MacBreak Weekly 865 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.
Mikah Sargent (00:00:00):
Coming up on Mack Break Weekly, I Mikah Sargent. I'm subbing in for Leo Laporte while he's on vacation, and we have a great show ahead. First Rosemary Orchard is here in person, so excited to have her here to join us for Mack Break Weekly, plus your regular cast of characters, Andy Ihnatko, Alex Lindsay and Jason Snell. We start the show off by talking about Katie Cotton, former Apple PR chief who died. Just this last week. We talk about Apple PR during the Steve Jobs era, how things have changed over time, and share a few stories about interacting with Katie Cotton. Then we move on to talk about Apple's efforts to keep those retail stores from unionizing. After Apple has seen one of its retail stores actually make the choice to unionize. We talk about iPhone 15, rumors, what we could expect there. Rivian, GM and other electric car companies talking about how they don't want CarPlay and Android Auto in their vehicles and how some burglars used an espresso machine store to break into an Apple store and make off with $500,000 worth of iPhones, iPads, and more. It's all that. And then some coming up on Mac Break. Weekly stay tuned
V.O. (00:01:21):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWiT.
Mikah Sargent (00:01:30):
This is Mac Break Weekly episode 865, recorded Tuesday, April 11th, 2023, honking down their snorkel. This episode of Mac Break Weekly is brought to you by Zoc. When you're not feeling your best and just trying to hold it together, finding great care shouldn't take up all your energy. Go to zoc.com/mac break and download the Zoc app for free. Then find and book a top rated doctor today. Many are available within 24 hours. And by delete me, reclaim your privacy by removing personal data from online sources. Protect yourself and reduce the risk of fraud, spam, cybersecurity threats and more by going to join delete me.com/TWiT and using the code TWiT for 20% off. And by ZipRecruiter. Did you know that hiring can take up to 11 weeks on average? Do you have that time to wait? Of course not. Stop waiting and start using ZipRecruiter. Ziprecruiter helps you find qualified candidates for all your roles fast. And right now you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/mac break. It's time for Mac Break Weekly, the show where Mackey people talk about Mackey, things, all about Apple and iOS and iPhone, and everything in between. It's the Apple News Hour and I am your host this week, Mikah Sargent in for Leo Laporte, who will be back at some point. I'm not checking the calendar, but maybe you all are. He'll be here. But I'm here for now, <laugh>. And joining me in the studio is my co-host on iOS today, as well as a podcaster known round the World and an automations expert. It's Rosemary Orchard.
Rosemary Orchard (00:03:21):
Hi. Thanks for having me, Mikah. It is great to be in the studio for the third time on this trip because, you know, we already did Iowas today, today. And yeah, we did ask the tech geeks on Sunday, which was good fun.
Mikah Sargent (00:03:33):
Yeah, it was good fun having you. And I'm so glad you're here and I'm so glad that we said, could you maybe join us for Meb Brick Weekly too, and you were down for that. So we've got quite the panel here with us today as we've added an extra individual. So thank you for being here. Also here, but not here in person, but certainly close by is the creator of six colors.com, as well as the incomparable network and a Relay FM podcaster. It's Jason Snell. Hello, Jason.
Jason Snell (00:04:07):
Hi, Mikah. I love that you are bringing a very different energy to the show than I brought last week as the guest host. And yes, Leo will return eventually. Also great to have Rosemary on the show. That means it's less work for me and Andy and Alex <laugh>. So thank you for Hitler's here for Laziness. <Laugh>.
Mikah Sargent (00:04:22):
Wait,
Rosemary Orchard (00:04:22):
Wait, wait. Nobody told me this.
Jason Snell (00:04:24):
<Laugh> also nice to have two people I played Dungeons and Dragons with on this episode. That's
Mikah Sargent (00:04:29):
Right. That's, that's right. Yeah. joining us also nearby, but also not in the studio is the Office hours.global creator. It's Alex Lindsay. Hello, Alex.
Alex Lindsay (00:04:44):
I'm good. I'm, I'm just upset that I haven't gotten to play Dungeons and Dragons with some people, people who are, evidently there's games going on that I don't know about, and I'm, I'm not, yeah, I meaned.
Jason Snell (00:04:52):
So
Mikah Sargent (00:04:52):
Yeah, they, they, yeah. We'll have to, it's not a secret. It's, it's,
Alex Lindsay (00:04:55):
Yeah, you, it's be quite a Dungeon master in my day.
Mikah Sargent (00:04:57):
Oh, wow. What, what what edition addition
Alex Lindsay (00:05:01):
First
Mikah Sargent (00:05:02):
Oh, okay. Edition. So it's better while
Alex Lindsay (00:05:05):
Advanced, advanced Dungeon Dragon. I'm the Basic dungeon, so I didn't, I was, I was the fir but first DM and Monster Manuals from the first advanced edition. But the basic one was still a little too basic. But we, but you know, I might have to convert a couple new things. <Laugh>
Mikah Sargent (00:05:20):
Joining us from much further away, but, or much farther away rather. So also not joining us in the studio from W G B H in Boston, it' Andy Ihnatko. Hi, Andy.
Andy Ihnatko (00:05:32):
I'm like the Secretary of Agriculture during the State of the Union where I'm legally bound by Congressional rules to stay away just in case something awful happens at the other end of the of the broadcast so that Mac Break can continue to legislate from beyond. But I thank you very much. I'm glad that we're doing talking about Mackey things. I was very excited. I did binge watch and refresh myself on all, like seven seasons of the Shield. Ooh. right before to, I mean, just, I, I Breaking Bad is not the pioneer that people think it is. I mean, the Michael Chile's portrayal of Vic Mackey and then from the very, very beginning through seven Seasons, and his dissent from being mischievous cop into actual evil, I think is one of the bellweathers of primetime cable dramas. So, I'm glad we're finally getting a chance to talk about this during our Mac Theme Pride podcast.
Jason Snell (00:06:18):
Hey, I, Andy, I thought that we would be discussing the costume design for the Carol Burnett Show, which was done by Bob Mackey <laugh>.
Andy Ihnatko (00:06:25):
Yes,
Mikah Sargent (00:06:25):
Thank
Jason Snell (00:06:26):
You. My mistake. The famous, my mistake,
Andy Ihnatko (00:06:28):
The, the famous Scarlet O'Hara window dress. I mean, that is an icon not only of television and comedy, but a fashion, I
Mikah Sargent (00:06:34):
Have to admit, that was the Mackey I was thinking of after I decided to say Mackey things. But I'm glad that there's more than one macie we could talk about on the show today. We're at
Jason Snell (00:06:44):
Least, we're missing Macie
Mikah Sargent (00:06:45):
Ds. Oh, yes, yes. Ma Macie ds famous for the Big Mac. Let us, let's get into the show this week. Actually kicking things off with some rather sad news. The former Apple PR Chief Katie Cotton, we just learned has died in fact passed away on April 6th. So Thursday last Thursdays we're recording this show. I believe Katie Cotton worked at Apple as head of PR for more than 20 years. And I was hoping that we could hear a little bit about you folks as journalists, your experience with Katie Cotton, perhaps herself, but also with her PR team, and maybe how things have changed over time. We'll start with Jason.
Jason Snell (00:07:39):
Yeah, I mean, obviously I worked with Katie Cotton quite a bit and with her team she predated Steve Jobs returning to Apple slightly, but I think they, he, that Steve Jobs found a kindred spirit in Katie Cotton. She was how much of it was her philosophy and how much of it was her sort of marching to the tune that Steve wanted her to march by, but they created a, how should I put this Before, before Katie took over Apple pr it was a mess. As I would, what, what I would say in the mid nineties we couldn't get answers when to our questions. We, we, we would get told we were be, get calls back and they wouldn't be called back. I would say that they were much more disciplined at the same time. I mean, as Katie famously said, my job is not to make the press happy.
(00:08:25):
My job is to sell Apple products. Right. Like that. In the end, that is what PR R's job is, and we should, none of us forget that, that, that they are not our, our our friends. You can be friendly with them, but their job is, is to, is to promote Apple. That's why they get paid. And, and so I, I would say she kept a very disciplined, tightly controlled PR outfit. They would let you know if you wrote something that, that they didn't like. They were actually very aggressive about that. I personally, I I, I had a few extended conversations with her. I found her extremely intimidating. That's, that's, people were like, what do you remember about Katie Cotton? I was like, I was afraid of her. That is, that is how I feel about her. She was just kind of scary because she just, she spoke with authority and you knew that she had the full force of, in support of everybody at Apple, including Steve Jobs behind her.
(00:09:17):
 What's interesting about how things have changed since she left, they've really had a changing of the guard. Although there are a lot of people who kind of came up from Katie's organization. It really has been a changing of the guard there. And I think that, I think it's a natural thing that, like Apple PR in the late 2010s, it started looking at ways of doing PR that were gonna be different, a different playbook than it would've been in the late nineties and early two thousands. It's just natural. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so they've, they've changed the access. You know, there was an old playbook for who got access to what and what level. Well, you know, Walt Mossberg gets to come in, <laugh> get everything, and then, you know, maybe we'll call Jason eventually. And all that sort of stuff happened.
(00:09:57):
 And they, they changed that and they've got more YouTubers involved. Like, it's just more modern. I think that's just a natural thing that happens when you're going by one playbook and then another, and then Steve Jobs leaving too. I think that I think that Katie Cotton really did run that PR group. Like Steve wanted her to wanted or two, and it was a little, you know, a little bare knuckles at times. Like, you know, we're gonna punish the people who displease us and we're going to reward the people who please us. And I, that still happens, but I don't know, I, I think, I think Steve was much more adversarial, I'll put it that way. And I think that that Katie's PR group reflected that. And apologies cuz this is kind of inside baseball. You, you, you know, people on the outside would've gotten this sort of secondhand right, right. Based on what access and what was going on on the inside to the people in the media. And then, then you would see the, the end result of that. But I think Tim cook's Apple a little more soft touch. Doesn't mean they're not selling products, they absolutely are, but maybe a little more of a soft touch. Whereas I, I think that Steve was happy to rattle the cages of the media and Katie was happy to be the cage Rattler too.
Mikah Sargent (00:11:03):
Yeah. I you say inside baseball. And as we know, you know, it takes about two and a half hours for the folks to leave the baseball game <laugh>. So at least for a while, the, I find this incredibly interesting. I'm curious, Andy, to hear your experience and then I do kind of want to hear more about the, how, how a PR group can approach that conversation of what you wrote is not something we're happy with versus maybe what you wrote is not factually correct. Here's some stuff to correct that <laugh>. So but Andy, what, what's, what was your experience during that time?
Andy Ihnatko (00:11:40):
I have, well, I have, actually that's a good question cuz I have a I have, I know exactly like the, the story to talk about, like where I was when the apple versus Samsung lawsuits were really, really just deep personal and furious. I was writing a lot about it. I was really sort of skeptical downright, and sometimes downright, oh, come on Apple put together <laugh>. You're making, you're making, you're making lots of arguments that just do not stand up to scrutiny. And yeah, I did get, I did get a couple of phone calls from Apple about, Hey, let's have a group call. And, and it wasn't but what I appreciated about it was that it wasn't let's punish, let, let's make sure Andy understands that if he doesn't play ball with us, but we're, we can make life very difficult for him, it was, we're gonna have ave we're gonna have a very, very direct conversation about, we don't understand like, why you made, why here's, here's let, we're gonna explain to him directly why we feel the way we feel about certain things.
(00:12:39):
And so long as you understood that relationship, so long as you still had the, you, you, you knew that you still had the ability to push back. I mean, I had some I don't, I don't wanna call them arguments because arguments and ar the word argument implies emotion as opposed to very, very, like two people who are like, I'm gonna stand my ground and you have to convince me that I'm wrong and I don't think I'm wrong. Like, I, I specifically remember they're trying to get at me about how like Samsung's designs and I said, look, I have in my possession a <laugh> a kitchen scale made well before the I, well before the the iPhone. That is the shape of an iPad with rounded corners and a round button at the bottom. And you're saying that Apple has ne no one else has ever done this.
(00:13:29):
I, I have in my possession a palms device that predates the, the iPhone that is a scr a do a rounded corner rectangle device dominated by a screen with a rounded button on the bottom. You know, I I, I remember these conversations going on and, but also, again, not feeling as though I'm being taken to the woodshed, unfortunately, like since she left, I do think that Apple has turned a little bit into the, into that bad bad territory of like of this, if, if you're not, if you're not helping to promote our some, sometimes it feels as though you get the impression that they're saying you, our relationship is so that we want you to promote our products. If you're gonna be skeptical or questioning things in any way, or if you're trying to do your job as a journalist and seeking information from sources that we didn't approve, we're gonna find out about it and we're gonna let you know we're unhappy about it.
(00:14:26):
And as I, I don't want anybody to read into that and think that it's more intense than I'm what I'm suggesting. But that is something where like, again, you go into the acceptable, acceptable losses of what happens when you do your job properly. And certainly the acceptable losses of after, after Katie Cotton left Apple are a little bit more intense than they used to be before then. But yeah, she was tough. Very, very fair. And I think that anybody who I, I would, I would like to see someone say the exact same things about a male head of pr that they were saying about Katie when she retired, but oh God, thank God she's gone because she was mean spirit and she did that. No, that's, that's no different from what a lot of other PR people do. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. What, what g wonder, I wonder in this in a, in this tech industry, I wonder what could possibly be different about these these two people. <Laugh> caus such negative commentary about this, I wonder
Mikah Sargent (00:15:20):
What that is. Yeah. Alex, from the sort of streaming event engineering video side of things, did you ever have any interactions that alleged you can talk about with Katie Cotton or her team? 
Alex Lindsay (00:15:33):
Yeah. I mean I, I, I definitely, I had some not, not, not from a streaming perspective, but coverage that that that we did had some, some interactions with her. And for me, all the interactions are really good <laugh>. So I didn't have, I, I'm not very confrontational though, cuz I, I have to admit that I, I I, I tend to be understand the food chain and understand where I sit in it. And so I, you know, I was very low in the food chain and didn't, I didn't try to act like a shark when I was only a minnow. So, so so I was just happy to be there and and generally, and I caused enough trouble that I, when I didn't get invited back, I knew why <laugh>. So, so, so the so, you know, but I didn't I kind of understood what, what that was <laugh>.
(00:16:11):
So, so anyway, so, so I, but I didn't, you know, it wasn't like, you know, with a lot of pr it, it doesn't oftentimes show up as confrontation. You just don't get the invite the next time. Right? Yeah. You know, and, and, and a lot of times it's not even, and, and a lot of times it's not. I mean, cuz I've, what's interesting is I've worked on the other side longer now than I covered things. And so I'm used to being not so much at Apple, but in other places where I'm in those conversations, and a lot of times there's limited number of seats that they have available for the press, and they pick the ones obviously, that are the most advantageous for them. You know, like they, it's a limited, it's actually a limited resource. It's not a punitive thing for a lot of them.
(00:16:46):
It's like, we have a section and this is how many seats have been given to us for, for pr mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And they fill them and they fill them with the ones that are going to make the most difference for them. And, and, and it's, it's, and I think people make it out to be much more drama driven than it is. It's just like, well, you're not on the, it's not that you're on the blacklist, you're just not on the top of the list that is getting invited to this event because of X, Y, and Z.
Andy Ihnatko (00:17:07):
And just very quickly, people, you've a journalist can do their job without getting help from Apple without getting help from Microsoft. Yeah. So that the fact that the fact that you weren't invited to this rollout event doesn't mean they're trying to control you or trying to control the press. It means that, well, guess what? You are gonna go to the Apple store and you're gonna buy one of these things and you're gonna, that's how you're gonna get ahold of one If they, if you're doing, if you're committed to doing your job, you can still do your job no matter what IPR company wants you to do or doesn't want you to do.
Jason Snell (00:17:36):
Yeah. It just makes it more inconvenient. And there's some hope there that by making it inconvenient for you, they're sending a message. It's like a little, like dog training or something. It's like, you did a bad thing and now you're gonna, I mean, we had that, we had a, we had a round of layoffs, big surprise media layoffs, and a favorite person, I won't mention who it was, but a favorite person of Apple PR was among the layoffs Oh. And the next Apple event that was held Mac Worlds did not get a briefing, did not get advanced product, had to go buy it at the Apple store ourselves. And then we, then it was back to normal after that. And it was very clearly them expressing their displeasure about one of our people that they liked being laid off. And it's like, interesting, a little punitive sort of strangely, because like, it's not like people enjoy laying people off.
(00:18:20):
But and, and then they piled on with punishment when we felt sort of punished enough by having to lay off some of our people. But I do have one really quick Katie Cotton story, which is the one thing that has stuck in my mind most of anything that in terms of how I've interacted with her. And it's that for the, for the 20th anniversary of the Mac. So 2004, I got an interview with Steve Jobs, and it was height of, height of the iPod era. And the, it took us a year to basically get this thing up and running to get them to approve it, to get the ground rules set. There were so many ground rules. It was like, he doesn't wanna talk to you. Okay, he will talk to you, but he won't talk to you about X He won you, he won't talk to you about future products.
(00:19:02):
He doesn't wanna talk about the past. I was like, okay. That's the, that we're left with the present. I was your breakfast today, Steve. It was very, it was a very short, very difficult, one of the most difficult interviews that I've ever done. And he didn't want to be there. And it was very clear he didn't, oh, you could tell a bunch of short answers. But here's the thing. At the very end of it, this is when he was the I C E O at the very end of it, I said, Steve, you're the interim. C e o do you have any thoughts about whether you'd like to stay on in this permanently? Whether you'd like to do something else and step away, what do you think about your status is like the future of you as a cd, as a c E o, not about future products at all.
(00:19:37):
Right? And he gave, there's a long pause and then he basically gave me this kind of like philosophical, almost like sixties hippies answer, which is, you know, we're all only, all of us are just renting time here on Planet Earth, and you never know how long you're gonna be here. And, and I'm just doing it day-to-day. Right. Hangs up five minutes later, Katie Cotton called Oh God. And she was, and she was on the call cuz she was the, you know, please hold for Steve Jobs person. Five minutes later, Katie Cotton calls me and she says, you gotta take that last question out. And it, and it was not, not, not a question. It was like, you, you can't have that last response in there. And we cut it because it was so, like, this is not a negotiation. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, and, and honestly we were under so many limited terms at that point.
(00:20:20):
It wasn't gonna be a Gotcha. Obviously something, but I was, afterward I was like, what was that like, why? And it was like a decade later in reporting about Steve Jobs's cancer story that the timing came out. My interview with him was a, a few weeks after he had been initially diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Right. And every, and it was not well known. And the last thing they wanted is Steve Jobs being philosophical about life and death in print somewhere. Mm. Mm-hmm. Oh my, my goodness. And it was like 10 years later I was like, oh, Katie, I understand now <laugh>, I understand why you were freaking out about him giving some sort of hippie-dippy response about life and death because she knew what was actually going on. So, and that was her job. She was protecting the company and protecting Steve Jobs.
Alex Lindsay (00:21:09):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And I will say that on the, on the other side of it, a lot of companies that I've worked with being unpredictable is usually the thing that they like the least. Like them not liking your product. They're like, oh, we're putting that person in. They're gonna be the foil. They do the thing that everything else you throwing them at. Like, like that was, I, I wouldn't even consider what Jason did as a zinger. That's a, that's just a normal conversation. But the, the, the press that does throw zingers are the ones that are like, yeah, we're not gonna talk to them. <Laugh>
Andy Ihnatko (00:21:36):
Yeah. With no
Alex Lindsay (00:21:37):
Predictability. They can't, they can't calculate. They're like, we can't calculate what's gonna happen next. And, and they, and they just go, yeah, we're gonna put them over there. And a lot of times they get invited to things and then they just, just don't actually talk to any of the executives. You know, that there's a lot of, I think that a lot of times with all things, people think that everything is cut and dry and everyone has access or doesn't have access, but there's a, a large gradient <laugh> of of, of access that indeed that companies use to, to tighten and, and loosen you know, things. And you, and if you pay attention to them, especially if you've been in the, in the conversations, you start paying attention to those flows a lot. You know, and under understanding where they, where they all go.
Andy Ihnatko (00:22:12):
Oh yeah. No, there was a, there was a moment where at the, there was, there was an Apple event at town Hall and the format of that used to be like, there'd be the event and then there'd be a little bit before they could actually open up the demo area. So that, like, actually before and just after you're just, everybody's milling about like in the, in the lobby or whatever. And so I was talking to a friend of mine that I, I'd known for about 15 years and sudden, and we've been talking for about 10 or 15 minutes, and then Tim Cook is like, wanders over and starts and enters the conversation. And Tim Cook has entered the chat and he has a, he, I don't have any sort of, I didn't as now don't have any sort of relationship with him.
(00:22:55):
There is a good relationship between the two. So mostly it was Tim Cook wasn't like Steve Jobs, he wasn't obnoxious. It was like, I'm not gonna pretend that like this third person isn't here. I mean, I don't have a lot to say to him, but I actually wanted to say hello to this other person, but I'm not going to, again, there's a story about me and Steve Jobs and someone else, but I'm not gonna tell you <laugh>. And then, but then like, but, but then what happened? So I'm, I'm like, okay, okay. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm not going to like start peppering just Tim cooks with, with, with questions at a, at a moment that's designed to just to be, no, this ist a question and answer section. But nonetheless, like I just hear, I just feel this like on my back should on my back shoulder. And a very, very nervous looking Apple PR person was like, Hey, Andy, that they, they've just opened the, the the demo area. We you want to come into the demo area. And was like, clearly that Tim, Tim Cook is talking, why is Tim Cook now? Tim Cook is not supposed to be talking to Andy. Get get, get Andy out of there.
Alex Lindsay (00:23:47):
Abort, abort,
Mikah Sargent (00:23:49):
<Laugh>. Well, Lisa, look over there a butterfly.
Alex Lindsay (00:23:52):
Yeah. <laugh> or shouldn't step in that case, there's a <laugh>. The other thing you pay attention to after a while you've ever watched Brave Part, there's a moment where, you know, he, I'm, I'm gonna do a spoiler, but it's 30 years old. There's a point where he comes down and he walks into the square and you see a you see one of the, one of the Scottish Lords or whatever lookout someone and who kind of raises his eyebrows like, like this. And then, you know, boy, MOS gets captured. <Laugh>, you see a lot of that at press events. <Laugh> like, you know, an executive will look over it at, at their, you know, at their PR person and go, you know, you see their, their eyebrow go up and suddenly a whole bunch of things happen and that person is now somewhere else. You know?
(00:24:27):
And so, so it's a, it's something that is. Anyway, so, and she was, I I I will say that the interactions that I had, she was the master of that kind of thing. Like, she just really understood, you know, and she was unad, you know, she kind of came up from, there's still a whole you know, group of people that really at Apple during the hard times. And I it is their d n a like the, the, the, the, you know, 1996 to 1999 is a space that anybody that's still at Apple, they think and talk about that all the time. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, <laugh>, you know, like, it's just, you know, that, that, no matter how big they get, it's, it's that that's that whole like being there in the thirties, you know, for people who, you know, save everything. Doesn't matter how big Apple gets. They just worry about, I think that, I think that they worry a lot still about this all could end tomorrow. So.
Mikah Sargent (00:25:18):
Well, I think that is a good time for us to take a quick break so we can let that be the first segment of the show. Again Katie Cotton passed away on April 6th of this year. Too young. Yeah, too young.
Alex Lindsay (00:25:34):
She was fifties. Way
Mikah Sargent (00:25:35):
Too young. Yeah. alright, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back with loads more cause we've got a lot to talk about here on Mac Break Weekly. Of course. Joining me in studio for this episode is Rosemary Orchard. Thank you for being here. Hi. Thanks for having me. It's great fun. We've also got Jason Snell, Alex, Lindsay, and Andy and Naco, your typical cast characters. Leo Laportee is out the usual <laugh>, but he will be back soon. But let me tell you about Z Dock who are bringing you this episode of Mac Break Weekly. When someone is just exceptionally good at what they do, perhaps a waiter, a chef, a doctor, a podcaster, then you know you're in good hands. It's like seeing a chef running a kitchen so well that Gordon Ramsey couldn't even complain. You're confident in them.
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(00:28:17):
 The first thing I wanted to talk about, there's a new report from Bloomberg from Mark Kerman over at Bloomberg came out on April 9th. And one of the things that's been talked about is how Apple appears to be continuing its efforts to discourage unionization <laugh>. Even the, the, the phrasing is difficult here because of the way that these companies try to avoid doing what's against the law while still coming very close to doing what's against the law. A according to Bloomberg's, mark Garman, over the past two weeks, managers at Apple's, roughly 270 US retail outlets, held meetings with staff, staff members to discuss the risks of unionization and provide a planned update on bargaining between the company and the first unionized store, which is in Maryland. Andy Naco, I'm kicking things off with you.
Andy Ihnatko (00:29:19):
Hmm. Yeah. This is Apples on very dangerous ground. And they're not, they're not unique about this in tech. There is a very, very, there, there, there seems to be a moment here for labor in technology to unionize in a way that 10 years ago might have thought to be, well, why on earth would, gosh, we're so lucky to be working for to, to be working for Apple. We're so lucky to be working for Microsoft. This Google is our dream jobs. Why would we need a union? And with the past 10 years, yeah, here's all the reasons why you want to have a union. And as usual, it's the lowest paid most put upon employees like Apple retail employees that are at the sort of the forefront of this. Because these are the people that are like, you know what we really we, we, we want to hand inspect every, everything that our, that our retail employees have on them before we let them leave the store at the end of their shift.
(00:30:09):
But we're gonna make them punch out before they do that and basically keep them at that workplace for another 20 minutes to a half an hour while we wait for while they wait for, and like, no, you have to pay them to, if that's, if that's a requirement of their job, you have to pay them for that. And other, and other things like that, that have caused hundreds of a couple hundred apple stores to really seriously discuss whether or not they want to unionize. And and there's, as soon as this, the technology companies, they're not like hiring Pinkerton men to shoot into crowds anymore, but nonetheless, the, the, the, the motive and, and let's, and let's not, let's not forget that that actually used to happen like in the early part of the, of the 20th century, that it would be, hey, you're having a strike in front of, well, guess what?
(00:30:53):
We're not gonna simply like have meetings have, have meetings during lunch hours and put things up in your break room. We are gonna hire gangs of thugs to beat you up and or shoot you to basically encourage you to not try to unionize against the benevolent owners of your company who, for God's sakes, they put a public library in your town. What else do you want? And so it's, it gets really difficult because apple certainly wants to make that not happen because it's inconvenient <laugh> as always to have like a, to to have a workforce that is empowered to affect the, the company's ability to do business. That's a bad thing in, in the eyes of of a corporation. It certainly is. They're certainly entitled to put together their side of here's why we think that we can do better for you by negotiating with you directly instead of through a union.
(00:31:42):
But nonetheless they've also gotten into trouble by ignoring labor laws about employees feeling as though these are mandatory meetings in which we're forced to hear Apple's pitch about why they shouldn't unionize. And Apple does not have the excuse of, oh, well, geez, they can't do the castanza defense. Like, oh gosh, was that against American labor laws? We, we just thought that we were friendly buying them lunch at Panera and just having a talk friend to friend about this. Like, again, they're, this is, this is another one of those times where I have to haul out that phrase that a lot of people don't like. They're a 2 trillion company. They know better than this. And so they can't pretend that they don't know that this is intimidating tactics in the, in the eyes of national labor laws. So yeah, I, I think it's, I think it's important for labor to have this ability to have this power. And I think it's very, very important for Apple to allow their employees to have these conversations amongst themselves and not interfere. If they do, then they, they become a very ordinary company. And we have no <laugh> <laugh>. We, we've, and, and the next time Tim Cook talks about wanting to change the world and being human focused, there's a reason for like members of the press at Apple Park to go
(00:32:48):
And hope that the mics pick it up.
Mikah Sargent (00:32:50):
You say they, they know better than to do this and they, they're doing it. What is the message there? If they are very clearly doing the thing that they know better than to be doing? Is it that the company just feels powerful enough to make this? Is it that they're, as far as your take on it? Obviously we don't know exactly why. Yeah. Is it that because other companies are doing it, then we feel this is right within the, the, the bounds of, of what's allowed? Is it just a thing that every company who hears the, the sound of unionization screaming down the halls does, I mean, I i is it, why do we think that a company, a 2 trillion company that knows better is still making this choice
Andy Ihnatko (00:33:33):
Because it is so important from their point of view? Again, the ability to simply make an employee make an employment policy based on their own dis based on their own whims and not have to really factor in, well, how do the employees feel about this without having to make the decision beyond how many of our will this will this is this unfair enough that we won't be able to hire people anymore or retain people anymore? And if the answer is no, well great. Guess what? You're gonna be unpaid for a half an hour while we search your, while we wait for someone to search your bags. Collective bargaining is a really, really powerful tool. And big companies are so so encouraged to self-motivated to make that not happen. That not only are they willing to sort of bend laws or try to see if they can get away with bending laws, but there are entire huge industries of lawyers and, and consultants that once you, once the, the saber start getting rattled, you hire this sort of disaster company that will help you to put down a unionization moment.
(00:34:35):
They are specialists in this sort of thing. So as soon as you see a company start to retain that kind of representation, you know that they're grooving up for what they hope won't be a b bloody battle, but they're gonna fight and try to make sure that they get to keep the status quo cuz they, they created the status quo.
Mikah Sargent (00:34:51):
Any other thoughts on on Apple's choice here to sort of attempt to <laugh> inform people of why unionization might not be a good thing for them? Right.
Jason Snell (00:35:04):
I the phrase Mike, I you're searching for is to discuss the risks of union. There we go. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, it feels like a, a high school safe sex lecture, kind of like,
Mikah Sargent (00:35:13):
Yeah. Like,
Jason Snell (00:35:13):
Look, we're not telling you not to have sex because we legally can't do that, but we can l we can show you pictures of <laugh>
(00:35:21):
Diseases and you make up your own mind. No, fine. I mean, you know, you do whatever you want, but look at the pic. I think it is, I mean, Andy, Andy said it. Your question about why I feel like two parts of Apple's culture are happening here. One is they, they wanna, it's their don't spend money if you don't have to. It's that depression era ethos that Steve Jobs inculcated in the whole company when he came back and they almost went out of business. I think there is a, let's not spend money, you know, they don't think of it as we're a $2 billion company, right? They think of it as save every penny, even though they are you know, billions and billions of dollars in, in cash in the bank and all of that, right? Like, it, it, they, they just don't think that way.
(00:36:03):
And the other thing is some combination of control and wanting to go their own way. I think that feeds into this too, which is we don't wanna talk to a union. I I, I'm not even sure if it's entirely motivated by, we just wanna be cheap and have control over our employees. I, I think it, it's partially that, but I think partially it's, oh, don't make us negotiate with a union and have to like, we wanna b break rules and, and do things in a new way that is gonna favor us for everybody. Yeah. Yeah. And, and well, that, right, exactly. I mean, I I think they would say, not that it favors us, they'd say, oh, it favors our customers. But you know, if you think about Apple sort of placing things as on that hierarchy of what's important to Apple, what's important to the customers, and then what's important to its developers.
(00:36:46):
I think you could also put it to retail employees down in that level of the hierarchy where they're much more concerned about their experience and the customer experience than they necessarily are with the employees and the retail stores. And I don't think they have an adversarial relationship with them, but I, I think that culturally you can see the switches in Apple's personality corporate personality that would end up manifesting in a way like this, which is just plus. I mean, they've got lawyers on their staff who are like, I got, I got Union busting 1 0 1 right here. I did I say union busting out loud. I I meant encouraging employees not to form unions 1 0 1. I've got that book right here. We can use it.
Alex Lindsay (00:37:22):
<Laugh>. Yeah. And, and, and the thing is, is that it it, it is hard for companies when, when unions come in. I used to be part of a union <laugh>, so, so I'm pretty familiar with it. And you know, the, the, the challenge really is for the companies is that if you really want to, unions will restrict your ability to let people go. And what that becomes problematic for is that they end up with employees. They can't let go, you know, and they, and they have to kind of move 'em around and, and they may, may not be, again, Apple's gonna look at it like it may not be supporting their customer service because they have somebody that would be too complicated to not have them be there anymore. You know, and so I think that, that, that's part of it. I think also, you know, obviously it's gonna make everything more expensive, <laugh>, you know, so than doing it.
(00:38:00):
And the problem with union sometimes that companies look at is that once you're in a union contract, what does the union have to offer you? It's not the status quo. It is that every time there's a contract negotiation, you're gonna get more, you know? And so they're gonna keep on ratcheting that up. So companies look at that trajectory and it's very easy for them to calculate that over this many years. It'll be worth not having that happen. <Laugh>. So, so the, so the so I think companies look at it from, from that perspective, it's also not, you know, unions are really good for folks in the middle and at the bottom of the employee group, it's, they're not usually good for the, the top performers at the, at the, you know, in the, that are brought into that union. Because usually that their, their ability to perform in Excel tends to be retarded by the union.
(00:38:43):
You know, because you're not allowed to do a little extra, you're not allowed to do things. Like, for instance, if you're a union in any of these stores, you know, a lot of people join, I know people that work at Apple Park started at an Apple store go into a union, you know, if you're unionized, you'll never work at Apple Park <laugh>. You know, like, and then, so the thing is, is that those, no, apple will never say that. And they may say, and the same thing, like, look over there, but everything's very subjective. And I'm not saying that this is the way it should be. I'm just saying that this is the way it is. <Laugh> like, you know, a company will never take a union person and put them into the headquarters because they view unions as viruses. And so, so the thing is, is that they, that, you know, so they're gonna keep you sectioned off.
(00:39:20):
You'll, if you work at a union store, you'll work at that union store. You'll never transfer to another store. You'll never transfer. You know, like there's a bunch of things. That's what they're trying to, when they say, we're educating you on what it is, and we can't tell you what the problems are, what they're insinuating is, this is the only story you'll ever work at <laugh>. You know, and so, so the you know, and so those are the kind of things that I think that, that we just, and we have a nuanced view of understanding why Apple does that. And you know, I I, you know, whether they do it or not is gonna be up to the employees in the end. I mean, they're gonna vote on whether they do it. I think that the reason that we're having these conversations is because Apple has not been very good at taking care of their employees.
(00:39:55):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So I think that's the underlying problem, is exactly what Andy talked about, the you have to stand there on your own time and get checked out. You have to do this. The best way for Apple, if they really want to not have unions is to make sure that their employees are super excited about being there, <laugh>. And so, and so, the thing is, is that, you know, so, so customer service for their employees is their number one way out of this. And the reason that there are stores that are unionized is because Apple wasn't paying enough attention to that, to that one piece of the puzzle. So I think that Apple needs to pay a lot more attention to that as they move forward. And that's gonna be the easiest way to do it, other than the strong Army tactics that they've used so far.
Mikah Sargent (00:40:33):
In continuing with sort of this ongoing conversation not necessarily this time about unionization, but sort of Apple as a company I just saw a report from Reuters where now a, the German antitrust regulator is kind of taking a look at Apple, and luckily I've got someone here who knows a thing or two about German. So you can pronounce the name of the regulator for us. Rosemary <laugh>.
Rosemary Orchard (00:41:02):
So it's the Bundes Cartel Amped which is like a more of a bureaucratic organization rather than a, a regulator, specifically it's an arm of the government which has designated Apple a company of paramount significance for competition across markets. Which basically means that Apple does things differently for their apps compared to what they're making app developers do, which is, for example, things like location tracking. You have to confirm it. If you wanna download an app like Glimpse that's GL Y M P S E to share your location from your phone. You don't have to do that with find my mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. and the fact that this is different is a cause for concern, not just in Germany and France as well, actually.
Mikah Sargent (00:41:41):
Yeah. It's, it's starting to look like all across the globe company, or not companies, but in this case, governments and large regulating bodies are all lining up in their, their sort of perspective on Apple. And of course Apple in response has said the cartel's office, because apparently they didn't want to pronounce that name either <laugh> designation misrepresents the fierce competition Apple faces in Germany, and it discounts the value of a business model that puts user privacy and security at its core. That was what Apple's spokesperson said in response to this new designation. Now the designation alone obviously is, is simply that a designation, but what it does mean is this moves apple into a place where this governing body can start to shape how Apple practices or how Apple does things within Germany. And I think kind of the larger conversation here is how these small changes in specific countries start to lead to a bigger change overall.
(00:42:53):
And it does make me wonder Jason, as time has gone on and as we've started to see these subtle changes to the way that Apple runs the App store to the way that it is you know, making certain technologies available to to developers, and as things are becoming at least a little bit more open how do you see apple responding over the coming years to these, these sort of large groups saying, Hey, we're paying attention more than we have before, and we think that this and this, and this could be anti-competitive or maybe at issue. And I, my my second question, I guess along with this is why are we not necessarily seeing the same thing with some of the other competitors out there for example, Google and its Android ecosystem?
Jason Snell (00:43:55):
Well, I think there's to answer your second question first, I think there's enough about that happening too. Mm-Hmm. I, I think they're on different fronts, but I do think that big tech in general, capital B, capital T is in the crosshairs of a lot of these organizations and you'll see it in different ways in different places. And Apple and the App Store especially are a hot topic right now. So I love that the German Go Government not only has a Cartel Bureau <laugh>, but that they've called Apple like Cartel. That's amazing. Cartel with a K cuz it's German. But again, we get the point, it's the same word. It's a cognate about Apple's strategy here. I know a lot of us who follow Apple want that mo it seems obvious for us that everybody's gonna put the screws to Apple here and that Apple's gonna need to change.
(00:44:37):
And a lot of us have felt that the thing you do when it's obvious is you change and you say, all right, we're gonna get ahead of this mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and we're gonna head this off before we lose control of the situation. And thus far that is not happened. Not even a little bit. And I think that what we have to do is realize that's not the game that Apple is playing strategically, although there is a little bit of a serious risk that they get this, this ball starts rolling so fast that they can't stop it. I think Apple has shown high that, that they're highly confident that if they fight for what they believe in every step of the way, and when they're legally forced to do something, they do it to the letter of the law and no further, they will actually end up better off in net than if they try to reach a settlement where they open things up based on like fear of worse punishment.
(00:45:30):
That is not the game that they have played thus far. And I think we just need to admit that's not how they're going to play this game that Apple thinks there are limited levers, especially in the US but o even overseas with something like the credit card transaction fees in the app store that you can tell us to let outside credit cards be charged. But you can't tell us that we can't charge for our developer tools, so we're just gonna charge for access to the, our developer tools, right? Like that's the game that they've played, which is what can you make us do and what can you not? And if we fight you every step of the way, what we'll end up with is a very limited set of things in a very limited set of locations. There. I think it's risky, but I am not a lawyer who works b at Apple who has analyzed all of this, right?
(00:46:17):
Right. And I'm sure they've spent a lot of money analyzing this and deciding that the best way for them to, to deal with this is just to fight it every step of the way and only do the exactly what they're asked to do. And so I think that is going to continue. And I do think personally that they risk this getting out of hand and them losing more than they would've lost if they had tried to tidy things up in advance. I'd say the only example of them getting out in front of something in the last five years where it felt like they, they saw where it was going would was handing the going from 30 to 15% with small developers mm-hmm. <Affirmative> where they felt like that was being used against them, and that they generated that program for small developers. And it sort of defanged that whole argument about like, look at this poor person who just, it's, it's just him and his wife <laugh>, and they, and they're the marketing and, and developing for, for an app, and it's their entire livelihood and you're taking money out of their hands.
(00:47:09):
And Apple's like, okay, whoosh, all those people are now 15% instead of 30. And now it's all about game, you know, in-app purchases and things like that. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, that's the one case where I think they saw where it was going and got out in front, but most of these regulatory cases, they're just like, nah, tell us. We'll fight it and then, and then we'll do whatever you tell us and we'll make it not mean what you think it means, which I'm sure the regulators hate <laugh>, but if the law isn't there, then they're gonna keep doing it.
Andy Ihnatko (00:47:35):
Yeah. And this, and this is why I'm very, very much in favor of these regulators making as strong and as as strong in cases as they can because, you know, apple did that was not that, that reduction in in commissions to people who are not making cajillions of dollars on on the app store. That's not something they were planning to do anyway. That was something they did as a result of pressure. So they, they basically made the, made the app store a much more profitable enterprise for a great, many developers, and it was because of regulators honking down their snorkel. And so if they, if the only way to get Apple to change the way that they run the App Store if after years and years of complaints is to make them forced to space. Like, look, we want to be able to, we we want to control our own destiny.
(00:48:23):
That is the goal of every human being on this planet. And certainly the the goal of every company that wants to continue to survive, to be able to control exactly what they do and not have to do anything that they feel they don't wanna do, that's natural. But if they want to continue to have that ability and not have to deal with 18 different regulatory agencies, every time they make a move, they are gonna have to look at these things and saying, okay, what would it cost us if we allow developers to have a more direct access to to their customers, to basically have a, a relationship with their customers in addition to a relationship with Apple? Would it cost us much? Not really. Okay. So let's give this, give the developers this thing they want. And there's other examples there. But this, this is why I'm very, very much even very much pro making Apple at least defend their actions to to an organization that has some ability to to change the way that they have to do things.
Alex Lindsay (00:49:17):
And I think that, you know, as, as an pretty strong Apple user <laugh> most of the regulations that we're talking about are good for the develop. The, the large developers, very wealthy developers, they're looking for this, not for the user. These aren't benefits to the user. I, as a user, I don't want to give you my contact information as a developer. As a developer, I figure out some other way around it. I give you an incentive to, to let me contact you. I about to release an app, <laugh> or retail. And, and so I think about it a lot, and I'm gonna give you reasons to, to be in contact with me, but I'm, I don't care whether that Apple gives me the contact information or not as a user, I don't definitely don't want every person, it will depress the number of apps that I buy if people start emailing me based on the fact that I bought their apps.
(00:49:59):
And that's what Apple, I think, looks at, is the, is that the user experience. And for the location stuff, I absolutely want to be able to identify that. When I install, when I log into my phone at the very beginning, apple says, can I use location services, you know, inside of it. So it's not that they're not doing it, they're just doing it at a whole scale level of all the apps that they provide. So I think that, you know, this is another example of regulators not totally understanding how things work. <Laugh>, which is, we don't, we ex we expect at this point. But so that I'm, I'm saying yes, you can use my location service. If I say, no, I can't use those, it won't work on any of those things. When I'm installing the phone, when I add new apps, like Glimpse or other things like that, I want to be asked, do, can I, can I, how often can this, this app give me location?
(00:50:43):
And if they want to do it, where I think Apple's easier way to handle this is just to put it back into their apps. Because 90% of the app apple users would just say yes to the location services for, for their tracking stuff, <laugh>, they would just go, sure, apple can do it. No tile can't, you know, because I don't want my data sold. You know, like, you know mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And so the thing is, is that these companies, again, the restrictions really what the companies are, are bristling about is not the fact that their app won't, that their little app won't work. It's that they want to take your location data, they wanna package it up and sell it to somebody. And, and, you know, and that's the thing that, that's, that's what they're complaining about is the fact that they can't take that tile, can't take your data, wrap it up into a nice little thing and sell you like a, like a pig.
(00:51:22):
You know? And so the thing is, is that, is that that's what, that's what we should be allowed to, to say no, we don't want to be, we don't want to be you know, packaged up <laugh> as meat and, and sold to other companies as our data for our data. And so I think that that is the thing that, that as a user, I think we have the right to, to have Apple be able to do those things. And, and what's happening is, is all these big companies are talking to all the regulators trying to say, well, they, this is all Apple doing this thing, but they're taking away our rights as users to have our privacy, you know, and, and we want to have that privacy. And so I, I think that Apple's going to keep on dragging this out because as a user, I want Apple to fight this tooth and nail all the way to the end.
(00:52:03):
And I want in the end, I want it to be ashes in their mouth. <Laugh>, you know, for not Apple, but for all the other companies, you can keep on fighting on this. And by the time, and I don't think that Apple's not doing anything. I think Apple is figuring out how the user, how the developer contracts work, how the benefits work, how all those other things work based on it. They're just buying time, you know? And so, and as a user, I want them to buy time. I don't want to give these companies anything. You know, like, so, so I think that's the problem is, is that I think if you're thinking about it from a user perspective, apple is defending our ability to not be tracked, not be you know, sold.
Mikah Sargent (00:52:41):
So mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, do you also, do you think that Apple is solely concerned about that? Or does Apple have its own interest in mind as well? Cuz it sounds like it's almost an argument that Apple is a crusader for people's privacy.
Alex Lindsay (00:52:53):
It's Apple's interest, it's Apple's interest to give us our privacy. That's what we're buying into. We are stakeholders as users. We are stakeholders. We are paying and buying Apple products because partially because we want this. And so we are paying into that. So it's absolutely an Apple. Apple is acting out of its own benefit. And that own benefit is, is that the users that buy their, buy their products want those services. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you know, and so Apple makes more money by giving them what they want, which is that being the arbitrator and saying, you know, a lot of things can't go out is a, is part of why simplicity is part of why I'm an Apple user, but also privacy, privacy and safety and all those other things that I, that I want as a user. I am buying Apple products and I get more, as these conversations happen, I become more hardened as an Apple user because I want, I want those things to stay there. And I have less and less interest in every other platform as an Apple user. And again, as the u it is, apple is acting out of its best, its own best interest. And that own best interest is serving the users with things that they want.
Mikah Sargent (00:53:57):
I, I do wanna say, hold on just a sec, cuz I've seen outta the corner of my eye, Rosemary's been doing a lot of research over here, and so I wanna give her a chance to tell us what she's, how
Rosemary Orchard (00:54:05):
Much piping. Well, what I was gonna say is, I think it also makes a lot of sense for Apple to buy their time on those, because currently they have the German it's the federal office for the cartels and syndicates or, or syndicates depending on how you translate it. But they've also got the French regulatory body on them. And the UK also has a competition authority who will definitely be interested in this sort of thing as well. And so, by wasting, they're also just being sensible with development costs. Because if they start implementing something based on the way that they think the German authorities are gonna go, and then the French authorities want something that's more complex or different, then of course they're gonna have to take a couple of steps back, undo what they've already done, maybe throw everything away and start over.
(00:54:47):
So by waiting, they're actually doing the sensible thing. And it's not like the, the Apple apps aren't listed. If you go into the settings on your phone into the location services, I can go in and like turn off, find my, but if I deny location services at like a fundamental iOS level, then I won't get things like location-based reminders. And I have seen people turn this off and the number of people I have seen turn off location services, and then they're like, why does this thing not work anymore? It's like, because it's using your location and your location isn't just GPS location, it's also like Bluetooth and things like that. So it, it's, it's really complicated. And things like emergency sos built into your phone, like the satellite calls but also just emergency calls. Like Apple actually provides that location of your device when you're calling the emergency services.
(00:55:38):
 And they can do that because they've actually, you know, talked to the emergency services in lots of countries to integrate stuff. And I'm like, personally, like I, I'm very much with Alex here. I want Apple to wait so that they can do the right thing as far as the user is concerned. But I do, I do get it from the regulator's point. I think it's just one of those things where they're like, oh, yes, but we would like a backdoor so that we can see what the messages are. It's like, no, there, there's no such thing as an exclusive backdoor. You, you don't have a fundamental understanding of technology. And I, I wish that we would have like more people who actually understand not just how technology works, but also like why systems are set up the way they are and would consult with various companies and then independent you know, consultants as well who don't work for Apple or Google or Facebook or TWiTter or whoever it is to, to give them guidance here.
(00:56:29):
It reminds me of the case of Google versus Oracle with Java, where the, the judge actually went and learn how to develop and, and write programs and so on so that he could actually wow. Make a proper judgment on whether or not like this was, like, whether they were actually copying things or whether they weren't. But it seems like a lot of government agencies understandably, don't have the time for that, but they, like, if they're gonna regulate on tech, they need to understand tech and a lot of them don't. They're scared about.
Mikah Sargent (00:56:58):
Yeah. Andy, I have to ask you, because it tends to be during these conversations, you do come down on the side of, you know encouragement of regulation, but the argument in response to that typically does end up, especially in the United States being, well, and I, please forgive me, those of you who are up in age, but the sort of argument is all those old old folks don't know anything about technology, and if they touch it, they're going to ruin everything because they don't get the con What is your argument and response to that? How can, and and I'm not asking this from my own perspective, but just from the perspective of folks who are tuning in and are, are asking, how do you still have that, that hope in your heart and that that makes you feel, you know, like, oh, I do want this regulation to, until still take place, if there seems to be a lot of argument that there's no faith in these folks being able to properly regulate it. And maybe another great question would be, when is give us an example. I I can think of a few. When regulation in terms of tech specifically, has been a net positive for folks, even though it's coming from these older folks who may or may not know how technology works.
Andy Ihnatko (00:58:14):
Mm, I I very appreciate the way that you framed that question because I think that oftentimes this is a question of philosophy mm-hmm. <Affirmative> it was very important in the nineties as the internet was getting launched, and as these tech companies started having the power to not just be companies that try to sell a million computers and then they become obsolete, and then they're competing with the, their competitors next round of, of, of computing hardware, when it really became their ability to basically amass an incredible amount of power not only as any business can, but also power over individuals lives. It was, at that point, it was very, very important to have sort of a hands-off attitude. The Clinton administration was very, very it was not a, it was not the lase fair, it was not ignorance. It was, it was the, they were supporting literally the argument that we can't regulate a problem that we think is going, maybe is going to happen in the hopes that we are averting a disaster because we have to let creativity flow.
(00:59:17):
We have to let inventors create things. And without that kind of attitude in the nineties, without that hands-off regulatory attitude, we would not have so many of the benefits that we we have right now. Now we've let, I feel as though we've let that go so far at this point that now oftentimes we feel as though regulating tech companies is in itself anathema. I feel as though right now they they are organizations are in, in positions of incredible power, again, over individual lives now. And there needs to be an opposing force to that power. We can't have even a company like Apple, who I very have a very much, have a positive attitude towards say that we know what's best for everybody and we're gonna do what we want to do. And if you order us to do something, we're just not gonna do it.
(01:00:05):
Or we're gonna do it in such a half ass half-assed way that, you know, it's that we're gonna be laughing at you. We are, we are wholly and untouchable. We get to do exactly what we want to do. And it's, and because they're a business, it's always going to mount to what's best for our company, what's best for our shoulder, our shareholders and stakeholders. There needs to be a balancing force against that. Now, I don't necessarily think that of, I'm not necessarily pro-regulation. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I'm very pro a government agency that has the ability to put the hurt on a company like Apple or Microsoft or Google or TikTok to say, you are gonna have to explain this policy. You're gonna have to defend this policy to us. And if you don't come up with a really good explanation for why you run your business this way, why Google, you are basically not supporting any ad network technology that that makes it harder for you to game the system.
(01:01:02):
Meaning we're, we are, you're not gonna support any of the, in the world's most popular web brows that you create a technology that would affect your ad network. You are gonna have to explain to us under the possible penalty of us telling you, no, you can't do that anymore if you don't come up with a really good argument for it. That sort of stuff is really, really important. Otherwise, again, the, the entire world is a ca is a case of people in a power structure imposing their will on people who do not have power. And that's why I think that that's that that's really a, a very important thing I would say. But there, I mean, there was a time when the stock market was unregulated and we know what happened then. So basically said, okay, well you know what, you can't just simply, hi, trade, make trades based on information that's not public yet. Cause that's how you wind up with 81 billionaires and everybody else living on the streets. We can't, you can't do that anymore. And and for, in terms of technology, I'm a little bit on the spot and I can't I I can't think of a specific example but I'm sure I I'm, I'm sure if I, if you gimme an hour gdpr
Alex Lindsay (01:02:05):
Right? I I can help. Oh, I can,
Andy Ihnatko (01:02:07):
Yeah. G g gdpr, it's, it's a good, it's a good, it's a good, I'm sorry. Go. Yeah, please,
Alex Lindsay (01:02:11):
Alex. All I was gonna say is that the breakup of at and t was good because it had 90 over, well over 90% of the of the market. The limiting of Microsoft was good because it had over 90% of the market. So when, when a company has more than 90% of the market, I think that, that these regulations start to make sense, even if they're not perfect, they're better than the alternative. When a company has 50% of the market, or you know, it, and it doesn't have a, you know, and there's still market pressures that can affect it because Apple is not in a vacuum. Apple still has Android out there, that is, that is being used and 50% of the world, or more than 50% of the world still uses Android. You know, I think that there's, I think we need do need to step a little lighter, given the fact that most elected officials, and I can say this from with an enormous amount of experience, are digital children.
(01:03:02):
You know, they barely know how to use email. And so, and, and I'm not saying that from something I read <laugh>, you know, so, so the the vast majority of them are, you know, barely understand how their computer works, you know, and so them making decisions or those decisions being made by people who have never been in the industry, they're just, they're not digital children, they're just children, children. Then between those two, I'd rather allow the market to make some decisions on that. And I think that, again, what I'm mostly focused on is that we pay attention to the average in individual using the product. Not big rich companies that want to make more money, which is what most of these arguments are driven by, are companies that are making, well, more than a million dollars a year <laugh> on, on what they're doing, <laugh>, and wanna make sure, but that's where all of this is being driven is com competition of large companies not paying attention to the individual user and their experience of the apparatus.
(01:03:54):
And I think we have to pay attention to those users, and I think we have to be very wary of, again, people who don't know email very well. It was, it was great that someone learned how to program Java. I think that most people, at least in the United States that ever represent us, don't even know what Java is. So, so the thing is, is that other than coffee, you know, and so, so I, and if we watched the, we watched the TikTok thing mm-hmm. <Affirmative> a little while, and that became clearer <laugh>. So not, not, not, it didn't, it didn't, it didn't make me feel better about, about what our representatives are do. And I think that it's fine. That's not their job. They should just stay, you know, they should just be careful. It's not that they should never put something in when something's obvious, like, again, 90% of a market that's one thing. But Apple is still less than half. Yeah.
Rosemary Orchard (01:04:40):
And I think we're a good example of where things did actually work out well is COVID 19 contact tracing where apple and Google actually worked together in advance with regulators and were like, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna make it so that it works everywhere works the same way. There's gonna be an API where developers can hook into that, so each government could implement their own thing, or states over here in the US could do their own thing and, and so on and so forth. The wonder disadvantage of competition committees and so on is, there was a case in the UK a while ago where a ferry service like a, a, I think it was p and o bought a, a route and the competition committee deemed that they weren't allowed to run it because it would have just been them running on that route.
(01:05:20):
They, I think they took over another company or something. And so then the previous two companies who would've been running it became one company, and they were told, no, you're not allowed to do that. And that ferry service disappeared. Like, it, it stopped running. And that, that's, that's where things get tricky, but I don't think we're likely to see that with tech at the moment. It's a shame Windows phone didn't make it. You know, then there would've been three <laugh>. You know, even if it only had like 5%, you know, that's still an option. As a third thing for people who, who don't like Android or Apple, but at the moment it's kind of a choice between Android or Apple, or maybe a dumb phone. If you can find one somewhere, I think the Nokia 33 10 probably still works. Just need to find a charging cable
Alex Lindsay (01:06:00):
<Laugh>. And I will, and I will say Section two 30, I don't think was written, they didn't know what it would do when they wrote it mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, but it has been a very effective form of regulation that has allowed what everything that we have. I just wanna make sure we outline that everything that we have in the internet right now, we can decide whether it's good or bad or whatever. But that is, it wouldn't, nothing would've happened without that, without Section two 30.
Andy Ihnatko (01:06:24):
It's a, it's, it's always interesting to look at the line between a regulation that protects rights and gives people opportunities as opposed to regulation that says, no, you can't do that. So that's, that's a good example of the, of, of the first version of that.
Mikah Sargent (01:06:39):
All right, folks, it is time for us to take a quick break here on Mac Break Weekly. Before we come back with lots more stories about Apple and the surrounding news I do wanna tell you, I believe news sponsor here on Mac Break Weekly. Although you may have heard about them recently but this episode of Mac Break Weekly is brought to you by Delete Me. And I'm not asking you to do that. It is the name of the sponsor. Have you ever searched for your name online? And when you did so you weren't too pleased about how much of your personal information was available? Did it make you feel exposed or unsafe? Well, since 2010, delete Me has been on a mission to empower individuals and organizations by allowing them to reclaim their privacy and help them remove personal data from online sources.
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So protect yourself, reclaim your privacy. Go to join delete me.com/TWiT and use the code TWiT. That's join delete me.com/TWiT and code TWiT for 20% off. Thank you. Delete me for sponsoring this week's episode of Mac Break Weekly. Alright, we are back from the break. And I wanna start by talking about an Easter egg that was making the rounds for some reason. And a actually has, has appeared in the past as well. I saw this report about Mac Os featuring the Bitcoin White paper. Was that from Hiro or Satoshi Nakamoto? And this kind of, the ideas like this come up from time to time. Every once in a while you'll see, oh, did you notice that this icon on windows 11 actually has text that says this or that somebody was using the builtin tool dealing with sort of printers and, and print management and they, it's a virtual scanner actually, and they came across a document that was a PDF within the actual utility, the virtual scanner utility. And it happened to be the Bitcoin white paper. Well, then it resulted in multiple sites going, why is the Bitcoin white paper hidden in Makos? What does this mean? What could, and then there've been multiple sites that are going well, here's why it's there. Here's what I heard from a friend who heard from a friend who heard that it came out this way. And ultimately, I think what we all learned is that it doesn't really matter and it's just something silly. Jason is, is that a fair take
Jason Snell (01:13:01):
<Laugh>? Yeah, I mean, so Andy Bayo waxy.org is the one who sort of popularized this and then it spread around. And because you may not read Andy Bay's work, but all the bloggers you read read Andy Bao. That's right. That's how that goes with Andy. And it is, yeah, it is in there and there's a lot of weird stuff in there. Honestly, there's images in there. I if you look in, in the system library, which is now locked, which is so, you know, that it's something that came from Apple, you'll find lots of weird stuff. Nobody knows for sure. My guess is somebody needed a lightweight unencumbered PDF to use for a preview or something, or for testing, and then it just stayed in there. And now that the jig is up it'll, it'll go away. But it's, yeah, it's kind of an, an Easter egg.
(01:13:47):
 A lot of people who, you know, hate Bitcoin mining and all that, which hey, I'm right there with you, are like angry about this. It's like, you know, the initial, the initial white paper is kind of a brilliant piece of work. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. It's just that, that what has come from it is ha has been what has come from it. But that initial white paper sort of legendary being this kind of B mind bomb of like, whoa, I had no idea. And it's also like 160 K or something. It's like a really lightweight pdf. So they stuck it in there and yeah, rumor has it that the person who stuck it in there has had a, an open ticket inside Apple to remove it for a while and has just never done it. But my guess is the next major os re revision will, it'll be gone
Mikah Sargent (01:14:25):
Now that it's really out there. I, I'm curious, do any of you remember another one of these? Because I don't even think this is directly an Easter egg so much as just in this case, it just does kind of feel like testing. It's not so much of a, Hey, here's a funny haha that's hiding inside of this. Does anyone remember any delightful Easter eggs or, I mean, what other situations?
Rosemary Orchard (01:14:48):
Star Wars in the Terminal Springs to mind? Cuz there was I, I'm not sure if it's still there, but for a while you could watch Star Wars, like as an asy film in the terminal which was really cool. So yeah, yeah, that, that was definitely a good
Jason Snell (01:15:02):
One. It's a recent one. There's a new version of Overcast that came out in the Apple Watch version. In order to stay in the foreground while it's downloading your podcast to your Apple watch, you have to actually qualify, like you have to be doing something else. And so Marco Armand built a, basically there's a breakout game inside of the overcast Apple watch that you can play while you download. And the whole point is just <laugh>. It's like how what is it? A panics prompt, which is a terminal app on iOS ask for your location information and they log it and it's like, this is a feature where we tell you where you were when you logged into your surfer, but the real reason they do it is that it keeps the session up longer. Oh, that's right. And so it doesn't disconnect.
(01:15:43):
So there are a lot of Easter eggs that I would put in the category of Easter egg that's actually getting around some technical or apple limitation. I kinda love those. And then maybe we can put a link in the show notes. James Thompson, or you can just google James Thompson in Easter Eggs, our friend who's the peacock developer, he gave a whole presentation about the history of Apple Easter eggs, including ones Oh wow. He, and he's the master at it. The about box in his app, peacock is literally a whole video game. I
Rosemary Orchard (01:16:10):
Mean, he literally had to make it into a separate app. Separate app is available on the app store because there were so many Easter eggs that it was larger than the actual calculator and calculator.
Jason Snell (01:16:18):
It was bigger than the calculator. Yeah, it's brilliant. Absolutely true. So James is obsessed with this and he has a great YouTube video of his presentation that I highly recommend.
Andy Ihnatko (01:16:26):
The, the, the, the king of these kind of Easter eggs. And, and it really, and we can talk about this even though it's not a Mac thing, cuz it makes Microsoft look stupid like <laugh>. There, there was, there was a tiny little Easter egg hidden inside Excel that was, Hey, wouldn't it be funny if we put like a tiny, tiny, tiny like lightweight version of Microsoft flight simulators so that hey, haha, while you've, while the boss isn't looking, you can play Flight simulator. And unbeknownst to like the project managers after, with each iteration of Excel, they kept making it better and better and better until it was an enormous resource, hog <laugh> mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And they had to say, why, why is so much memory and storage being allocated to a secret flight simulator inside Excel? Yeah. That's
Jason Snell (01:17:06):
Literally what happened with James too. It's the same thing, which is like, what if I do a second level? It's like, no, don't, don't. Oh no, he did it. He did a second level
Rosemary Orchard (01:17:13):
<Laugh>. I mean, he, he did at least make a separate app for Rolling Dice. So you know that that could have been bundled into the about section, but hey, who needs to, who needs actual flaming bananas when you can throw virtual ones?
Alex Lindsay (01:17:24):
<Laugh>? Yeah. The, the we had a, if you know, an old Office hour, Steve, Steve Wright was on, and he actually is the person who coined the name Easter Egg <laugh>. Oh, wow. And so it was, he was defending programmers at Atari for having, it was like a castle inside of a castle inside of a castle and had a, had these, I think their names written in it or something like that. And he had, he had talking to an, a very angry executive at Atari about it, about why resources were being used to write something that, you know, that wasn't there. And he is like, you know, it's for fun. You know, it's like you're search, it literally just kind of came out like the way he described it, he was like, you know, you're, you're searching around for something and that, that, you know, it might be there, but you don't know where. It's like an Easter egg. And
Jason Snell (01:18:03):
Isn't that the I mean, I feel like the definitive early computing Easter egg was in the adventure game where you could get the invisible key on the Atari 2,600 and go into the room where it said created by Warren Robinette. Yeah. Like, I still remember his name. Wow.
Alex Lindsay (01:18:18):
It's like a castle inside of a castle. Inside of a castle.
Jason Snell (01:18:20):
Yeah,
Alex Lindsay (01:18:21):
Exactly. He had the key and that was the original Easter egg. And it's an
Jason Snell (01:18:24):
Empty room except for the credits. And so many of those are the credits like the the Mac finder. If you original Mac Finder and Early Mac Finders, if you held down option or command an option and chose about the Finder, you would get like a picture of mountains and it would actually list the names of the people on the finder team. Yeah. And, and there were a lot of those things, by the way, speaking of Steve Jobs, who we mentioned earlier he came back to Apple and was like, take everybody's name out of everything. No more Easter eggs. What a killjoy that guy was. But there are still some Easter eggs and like they put the, the text of the Think different ad is on the teach or on the what? The text edit icon now mm-hmm. <Affirmative> or text edit document icon. Yes, yes. Like there are still places that you can find little hidden bits of whimsy inside makos and definitely in, in various apps too.
Alex Lindsay (01:19:08):
And everyone tries to add them when you're working on something. It's kind of, even they found that even there was Griff, like things added to hieroglyphics. Like the people just went, you know, the per the people, the scribes were there, were like, you know, we really think the Pharaoh isn't very smart. <Laugh> little things off in the corner, you know, but, but so, you know, we've been adding, you know, when you're working on it. I know in Star Wars that was always a thing for, that we were trying to do is figure out where we'd, I, there's a shot where I'm holding Mentos in the queenship, you know, that you don't see, you know, it goes ba fast enough that I'm still pretty motion blurred. But, but you know, you try to add, you know, things into it and try not just try not to get caught.
Mikah Sargent (01:19:46):
All righty. Moving along I sometimes hesitate with these stories, but I am curious people's takes on as we continue to see these phones sort of as they try to update them and add new features and make it fresh and make it more interesting, you start to get to a point where you go, what else can you really do? So there are some kind of rumors that we have regarding the next iPhone, which of course tends to be announced sometime in September. Including, and I'm just gonna go through these and then we can kind of talk as a whole about what we think we could see on the next model and what that means in terms of, of what updates are likely to happen and whether that's gonna be enough for folks to be happy, because sometimes they are and sometimes they aren't.
(01:20:40):
 Firstly, a titanium frame is rumored to be part of the ProModel for the next iPhone. The cameras are supposed to be getting an even thicker camera bump as we continue to see improvements to the, the camera quality and the camera lens quality and maybe even a periscope lens that it's sort of built. It doesn't para, it's not a periscope in the traditional sense, but they can sort of fit more lens technology within by using a Periscope idea. And then having u s BBC on iPhone 15 models get getting rid of the hap or getting rid rather of the volume and mute buttons that are physical and instead switching to solid state buttons that have haptic technology. So you would sort of feel them pressing up, down and with a mute switch, I, I don't know how they'll just do a button instead as well as smaller bezel, perhaps the smallest bezel on a smartphone. At least as things stand. And I think we'll end there because things about color are not as important. So yeah, smaller bezel, better camera, titanium frame, it's sounding a lot like what we're used to. The big thing I feel is if we are getting rid of buttons and what does that mean for my ability to volume up, volume down, hold the side button, restart. Anytime one of my family members has an issue with their phone, oh, is it gonna get harder to troubleshoot these devices?
Rosemary Orchard (01:22:13):
I mean, I recently had an issue with my iPad where it seemingly would not power on it ran outta battery, it just wasn't working. And so I tried doing the press and hold of the volume button and the power button, and I forgot that there's also the up down, up down left right Kmi code, <laugh> style thing. And so I went to the Apple store and you know, I made an appointment, walked in and everything, and like the person who was checking me in was like, oh, have you tried doing the complicated thing? And then it, it suddenly started working and I was like, I forgot that was a thing. So maybe if they could make that a bit easier, but I don't necessarily want extra buttons. The thing that I always hear people asking about is like the mute switch, they wanna be able to turn this on and off digitally, but because there's a physical button on the iPhone you, you can't turn it on and off using shortcuts. And so yeah, like maybe losing that button would be a good thing. Maybe not. I don't know. Like I, I, I liked it when I had it on the iPad, but I changed it to rotation look really quickly as soon as that feature came out. So yeah, I dunno, like losing buttons, better buttons. I don't know.
Mikah Sargent (01:23:15):
I
Andy Ihnatko (01:23:16):
That's, that's the, go
Mikah Sargent (01:23:17):
Ahead. Oh, I was just gonna say, I like the little fidgety options that are there, but Go ahead, Andy.
Andy Ihnatko (01:23:22):
I was, I was just gonna say that that's the only part of these rumors that really kind of worries me because if, if it's haptic, but they're still protruding touchpoints that you can find by feel, I would be less worried about it if it were just that, hey, we still screened a pattern to show you, to help you find where they up, down and, and mute buttons are. That would be a, to me, a really big step back. Because even on my on my iPad for instance there's a, I can't find the volume buttons unless I'm feeling for them at the top of the screen. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And, and, and, and that's, I know that's maybe this a different sort of case study because with the iPad, you really often are using it in different, our orientations depending on how productive you're being or what you're, what you're sort of doing with it.
(01:24:07):
But believe me, if I were like in the middle of a middle of a concert or something and I forgot to mute my phone and my phone starts an alarm and I suddenly have to in the dark keep just desperately just like squeezing edges of my phone, hoping that I find the haptic switch in there, that would be a really big step back for me. And I just, I as and as always this is the same argument that I had when apple deleted the the headphone jack. If they're making a change, they have to make sure that they're making a ch to me they're making a change that's customer forward. If it's, if it's just as simple as we figured out that we can shave 80 cents off per unit, if they, we switched installing manual clicky buttons with installing this haptic component, a that's, then we're gonna go ahead with that.
(01:24:53):
We don't really ca and people will just have to get used to it or just have, they're not, we don't think that people are gonna not buy an iPhone because we change the, the clicky button into a haptic that's super bad. If they can make the case that this makes it, this, the, the clicky button is another place for liquid to ingress, it's another thing that can break. Like if you drop it, these things can get jammed and that's why you have to now like do like $130 service on this phone. Whereas the haptic module will be a lot, have greater integrity, then I could get behind it. But again, it would be so easy to make sure there is some way I can feel it by touch as opposed to looking for something silk screened on it. As I'm fumbling in my <laugh> as, as, as, as, as, as someone as, as someone on the stage is basically berating me from the stage and everybody else is tech talking. Me being berated from the stage, <laugh>, I haven't turned off my phone.
Mikah Sargent (01:25:44):
Sounds like a fever dream. It sounds terrifying. 
Andy Ihnatko (01:25:48):
Patty Lapont, you know what, you don't, you don't take any chances when Patty Labone is in the cast. You just <laugh>.
Mikah Sargent (01:25:54):
Oh dear. I am curious, Alex what are the benefits of Periscope camera that we sort of don't have right now? Cuz right now the options are what make even bigger sort of lenses and perhaps even have something that zooms out from the, the body. But by doing a periscope lens, we can fit more in what are we, what are we doing with
Alex Lindsay (01:26:18):
That sensor size? Okay. You can make the sensor size if it's not flat, you can make the sensor size potentially larger. So you can, you could make the sensor size larger. You can change what the focal length, but the potential focal length is of the, of the lens through that reflector. So I think that those are the, those are the two big reasons that a, that you'd look at a parascope.
Andy Ihnatko (01:26:37):
Yeah, optically this, this is why I look a, a telephoto lens is physically longer than like a non telephoto lens because optically you just need that distance between the lens element and the sensor. One of the things about the periscope lens is that you can basically still have that distance, but basically you're, because you're doing it flatter, it's just simply bending. It's, it's a, it's a flat throw and it's bending through the lens at the, at its usual place. So that this is why like some some cameras have like a 2020 x optical zoom, which is something that you're like, oh God, who do, this is just a phone come after all. Why would, but that's ridiculous. They're just trying to like win the, win the ratings game. But then you have your hand like, oh my God, I can actually take pictures of stuff that I couldn't take pictures of before. This is the thing. Yeah, the,
Alex Lindsay (01:27:20):
The problem is like, three X seemed like it absurd and now I use it all the time and I'm like, I just wish it was five x mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, like, why can't I have five x? You know? And, and so yeah,
Andy Ihnatko (01:27:28):
It's, it's like, and then it's like 20 x plus really good AI enhancement. So like now, like the 50 x digital is like not garbage anymore. And so now you're like, oh, yay, there's oh, yay. There's a thicker, there's a thicker lens module. Yeah. Yay. There's, there's a, there's a third like Periscope lens. Like I will give you an extra $200 for that. I'm
Alex Lindsay (01:27:45):
Very cost and sense. Oh, not cost incentive, but si size insensitive. Like, I don't care how big that, that little, I, it's 99% of my pictures, right? Yeah. Yeah. I want that. You know, I, I, you can, if you, if that's stuck out twice as much as it does right now, wouldn't bother me at all. Like, I would just, you know,
Andy Ihnatko (01:28:00):
I've got, I got three millimeters in my pocket. Okay. It's not as though like, I can't fit an not millimeters.
Rosemary Orchard (01:28:06):
That's not acceptable. Like where, where am I supposed to put this thing? Like, there're no pockets here. I mean, the thing that I'm really annoyed about is apparently they're getting rid of purple. They're making it dark red. Oh, like what? No, you, sorry. Like purple. Like purple is the best though. It does look from the report that they're gonna change this, the mute switch from a switch into a button. So you can still press the button when your phone goes off <laugh>. But like the, the mute button doesn't actually work when it comes to things like the alarms and so on. So yeah, I'm not quite sure. Could
Mikah Sargent (01:28:35):
To get a little confusing,
Rosemary Orchard (01:28:36):
But it make it smaller. So maybe next year I don't need the MagSafe pop socket so I can actually hold my phone. <Laugh>.
Mikah Sargent (01:28:41):
Yeah, that would be nice. That
Rosemary Orchard (01:28:42):
Would be good. I mean, they got rid of the mini, they're gonna have to do something at some point, I hope.
Mikah Sargent (01:28:46):
<Laugh>. All righty. I think let's take one more story and then we'll take a break. So I remember reading about GM making the choice to, and its future EV models ditch support for CarPlay and Android Auto. And there've been lots of complaints about their decision to do that where they, a lot of folks feel like they would like to be able to use their projection system of choice. And the reason for folks who might not know out there we're listening, I call it, we call it a projection system, is because it's not built into the car, it's built into your phone. And when you plug in your phone, your phone projects that UI into the car's dash, wherever you happen to have that, that screen or screens and then displays it there and then interfaces with the vehicle to do music playback and all of the other features.
(01:29:45):
And of course we've seen that CarPlay is supposed to be getting even more powerful over time, or at least adding more features over time. And Android Auto continues to improve as well. Now there's been a conversation between mk, is it mk, B H D? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yes. I always get those letters mixed up. The YouTube guy, and he's talking to Rivian, c e o, sorry, I'm out of touch. Anyway, he's talking with Rivian, C e o about CarPlay and how it's not part of Rivian and Rivian. C e O is going, well, we're really not planning on adding CarPlay and we've got a very good reason. And that reason is because they feel like they can make changes to the system on their own much faster than if they wait for CarPlay to make those changes. And Okay. Yes.
Rosemary Orchard (01:30:40):
Let's you actively refuses to use, like I have a Reno and I don't use any of the Native Reno features on my car at all. Like the only way that I interact with my car is basically open the CarPlay bit. Please. Thank you. That's it. Like I, I don't want car manufacturers deciding that they know better for me, especially as Apple is doing, like the whole car integration thing, which, you know, they're, they're gonna work with multiple car manufacturers on, like, that seems way better. I can plug my phone into any car and I have my entire address book and it's not synced and stored on some server with people who were car manufacturers. We're not technology people, so maybe they don't actually understand security. Yeah. That, that seems better to me. I trust Apple. I don't trust car manufacturers.
Mikah Sargent (01:31:23):
<Laugh>. Jason, were those chirps and squeals coming from you? Oh
Jason Snell (01:31:26):
Man. Yes. I was groaning. You got, you got me. When you said the, the head of Rivian software explained, gave reasons
Mikah Sargent (01:31:36):
Why <laugh>
Jason Snell (01:31:37):
There, they, he didn't give any reasons. His reason was we want to be the head chef. That's not a reason we want to be the head chef or we want to do updates. I'll just say it. You can be the head chef of your software and do updates to your software. True. And still, and still allow CarPlay and Android Auto also you know, Android Automotive, which GM is going to use. There are lots of cars with Android Automotive. Now they all offer CarPlay and Android Auto, it all these car makers can do. So now Rivian is doing what GM did, which is, they can put out excuses uhhuh, but I'll just point out nothing that they say. Precludes also allowing users to bring their smartphones with them to use for the features that they want that are on their smartphone, that aren't on the car, or that, you know, aren't, I'm not gonna have to change the platform that I use, change the apps that I use in order to fulfill your needs.
(01:32:33):
And it, none of this is true. So when they say they want to be the head chef, that's not what he's actually meaning what he, what he's meaning is I want no other chefs but me. Yeah. I want to be the only chef there are. The head chef implies that there are other chefs, but Rivian is, is not letting the other chefs, which would be Android Auto and CarPlay into the kitchen, <laugh>, you know, I don't know where, and the end are. Those chefs are in a cup holder <laugh> in your dash or something instead, or let them eat Bluetooth, which is a substandard kind of a way to do it because you don't have the interface. And it, it's like, again, I, I don't have a problem with Rivian and Tesla and even GM saying, look, we, we, we take great pride in our own software.
(01:33:16):
I have a problem with the fact that they don't take enough pride in their software that they feel like yeah. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> they can't compete with. And they, or they want the control, right? Like, either they can't feel like they can't compete, or they feel like they wanna put their users in a box where they have to stay in the box. And then, you know, in Jam's case, it's very clear. Then they monetize the box, then they, it's to go box charge for features in the box from the chef and Yeah. Ex Oh, that's right. It's a do more like a doggy bag am Right. <Laugh>, bba. Anyway, it's, it's, it's all bs because the fact is they could coexist with those projection systems and still offer what they wanna offer. What they don't wanna say is, we would rather force you to only use our software because we don't, we are threatened by Apple and Google or we we don't want to compete with them when we start to upsell you on connectivity.
(01:34:07):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> or premium features. These are the reasons. But the truth is, and I I, I wrote about this, I read it about this on my website last week too. This is what I wanted to say is the truth is our smartphones are our, our right or die, literally our right or die. It's not our car. Car is never gonna be your primary platform for all of this stuff. It's gonna be on your phone and then you're gonna go in your car. And car makers hate that. They hate the idea that they can't control you because you have a device that you love more than your car. But we all do. And that's not gonna change. So the the right thing to do for customers is to let us have our little podcast app of choice that plays in a little window on your wonderful infotainment system. And then, you know, maybe we'll use your system for other stuff too. And then some people won't use CarPlay and that's fine too, but give us the choice. And they don't wanna, they're playing games because they don't want to give people the choice. And the problem is, is that they're, they have to figure out how
Alex Lindsay (01:34:56):
To do, do good interfaces and Apple's pretty good at it, you know? And so the problem is, is that you really have, like, I'm used to having, I have a portable Gordon Ramsey, you know, to for my meals, right? That's, that's what I have. I have Gordon, I have Gordon Ram. No, no, I'm saying that, that as a, as an iPhone. Oh, the chef got it. I have Gordon, the chef, I have Gordon Ramsey, and I'm like, I, you know, I, I walk into McDonald's, which is one of the car cars, and I go, you know, I'm just gonna eat Gordon Ramsey. I'm gonna sit here, but I'm Gordon.
Mikah Sargent (01:35:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You get to have
Alex Lindsay (01:35:20):
Gordon Ramsey. And so they're like, and you go to a nice re they go, well, we have a really nice restaurant. We've really upgraded our menu. And you're like, yeah, but I got Gordon Ramsey making food for me <laugh>, like, I don't need, I don't need your thing. So, and the problem is they can never get, they can never become Gordon Ramsey because the people, the people who have Gordon Ramsey aren't gonna eat anywhere else. <Laugh>. So they're gonna be like, they're just gonna be like, he's pretty good, you know? And, and, and so you have to be better than him. It's not that you have to be equal to him for the people who have, because they, they're habit formed. They are used to Gordon Ramsey, they like Gordon Ramsey. It's really good. You, you might be able to do better than Gordon Ramsey, but wow. You have to be a lot better. Right? I that true.
Mikah Sargent (01:35:56):
I'll try your tuna tartar, but I'm probably gonna go back to Gordon
Rosemary Orchard (01:35:59):
Ramsey. Right. And if they hired a exactly UI designer to make it look good on the plate, then there's a chance that I would actually look at it for more than half a second before going new. Thanks. Moving on
Alex Lindsay (01:36:09):
<Laugh>. No, but the, but the problem is, is that if you make it really good, they're gonna go, well, this just looks like the Gordon Ramsey stuff. Yeah. I like the Gordon Ramsey stuff. And so, so the thing is, is that, so there's not, and so the problem is, is that they can't get good at it if people can choose. Cuz people like me jump in and go, well, I'm just gonna put Gordon Ramsey on. Like, I'm not gonna, like, I don't need to figure this out anymore. And every, every car I go to, and what, what's essentially happened is, is it's turned them into a shell for Apple, which is that they don't, you know, there's not a lot of difference between cars, you know, like there, I mean, I have to say, like, we talk about a lot of differences in cars, but until you get to the high end, the, the difference between cars between 20 grand and 60 grand is very low <laugh>, you know, except for their, you know, the cre the creature comforts.
(01:36:51):
 And when you over that, there's, there's definitely some things that get better and when, and, and there's style that you might like and so on and so forth. But a lot of times, you know, people really, what, what we really care about is the radio and we're listening to things. I mean, that's the thing that impacts us. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> is, is all, all of those things. And I think that they're gonna have a really hard time. And the problem they also have is that people care for all manufacturers. People care less and less about their car. The next generation doesn't care about their car at all. Like, like, you know, like, like they're, they, they went up, they grew up in this, the, the executives grew up in a time when your car, like when you were 16 years old, what kind of car are you gonna get? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And now it's like, do I get a better phone <laugh>, you know, like, you know, and, and you know, people pay attention to, you know, a lot of things like that, but they're not paying attention to the cars anymore. It's, it's hard to persuade my kids to, to want to have a license. You know, like, I want them to have a license so that they can start driving themselves. <Laugh> when my son turns 16, he was like, I don't know, I, I don't know if I need one. Cause I'm like, yeah, you
Mikah Sargent (01:37:45):
Do, you do. Cause I'm not driving around anywhere
Alex Lindsay (01:37:47):
Are going, you know, me not having to pick you up all the time. But they're, the kids aren't that interested in it. So they have, so the thing is that interface becomes more and more important because they're, they're trying to figure out how do we monetize it? How do we make it better? How do we do all these other things? And they're dealing, they're in a shrinking, they're in a shrinking island of kids that don't need it. And if Apple actually, and Google actually release cars and everybody's using that interface, it gets really complicated because people don't care about the car at all. And they're like, oh, I can just have the same interface I had on this car, but now on an Apple car, you know, they're gonna just move over. And so I think that, I think that the, and I think that the large interface that Apple showed actually scared a lot of car car manufacturers, Uhhuh, <affirmative>. I think that was one of those things that like, they were like, whoa, this is way, you know, like being a little screen on your car was, was okay. <Laugh> them saying, and we're gonna take over the whole car. I think that that's when they, that's when they said, oh, let's put the brakes on this. And so I think that's what's happening, you know? Sorry, I
Mikah Sargent (01:38:41):
Had a laugh at your Japan <laugh>. Put the brakes on it. There you go. I
Alex Lindsay (01:38:45):
Slid it right in there. Yeah.
Mikah Sargent (01:38:47):
See it was good. It was good. Alright, let's take a quick break before we come back with just a little bit more. I do wanna tell you about ZipRecruiter. You've heard of them and they're bringing you this episode of Mac Break Weekly. Did you know it can actually take up to 11 weeks on average to hire for an open position? 11 weeks. That's almost two and a half months. So if you're hiring for a growing business, you don't really have much time to wait. You need to hop on it. Well, if you're listening today, I've got some advice for you. Stop waiting and start using ZipRecruiter. Ziprecruiter can help you find qualified candidates for all your roles fast. And right now, you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/mac break. So how is ZipRecruiter so efficient at helping you hire? Well, it uses powerful matching technology to quickly find and send you the most qualified people for your roles.
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You can check out the people that ZipRecruiter sends you, and if you really like one or two, you can personally invite them to apply with one click, which may make them apply even sooner. They go, Ooh, they want me to come work for them. Absolutely. I'm gonna hop on this as quick as I can. Plus here's how quickly ZipRecruiter can work to help you Hire four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter, get a quality candidate within the first day. I remember Lisa looking for someone to fill the job. And it was funny cuz I'm in the office here in the studio and I hear her go by talking about how she was looking for someone. She left the studio. She came back later that day and she's like, oh, I've got somebody coming in later today to talk about this position within the same day, was able to find a qualified candidate.
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It, it's incredible. So don't wait that two and a half months. Speed up your hiring process with Zip Recruiter. See why 3.8 million businesses have come to ZipRecruiter for their hiring needs. Just go to this exclusive web address to try ZipRecruiter for free. It's ziprecruiter.com/mac break. Again, that's ZipRecruiter ziprecruiter.com/m aac B R E A k, ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. And thank you ZipRecruiter for sponsoring this week's episode of Mac Break Weekly. All right, back from the break. And I've got one quick silly little story before we get into our tips and picks. I guess it's not really a silly little story. It's kind of a ridiculous big story. Burglars said, you know what, I would like to take a bunch of stuff from Apple. And so what I'm gonna do is I'm going to use a, use a store that maybe didn't have as great of security.
(01:41:35):
This is kind of like, this is, this is, this is a great metaphor for password management where you think that you've got a great password system in place. You know, you've got Fort Knox, that is your I don't even know if that's a good example anymore. Am I old in saying Fort Knox? Anyway that is your, your Apple ID and password. But because you also used the password that you used for your Apple ID at some local ice cream store that doesn't have any cybersecurity. Your password got stolen and now your your account's been hacked. I think the same thing applies here. You go to a store that's not as protected as Apple and then you just cut a hole in the wall, <laugh> and you climb through and steal $500,000 worth of products. So yes, burglar's in the Elderwood Mall in Washington went into an espresso machine store. Yeah. Which, you know, if you walk away with enough of those, you could probably also walk away with $500,000 worth of supplies. Now that I think about it. Hmm. 
Rosemary Orchard (01:42:45):
<Laugh>, I mean, it depends if they're good or not. A store, whether they're, that's like three, that's like three espresso
Mikah Sargent (01:42:49):
Machines. Yeah, right, isn't it? So they cut through the wall into, it looks like the bathroom in the Apple Store and Madoff with 436 iPhones some iPads and some Apple watches that totaled about $500,000. And there were no fingerprints left behind. So now I'm kind of wondering if this might be a viral marketing campaign for the next Apple TV plus
Rosemary Orchard (01:43:20):
Show to me. Like they were watching a lot of films. Like I remember an episode of Diagnosis Murder, where they are using, like, they managed to get a hotel lockdown with like an infectious disease or something, and they use that time to try and tunnel into the bank next door and steal stuff from the vault. Like it feels like the episode of a TV show or film, what they've done here, <laugh>. And, and they did it really well. It looked, I mean, they did, but I wonder if the espresso machines had serial numbers, because if not, they should have taken those, because all the phones can be blocked and locked by Apple and Espresso machine. Like it, does it have a wifi connectivity module? Are they gonna be able to disable that? So you can't make an espresso somewhere else?
Mikah Sargent (01:43:56):
A 24 by 18 hole? Go ahead.
Alex Lindsay (01:44:00):
I don't know, I, because I, I, when I read this article, I thought about it and because I was like, why would you do that? Because these are smart devices and so on and so forth. But I'm not sure that a, what Apple can do if Box hasn't been opened. So I'm not a hundred percent
Rosemary Orchard (01:44:15):
Sure they scan the box number when they sell it to you though, in store. So like, they know what is in inventory there and they scan it and that's then linked to you. So they must have an inventory of what's in the store.
Alex Lindsay (01:44:26):
But I think that this might be the, the two-edged sword related to Apple's privacy. So while they scan that they, they track them definitely in the store and they definitely know which ones are gone until
Mikah Sargent (01:44:37):
It's links to an Apple id. Right. Until that's what you're wondering.
Alex Lindsay (01:44:40):
Well, and they don't, and, and Apple does everything it can not to hang on to any of that data mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. So they're not gonna go after that data, you know because they don't want, they don't want consumers thinking about that. They'd rather just take the insurance money for the $500,000 worth of hardware and move on than have a p There's Apple's not going after these. Yeah. I mean, they may go after this, they'll work with the authorities, they'll give 'em the information that they need. You're in much more danger. It's when people go through the front door and they steal the stuff off the counters, you're toast. Like they, they just track you home <laugh>, you know, like, like they're, you know, they track you to your car, they drag you or whatever you're done. It is the, but when they pull them, what was ingenious about what happened here is that they, that they pulled them while they're still in boxes.
(01:45:21):
They haven't been unlocked, they haven't been registered to anyone. I, I don't know if they, if they don't get away with this, I don't know what they're worth. I don't know what, but I think that they might actually get away with it because I think, but I think it's because of apple's own privacy policies and they don't want to, they, they wouldn't want to cross that and have a big thing of, oh, we've chased them down by looking their phone. Because consumers won't know the difference. They'll just go, apple knows where I am on all my phones and you know, everything else. And so I don't, I I think they might get away with it.
Andy Ihnatko (01:45:47):
I I don't know that it's, I don't know, even that's sophisticated. I think that when you're selling, when you're trying to sell these iPads that you stole, it's like you're presenting the perspective buyer with here is a brand new still in shrink ramp. Yeah. Latest model iPad. And then they take the shrink wrap off, they take it home and Wow, look, I'm, I'm getting it has everything is brand new and untouched and they try to set it up and it will take a while before if it's blocked from being used. And because these people who stole these things, they're not really into customer service. It's not their concern if this thing doesn't work after that. I mean, I'm, I'm, it's,
Mikah Sargent (01:46:18):
Yeah, it is ultimately as much as there is the funny to it, and I'm, you know, we have, we've been, you know, laughing there is what Andy's talking about there, which is there are probably people in the end who unfortunately will be like it's a, it's a, it's a double crime because you're stealing from this company in the first place, but then later when you choose to resell it to make money, then the person who's purchased it from you is also then harmed by that. So I
Alex Lindsay (01:46:46):
Don't, again, I don't, I'm not clear that they will, maybe they can't reg. It might be that they, they won't be able to register to iCloud, you know, because it wants that information or, or something like that. But I'm, again, I'm not a hundred percent clear that that'll happen. And the other thing we have to remember is that it's probably not gonna hap be resold where it was stolen. It's gonna be resold in Asia, it's gonna be resold in Africa. You know, these, the, the phones themselves are far more valuable there than they are in, in, in the, the place that it was stolen. So most likely it'll point its way out. So
Mikah Sargent (01:47:12):
I remember being, I came to San Francisco for ww d c and it was before Apple had added activation lock to their devices. And I had an iPad and it was stolen from me while I was in San Francisco at one of, I think it was at the Beard Bash at the time, throwback. And some, some member of the staff stole my iPad and again, before Activation Lock when I called Apple cuz I, I was, I had at and t insurance for it. So I was able to get a replacement. No big deal. But I called Apple and they actually just asked me for the serial number and they, they, at the time, what they told me was if it ever gets brought into an Apple store and we see that serial number, then we'll know it's stolen. But yeah, I ultimately, I don't know, we don't
Alex Lindsay (01:48:01):
Know <laugh>. And again, there's huge chunks of the, of the, of the world that don't have an Apple store. So you look at Africa, there's like three Apple stores in Africa. Africa, like official Apple stores in Africa. Yeah. And so there's, you know, so there, so it can go to a lot of places in the world where people will just use it and it won't make any difference. And so I think that that's the I think that they, you know, again, they may still get caught because it's really complicated to move that kind of merchandise. Yeah. But I don't think that Apple necessarily can out of hand, you know, chase after them. Yeah. I will say that it is fun. We've had people steal, someone stole a laptop from one of our productions and it has tracking.
Mikah Sargent (01:48:35):
Yeah. That's fun. Hmm.
Alex Lindsay (01:48:38):
And we, we were able to ascertain that they gave it to their son, their son, they, they live in, they, we knew where they lived, where their ex-wife lived. We knew all their businesses, we knew everything about a, we didn't do anything about it cuz it was like us too much trouble. Like, like, I'm not gonna, you know, like it was too much trouble to do it. But we did figure out where everything was <laugh>, you know, and so it's, it's gotten less and less fun to steal things, steal electronics from people, and it's gonna continue to get, you know, harder. And so, but I think this might be the one place that you can do those things as to
Rosemary Orchard (01:49:06):
Though, I think Apple will work with their authorized retailers and the authorized service repair folks in various countries that don't have Apple stores. Oh, oh yeah. And even in the countries that do have Apple stores for the case where, you know, your, your I iPad was stolen and then, you know, somebody's bringing it in to have it repaired because they broke the screen on it or something after it's been resold. But yeah, I'm, yeah, I, I understand. Like, I I, I think that Apple would probably rather take a bit of a hit with the insurance company and still have people able to activate the iPhone and use it. It's like Windows when people were upgrading like their hect or dodgy Windows licenses, they just gave them a official Windows license for Windows 10 or whatever it was so that they could get one for
Alex Lindsay (01:49:50):
Free. And this is like a, yeah, this is like a millisecond of Apple's revenue. Like, like it's just, you know, it's Right.
Mikah Sargent (01:49:55):
That's true. That's a
Alex Lindsay (01:49:55):
Good point. So it's kinda like, it's kinda like, yeah, we'll see, you know, like, I don't think, I don't think, I don't think anyone's, other than them figuring out, like, let's not do the, I I I will. And I imagine that the stores, after they get done with all the, all the meetings about unionization are gonna have meetings about what Right. Retailers are next to us <laugh> once they went, what, what, and, and, and reinforcing walls next to the Yeah, exactly. Re reinforcing walls next to other retailers. We've got new walls. I bet you there's gonna be a lot of, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't reinforce where they store product. Like this is the kind of thing Apple would do is like, take the insurance, but a year from now it's reinforced steel. So if you cut through something, you're gonna end up with something that, you know, there's alarms going off and there's, and there's other things going. So Apple will do something over time. But I think that in this case, the,
Rosemary Orchard (01:50:39):
I mean, I think they already do have differences in Apple stores in, in the back area of some stores where like stuff will be in locked metal cages or similar so that you can't just like walk into the back area and grab an iPhone and walk out. So yeah, no
Alex Lindsay (01:50:54):
Can, it's just that I, I think they haven't thought about, they haven't thought, this is how things happen in development is that they haven't thought about someone cutting through the bathroom.
Rosemary Orchard (01:51:02):
I mean, clearly they need to much more detective films, because I've seen that in what's
Alex Lindsay (01:51:06):
Exactly, there's so many of
Jason Snell (01:51:07):
Them. I'm, I was gonna recommend, speaking of heis, please if you haven't seen 2000 six's Spike Lee movie Inside, man, it's sort of like this and it's great. So you should check it out. There's my movie recommendation. It's a movie pick Mikah. I did a movie pick.
Mikah Sargent (01:51:21):
Well, speaking of picks, that's where we need to move next to the Mac break. Wiggly picks. And we are kicking things off with Alex Lindsay,
Alex Lindsay (01:51:31):
I'd, I'd, I'd like to thank SK for sending me, he sent a friend of mine from South Africa who sent, he said like, you gotta watch the, you gotta watch for your, your mail. And it showed up. And it is, let's see if I have, I have another one in the box right now. But it is a this is a peak designs wireless charging vent mount. And it, I think it's very perfect for today's conversation about gm. This is the best. I, so I, I put one in, in one of the cars already and put one in the second one in. This is the best mount from a vent that I've ever seen. So here's what makes it different. A lot of them, if I've been mounting bone to vent to my air vents for a and rental car bear vents for a long time, this one this peak design one <laugh>, it, it has a little pincher, like all the other ones that, that pinches onto it, but it's got this adjustable hook that hooks onto the back of the air vent, and then you tighten it and it just goes and just becomes part of that air vent.
(01:52:24):
Now you, I imagine if I tighten it too much, it would probably break it <laugh>. So, so, but, but I, but I tightened it up and then you can rotate it around and then tighten it up and it stays exactly where it is. The magnet is sig. Now I happen to have a peak design case. So that's part of the part of the thing. So I take my little wallet off and this snaps on, and it becomes like part of that, and it has a U S B C connection to charge. So it comes with a little charger. You can't get the one I have anyway, the one but that you can charge it in the so you can run your cable up to it. You can attach it to the vent, and then you can, you can, not only does it hold it as a magnet, but it's charging it at the same time. And I was a little incredulous when I got it. I was like, ah, I, we'll, we'll see how this goes. I love it. So, so the so it is a really great one and what we'll all be using in GM cars when they in 2024,
Mikah Sargent (01:53:17):
<Laugh> <laugh> <laugh>. Yeah, I've been trying to keep that in mind. If I ever, I'm a person, I will ride a car until it is absolutely not able to be used. Me too anymore. Me
Alex Lindsay (01:53:29):
Me too. I'm, I'm,
Mikah Sargent (01:53:30):
This'll be a while before I do that again, but I've been thinking about what am I gonna do in the next vehicle that I have if they, if everybody's going the way of no CarPlay. So yeah, I've been kind of checking out different mounts that I think are acceptable for, for the future <laugh>.
Alex Lindsay (01:53:43):
Yeah, I, I already have my, I have, I have an old car that doesn't, I mean, the one that I drive around a lot is an old car without any, any, any stuff. It's got a CD player, you know, and, and I've used the CD player as a mount for my, for my phone and iPad. But, but this is, this is gonna be an upgrade, you know, to that. But I, but I, yeah, I think it's, it's pretty, it's pretty nifty.
Mikah Sargent (01:54:03):
All right. Let's go to Rosemary Orchard here in the studio for the next pick.
Rosemary Orchard (01:54:06):
All right, well, my next pick I had about a bajillion Thanks cuz we dip what's in my bag for iOS today. But my pick for today are the Sony. And I love the naming here. This is the W h m 1000 mx whatever it is. It's the five, the five series wireless noise canceling headphones. These are just some very comfy wireless headphones. But I have to say, the reason why I upgraded to these is I have tried AirPods Max and I love the feature where you put them on. And then you take them off and they pause. These have that feature built in. They also have the feature built in where when they're on your head, you can actually just put your hand over one of the, the sides and then it will you know, po basically turn it from noise canceling into the ambient sound version.
(01:54:49):
So if somebody's talking to you very briefly, like, you know, would you like another glass of water? You can just, you know, put your hand over it without pulling your headphones off and you'll be able to hear everything while it's talking. And I have to say, like the case on this, like, it seems like it's a little bigger than the previous versions of the, the Sony headphones. But it's not cuz it's tapered at the top, but it does have a handy dandy little pocket inside, which comes with the 3.5 millimeter cable adapter, because it still has a 3.5 millimeter cable in there. And a USB charging cable, but it's also the perfect place to put my 12 south airf flight duo. And a little air tech as well. So that I won't lose these. And I also usually check a remote control in so that I can then play and pause whatever I'm watching. You know, wirelessly without reaching. But there's an accessibility feature, which I mentioned on iOS today for that. But like, these are you, they're, they're not like the cheapest headphones, but they are cheaper than AirPods Max <laugh>. And they are comfortable, I find them really comfortable to wear. So yeah, they, they're definitely worth considering and come in three colors now, which is great.
Mikah Sargent (01:55:55):
So Nice. I think I could get a new kidney for cheaper than AirPods Max. Hmm. <laugh>. Oh, all right. Let's go to Andy Naco.
Andy Ihnatko (01:56:07):
Where we're having a, I'm in a, I'm in an odd position because I picked a, i my pick is something I feel really strongly about. It's a, it's a, it's something that I absolutely love. I came across it like last week, and brother Jason reminded me that, hey, this was my pick like three to four weeks ago, and apparently
Mikah Sargent (01:56:25):
<Laugh>, if I endorse this pick, Andy, it's a great pick. Go for it. I also endorsed this pick. So,
Andy Ihnatko (01:56:30):
So my, my, my pick is Jason's pick <laugh>. I'm, I'm endorsing Jason's pick. So go from three shows ago. You wanna watch him?
Mikah Sargent (01:56:38):
My pick stor <laugh> reference acknowledged?
Andy Ihnatko (01:56:43):
Well, I, well, I can't, I can't, I can't support that. I believe that his, I I don't think that I support his agenda at all. <Laugh>, but yeah. Okay. Get, get getting to it. I, I've, the, the camo app for controlling basically any source of video that your Mac will recognize and using it as video source for streaming or for capture. It's exact, it's exactly what I was looking for. Of course, I'll make this short because, you know, I'm sure that Jason did covered it really, really well. But what I'm looking, what I'm looking for in these things is that, like the, the, the biggest, the biggest piece of, of annoyance is that like, I've got things set up. Like I'm sitting down and when I sit down, it's like this. And so, like, in the olden days, it's like, okay, I better move the camera.
(01:57:23):
So I'm like a little bit closer to this or like, it's a little bit tilted, or it's like my my framing's a little bit off. And so the ability to, and, and the, the lighting's a little bit weird. The ability to like, basically have sliders that let me control, like, pretty much everything that's here from, I wanna make sure that I'm zoomed in properly. I wanna make sure that the framing is exactly what I want to be. Oh, no, my oh no, the the camera's a little bit off kilter. Oh, no, I can't do that. But and I want, I wanna be able to control like what, what the image looks like without having to, I've, I've got lights on, I've got some windows open, but I wanna, that doesn't look good. I wanna be able to adjust things as I go.
(01:58:03):
That basically saves me a whole bunch of problems. And being able to save that as a, as a, as a preset, the ability to then even like, use LUTs, if I've got like my nice Olympus camera as a webcam, really, really great. And it's five bucks. It's free with most, with a lot of its good features. Enabled five bucks a month. If you just wanna try like the Unlocked Pro edition on a month to month basis, 40 bucks a year, or buy the entire thing outright for like $70, $80. And it's been around for a while. And, but I, another thing I love about it, I'm not sure if Jason talked about this, but like, there is actually on their website, the, the Camo Manifesto that actually says here is our, here's our roadmap for this product. And it's not like, Hey, we promised this by X date.
(01:58:44):
Hey, we promised this by Y date. Hey, here's why we didn't actually ship on time. It's more like, here's what we want to, here's where we want to go for this. Here's some features that we definitely wanna support. We don't know if we're, when we're gonna support that, but that's some of the stuff we're working on. So it's not one of these things where you find it in the App store. You don't know whether this is just one very, very clever person's weekend project to fix a problem they were having. Or whether this really is something that's been around for three years and it's gonna be around for another five years. So very, very high, very high recommendation. Again, my Jason's picks are my pick. So it'll be a, it'll be a meta pick. It'll be my, my my, my fractal pick of this week.
Mikah Sargent (01:59:21):
I double checked. And I've been using camo on iOS today, since October of 2020. Nice. And it has been fantastic. And in fact, it, I remember talking about it on smart Tech Today was where it first came up. A show that I used to host here on the network and the CEO of Rein Incubate who makes camo reached out and was, cuz I had some concerns. I'm going, how are they able to do this where it's you know, just almost a direct feed from the camera. Surely there's some weirdness going on here where they're, I, I dunno, I feel kind uncomfortable about it. Da da da da. The CEO reached out directly and said, explain sort of the behind the scenes stuff that Apple makes available that a lot of these apps were just not using. And so once I understood how it worked, and I, you know, started talking with him a little bit, I thought, oh, this is actually fantastic. And now, I mean, since then they've released an Android version. They've made it compatible with Windows. And then as you mentioned, they just recently released a new version that supports all sorts of cameras, not just your iPhone as a camera, so that you can make adjustments and controls with any camera that you're using. And I think it's yeah, it's
Andy Ihnatko (02:00:34):
An excellent, I mean, I can cut. I mean, continuity camera is great if you have an, if you have an iPhone, and if you have an iPhone that is com that is compatible with it, this will work with like a lot of iPhones that aren't compatible with Continuity Camera. It'll also work with Android phones. And it will also like, choose, Hey, I see we have three lenses. I'll let you choose whichever lens you want. I will, if you, hey, and if, hey, if we, if you like continuity camera features, we will just simply attach it as a continuity camera and not, not put our own elephant magic on it. It is this, I I'm very impressed by the fact that they allow you to have an intense level of control over what's going on without making it look like, oh my God, I've got a new responsibility every week, which is to manage this incredibly intense and and app that I have no idea how to use. You can just plug it in and go. But then when there's something you don't like about your image, you know that there's a slider or checkbox somewhere that lets you fix it.
Mikah Sargent (02:01:24):
All right let us go to our final pick, which comes from Jason.
Jason Snell (02:01:29):
You, you've sa you've saved the best and most relevant to <laugh> how we live today. For me, I decide to get super nerdy this time because why not Every now and then I get to do that here. You know, you can leave your computing platforms behind, but they never really leave you. They leave their marks on you and you'll never forget them. And that's why I'd like to recommend for anybody who is like me, part of the Apple Two Generation, an amazingly good Mac app called Virtual two. It is the definitive Apple two emulator. I actually spent a bunch of time pulling all my old floppy discs off of off through an Apple two C and getting disc images of them. So I have like all the papers I wrote in high school and stuff, <laugh>, which was great. Having a high school kid, I was able to say, Hey this is badly written, but that's okay.
(02:02:14):
I'm a professional writer and you should have seen the crap that I wrote in high school. So anyway it, it's really good. You can print, you can you know, you can open up the disc images and just pull the text files off. You can print to a text file. And you know what the most important thing about the Apple two was? You can play games on it. You can play any game on it. It's got support. The latest version of virtual two supports game pads. So you can use a modern console controller like an Xbox or PlayStation controller to play a load runner if you want to. And I recommend it because I think the Apple two load runner is the best load runner there. I said it <laugh>. But you can, you can do, you know, whether it's Apple writer or print shop or Ultima four Quest for the avatar.
(02:02:55):
 They're all there in beautiful, monochromatic or color glory, depending, cuz you can set it. And yes, you can crank up the virtualization speed if you want to. So that time flows at approximately 20 seconds for every second. I don't recommend you do that on games because you'll lose. But on other things, it's pretty amazing to press return and just boom, everything happens. Cuz our computers in emulation today are about like a billion times faster than the Apple two. So anyway, virtual two, it's nice to see an indie developer who built this thing outta love. And I love it. And if you remember the Apple two, you will love it too.
Andy Ihnatko (02:03:32):
Dude. Dude, I got, I, I have a crack for Dazzle draw. Like email me on on Gini and I'll send it to you. I'll send you a to you copy send. Just send me a blank floppy, man. You just
Jason Snell (02:03:42):
Gotta log into my my cat send line <laugh> and I've put a floppy disc up for you to download of it. So that'll be cool.
Rosemary Orchard (02:03:49):
<Laugh>, I really wanna do the dial up sound now, but I can't do that <laugh>,
Mikah Sargent (02:03:53):
That would become difficult.
Rosemary Orchard (02:03:54):
I I can't do it.
Andy Ihnatko (02:03:55):
It, it is the Chewbacca scream of the Nerdly eighties generation
Mikah Sargent (02:04:00):
<Laugh>. All righty folks that is bringing us to the end of this episode of Mac Break Weekly. Rosemary Orchard, thank you so much for your time today. If folks wanna follow you online, check out your work and perhaps see your other shows, where should they go to do that?
Rosemary Orchard (02:04:19):
Well, one of those shows is right here on the TWiT network. That's iOS today. But other than that, you can find all the things I do@rosemaryorchard.com, which has links to podcast books, apps, et cetera. And all the social media links are at the bottom.
Mikah Sargent (02:04:32):
Awesome. And let's go to who's over there to right of you? I can't, Jason Snell tell us hi there. Tell us about where they can f wow where folks can find you and they
Jason Snell (02:04:44):
Can find me@sixcolors.com and podcast at relay fm and the incomparable.com. And I, we mentioned it earlier, I played Dungeons and Dragons with both Mikah and Rosemary. That's the total party kill podcast, the incomparable.com/tpk. Check that out. We're we're all in there along with lots of other people you may know. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and but not Alex or Andy yet.
Mikah Sargent (02:05:06):
<Laugh> dun dun dun. Need
Jason Snell (02:05:08):
To rectify that
Mikah Sargent (02:05:09):
Batts Petts Petts. All right. To my left, it's Andy and not go W G B H in Boston. Ooh. Tell us where we can find you.
Andy Ihnatko (02:05:17):
Actually, I am, my next GBH is actually on Thursday live from the Boston Public Library Studios at 1230 in the afternoon. If you're in Boston go on, come on over, get a, buy yourself a cookie and a cup of coffee and watch the show. And if you aren't in Boston or you just aren't that interested, you can stream it@wgbhnews.org live or later or because it's, this is going to be streaming on YouTube, you can go to, to the WG p h News channel on YouTube and stream it later if you'd like.
Mikah Sargent (02:05:45):
Awesome. And last, but sweetly not least, Alex Lindsay of Office hours.global tell us where folks can find you. I have a, I have a guest
Alex Lindsay (02:05:54):
N nabs next week. Oh, just letting you can find me that a b definitely my first conference that I've gone to, I went to SV V G S V V, but this is my first big conference that I'm going back to after Covid. I'm speaking like six times. I will not be here next week but I, but we will be covering N A B with 50 people. So we've got about 15 on the ground, 35 in the cloud that are working on coverage. It's going to be, it's gonna be nutty. We're having ton of v o D stuff that goes up on our YouTube channel. We're gonna have four to six hours of live streaming. And then we're also going to have an after hours, we're gonna have a Zoom room open for eight hours a day where people on the ground are just saying, Hey, I'm at this booth with my phone and do you wanna see some cool things and everything else? And so we're gonna, we're kind of experimenting with how far you can take event coverage. So so if you're interested in that check out Office Hours Stock Club.
Mikah Sargent (02:06:53):
Beautiful. and last, but, oh wait, I've already done that one. So, and also last, how about yourself, but perhaps least Mikah Sargent, you can find him. That's me at Mikah Sargent on many a social media network. Of course. Check out iOS today with Rosemary Orchard, which we recorded this morning. Ask the Tech guys a special episode last week called Ask the Tech Geeks. And also playing Dungeons and Dragons as was mentioned. I've in a lot of places online just go to chihuahua.coffee. C hhi, h hoa h hoa.coffee, where I've got links to the places I am most active. Folks, please consider tuning in to watch the show live as we record it by going to TWiT.tv/live, roundabout 11:00 AM Pacific, more like 11:30 AM Pacific where we record this show live every Tuesday. I'll be back with you next week but Leo will be returning soon.
(02:07:47):
So we're in Knot. And if you want to subscribe to the show or follow the show, go to TWiT tv slash mb w there is how you can click to subscribe to audio or video using your platform of choice. Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, YouTube. It's all of those places we, yeah. Take that. General Motors ah-ha Choice, <laugh>, we've got choice here. Choices. so please do consider subscribing to the show. And hey, if you'd like to support the network and help us continue to make all of this possible, please consider joining Club TWiT at TWiT tv slash club TWiT. There you will find the option to subscribe for starting at $7 a month or $84 a year. You can subscribe to the Club, you get every single TWiTch show with no ads. When you subscribe, you also get access to the members only TWiT plus bonus fee that has extra content you won't find anywhere else behind the scenes before the show.
(02:08:42):
After the show. Special TWiT events that are not available to folks who are not subscribed and who aren't members of the club. You can also join the Club TWiT Discord. That is a fun place to go to chat with your fellow club TWiT members and also those of us here at TWiT share fun animated images, have lots of conversations. It is dog on good time there in the club. Twit Discord, again, starting at $7 a month, TWiT.tv/club TWiT. And when you do, you get access to some great club TWiT exclusive shows, including the Untitled Linux Show, which is, as you might imagine, a show all about Linux. Paul's hands on windows, which many of you watching this are going, why is he talking about Windows? Don't worry. We've also got Hands on Mac, which is my show short format show that covers all things apple, all the devices, little tips and tricks about each and every aspect of those devices. And the newly relaunched home Theater geeks with Scott Wilkinson. So if any of those shows sound good to you, please consider joining the club TWiT tv slash club TWiT. Thank you all for tuning in to this episode of Mac Break Weekly. I'll see you again next week and I guess it's time to say get back to woke cuz break time is over. Goodbye.
Jason Howell (02:09:58):
Do you wanna hear about the latest news happening in the tech world from the people who write the article sometimes from the people who are actually making the news? Well, we got a show for you here@TWiT.tv. It's called Tech News Weekly. Me, Jason Howell, and my co-host Mikah Sargent. We talk with some amazing people each and every Thursday on Tech News Weekly, and we share a little bit of our own insights in each of us bringing a story of the week. That's at TWiTch tv slash tnw. Subscribe right now.