stream it live. You can watch it. If you're in the club, please- if you're not in the club, join our Club Twit twit.tv/clubtwit at $10 a month. You get ad-free versions of all the shows. You get access to the Club Twit Discord and all the special programming we do in there. Uh, but you can- and you can also watch us in the Discord.
Leo Laporte [02:42:23]:
But everybody is allowed and encouraged to watch live on YouTube, Twitch, x.com, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Kick. Uh, we stream live. You can watch after the fact too at twit.tv/mbw. That's our, audio and video there. That's why I say watch, listen or watch. You can watch on YouTube. We have, uh, a version that we put up on YouTube. That's great for sharing clips if you wanna do that.
Leo Laporte [02:42:47]:
Best thing to do, of course, subscribe in your favorite podcast client so you get it automatically as soon as we're done. You could choose audio or video or both. And if you do subscribe, would you do me a favor? Leave us a nice review. Give us 5 stars. Let the world know about the number one Vision Pro podcast in all the world. Thank you all for being here. Special thanks to our Club Twit members who make this show possible. We'll see you again next week, and as I have done for the last 20 years, I shall say now, it is my sad and solemn duty to tell you to get back to work because we're all leaving.
Leo Laporte [02:43:21]:
Break time is over. See you later.
