MacBreak Weekly 880, Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

Leo Laporte (00:00:00):
It's time for Mac Break Weekly. Our our annual silly season has begun. August is here and there's not much to talk about. Fortunately, I've got <laugh>, Jason Snell, Andy, and aco, and Alex Lindsay, who are gonna find so many things to talk about. Like the congressional subcommittee that wants to know why Apple doesn't like Web three, or the the new iPad Ole that may or may not appear in October or the French, they're mad again. <Inaudible> Mac Break Weekly is next.

Narrator (00:00:39):
Podcasts you love, from people you trust. This is twit.

Leo Laporte (00:00:47):
This is Mac Break. Weekly episode 880. Recorded Tuesday, August 1st, 2023. The unisex Crocs of a young person. Mac Break Weekly is brought to you by Zocdoc, the free app where you can find and book appointments online with thousands of top rated patient review. Physicians and specialists filter specifically for ones who take your insurance are located near you, and treat almost any condition. Go to zocdoc.com/mac break and download the Zocdoc app for free and buy ZipRecruiter. If you're hiring, you know, it's hard to attract top talent team up with a hiring partner who understands how tough it is and knows what you need. Ziprecruiter, go to our exclusive web address to try ZipRecruiter for free. Ziprecruiter.Com/Mac break. It's time for Mac Break Weekly, the show we cover the latest news from Apple, or in the month of August, as we call it. The latest s news from Apple. Jason Snell is here from sixcolors.com. You still have to file at six colors.

Jason Snell (00:01:52):
I mean, do I I I run my own website, right? Like

Leo Laporte (00:01:56):
Nobody pressuring you.

Jason Snell (00:01:58):
I mean, I feel some pressure in terms of I have members and I have sponsors and stuff to post content on the site. I, I do for sure. But, and yeah, and it's hard this time of year. Well, I'm

Leo Laporte (00:02:09):
Just looking at the top story. This this fine Tuesday 57 app icons and nothing good on, I think that's,

Jason Snell (00:02:15):
That's good. That's that's a tv. That's a TV v o s analysis. It's piece, there's a lot of member, we got a lot of member stories up there right now. I gotta do some general public stuff. But yeah, there's stuff,

Leo Laporte (00:02:24):
Here's a good one. Summer is a two computer season on my desk,

Jason Snell (00:02:27):
<Laugh>. Right? Because Beta's break software. So you have a second computer Got that. Doesn't have broken software. It got

Leo Laporte (00:02:32):
It. You know it. Oh, and a good article from an Toic on switching to Mac automations.

Jason Snell (00:02:38):
Oh yeah, that was, that was last. That was a fun, you know, again, you make do with what you can. So yeah, Anja Toic did, did a piece about switching after decades using Windows. He bought its First Mac Nice. Like this year. That's, and I thought that was again, there, there, you know, you can make that like, oh, is it like PR for Apple or whatever? No, I actually think he brought, 'cause he's a professional computer journalist, journalist in Slovenia. He had some real insights about what Apple does well and doesn't do well and what Microsoft Windows does well and doesn't do well. And I, I, when he mentioned he was doing this, I said, you write me something. And I don't think he'd ever written anything professionally in English before. So, oh. It was fun. And it's a fun little project and he, you know, he made some really great points about how different the Mac is in some ways, and especially how Trackpad focused the Mac interface is in many

Leo Laporte (00:03:25):
Ways. Oh yeah, I know that boy. Yeah. Yeah. And I see you have Moltz working for you with a, a show called this Week Making, making jokes. Apple <laugh>.

Jason Snell (00:03:33):
He's making jokes. You know, he, he's recapping

Leo Laporte (00:03:36):
That, that was a rejected name for this show, by the way, <laugh>. Sure.

Jason Snell (00:03:39):
Well, it was slay, it was laying right there. I wanted him to, you know, take it, take it, recap, recap the news and, and make some jokes. Moltz is

Leo Laporte (00:03:45):
Great. Moltz does, do people know who Mtz is? Really?

Jason Snell (00:03:49):
I mean, in his It's out there.

Leo Laporte (00:03:51):
Is it out there? Or, well, we don't bring it up. Do you

Jason Snell (00:03:52):
Like, I lemme put it this way. Do you like the Mac ope on Macworld? We formerly have seen it been on Mac Macworld for about a decade. If you do, I think you'll also like the work of John Mtz. Yeah. That's all I'm saying. Great.

Leo Laporte (00:04:03):
Surprisingly similar sense of humor. <Laugh>. Yeah. That's Alex. Lindsay Ling in the background. He's with office hours. Global always has the best picture of us all. He's the fairest of them all. Hi Alex. Hello. Hello. Good to see you. Good to be here. You are can just, we should have a callon every week for Alex's setup <laugh> so that people can, can duplicate it. And that is speaking of Charing, the king of Charing, Mr. Andy Ihnatko from Wgbh in Boston.

Andy Ihnatko (00:04:33):
You know, I I do like these like low, like low key like news times. 'cause That's when I go to six colors for their annual roundup of five different ways to zest up your summer salad. <Laugh>. It's, I would never have thought about pairing watermelon with a wild pepper, but it's,

Jason Snell (00:04:48):
Lemon zest is a good very, very

Andy Ihnatko (00:04:49):
Small amounts. You don't, you don't know what's adding the magic, but the magic is there. He's absolutely right.

Leo Laporte (00:04:55):
<Laugh> actually would read that article. Okay. What is, by the way, the camera of the day? Alex Lindsay and the microphone

Alex Lindsay (00:05:06):
The camera of the day is a I'm using a Sony FX 30 with their g g series 35 millimeter. So I am looking at getting a I'm looking at the 60. I'm gonna test the 6,400 soon. Which is a much less expensive camera, but should I think it's gonna look the same. Like it's the, it's a ap s you know, it's a super 35 sensor. It doesn't ha it doesn't, you know, it's gotta a, you know, it's, it's a, I'm trying to find more affordable ways to do what I'm doing, but why,

Leo Laporte (00:05:36):
I mean, you already own it. You might as well just turn it on. It doesn't cost you anything to use It does it? Well,

Alex Lindsay (00:05:40):
Like, for instance, I'm gonna go down to Craf next week and I wanna cover it. So now I'm gonna take my rig apart and put it there. So what I wanna do is have one that stays here. That is, that looks, this looks like this. I think it looks great. The big reason that I moved to the Sonys was, was this of course. You know, just the focus, instantly

Leo Laporte (00:05:56):
Able to focus. And what are you using on that FX 30 there?

Alex Lindsay (00:06:00):
I have a G series which is a super painful weight. It costs as much as the

Leo Laporte (00:06:03):
Camera. I know, I know. Or almost

Alex Lindsay (00:06:05):
As camera. So, yeah. So I've got a G series, 35 millimeter, 1.4. I just Ooh, very nice. Got a 14, 14 millimeter, 1.4 for c graph now so that I can, because your

Leo Laporte (00:06:16):
Nose isn't big enough foot, so you can,

Alex Lindsay (00:06:18):
35 is too close. And so the, ah, so the so you wander around. So the problem is weird, weird problems is that you're at a booth, you know, you have a booth here and you want to interview someone, and this is the aisle. And when you have a 35 millimeter, there's no room and you're standing here. Yeah. You gotta be standing back here to get the booth. Yeah. With a 14 millimeter I can get to in the inside of that, you know, and so, so getting the, the Do

Leo Laporte (00:06:42):
People get weird though? 'cause I know sometimes they shoot films with a, a very wide angle. Cameras in there. It's you, you don't know it when you're watching the film, but the actor is camera's right in his face or her face.

Alex Lindsay (00:06:53):
Yeah. It can be, it can be a little odd. I mean, this one looks pretty good. I mean, it's a really high quality glass again. Oh yeah. Very expensive lens. Sure. It's very nice. But the main thing is, is that the big problem is that we can get closer because no matter what you do Yeah. No matter how hard you work, people will walk through your camera. Yep. And you're like, like I was at N A B. And people are like, oh, I have to, I have to, I have to push through this, even though there's plenty of room behind them. I, as the person walking, has to walk through this shot, I

Leo Laporte (00:07:19):
Make it a, a virtue out of a necessity. It's like, oh, this is fun. Because you're in, you're in a crowded Yeah, I know you want a good shot. We,

Alex Lindsay (00:07:27):
We, we, we usually have people standing on either side of the interview that literally just tell people to go that way. Like, like, we're not even, you know, we just put our arms up.

Leo Laporte (00:07:35):
Like, no, I like the cinema verite of people, you know, walking by while you're talking to something <laugh>. I think that's fine.

Alex Lindsay (00:07:39):
I do not like that part.

Leo Laporte (00:07:40):
<Laugh> all and the microphone. I think we've already established that stuff. Oh, this is a

Alex Lindsay (00:07:45):
Stellar X too. It's not a, oh, a

Leo Laporte (00:07:47):
New microphone. Oh,

Alex Lindsay (00:07:48):
This has been around. I've had it for a couple years. This is a we, we, I had an neuman, I have an Neuman 1 0 2. Yeah. I

Leo Laporte (00:07:54):
Thought you was an neuman. This looks just

Alex Lindsay (00:07:56):
Like it was an Neuman 1 0 2. This one is one third the cost. So this is a this stellar X two is is 200 bucks. 200 bucks. We tested it head to head and folks on office hours said that they liked it better. So so yeah, I have that. And then the, the, then I have this this is a OC White Ultima arm, which is very nice. You could swing things around and things in that cost us more than the mic. So, anyways, so anyway, but you, you know, when you're on air for, you know, as you know

Leo Laporte (00:08:25):
Me, if somebody asked me

Alex Lindsay (00:08:25):
Here for a long time,

Leo Laporte (00:08:26):
What was the name of al those arms Alex likes? And I said, you don't want it. <Laugh> <laugh>. It's good.

Alex Lindsay (00:08:32):
The, the, the reality is, is the a hundred, the a hundred dollars one that El Gado makes, the low p the LP is, that's, it's 90% as good as the one that I have. Like, it, there is a flexibility in this arm to do this that I never use. But, but it, but I can do that in a way that would be hard to do on the, on the elga ddo arm. But we, when we send things out, we send the Elga ddo arm out <laugh>. So, so it's,

Leo Laporte (00:08:55):
It's a good, yeah. You're not gonna, it's really a 300 mic arm <laugh>. Yep. I use, I use the El Gado arm and it's it's, it's good. And it's nice to have a low

Alex Lindsay (00:09:03):
Profile. It's not that one that's the it's the LP from El Gado. Oh, it's a, there's one, it's low low profile because you don't want that big thing hanging it. No,

Leo Laporte (00:09:11):
You

Alex Lindsay (00:09:11):
Right. It's between me and my monitors. How ugly. I have monitors all the way. Well, I have monitors going all around me, so if it hangs over, I don't know where to put it. Where I have, don't have to look around it. Wow. So there really

Leo Laporte (00:09:21):
Is nothing going on. If we're talking about our microphone set up, let's just keep going. Let's just keep going. We're just, I'm enjoying us. Sure. SMM seven, you know, I got that SM seven B's very nice. It's a little brighter than Alex. It's not so Rich <laugh>. Yeah.

Alex Lindsay (00:09:35):
SSF 70 is great. The, the, the real secret is the mixed pre mixed pre with noise assist. Like, I have fans go, you know, all kinds of, oftentimes I have fans going on all around me and you don't hear any of it because of the, it's the noise.

Leo Laporte (00:09:47):
I can't hear

Alex Lindsay (00:09:47):
Anything the most attached to. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:09:48):
Yeah. Nice.

Andy Ihnatko (00:09:50):
It's, it, it's hard to, like what be It is hard to like turn off the fans and turn off the air conditioners in your studio when you realize that like five years ago, like, okay, that's gonna cause such a problem for the person editing this, that I'm not gonna do that. When, when you realize that. But he has probably like a switch that says Remove remove the, remove the air conditioning noise. Exactly.

Alex Lindsay (00:10:08):
<Laugh>, you definitely can. It's, it's, it's a lovely

Andy Ihnatko (00:10:10):
Gesture. But maybe I could like be not be sweating

Alex Lindsay (00:10:13):
One, because I'm doing a live show. It, I'm more sensitive to it, you know, like when I'm doing office hours or here when we're live. But when we're doing office hours, it's just done. Like, it goes up to YouTube. There's no posts. Like it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's the way we streamed it. So that's when you get sensitive to having realtime noise reduction. But you're right, the noise reduction that's out there, whether it's through isotope or synaptic unveil, those are the two that like, if Isotope will do 90% of them, and when isotope can't do it, you pull out synaptic unveil and you're like, I will remove, like, in, especially if you have reverb, synaptic unveil is like this. It just, it magically takes the re reverb out in a way that you, I have never seen anything else do.

Leo Laporte (00:10:52):
Nice. Are you, is this the OC White Pro boom, Ultima Gen two Ultra low profile adjustable mic, boom without Mount? Yeah,

Alex Lindsay (00:10:58):
That's

Leo Laporte (00:10:59):
It. That's it. <Laugh>, that's only three to 22.

Alex Lindsay (00:11:02):
Really nice.

Leo Laporte (00:11:03):
Andy and I are using Fisher Fisher-Price microphones. It's my first microphone from Sony. And no, no

Andy Ihnatko (00:11:10):
Gi you know, given how hot that movie is, I'm kind of regretting spray painting the pink of this Barbie mic that I got the yard sale three years ago. <Laugh>, that would've been very, very on point right now. <Laugh>.

Alex Lindsay (00:11:20):
Well, you know, the funny thing is that the, the, the high is the, I have to like, I'm,

Leo Laporte (00:11:27):
It's actually more expensive than the Stella St. Stellar. You're using more than

Alex Lindsay (00:11:31):
Yeah, it is. And it, and it has much better off access rejection, like in this Well 'cause

Leo Laporte (00:11:35):
It's dynamic. It's,

Alex Lindsay (00:11:36):
I'm, I'm

Leo Laporte (00:11:36):
Literally dynamic. Your is a condenser, so you don't understand like, I have a

Alex Lindsay (00:11:39):
Tent around me. Yeah. that is my, that, that I'm looking into. Because, because otherwise this, this mic will not work. Like you, my, I have a hard, it's all hard surfaces and Yeah, it is. Like, this is for, for those watching. This is the that's what I'm looking at. <Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:11:58):
So when you, what,

Alex Lindsay (00:11:58):
So when you, when

Leo Laporte (00:11:59):
You look at me, it sounds like it's all over. I look totally. Doesn't it get sweaty in there?

Alex Lindsay (00:12:04):
No, I have an air conditioner right on the far corner.

Leo Laporte (00:12:06):
This is what they used to do to me. And with d no. Holy.

Alex Lindsay (00:12:10):
So this is, so I have all my monitors and my switcher telestrator is right on its little arm that swings out. And and so

Leo Laporte (00:12:19):
It's funny 'cause you're staring into that, I'm staring into the solas eyes of John Stina. So we have, but his eyes do not reflect sound. So they don't reflect light. Yeah's, they're basically deep dark pools of anger and aggression.

Andy Ihnatko (00:12:33):
The most, the most hysterically funny thing about like, the way that streaming is done is when you realize exactly how much money and effort goes into making it look as though I just put up a webcam in my regular office.

Leo Laporte (00:12:44):
Yeah, right. Well,

Alex Lindsay (00:12:46):
The funny thing is, I do, I do these present, I do a presentation and that I have to do fairly often. And I have, it takes up five computers. I have four Mac Minis and, and one of them is a Telestrator, the other one is a presentation machine. So it just runs Keynote. Another one runs the applications that I wanna show you if I'm showing you a webpage or whatever. And the other one's Zoom. And then I have my work computer. And so I, and it takes a little, it takes me like a half an hour to get ready for the presentation. <Laugh> like, I have to get everything wired and routed and ready to go. But it, it, it's and it looks like nothing's happening until you, there was one person that I did it for and someone was like, what did, how do you do that on one computer? I'm like four, four computers you do on one computer.

Leo Laporte (00:13:26):
So Yeah. You don't know how many computers. Yeah, I do notice a new thermos bottle behind you. Is that Sile material or are you working on Superconductor creation?

Alex Lindsay (00:13:34):
No, this is, this is one of those hydro hydro sparks.

Leo Laporte (00:13:38):
Oh, okay. Visionable. It looks like it's sile <laugh>. That's really what, like, you're, you know, you've got something sub sub 200 degrees in there, <laugh>. I do have no Alex. That was the deuterium. No, no, the demon core lives <laugh>.

Alex Lindsay (00:13:55):
You know, I, I I, I oftentimes in the office, I do have a the D doer for nitrogen. Oh yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:14:04):
That's fun. Yeah. That's always fun.

Alex Lindsay (00:14:06):
Yeah. So I have got like a two liter. You can go up to, up to Santa Rosa or not and get the, and get liquid nitrogen. They'll just pour the liquid nitrogen in there for you. And then it's the best way to make ice cream.

Leo Laporte (00:14:16):
I will tell you besides, I mean there are several clues. This is a slow news month. August is really slow.

Alex Lindsay (00:14:22):
<Laugh>, we're talking

Leo Laporte (00:14:22):
About Alex. Besides the fact that we're talking about Alex's setup, the top story is Amsterdam builds massive bike garage resembling an Apple store. So <laugh>, that's the closest I could come to an

Alex Lindsay (00:14:34):
Apple store. That is the most Amsterdam thing to do, isn't,

Leo Laporte (00:14:37):
I wish we had this. It's so

Alex Lindsay (00:14:39):
Amsterdam is so much fun. You get there, it's so flat that you feel like every time I go. Yeah. I usually get there every year or two. And, and for, for I b c it's the rye. And the rye is like a 45 or fif, maybe an hour walk out of downtown. And I do it all the time. Like I'll just walk to the rye from, from the, the center area. But because of that also, there's just, everybody's got bikes every,

Leo Laporte (00:15:02):
I think somebody told me there's two or three bicycles per capita. Yeah. Wouldn't be surprised in Amsterdam. Yeah. This,

Alex Lindsay (00:15:08):
By the way, we've ridden the bike in Amsterdam, but

Leo Laporte (00:15:10):
Oh man, there's like a highway. Yeah, it's great. There's like these bicycle highways. It's like almost scary. 'cause There's so many people. So many. Yeah. This is free the, for first 24 hours. Can you believe that? And the pictures, by the way, there is another Mac tie or by Sebastian Dewitt of course of Hali fame. So they're particularly good images.

Alex Lindsay (00:15:32):
Okay.

Leo Laporte (00:15:34):
Well thank you for joining us for this week. No, we have other stories. The teamsters have reached a contract. So your next MacBook may still come from U P Ss. That deal. There was a strike pending, looming, but that's not gonna happen.

Alex Lindsay (00:15:50):
I will, I will say that Apple's, Apple's store delivery is the best. Like I get a lot of stuff delivered. You get Amazon, you get a

Leo Laporte (00:15:56):
Couriered over though, right? It's not,

Alex Lindsay (00:15:59):
It's, it gets to me faster than I could go

Leo Laporte (00:16:01):
Uber if I guy in a bicycle drop it

Alex Lindsay (00:16:03):
Off. No, it's someone I don't know, someone. They drop it off in a nice little, I just got

Leo Laporte (00:16:06):
One, a Camry,

Alex Lindsay (00:16:07):
Like a nice little bag, like a little white bag and Nice. And it's, and and they, and they, they, they ring in and they, they're very cheery and they're like, Hey, I need you to sign this. Then we're, we're good. And, and that's awesome. It is faster. It is faster to get it than for me to drive there. It's, I should

Leo Laporte (00:16:21):
Do. So I guess they course you're near, you're near court in Madira. Your

Alex Lindsay (00:16:24):
Yours would come from San Santa. Santa

Leo Laporte (00:16:26):
Rosa. And that's a little farther.

Alex Lindsay (00:16:27):
It should be fast, but it'd still be fast. I mean, it's, I should

Leo Laporte (00:16:30):
Try that.

Alex Lindsay (00:16:30):
It's, it's not worth, what could I

Leo Laporte (00:16:32):
Buy <laugh>.

Alex Lindsay (00:16:35):
I got another mini Did you?

Leo Laporte (00:16:37):
That's

Alex Lindsay (00:16:37):
Nice. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:16:39):
There's nothing new to buy yet. Although we are only about a month and a half away from a new iPhone. Lots of rumors about the iPhone 15. Any of them credible? Jason anything that we should be paying attention to? Yeah, I mean,

Jason Snell (00:16:51):
Mark, mark Germond at Bloomberg did his an his annual like roundup where he sweeps up all his reporting for the last year about the new iPhone last year. Plus sometimes it's more than a year out. And along with supply chain sources and all of that. And we're getting a better idea now. Obviously it's going to have last year's pro processor on it. The, on the low end there will be a new three nanometer process processor on the high end. Lots of talk about camera upgrades across the board. My guess is that they may do something with that 48 megapixel sensor in the lower end phones this year, although probably still only have a couple of lenses on it. And there's this unclear kind of hovering out there, thought that there's a major upgrade happening somewhere in the pro line in terms of the camera.

(00:17:35):
There have been lots of rumors about Periscope lens style thing, although nobody seems to have nailed it down. And it's, it's getting all of us who track this, I think to start wondering if it's not quite a Periscope lens, right? Like it's a, I don't know, its apple's, right? They did, they did something a little different. They're gonna give it a brand name and they're gonna be like, oh, no, no, no, no. It's not like Samsung at all. It's slightly different and has a different brand name. But that would be, I I, the thing that I keep thinking might happen is that the Pro Max might kind of graduate to be like an iPhone Ultra. And the reason you do that is if it's camera, you know, if it was so differentiated from the regular pro that it didn't make sense to sell it as just a big version of the pro. And if that's true, that would be very interesting. If it was like by far the best iPhone camera ever made, that would be an interesting selling point. Might be worth a rename. And might at that point also be worth a a price hike probably. Because that's, we live in that world too. What,

Leo Laporte (00:18:36):
What does a Periscope camera do? What makes it special? So,

Jason Snell (00:18:39):
So the thing, I mean, I'm sure Alex could talk about this too, but the idea is your phone is thin, right? And the, and the fact is, your optics, optics just light into cameras get better when you have a longer lens. Right? If you think about a camera with a long lens, you have the ability to zoom. There's just a lot of the optics become simpler if you have more room to work

Leo Laporte (00:18:56):
With. Tell, tell a photo is yeah. And that's

Jason Snell (00:18:58):
Right. That's why we have a camera bump, right? Is that they need more room in there. Well, if you put in a, a mirror <laugh>, and so you can use the depth, you know, the, the, the length I guess of your phone instead of the thickness of your phone. It, you, you've got way more room to play with in there. Other than that, now you're cannibalizing like you're eating battery and other things inside the phone, but it's probably worth the trade if you want a really great camera experience. So that may be what they're doing. And that's, lots of other phone makers have done the same thing. 'cause It's just physics, right? I mean, you can't argue with how light works.

Leo Laporte (00:19:31):
Yeah. This is a Samsung Galaxy S 23 Ultra that has a Periscope lens, which gives it 200 millimeter optical, I think. Is it optical? Maybe not. But it gives it a very, very long lens in a very thin package. Yeah. And the telephoto, I mean, <laugh>, the New York Times, I'm, I'm looking for some pictures. New York Times Review says the Samsung SS 23 Ultra has great camera you don't need. But let me, I'll find you some. I have some pictures I took. I'll show you an example. Can you go off my yeah, thank you. I'm gonna show you an example that I have some yeah, go ahead.

Andy Ihnatko (00:20:10):
While I'm looking the yeah, the pi, the pixel six and seven also have like, most Android cameras on the top end have like a Periscope camera of something.

Leo Laporte (00:20:17):
That's how they compete with Apple, right? Yeah. <laugh>.

Andy Ihnatko (00:20:20):
Yeah. I mean for, well, I mean that's, it's always a competition across, all across the board can make the best pictures. And I am just shocked at what, like, just this, this model, my model has just a four x zoom. The new models have like the, have an actual 10 x optical zoom. And then when you add like algorithmic trickery on top of that, the ability to say, Ooh, I, there, there, there have been times where like, I've been at the beach and I've seen like a dot, like two dots, sort of like on the horizon. And I want to get a closer look at it. And I will actually take out my phone now and act and then actually see that it's actually like a fireboat chasing a sailboat that's kind of in trouble. It's, it we're we're really changing from the times when <laugh>, the, the, the phone used to be like the cardinal example of do not use the digital. I know that it says that Digital Zoom do not use the digital zoom under any circumstances.

Alex Lindsay (00:21:09):
And, and I, and I will say that, you know, it, it's, the phone is still the thing that everyone's competing. I mean, we can put a lot of other features into it, but the number ones one, the cameras number with their phone is taking pictures. Yeah. So that's why it is amazing.

Andy Ihnatko (00:21:19):
That's why their AI chips and cameras and, and phones now. Because just,

Alex Lindsay (00:21:22):
I took an, I took a night pic picture of the Rael the other day and I was just like, I couldn't believe I took that from my phone. You know? It was just, it was just like, what is go, you know, it's just really, really amazing. Did you

Leo Laporte (00:21:30):
Use the standard camera app or did you use

Alex Lindsay (00:21:33):
Yeah, I just opened it up and just took apic. I was like, oh, I'm gonna do a little post about, I, I watched this Yeah. Movie. And I was like, I'm doing a little post about it. And I, yeah,

Andy Ihnatko (00:21:40):
Really good. And it's not just about like telephoto sort of effects. It's also about the ability to, like, when I'm using like a modern phone, it really, I really am using it like a regular camera where I'm thinking, gee, I really wish that the subject in the foreground was larger compared with like the background said, oh, well I have an actual like real telephoto lens in here. If I just back up <laugh> sending a foot away. If I stand four or five feet away and then engage the telephoto, just like when I'm with my a thousand dollars camera with the $2,000 lens, I will have the exact same optical effect. Because like Jason said, like optical physics of light is always the physics of light. Whether it's on a phone or whether it's on like a $10,000 camera.

Leo Laporte (00:22:18):
I think you're right. 10 x was the on this is on the Samsung as the optical max. But then it, here, I'll give you an example. This was when I first got it. We went out to the beach to, to test it out. This is the widest angle. Keep your eye on those people in the, the little dots in the distance. 'cause I'm, yep. 'cause I'm zooming in on them <laugh> and by the <laugh> it hits, hits by the time, I don't know if, if he was taking a picture of me or, or not. But by the time I zoomed in all the way, now you see it does get a little soft. That's probably the 200 x. I think he sees me taking a picture of him. But we are quite a ways away. And

Jason Snell (00:22:58):
Yeah, you can't, you combine that with, you think about that 48 megapixel sensor so that the apple's not really, I mean, by default it's basically just being pinned into a 12 megapixel image. So there's, you know, if, if they can get a longer optical zoom and then also have that very sensitive sensor, or maybe even an even better sensor than that. I don't know. Everything's really hazy about this one. But it, there's is schedule there. And

Leo Laporte (00:23:27):
We now, and who cares about this stuff? This, this. So according to Gerin apple towards the end of July Foxconn does, I think we talked about this last week, they do like a hundred thousand just to see if they can produce it in quantity. Yeah. And they don't really step into full production till later this month in August. Here's Mark's power on newsletter. You were talking about from this week, the iPhone 15 will have thinner bezels in step toward Apple's dream.

Jason Snell (00:23:53):
Yeah. There's a, there's a new process. It's funny when you talk about the bezels, 'cause like, I, I believe bezels actually do matter, but nobody notices them. And then you look back at your previous phones and you think, oh no, those are big. That bezzle is huge. Big. Yeah. So going from whatever it is, going from 2.2 millimeters to 1.7 millimeters, that's a very small amount. And yet percentage wise, it's actually substantial. And you probably will notice. And that's always one of their goals. So they've gone through a whole process there that seems to have survived the production process. There were some stories about like how that was a technical difficulty. He also says that that rumor about them replacing all the buttons with fake buttons, basically that vibrate when you press on them, but they don't actually move. And they basically didn't work and they pulled them out. But it does sound like the ring the, you know, the mute switch, the ring silent switch is getting replaced with an action button. Oh, that's disappointing. Which basically means, so you can program it to do something else. You are, but you could

Leo Laporte (00:24:48):
Program it to silence, I guess

Jason Snell (00:24:50):
<Laugh>, if you are like, you can, but if you're like me and you always leave your phone muted, I can use that button for something better. It's

Leo Laporte (00:24:55):
Just like the watch. I've never used the action feature in the ultra, the action button on the ultra for anything but the stopwatch. And I very rarely use it. But you could, you could attach it to a shortcut even you could have to do something fairly. So if you haven't,

Jason Snell (00:25:07):
It's unclear. 'cause That's a software choice. I hope so. Yeah. I hope you could do shortcuts. 'cause Then you could do anything.

Leo Laporte (00:25:12):
There was a rumor. There would be also a widget, a shortcut widget, like an action button widget, right? Or no? Yeah. Maybe I'm confusing the two. I don't know. They're gonna make these screens according to Germin with lipo technology. So it's thinner 'cause they take the fat out. No, it stands for low injection pressure over molding, which would give it a much thinner bezel. 1.5 millimeters. The standard iPhone 15 will have a dynamic island instead of a notch. But the pro and the promax will be made with lipo. Does that mean it's not, it's gonna still have a notch. It's not his, the way he words This is

Jason Snell (00:25:51):
Unclear. Yeah, I think, yeah, I, I think so. But it, you know, you can see what's happening here, which is it's this typical Apple iteration. Except now what they're doing is they're iterating and then the next year they push it all down into the other phone. So very rapidly. La you know, this year's phone will be this year's cheaper phone will be last year's pro phone in a lot of ways. Right. and they just keep on that, doing that cycle where there's always something new coming at the high

Leo Laporte (00:26:14):
End. I love the dynamic island on the pro max right now. I'd be sorry to lose that to a notch.

Andy Ihnatko (00:26:19):
Exactly. I think they, they've, that's a classic example of Apple taking a disadvantage and turning it into an advantage. I think it's a really wonderful innovation. Yeah. There's, there's always rumors that they want to do everything under display so that there will be no notch, there'll be no pill, there'll be nothing that it's, there'll be a camera underneath the display that's not affected by the display above it. There was a, a story a couple of weeks ago about how Apple's reached from, from the some display ball, some display blog saying that their Apple has been reaching out to display manufacturers saying that here's what we want our display to be by 2017. And that they, they're asking for true edge to edge display, like without the, the sheet that that a lot of Android phones use, which is, it's technically a curved display, but they hide the curve so that you don't actually see it.

(00:27:02):
They say, no, we want tech build, build us display technology so that the entire front surface will be an active display. And with Apple there, there's some, there's so much really brilliant engineering that is never visible. One of them is just simply edge rejection. The with other manufacturers, like if Samsung were doing something like this, you would wonder, oh my God, how many updates are people gonna have to go through before it's impossible to hold the phone without act, without actioning something on the screen? Because you've got your, your fingers are gonna wrap around somewhere. Apple, I'm certainly, I'm, I'm certain is putting lots and lots of work into figuring out just technology to figure out which, what is an actual touch, which is what is simply incidental via just holding the thing. So

Jason Snell (00:27:41):
Yeah, we don't, I, I think because we are tech nerds and we're also consumers of these products, the, the, one of the things that doesn't get enough press that I think, Leo, you mentioned that lipo technology, right? But it's like there's so much high-end hardware engineering going on here where, or even the button thing where you have to, you can't just make it, you have to make it and then have the factory make it and have them not break. And if they break, you gotta pull 'em out because that's not good enough. Because Apple's going to make millions of these. This is the iPhone, right? It can't fail one 'cause it's more than half of Apple's business. And two, the, they make it in such in extreme volumes that you know, the stakes are so high and that this is serious, like hardware, nitty gritty engineering.

(00:28:27):
And, you know, I admire any company, not just Apple, but any company that says, you know what, two millimeters, bezel, it's pretty good, not good enough. Right? We're gonna, and we're gonna do a whole new process. And then they spend years doing this, and now we're at the moment where they're, it, it must be quite a, an accomplishment for the people who work on this stuff to get to the moment where it actually rolls out on the factory and it works and they function and you're like, oh, we can ramp it up now and we can make a million of these things. And like, it's just, it's really amazing some of the, the, the remarkable technology that has to go into these things for them to do what they do.

Alex Lindsay (00:29:00):
And it's really become a big boys game. You know, like phones are not something that, there's like Samsung and Apple and maybe Google and, and a couple of there, but there's not that many people that can play this game anymore. You know, like, it's just, it, the, the refinement and the level of which they're playing is, you know, truly everybody else is playing high school ball and there's a handful that are playing pro ball and it's just really hard to compete because the, the costs of building this up at scale are so difficult. And you pick up a lot of these other phones and you're just, you can, as an Apple user, you feel it really fast, you know, that of the drop off, you know, and, but, you know, Samsung does great ones and Pixel, you know, the, the, the, it's not just Apple. But the point is, is that it, it was this huge market and now there's this, this, there's a hand, there's a group of cell phone makers that are making these really high end. Everyone else kind of fell away.

Jason Snell (00:29:53):
I read a story the other week and I, I wish I could remember what it was, but it was somebody and talking about how a lot of the people in the press were quibbling about some companies, it was like a, a fine, or it was a purchase or it was a write down. And the point of the article was, you don't, none of us have really grappled a lot with the scale of big tech companies and, and just how huge they are, and just how things that to us seem like, oh, they might buy this company and they might spend a billion dollars on it. And, and yet in, in, for a business the size of apples, it's essentially irrelevant because they're so huge. And I think that goes to your point, Alex, that this is not a game that can be played unless you have the ability to essentially move markets and build factories by ordering. 'cause Like anytime Apple orders apart for an iPhone, it is millions and millions and millions of units. They can't not have all of those units because that's how many they ship in volume. And like, so that's where the game is being played now. And it, it is, it's troubling in the sense that, you know, you can't be in the game unless you are a gigantic company.

Alex Lindsay (00:30:58):
And the ripples are incredible. I I was talking to a manufacturer complaining about the fact that they had, they had they had announced something that they had shipped for six months, like they hadn't shipped it. And they said, we share one component with the iPhone like that we didn't know that we were sharing with the iPhone until Apple bought all of them. You know, like, like, you know, like, and now we have to redesign the entire architecture of the piece of heart, piece of hardware because you can't get, that's, you can't get that, you know, like Apple buys them years in advance, all the capacity years in advance to supply the iPhone. And there's not, you know, there's nowhere to go. Yeah.

Andy Ihnatko (00:31:29):
So, but the good news is that not everybody is going to appreciate that two millimeter bezel. And not a lot of people are not willing to pay extra money for that two millimeter bezel. So there's a, there, there's, there's a lot of room for people who, for companies that want to just manufacture commodity phones, like I'm people who buy new phones, not because they're enticed by, Hey, the new Periscope camera. Oh my goodness. Look, the look at this four letter acronym for this new manufacturing technique, which is very, very significant to people who are very, very into that stuff. But people who drop their phone in the toilet or they <laugh> or they, they broke their screen one time too many and they're back in the Verizon store with like, what can I get without having on a two year plan for free? And those, and now those phones are amazing. They're awesome. Awesome. I keep, I keep reflecting back on the fact that smartphones are now, so the manufacturing and design process and the procurement process for each component is now so on lock that people who are economically disadvantaged in this country, you can, they can get a free smartphone that is certainly not an iPhone 15 or 14, but it's an iPhone seven, eight or nine, and that is pretty damn good. So one of the advantages Apple has apparently is

Leo Laporte (00:32:38):
That can use the watch as a test lab. Lipo was first tried on the Apple watch and now they're, according to Germin gonna put titanium, we're looking at, they've always wanted to have titanium edges on the outside of the iPhone. And that they've been doing that in the watches. And that, according to Germin, was a test for bringing titanium to the higher volume device. So they're gonna replace these shiny, fingerprint prone steel, stainless steel engines

Jason Snell (00:33:06):
Heavy with heavy stainless steel, heavy titanium, right. Is so much lighter and Right. Anybody who's a long time Apple person will remember back when Apple didn't have a team of metal or just on staff and it painted put white paint on titanium and the titanium power book. Well, they don't do that stuff anymore. <Laugh> titanium is a anodize just like aluminum is. So they can impart color onto it as part of the anodization process. Nice. And I, I mean, I've got a titanium apple watch. It is so light. It is such a, a light mat material. And I think the worst thing about the pro phones the last few years, well, it, the not colorful right. Is part of it. And that is a Apple philosophy thing. But also part of it is they're just so heavy <laugh>, they're really heavy and the stainless steel does not help. So going to titanium, they can call it, you know, I'm sure they'll invent some magical, like, let me tell you about the alloy that we built <laugh>. It's off the periodic table. It's so great. But in the end that benefits the user because you made a lighter phone. Right? Like that's, that's a win.

Andy Ihnatko (00:34:08):
That's it. It's interesting comparison though. I I, I still think that there's a difference between the expectations of people who are spending five, six, $700 on a watch and people who are spending a thousand, 1100, $1,200 on a phone. Like do people, and I'm asking this as a question, I'm not saying that saying this as a statement that are there parts of the market that says, I don't if this is a light. If you, if you, congratulations, you just made this $800 watch a lot, lot lighter. I wasn't, I didn't mind the weight of the original watch. And now it feels chintzy. It doesn't feel like I've got this big meaty chunk of metal on my pack with gears and technology on my wrist. It's not a statement anymore. It's a, it's a rational, it's a rational solution to a pressing engineering problem that affects real people. And that's not, not, that's not what I want as a watch consumer. I want a big chunk of unobtainium. I want, I I want this case be made of finger bones from one of the top three apostles. So outta a ary. That's what I want in this watch.

Alex Lindsay (00:35:03):
I just find it amazing that we've comfortably Apple has somehow gotten us comfortably to, to talk about $350 watches is cheap. You know, like, like, you know that or inexpensive. Well, I

Leo Laporte (00:35:12):
Paid 700 fault. So

Jason Snell (00:35:14):
<Laugh>,

Alex Lindsay (00:35:15):
So you, I

Jason Snell (00:35:17):
<Laugh>

Alex Lindsay (00:35:18):
Well, and I, yeah. And, and, and the, which is really

Leo Laporte (00:35:20):
Stupid because I'm gonna, you shouldn't spend so much money on something you're upgrade every year. Right? Well, maybe I,

Alex Lindsay (00:35:26):
You know, I have decided, I bought the Ultra and I decided I'm gonna skip a couple years now. Yeah. I love the, I'm probably not gonna buy this one every now bought

Jason Snell (00:35:33):
Titanium model. Same thing. Yeah. Wait

Leo Laporte (00:35:35):
Till they announce what they're gonna put in it though. You know, you never know. They might have that key feature that you've been waiting for.

Alex Lindsay (00:35:39):
I know. I, I bought the sport one over and over the lowest cost. Me too. Watch Me too. Every year I was just like, I'm just gonna buy the cheap one because I don't want to commit because I know that they're gonna keep on making it better. Over the last couple years, I felt like the only real innovation I had seen that I really cared about was in the Ultra. And I actually do use the backtrack, which helped me a couple weeks ago. And so it's so the what?

Leo Laporte (00:36:02):
The backtrack. Oh, the like breadcrumbs. It leaves

Alex Lindsay (00:36:05):
Breadcrumbs way points. Yeah. I got lost. You get

Leo Laporte (00:36:06):
Lost a lot, don't you? You lose your car, you lose yourself. Is there something going on? Maybe you, no, Alex is living

Andy Ihnatko (00:36:13):
15 minutes in the future, man. He can't be,

Alex Lindsay (00:36:15):
He can't be distracted by Why

Leo Laporte (00:36:17):
Wouldn't you get lost?

Alex Lindsay (00:36:18):
You wander What? I was taking a hike and I just, it was a

Leo Laporte (00:36:21):
Lot of

Alex Lindsay (00:36:21):
Path. Yeah, yeah. No, I was like, it was a lot of little paths and, and places. That's a place that I hadn't been. And that's how that track

Jason Snell (00:36:27):
Works. It actually senses that you're out in the wilderness. There's no wifi around. Oh,

Leo Laporte (00:36:31):
It doesn't do it

Jason Snell (00:36:32):
Unless you're, and automatically Yeah, that's right. It's, it's, it's tracking you when you're, when you don't have anything around you into its,

Andy Ihnatko (00:36:39):
You're there. It's not the secret behind all those Apple watch ads about like, people, people being rescue 'cause of their watch. It's not that, it's a, it's a better survival to uss just that people who buy Apple watches are more absent-minded.

Alex Lindsay (00:36:49):
<Laugh>. Exactly. That's, we

Andy Ihnatko (00:36:50):
Need see to wander off. We

Alex Lindsay (00:36:52):
Need them. I, I was just wandering around. Yeah. So the, but the but yeah, I probably, I feel like every other year, maybe every two years is probably, you know, ev is probably gonna be my my

Leo Laporte (00:37:04):
Cage. Well, but I always say that, but then it depends. I

Alex Lindsay (00:37:07):
Say that. I know, I know. I say that the

Leo Laporte (00:37:09):
Good thing is at least you can keep the bands <laugh>.

Alex Lindsay (00:37:12):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:37:14):
You don't have to buy any bands. It

Alex Lindsay (00:37:15):
Does. I'll say it's rugged. I, I, I love now, since it was a released,

Leo Laporte (00:37:19):
I know no dings, no cracks,

Alex Lindsay (00:37:20):
I have to admit. Yeah. I don't see any dings on it after not taking care of it. You know, like, it's like I'm,

Leo Laporte (00:37:25):
Yeah. I bang it around. I

Alex Lindsay (00:37:26):
Wouldn't, and it's, so I feel like I could probably, you know, hand in for something else.

Leo Laporte (00:37:30):
It's giant something else.

Alex Lindsay (00:37:32):
It's

Leo Laporte (00:37:32):
Ginormous.

Alex Lindsay (00:37:33):
That's, that's what I liked about, I'm getting old. I needed to watch it at a bigger face.

Leo Laporte (00:37:36):
Yeah.

Alex Lindsay (00:37:37):
So Yeah, that's true. I'm resisting. I'm resisting the, the bifocals. This is still so I'm, so, I'm, I'm, I'm like, I need to be a little bigger. My arm. Just be a little longer and then I can keep using this

Leo Laporte (00:37:47):
Watch. Well just keep wearing this. Watch your arms and wheel get longer. There are, there are there were engineering problems though. Apple has canceled bongo. So if you were looking forward to bongo this is the code name. Those are those buttons, right? The bongo buttons. Yeah. oh, I get it. But like a bongo drum, apple had played another major feature. Mark Erman writes in his power on newsletter on Bloomberg only $400 a year. Apple had played another major feature. I spend the money so you don't have to. Apple had played another major feature for this year's. Pro models touch sensitive buttons with haptic feedback for the volume controls, the mute ring switch and the power button, like track pads on the Mac. The buttons would not actually move. Allowing new software tricks and reducing the number of breakable components on the device. The enhancement code named Bongo was canceled.

Alex Lindsay (00:38:39):
Oh, I mean, the one thing I have to say is a, a, a watch app called Bongo that was actually turned your watch into a bongo drum <laugh> kind of fun. That would be, so

Leo Laporte (00:38:50):
We need drum circle. Somebody should do an app called

Alex Lindsay (00:38:53):
Drum circle. You're to watch Apple Watch drum circle. But with yeah, I'll say, I'll,

Andy Ihnatko (00:38:58):
I'll say one thing that was, that would certainly improve Apple's revenue per consumer <laugh>. That's

Alex Lindsay (00:39:02):
<Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:39:05):
In the end, the company decided keep standard buttons for volume and power. But turn, this is what you were talking about. Turn the mute ring. Switch to the, into a so-called action button, like on the Apple Watch. Okay. what else should we what else can we say based on this Power on newsletter? There's code in iOS 17 that hints at options for the action button. You'll be able to choose according to Steve Moser at Mack. Rumors from several possibilities. Mute, of course, we'll still stay there for people like a physical mute, but in the focus mode, like do not disturb. That's better than mute, right? 'cause I could say, you know, I could have a little more control over what it is. Launching the camera, turning on the flashlight. If you use a flashlight a lot, I use it as surprisingly a lot. I wonder if flashlight sales have declined just as point and shoot. Camera sales have declined.

Alex Lindsay (00:39:57):
Oh, you mean, yeah,

Leo Laporte (00:39:59):
Because who needs a flashlight, right?

Alex Lindsay (00:40:01):
I use my phone flashlight all the time. All the time. At least once

Leo Laporte (00:40:04):
A day. You might want that action button to be a, a

Alex Lindsay (00:40:06):
Flashlight, because when I'm lost, I forget things and then I then

Leo Laporte (00:40:09):
Thunder things I find I turn on the, somehow turn on the flashlight by accident. People are always pointing to my p breast pocket saying, your flashlight's on, it's the new year. Zippers down <laugh> your

Alex Lindsay (00:40:17):
Flashlights. I have found that it, it takes it, the flashlight also re requires very little power. I've accidentally, oh, is that true? Flashlight on for a very long time.

Leo Laporte (00:40:26):
Oh, that's a relief.

Alex Lindsay (00:40:27):
A lot less than the screen. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:40:28):
Oh, that's a real relief. I always worry that I'm killing my battery. Or opening features for accessibility or translating text. I wish it would have a shortcut. Like you could do a shortcut.

Alex Lindsay (00:40:40):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:40:41):
We'll see. He says I I hope

Andy Ihnatko (00:40:42):
That Apple

Leo Laporte (00:40:43):
Go

Andy Ihnatko (00:40:44):
Ahead. I I just hope that Apple doesn't ruin this by saying, oh, well you can do these three things as opposed to Hey, or you can just simply create your own shortcut and attach it to this button.

Leo Laporte (00:40:53):
All of us who have Samsung phones are used to that. Remember the Bixby button? There's a whole physical button that all it could do was launch Bixby. Yeah. That's, they later added capabilities. Thanks, but No thanks. Yeah. <laugh>, I don't, I still don't use Bixby. One other thing I should mention the, of course the iPhone, nothings will get the processor that's currently in the max. The pros rather. And the pros will get a three nanometer. A a 17. So that's a big deal because that might be a big jump in performance. Not that I've ever felt like my iPhone's slow, but,

Alex Lindsay (00:41:31):
Or Yeah. Or battery

Jason Snell (00:41:32):
Life, you know, energy efficiency. True. Is there the possibility there, that's also a benefit. Yeah. Especially if, if they, if they have a Periscope camera in some of 'em that carves out some battery space, you're right. You would, you would potentially benefit from that. It sounds like the chips are going up. The Apple Watch is gonna get a, a, a substantial chip update for the first time in like four years where

Leo Laporte (00:41:52):
They're That's because they need Alex to buy a new one. Updating

Jason Snell (00:41:53):
Yeah. That process processor. So, so yeah. It sounds like there's a lot of kind of like chip updates, but Yeah, I always, mark Erman is running into the same thing all of us who read about computers run into, which is how do you describe the benefit of the new three nanometer chip that's gonna be in the iPhone pro? And I think he says, he literally says, so it'll be snappier, which is the sound of giving up, right. <Laugh> that is like, I don't know, faster, whatever. Because 'cause they're all so fast now, and it's like, yeah, yeah. It'll be faster. It is. Got the snappy great, snappier, excellent

Leo Laporte (00:42:25):
Independent

Alex Lindsay (00:42:26):
Lamp. Just confirm that three is in fact

Leo Laporte (00:42:28):
A lower number than five. I'm gonna actually say that. That's good writing. He found exactly the right adjective. 'cause It faster isn't the right adjective. Snappier. That's that's

Jason Snell (00:42:40):
Really, yeah. But is it, is it gonna be, I mean, is it though, is it really, are you gonna pick up a, a brand new pro iPhone and be like, oh, snappier. It's so snappy compared to the one last year, which is slightly less snappy than this <laugh>. It's like, I mean, but it will be. I, and obviously, I mean, 'cause these days all the basic tasks are so fast that it, you know, human eye can't even notice it. It's gonna be like enabling new features and lots of background computations that would never have been possible before. And like, there's a lot there, but I just thought it was kind of funny. 'cause At some point your editor says, but you got it, mark. You gotta say why this is relevant. Right. You can't just say it's a new chip. You gotta say why. And he is like, okay, let's just say it's snappier. All right. <Laugh>. Okay. It's snappi. It's snappier. That's a good word. But it is on the three nanometer process. So yeah, there could be a lot of interesting quirks about that. Including better, you know, power consumption issues and things like that. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:43:31):
And as you said, the Apple Watch goes from the S six, which has been on forever to an F nine. It jumps way ahead, maybe according to Germin. Yeah, again, I think that's just for you, Alex. I don't know what you do with the watch. You need a snappier watch. I

Jason Snell (00:43:45):
<Laugh>. It's

Leo Laporte (00:43:47):
Just a little faster.

Alex Lindsay (00:43:47):
I very rarely feel like I need, that's why I feel like I can probably get this one. I mean, it would really have to be incredible. Yeah. In September for me to update, because I just, because I, I've skipped a couple years with the watch and didn't really, you know, 'cause mostly the most used app on my watch is either my, my action button, which turns my lights on in the, in the, in the studio. My really, that's

Leo Laporte (00:44:07):
What you use your action button for.

Alex Lindsay (00:44:09):
It's one of Oh, that's cool. That's what, yeah. So when I walk into my, when I'm walking towards my studio in the morning, I I hit my watch and the, it's fun 'cause you're walking towards it and all the lights, all the lights come on. It's, I'm walking into my studio's.

Leo Laporte (00:44:21):
I've been trying to think of what I should do with my action button. I like that.

Alex Lindsay (00:44:24):
I, I needed to find it. I, you know I needed to find a use for it. And it was, it's convenient. Yeah. It's always on. So I like that. Yeah. But then I, yeah. And I have another, obviously another action somewhere else that turns it all off. So

Leo Laporte (00:44:35):
Your action button is tied to a shortcut. It must be. Yeah.

Alex Lindsay (00:44:38):
Yeah, yeah. So if I I know that if I, if I say I'm gonna do it right now, it'll

Leo Laporte (00:44:42):
Break. Don't do it. Don't do it. But I don't do it, man. Don't do it. Don't do it. The the sound blankets a collapse in a heap. So like, you'll just be a puddle

Alex Lindsay (00:44:51):
Of cotton on the floor. If on my phone is usually, or on my computer, I have lights out, you know, so if I hit that, it all turns 'em off. Off. Oh look. But then if I hit my watch, I kinda like it should. I like that. If I hit my watch, it'll hopefully there we go. There

Leo Laporte (00:45:03):
You go. It'll come back on. It just takes a little while to come back on. Yeah.

Alex Lindsay (00:45:06):
Take a second for it. Takes a second for the eave to do the thing and then, yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:45:09):
Warm up. Something. It's so weird that you're actually with your button sending a command out to the internet to server somewhere. <Laugh> in, in Sweden, keep coming back and they're going, it's funny. Oh, turn lights in Alex's studio. The funny

Alex Lindsay (00:45:23):
Though, the way it's wired though, my, my wife can't, she doesn't know how to turn the lights on and off. You know, they're all, they're all wide into

Leo Laporte (00:45:29):
Right. Because she doesn't have your watch.

Alex Lindsay (00:45:31):
And so I was, I was in LA and she goes, Hey, you left your lights on. I said, oh, just wait a second. And I just hit my, I hit my phone and she, and all the lights turned off. <Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:45:39):
That is, that's the single reason to get home automation working. Just so you could do that <laugh>,

Alex Lindsay (00:45:46):
Just so you can just like, I'll just turn 'em off from here. Yeah, exactly.

Leo Laporte (00:45:48):
I wanna get the TV set up like that. 'cause I get frequent calls from Lisa saying, I just wanna watch tv. How do I do that? Because it's four remotes.

Alex Lindsay (00:45:55):
I haven't figured that one

Leo Laporte (00:45:56):
Out. Yeah. The sequence. And I use c e c, you know, to trigger the thing. And Yeah. And for some reason the Apple TV always wants to take over. So if she wants to watch TiVo the cable, she has to keep pressing the receiver, press TiVo on the receiver like eight times before the Apple TV finally gets Okay, fine. So, you know, the

Alex Lindsay (00:46:16):
Easiest thing to do is I just have everything run through Apple tv and then all I have to do is turn the TV on and pick up my computer.

Leo Laporte (00:46:21):
How you get your tv, your, but you don't have cable. That's why you're a cord cutter.

Alex Lindsay (00:46:24):
I have YouTube.

Leo Laporte (00:46:25):
Yeah. So we have YouTube tv. I should

Alex Lindsay (00:46:27):
Just, yeah. So if it's not on tv, I

Leo Laporte (00:46:29):
Don't, I keep saying, I keep saying Elisa, you know <laugh> in one year we're gonna cut off Comcast in six months, we're gonna cut off Comcast.

Alex Lindsay (00:46:39):
I'm just waiting for Frontier to get here. So that's the 'cause we have, we have on, we have Xfinity or whatever, and it's horrible. And frontier now they, they've been tearing up our our road. Oh, I don't know if I would be, feel like I'm

Leo Laporte (00:46:51):
Way on the frontier. Maybe they've turned around. They were terrible.

Alex Lindsay (00:46:54):
Two gig symmetrical

Leo Laporte (00:46:56):
Too. Gig Frontier.

Alex Lindsay (00:46:57):
Yeah. Yeah. Frontier Fiber. Two gig symmetrical for symmetrical. So

Leo Laporte (00:47:02):
I'd go for that. I could go for that. What I've talking about, Andy, you sound like you, you must be on Dialup <laugh>.

Andy Ihnatko (00:47:10):
No, I

Leo Laporte (00:47:11):
Mean, kids in your fiber.

Andy Ihnatko (00:47:12):
<Laugh>. No, I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm on Verizon Fios. And it works. And it works great. The problem is like the, I I know that it's, it's been a while since I've basically like renegotiated that menu to like upgrade my internet. So I know that for the amount of money that I'm paying right now, I could probably be getting like double the speed even. And, but the, but it's every time that I try, I've, oh God. I just, I just hate that website so freaking much. I've, I've, the last time I tried it, I was screenshotting like every step of the way and noticing that, okay, I I don't wanna spend more than x more than I'm spending right now. Great. I'll write that down. That number. And they put this little number in the corner that says, oh, well, here's what your anticipated bill with being, including all taxes and services.

(00:47:52):
Oh, great. Went well. Okay. So I want, okay. It has to be symmetrical service. Great. Okay. Okay, great. And then, so it's still, it's still at the, the price that I was, that I was aiming at. Okay, great. So now I'll just okay. Let, let's get this hooked up and click like the, the, the penultimate button and says, great. Your new bill will be, and it's like somehow $75 more than it was in the screen before. And I'm have to, I'm not gonna have to unwind all of this to figure out how you decided that you've tacked on $70 worth of extra stuff between A and B. And then I just simply realized that, okay, what I've got right now is fine for now, I'm gonna get to this, but I'm, I, I just, I'm just out of energy to, to solve this. I just, it's the bureaucracy that gets me every single time. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:48:34):
No folding phone this year. Probably not for next year. I did order, you know, Samsung had its event last week and I ordered the flip five. I'll have that a week from Friday. So we'll have it in two weeks for Mac Break weekly. Just to, just to show you, I think there's some interest. I mean, I, Lisa would love this flip. She says, I can't wait to play with it. I wish it was an iPhone. Yeah.

Andy Ihnatko (00:48:59):
Yeah. The, the flip phones are really where the action is right now. 'cause Right now it's the only place where you can walk in with the same amount of budget you would for a premium smartphone and walk out with a folding phone. You can still, for a thousand bucks, you can get a phone. That's pretty much exactly like what you would get in an $800 feature, excuse me, $800 smartphone on any platform. Only, not only does it fold in half, which makes it like a chunky, a, a, a chunky folded phone, but at least something you can stick in more pockets and more purses. But also the form factor of having like a, a separate external display that can act sort of like an Apple watch, you know, that that can basically be, be showing you a widget when really all you need on your desk at this moment during a meeting is, I just want a widget that's keeping me, keeping me track of keeping track of the time.

(00:49:45):
Or that will very, very quickly flash that, oh, by the way, here's the next thing that you need to address in 15 minutes, or here's your next appointment. There's a lot of room for design innovation that I'm goodness. You just, you just want to see what Apple would do with that. And I think that the prices are now coming down where it's actually a practical thing. I would love, I would absolutely love to see a, a traditional folding iPhone where I can get either, I can either have an iPad mini or a conventional iPhone, but not at like $1,800 where I can have, well, or Andy, you could have an actual iPad mini and an actual iPhone. And 'cause right now folding large, large scale folding phones, they're almost as good as a tablet and they're almost as good as a regular smartphone.

(00:50:29):
But there are compromises on both. And that's not worth $1,800 to me. But realize that now Samsung has, has to be applauded after absolutely. Just falling into a canal with the first release of their, of their folding phone. Now they're on generation five, and I'm not, wouldn't say they've got every single problem worked out, but now you don't, you no longer have to be a technology forward person in order to in order to invest in one of these phones, you have just have to be a person who can make a really good case for, I occasionally need a bigger screen just for five or 10 minutes, several times during the day. It doesn't merit me having a separate mini tablet with me. It doesn't merit having a, having a laptop with me. But this ability to really rocket through some spreadsheets or rocket through some documents I need to process those several times a day that I need them, that to me is worth a, a 600, $700 premium. And they will sell you a very good working phone. That is, and I was, is it, is it actually IP 68 resistant, or is

Leo Laporte (00:51:30):
It just No, it's IP X eight <laugh> and there's no dust resistance. They got a Big X, but, but, but not Elon X just a regular X in there. Yeah,

Andy Ihnatko (00:51:38):
But, but at least you don't have to, you don't have to worry about, oh, I have to, I I'm, I need to get a ride share. Like, and it's raining, it's drizzling outside. I have to worry about like little raindrops hitting it and getting in between a seam and then suddenly boom, another, another $1,800, please.

Leo Laporte (00:51:52):
Yeah. And I think they're getting better at dust resistance. I mean, I know they would love to be IP 68, but you know, I think they're getting,

Andy Ihnatko (00:51:58):
Imagine reviewing it, reviewing a phone, and just writing about hinges like <laugh> like your, like your, like your comms for Yankee Magazine, for the Earl Peruse. Like, well, she's not

Leo Laporte (00:52:06):
About to hinge the thing.

Andy Ihnatko (00:52:08):
The thing is, you're trying to use a double lap steel hinge when what you want is a single hoop ridge over there. 'cause It's a Chester drawers. And boy, if you don't want to have to be fixing those screws every two years or so,

Leo Laporte (00:52:21):
Our show today brought to you by Zocdoc, you know, you you know that feeling. Oh boy, I've had this feeling. When you finally find the thing you've been searching for on the internet, after spending hours of researching, you read all the reviews, you finally find it, whatever it is, you know, that thing, the disco pants that sparkle the designer dog hoodies, the little pouch to put the kitten in, whatever it is, it checks all the boxes. It has five stars. It arrives at 48 hours. Why is it that you can get a pouch to hold your dog, but you can't get a physician, a doctor <laugh> that way? Why is it, why is it, you know, it could take forever to get an appointment. Not to mention, how do you know if they're even good? We got reviews for everything else. There is a way, now it's called Zocdoc, a place to find and book great doctors who have amazing reviews, and many of them with appointments in 24 hours.

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(00:54:52):
It is fanta, I've used it myself to find a gerontologist. You can go. That's, you can go by specialties Zocdoc. Not for me, not for me. For an elder in my family. Zocdoc.Com/Mac break. <Laugh>, I am rapidly going to soon be the elder in my family. But until then, <affirmative> I was gonna mention the iPad. We had a call on Sunday. Micah and I on ask the tech guys, somebody had a sixth generation iPad and wondered if, if they should get the new one now or wait till October. Wh so which iPads do we think will be updated? Gerin says there'll be an ole iPad, but not till next year.

Andy Ihnatko (00:55:39):
Hmm. What was the latest, latest update was the the, the, I'm trying to think who was, was the air or the pro

Leo Laporte (00:55:49):
We sent 'em to The

Andy Ihnatko (00:55:49):
Haven't had an updated in a long time.

Leo Laporte (00:55:51):
We sent 'em to the Mac rumors. The,

Jason Snell (00:55:53):
The iPad and iPad Pro were updated last October.

Leo Laporte (00:55:59):
Yes.

Jason Snell (00:56:01):
And that means there probably wouldn't be until the spring. Although if you've got a sixth generation, I mean, the 10th generation iPad they have, it has come a long way since then. Right.

Leo Laporte (00:56:10):
We sent 'em to the Mac rumors buying guide and, and they, they say it's neutral right now. 'cause Is it Mack Rumors? Who is it that does the

Jason Snell (00:56:21):
Yeah, yeah. And they count, they count, count on, they look the cycle. How long it's been. Yeah. And yeah, I would, I would say if you've got, I mean, my gut feeling is if you've got a a a, a iPad that's that old and you want a new iPad, you should get it. Like you should, you should get it and enjoy it, rather than waiting around until next spring sometime. Right. I mean, if you're fine, but if you're asking the question, it says to me that maybe it's time for an upgrade and that Exactly. You don't, yeah. It's not gonna make a difference if it's, if it's a, an eight month old iPad. Right. Like it's still gonna be way more than what you have

Leo Laporte (00:56:51):
Right now. It'll be snappier

Jason Snell (00:56:53):
<Laugh>. It'll be so, it'll be like eight snaps snappier

Alex Lindsay (00:56:56):
Now with more Snap <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:56:58):
He did say it was starting to lag when he was watching Netflix and things. And I think that's, you're right. I think you're right. Yeah. The only thing is if, you know, there's one in October, which we don't, but if you knew there was gonna be one in October, there might be some buyers remorse if you bought it in late August.

Jason Snell (00:57:12):
Right. Although it'll still be a huge upgrade. But yeah, I, my guess is that that's not on a year cycle, right? So it's not gonna be in October. It's gonna be in like March Right. Of next year

Alex Lindsay (00:57:20):
Probably. Other than the Mac Minis. I don't buy, I buy all Apple products when they're released <laugh>, like, like that. It's like I just wait until the Mac until they're, until they're, unless they're brand, the Mac Minis are kind of this utility that I just keep buying. But, but out because I'm, I know that I'm gonna get not gonna do anything near what they're capable of. And so that they're, they're so overbuilt now. They went from being really underbuilt to being completely overbuilt for what, 99% people are gonna use 'em for that. I just feel like I can buy a Mac Mini at any point in time when I need another computer. But for everything else, I kind of wait until the release happens. And then I, if it's a brand new build, I will not buy it first. <Laugh>, I won't. I'll let some, I'll let the front line of people buying it. I'll let them, I'll give them a couple months and wait for a 0.1 release. And then, but outside of that, like with phones, with any computer that's been out for a while that they haven't really changed a major, a major design change, I just wait until the update and that's the time to buy. 'cause It's gonna be the newest thing, unless you really need it.

Leo Laporte (00:58:17):
Yeah. Apple, apple Insider said a foldable iPad may be sooner than you think, but I don't think it would be this year.

Alex Lindsay (00:58:24):
That is not something I would, I would buy immediately.

Jason Snell (00:58:27):
<Laugh> and not, not something that's somebody who's got a base model iPad that's gonna

Leo Laporte (00:58:30):
One. No, that's a good point. It'll be thousands. It'll be 2000, right. Yeah. Quote said, A folding iPad with a carbon fiber stand could be released in 2024. Germond doubts the claims, the sources didn't mention any, his sources didn't mention anything about a folding iPad. So Yeah.

Andy Ihnatko (00:58:47):
And that's, that's an interesting idea about what Apple would go for. But they go for like a, a 12.9 inch iPad that folds for storage in your, in your bag to the size of an iPad mini. Or would they actually be looking for something that's more like the like the convertible stuff we've been seeing from from Windows manufacturers where yes, it's a tablet, but if you fo you can fold it into tent mode and have sort of like a half sized easel sort of thing. Or even have a one surface for controls and user interface the other surface for actual content. I, I, and I don't know exactly how Apple would want to go about that.

Jason Snell (00:59:21):
And they've been experimenting with, according to Mann's reports, with the laptops using folding technology. Now laptops already fold, but foldable displays to do something. And I don't know whether that's just to have a much larger external display that is a computer that you could then just attach a peripheral to, or whether that's more like, they want it to be sort of a tablet when it's not a laptop is unclear as well. I mean, going back, going back to the iPad, that buying question for a moment, I just wanted to point out the, the 10th generation iPad was a major hardware update from the ninth generation. They lost those big bezels at the top mm-hmm. <Affirmative> in the bottom. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So like, you know, the next one when it does come is not gonna be very different. Right. Because they just refreshed it. So I think that they still sell the, the old one for 3 29 that maybe I wouldn't buy unless you absolutely wanna spend the least on an iPad right now. But that new 10th generation one is pretty great. And it, it's not gonna get, even if it was coming out this fall, like it's not gonna be much. Yeah. They might update the chip a little bit, but that's about it. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:00:19):
You might, you might. I just, I said, just be warned, you buy it now, you're gonna be enjoying it for a few months, then you might see a new one. You might go, Aw, that's, but that's life. That's what happens in technology. Now. I am a fan of the iPad Mini, and according to the leaker shrimp Apple Pro, God I trust Shrimp. Apple Pro, an iPad Mini could be in the works for this fall.

Andy Ihnatko (01:00:43):
Yeah. That hasn't, that hasn't gotten enough revenue quite

Leo Laporte (01:00:45):
A while. It's been a while. And that's a great form factor. I think people might chew it saying, well, I already have a phone that's six inches, what I need a seven inch iPad for. Yeah. Remember,

Andy Ihnatko (01:00:55):
Also, remember that that will work with the Apple Pencil and also mm-hmm. <Affirmative> like crayon type type devices. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, that's a pretty hot form factor. It works

Leo Laporte (01:01:01):
With the pencil too. It's great. Yeah, yeah,

Jason Snell (01:01:04):
Yeah. Really good. And, and not since September of 21. Right. So times that probably coming for that. Yeah. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:01:09):
Yeah. I, I have several iPads, right? But, but there's something about the mini that's, that's the one I go to much more often than the iPad Pro. The 12 inch, yeah. 12.9 inch

Andy Ihnatko (01:01:21):
A Again, I want, I want an iPad that's as powerful as my regular iPad Pro, or excuse me, as useful as my iPad Pro. And if not necessarily as powerful, but it can be something that's in my bag and I don't even necessarily, I have to kinda look for it when it's there. Whereas with my iPad, with my iPad Pro love it. It's, it's made its money back for me several times over. But on my regular size satchel, like my Ford prefix style satchel, I do have to like, make sure I put that, put it in there first to make sure that I can get it in there. Because once I put other things in there, it might be hard to extract.

Leo Laporte (01:01:53):
Always put the towel underneath, I think the iPad so that it's got some cushion when you put it down.

Andy Ihnatko (01:01:57):
As long as I know where it is. Yeah, that's fine.

Leo Laporte (01:01:59):
He's the dr that always knows where his towel is. The French <inaudible> hopping mad. Oh, you know. Oh

Jason Snell (01:02:09):
No. Oh no. About the accent

Leo Laporte (01:02:12):
<Laugh> about my accent. No, they're mad because apple shockingly uses advertising data to sell ads. <Laugh> what? Shocking, what is wrong with you Apple? This is a not the only complaint out of the eu. Google got in trouble too. I don't, you know, this is, I I'm not, I it's kind of how everything works. <Laugh>. Yeah. You don't just you just throw an ad at somebody. You try to throw an ad at somebody who might be interested in your product. I mean, we can't we, we can't track who's watching this show. So our ads, well, actually that is different 'cause we're starting to use, and you'll see in the third ad spot on this show, direct ad insertion, and they at least know what geographic location you're from. I've had people tell me they've listened to our shows in Spain and, and received Spanish language adverts, which is to me is working.

(01:03:09):
Right. That's what you want. Yeah. with, and when that happens, I, you still, they don't still don't know a lot about you. They just know what IP address you have, which, and, and, and geolocate you based on that the statement of J it ss a's pro practices in the sector of app distribution. This came out today. Apple's accused of abusing its dominant position, <laugh> by implementing discriminatory non-objective and non-transparent conditions for the use of user da data for advertising purposes. The issue is that Apple has first party information. So they, they, of course they have a t t by the way, apple also got in trouble for a t <laugh>. <Laugh>. Yeah. I can't remember which country that was in the eu. But Apple, the reason they got in trouble for at t was Oh yeah, you block trekking for other people, but not yourself. Which, which

Jason Snell (01:04:09):
Shows you a clear misunderstanding of what first party.

Leo Laporte (01:04:11):
And I know third party, you know, I know. So that was in Germany last year. Germany's antitrust Watchdog opened a pro to Apple's advertising technology claiming the firm's terms of use, unfairly fa favor apple's own services. That's just crazy. EU antitrust officials are looking into whether the firm has restricted access to the N F C to their own Apple Pay, not other payment systems. There's also a long running probe into how Apple may have hampered music streaming companies like Spotify from telling users about deals outside of the app store. This is that, you know, you can't have a link to your own store in the app,

Jason Snell (01:04:49):
Right? I mean, some of these are ridiculous, but some of these are not, not entirely unreasonable, right? Yeah. Like some of these are investigating the idea that Apple has defined fairness and privacy and all of these things as being a bond between the user of a phone and Apple, because Apple makes the phone and it leads down a lot of, and that's not unreasonable on one level, but it leads down a lot of paths. Sort of like this means that Apple can close the door on competition and then, and then do it itself. And so you see that app tracking transparency, the knock is not that it isn't a good feature. The knock is that Apple as the first party has defined itself out of that and can still do targeting, right? Because it's a first party relationship instead of a third party relationship with Facebook. The

Leo Laporte (01:05:34):
Same. Do we think that's okay? Does that let 'em off the hook? You know, Facebook, Google, apple, I've mentioned this many, many times. They have first party data. They're not, they're, they're not shooing that.

Alex Lindsay (01:05:47):
No, they're, and, and the big thing is what they're, I think if my understanding of at t maybe it's off, but is that they can't sell that data again. Like that's the thing that, you know, Facebook wants to do, is take that data and then they want to sell it to Safeway and then they wanna buy, or, you know, put it on the market. And that's what the whole, like, can we sell your data is a different thing than can we use your data? And that's a very different, different, you know, these are two different things. Which, you know, most yeah, I do think that advertising, but a lot

Jason Snell (01:06:12):
Of their competition is, is using it internally. 'cause It's buttressing their own products, right? They don't want to give away the store. They want to want people to come to Facebook or Google and sell. And they don't wanna give away their data. They just wanna sell ads and place the ads. And the argument is that it is Apple acting like you know, a protector, but also doing something that's anti-competitive. It's similar to saying you can't, you know, we need to take the percentage away from sales in, in app purchases. But what that effectively does when they launch their own bookstore is mean that only the Apple bookstore can ever possibly exist on the device because they're, they're their own middleman there. So that, I mean, they have good, I feel like they have good reasons for doing it, but it does sometimes lead them down to the path where they're like, oh, but also this benefits us. Facebook

Leo Laporte (01:06:55):
Sell. Specifically I'm looking at Facebook's help center. We do not sell your information. Instead, based on the information, we have advertisers and other partners pay us to show you personalized ads. And because, and they don't wanna sell it. Because that's the, that's the, the gold that Facebook has. I'm sure Google is similar. However, we know people like your ISPs and, and Verizon are selling data to data brokers. In fact, that Congress is kind of finally, I hope they act on this, trying to shut down these data brokers. 'cause That's really, there's the real privacy problem, which is people aggregating data and then selling it on to, to, to, by the way, not just advertisers, but to the N S A, the NSA is buying this information. I was

Alex Lindsay (01:07:39):
Was was the f b too? Fbi? I think we talked about this before, but, but, but I, but the thing that you really get, China and Palantir of course is Palantir is the one that really buys and moves a lot of that stuff around. And so the, the Peter Thiel's

Leo Laporte (01:07:52):
Spike company, yeah.

Alex Lindsay (01:07:54):
Someone I was talking to someone about like, you know, the, the whole idea that you are, you are talking to someone about something and then the next thing you know, you're getting ads about it. And I was talking to someone who knew something about that, and they're like, no, we don't need to listen to you talk about it, <laugh>. We just knew the two of you're sitting next to each other. They did a search 10 minutes later or while you were talking. And we just know that the two of you were talking like, and not from your audio, just because you're, you have a behavior that looks like standing from the accelerometer and you're standing right next to them <laugh>. And, and there's a like, and, and, and that was scarier to me than, than them listening to my audio. Is that, that that's the level of which, and then they can look at the entire branch of both of you and how you relate.

(01:08:30):
And that's the data level of data that's kind of floating around there. But I will say that I just think that advertise Apple's making so much money in so many places that the advertising market is an unforced error. Like, I just feel like they, they should not be doing this. Like they, they should just stay out. Like this would be a lot simpler if Apple didn't, didn't do this. I, I feel like it's a dirty place for them to be. And that they shouldn't, they just shouldn't go there like that. There's so many other places where it's a clean kill. Like they, they, they have a clean way of doing this, and this is their, this is really messy. Like it's just really, it's a, it's a foggy place for them to be in. And I think that they, they, they'd be smart to pull out. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:09:11):
This is a paper from university of California Berkeley came out a couple of years ago. Chris Hufnagel. They claim not to sell data, but Facebook and Google have paid developers with data. This is before a t t came out. The selling of your personal data is central to platform economics. Basically by providing developers with APIs that can investigate users. They're not exactly selling it. There's no coinage being exchanged, but they are, this is how you get developers on your platform. Developers, he writes, privileged access to user data is, is a sale while no money trades and a sale only requires a transfer of value. Sales include barters promises to pay. In a way, it's a, it's a barter and, and platforms needed. Now, I don't know if ATT t changed that equation or not. Maybe it did, but but, but Facebook and, and Google do not not have a t t

Jason Snell (01:10:07):
So, right. I mean, the argument is that Apple, it's at t t is about tracking, right? It, it's not about selling your personal data. It's about tracking you and building a profile. And what Apple wants to say is, on our platform, apps are not gonna be able to do that level of tracking, so therefore they're not watching you. So therefore you should feel better, right? At the same time, and we've talked about these stories here over the last year and beyond, apple knows a lot about you itself. And Apple doesn't consider that a problem. Apple says, well, no, you already have a relationship with us and you under, and we know what apps you buy and all of those things. And we'll feed you ads in the app store based on your behavior in the app store and all of that. And that's just, you know, that's your relationship with Apple.

(01:10:49):
That's not a random relationship. And while I think there is some accuracy in that philosophy by, by banning one, you know, company or one set of companies business and then ramping up its own advertising machinery, like Alex said, it's a bit of an own goal because now it doesn't sound like you're doing it just to protect the user. You're also then filling the vacuum with your own profit making apparatus. Which is why I mentioned something like the Kindle store not being able to be on Apple's platforms, or, you know, you name it. There are lots of places where Apple does something that is right, I think and is a good idea. And then they say, oh, and you know, now there's nobody there except us. So we can make more money that way. And that's when it starts to get weird. And that's when I see some of these European regulators step in and I say, yeah, maybe so. Fair enough.

Andy Ihnatko (01:11:39):
Yeah. There, there are a lot of areas like this. This is one of the few real vulnerabilities that Apple has that they really have to be held to account to say that, okay, you're, you've, you're answer to the question. You're only allowing your own products to have this access to this piece of hardware inside the iPhone. You're not allowing anybody else to have it. And even even music services and other services that you are directly competing with, and your explanation for why you should do that, why you can do that shouldn't be, oh, well, you can trust us. Like, no, you're gonna have to prove in a court that you're, what you're doing is okay, and then you're gonna have to prove to people who are very, very skeptical and people who in principle don't want to have you do that. So as, as usual Apple might be, right? Apple might be wrong. The only thing that I know for sure is that they should be forced to explain themselves and not just simply say, oh, we're just too hippies in a garage. We're, we want to improve the world for everybody. It's like, okay, but you're also two drilling dollar company, and we trust us is not, is not gonna be legally binding in the EU from a pure

Leo Laporte (01:12:36):
Marketing point of view. All Apple has to do is be better than the other guys. So they maybe, but they don't have to be perfect. They just have to be a little bit, I mean, you, I think you're right Alex, when you say Apple has a relationship with its customers and, and well, and

Alex Lindsay (01:12:54):
It's a relationship that most of their customers want, I think,

Leo Laporte (01:12:56):
Right? We buy Apple devices. 'cause We, we don't mind them having that information. We just don't want Google to have it.

Alex Lindsay (01:13:02):
Well, it's not Google gets it every time you use a Google product, they still allowed to have that because you've defined your relationship. What Google s

Leo Laporte (01:13:09):
Actually pays Apple $15 billion a year so that you will continue to use Google's search in Safari. Right?

Alex Lindsay (01:13:14):
But, but, but the, the difference is, is what what Apple's saying is that, that if, if you as a user approve that, that's fine. But if you don't approve it, it basically says they can't take your data and then give it to somebody else that you don't know. Like, that's the big thing is that you're allow, you know, Apple's allowing you to have, give data to companies that you've approved to have your, you know, that, that you've said, I'll, I'll give you my data, my tracking data and my whatever, whatever the data is. But you have to approve then as well as a user that they can take that data and run with it and give it to somebody else. That's the thing that Apple's cut off, is that you can't, you can, so that, and it, the reality is, is that they're not, they truly aren't doing anything different than what they're giving other companies of the ability to do.

(01:13:59):
You know, that that first party data, if you're using Facebook, that first party data is still something that Facebook can do. It's the repackaging of your data that Apple has turned off. So that's what's, and that's what everybody's, you know, upset about is that they, you know, and Apple's saying if, and the user just has to approve it, like they prove it has to approve that you can sell my data to other people and 75% or 80% of the users say no. And I think that, I think that, that, what I will say is that I think that it's good for, you know, from a user perspective, I want to be able to, I want Apple to say, do you want to use this or do you want them to do this or not? And you, and if I say yes, then more power to them, but most people are gonna say no.

(01:14:35):
And but I still think that even though I think that Apple's right in that area, in the a t t area, I think it'd be a lot cleaner for them and there'll be a lot less trouble. I mean, I think Apple's biggest concern over the next decade, and I've said this over and over again, is antitrust. It's the governments, it's no longer, they're not competing with, they're not competing with their peers anymore. They're just, it's their peers trying to slow them down, you know? And the problem with the EU is they have nothing to lose. They don't have any major, they don't have any of these companies that hold any of these platforms. And so they're kind of free run to make whatever laws they want because it's not gonna affect any of their companies.

Leo Laporte (01:15:07):
Yeah. I mean, that's what happens whenever you've got a monopoly, you have nothing to fear from the competitors. <Laugh>, you only have to fear the governments.

Alex Lindsay (01:15:15):
Well, apple doesn't have, I, I still

Leo Laporte (01:15:17):
<Crosstalk> only have a monopoly, a dominant position. That's one of the things, the debates that's going on in, in, in Congress and and DC right now is do you have to have a hundred percent or 90% market share to be a address?

Alex Lindsay (01:15:28):
Apple's not even close to

Leo Laporte (01:15:28):
That. No, I know Apple and they're saying no, but you can be dominant enough in a market that you, that you need to be reigned in a little bit. I mean, they're literally looking at breaking up companies at this point. What was it? Was it Google? Who would they want break up? Yeah,

Andy Ihnatko (01:15:44):
Google's, Google's ads, AdSense bus, Google's ad business is very close to being broken up. Yeah. Facebook is being pursued to, to divest themselves of their chat app, their Instagram, everything. So yeah, there's, it's not there. The US isn't being terribly effective and antitrust that way, but the EU certainly

Leo Laporte (01:16:02):
Is. Yeah. One of the things, apple was a story and I don't have in front of me, was that Apple was going to demand developers ask for permission <laugh> before they start using, oh, I do have it in front of me APIs, apple Store App Store, to require developers to describe why their apps use certain APIs. I think this is a good thing, right? This is the next step after intents because didn't you have to don't you have to, as a developer say we are gonna use this, this, and this. This is these intents. Apple says, to pre prevent the misuse of certain APIs that could be used to collect data about users' devices through fingerprinting. Yeah. You'll need to declare the reasons for using these APIs in your app's privacy manifest. This will assure the apps only use these APIs for their intended purpose. And this, by the way, in the face of Google, looking like they're moving towards a replacement for cookies. That is a really kind of a dire fingerprinting technology. Yeah. it's,

Andy Ihnatko (01:17:04):
Yeah, that's, you talk, you talk about, about own goals. I mean, they're, they're trying to fix a problem of we want to maintain control over the, how ads can be trapped and hidden on browsers across the internet. We're gonna do it by disguising it inside a proposal for a way to keep the internet more private and secure. And one of those offshoots should be, is going to be that any code that runs inside that browser can say, oh, well I'm, I'm sorry, but I have to <laugh>. I'm not, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna execute the code on this site unless you have this ad blocker turned off, which I am now available. Oh, goodness. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:17:38):
This is this is Ron Am Mario's article in ours technical, if you wanna read more about it, I know it's not a Google show, but this is why we buy iPhones, Google's nightmare web integrity, A p i wants a d r M gatekeeper for the web. It's just a proposal, but it's coming to Chrome. So in a way, this is this web, they call it the web environment integrity, A p I, and in a way, it's sort of like Ask Apple asking developers, well, why do you wanna know this? The difference is Google's saying, <laugh>, you should use this <laugh>.

Andy Ihnatko (01:18:12):
Yeah. A Apple, apple is always in a great position because they, they never have to defend the idea that what we're doing is we're trying, we make 80% of our money off of advertising. And what we're trying to do is make sure that that nest egg never goes away. Yeah. And so this is why when you look at one, one of the things that you have to, you have to look at with with Meta's Threads app is goodness gracious, what a great tool Apple has given the entire community by saying, by the way, here is the, here's the nutritional value of all the privacy stuff going on with this app. And Threads is a Christmas tree of every single

Leo Laporte (01:18:46):
Thing it could. They want your health information <laugh>.

Andy Ihnatko (01:18:49):
Yeah. And, and and really is all about, well, a or a, the principle in Facebook that if this information, we want it. But also because as you, as you, as you mentioned, ask for fingerprinting, the more data it has, the more, the more identify your device despite whatever's going on. So if Apple is now saying, okay, we understand why you need Abso the ability to write information to the screen and to access to the camera everything else, we're gonna have to have a long lunch about this. And you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to explain to us why you need health information.

Leo Laporte (01:19:17):
Oddly enough, though, that information came out when Threads came out and a hundred million people signed up in the first week anyway,

Alex Lindsay (01:19:24):
So Yeah. But I, I think that the, the thing with threads is I think a lot of people were like me, which is like, I just wanna protect my, my everybody I talked to was, when we were talking about,

Leo Laporte (01:19:33):
They're saying the usage went way down.

Alex Lindsay (01:19:35):
I just want to, I just want grab my, my my make sure that I don't lose my handle. Right. And then I, you know, so you just go up there, claim your handle, and then leave. And that's what you

Leo Laporte (01:19:44):
Don't have to do that it turns out because it's your Instagram handle, you already have, it's your Instagram

Jason Snell (01:19:47):
Handle. Yeah. I think

Alex Lindsay (01:19:48):
A

Leo Laporte (01:19:48):
Lot of us people know, but they don't like my Instagram handle and I'm stuck with it. <Laugh>. So

Jason Snell (01:19:52):
There's, there's a nuance to this issue with with Apple asking for, you know, disclosures is, you know, are people reading the warning labels? Maybe not. But what they are doing is app developers are making a, basically a legal claim under the rules of the developer agreement that what they are submitting is true. And what that does is it puts a little added pressure on them because Apple can reject their apps, pull their apps from the store, kick them off the store. And so it, it is a way, it is, it is an honor system, but it's also this like, we caught you in a lie. And so you better tell the truth because if we catch you, we are all powerful and we can destroy you. Right? Yeah. Like that's sort of what the dynamic is there. So it's not, the labels are there, but the labels also serve as a, you know, you claimed this did this.

(01:20:47):
And so the new thing about having the reason why you use these new APIs that is coming where you're gonna say like, why do you wanna know about the creation data of a particular file? Or how long the system uptime has been on? Which is very much the same idea as browsers used to, or websites used to look at what fonts were in your browser and used it to fingerprint you. And, and so now Safari lies about what fonts you have because they're trying to protect you from that. It's a little like that where you could say, no, no, no, no, no, we're using that for good <laugh>. But you have to know that if you're using it for evil and somebody notices, apple is going to say you are in violation of your developer agreement. The problem with this story is that one of the APIs that they listed is literally how you say preferences.

(01:21:31):
And that means that if, unless they change that rule, every single app in the app store is going to have to submit one of these and say, I use it to say preferences, which is dumb. So I hope that they make some tweaks there. 'cause Nobody wants to do that. And it, and it will serve nobody if everybody is filing a generic boilerplate statement that just says, I use the preference saving a p i to save preferences. So you'll have to see about that. But I, I do think that that is part of it here is it's like you're an illegal agreement with us. Don't, don't lie to Mr. Apple. Right? Like, don't do it <laugh> don't do it.

Alex Lindsay (01:22:05):
Well, and, and everyone is trying to, everyone's trying to figure out how to get around this and how to get data from people at every moment. And I think that, I think that the G D P R as well, like when you, when you do the, like, I'm not going because I never agree to any of the G D R stuff. I always turn it off and I always get frustrated with sites that like try to hide it behind something or whatever. And that's gotten to be easier, but when you open it up and you like open up pg and e and it's like, we can't, can we sell your data? I'm like, really? Like really pg e is selling my data? Like you,

Jason Snell (01:22:32):
And I

Alex Lindsay (01:22:32):
Can't say that word.

Jason Snell (01:22:33):
The one that got me was, I, every time I close Zoom, I now in, in the beta of Sonoma, I get a popup that says Zoom would like, and it's a system popup <laugh>. So it's trying to do, it's like Zoom would like access to data from other applications on your system, <laugh>. And I'm like, no, whatcha talking about? Right. And that I love that disclosure 'cause they're giving you the action of being able to say no, like you can't have it.

Alex Lindsay (01:22:58):
Of course, I use tons of data between other computer, other things to control Zoom. That's like a zoomo C Sure. I need to be able to talk to Zoom. So it's, it's saying Zoom wants something from other, other, other, well, what it's asking for is other apps. Like the ones we use are, that I use all the time are accessing Zoom too. Yeah.

Jason Snell (01:23:13):
Just lemme choose. Right.

Alex Lindsay (01:23:15):
Exactly. Exactly. And, and, and so the thing is, is that it's, it is a and, and what we're seeing is a multi-year, very slow cinching of privacy. Apple is not doing this all at one time and every year they're just gonna keep on turning that screw to to, to close it off. 'cause They've got nothing to lose. You know, they're not, you know, and they know that they can, this is a key competitive thing because Google can't do that. Like Google is based on your data, and so they, you know, so Apple knows that it can just keep on turning this screw and there's, and the Android platform can't do what they're doing. And, and, and that's gonna be, you know, people are gonna make choices about privacy.

Leo Laporte (01:23:51):
And then there's the members of Congress who are writing Apple to say, <laugh>, your app store is threatening Web 3.0 <laugh>.

Alex Lindsay (01:24:01):
Really? Did they really say that? Really?

Leo Laporte (01:24:02):
Yeah. Yeah. In a letter. This is so ridiculous addressed to Tim Cook, US House of Representatives, Gus Billy Racks and Janowski have expressed concerns, <laugh> that Apple's App Store policies might hinder the growth of the cryptocurrency sector. <Laugh>. They, they are the chairman and ranking member of the House subcommittee on innovation data and commerce. So they're not nothing, they said Apple might leverage its app store rules for UE competitive advantage. I think somebody ought to talk to these guys about web three.

Jason Snell (01:24:39):
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, my grandson tells me that the cryptography is now money and that the apple is against the money. <Laugh> Tech Giants, I find it is outrageous and I demand that we send them a letter.

Leo Laporte (01:24:54):
This is from a website called be in crypto.com, so you can see where they stand. Tech Giants in Hot Water over N F T policies, hot Water. The the representatives highlighted the discontent expressed by companies like Coinbase and XI Infiniti due to Apple's policies, Coinbase suspended N F T transfers for its iOS wallet user. In the past year, Axe Infiniti, I had to scale back N F T functionalities on iOS to align with Apple's guidelines. Oh dear.

Jason Snell (01:25:24):
This, this is the, this is the idea that you're using NFTs to launder money outside the app store so that you don't have to use App Store Apple's 15%. That's what that story is coming from. Oh, oh, is the idea that they were selling NFTs and using it to get around the 15% apple tax? Well, it's, or the 30% Apple tax. Yeah.

Andy Ihnatko (01:25:42):
Yeah. I mean, most of the questions are about gas fees in doing N F T transactions and yeah, it's for Skull Doug resource stuff. But also if you have a, if you, assuming that a legitimate banking app for TS and trading app is, is created, they would also apply, most of the questions that they're asking are very, very common questions that Apple tends to get asked, which is about tell us everything about the app store policies, about the approval process. Do you check every app as it comes in for, for whether it it follows app policies, or do you only do it when there's a complaint about it? And so you've al also sneaking in some stuff about, hey, you've fast, you've gave Baidu like a fast track to approval process, which a chi a who and need, I remind you, by the way, do you, is a Chinese communist company country do you, do you why do, explain exactly why you did that? This

Leo Laporte (01:26:33):
Is so ridiculous. We request information and documents from Apple regard and policies in place. This is the letter governing Apple's iOS app store and how these policies are impacting American leadership in emerging technologies, including blockchains, non fungible tokens and other distributed ledger technologies.

Alex Lindsay (01:26:55):
It's probably the first time they ever used those words. They're all, we're really exciting. We're not using the words that the kids use, you know, but Apple has, again, we have to

Leo Laporte (01:27:02):
Used its app store guidelines to increase its own profits, <laugh> and reduce the utility of apps in blockchains, NFTs, and other blockchain related technology. Yeah. The gas fees are certainly a part of it. Yep.

Andy Ihnatko (01:27:16):
Yeah, I don't, I don't think it's 100% silly. I think it's, I think it's up there. But if, if, again, imagine a future world in which there's actually legitimate use of blockchains, should Apple Base basically say that anytime there's a, and gas fees are not just profit taking, they are, here is the expense of actually doing this work on a blockchain. Does Apple simply, is Apple gonna say that? Oh, well you've, since you transferred like $5,000 from one account in your bank to another account to, in one of your other banks using your banking app, we're entitled to 30% of whatever fees had to be charged in order to make that happen. It's not a one-to-one analogy, but it's, it's a, the letter was a signed by two bipartisan bipartisan members. So it's not, it's if if there's silliness, it's sill it's on both sides. So it's not, it's

Leo Laporte (01:28:00):
Bipartisan silliness. I will grant you that. Yes. Isn't too

Andy Ihnatko (01:28:03):
Crazy. I mean, it's too

Alex Lindsay (01:28:04):
Crazy. I mean, you can find a wild hair in both parties. In fact, a lot of

Andy Ihnatko (01:28:08):
Those Oh, no, no, I'm saying fact that this's

Alex Lindsay (01:28:09):
Bipartisan, I love that they have to find one crazy kook on one side and another crazy kook on another. Usually they go to Missouri. What's that guy's name? Josh Har Hart.

Leo Laporte (01:28:17):
Oh, Josh Hawley is crazy. Yeah.

Alex Lindsay (01:28:20):
So you can always find him one of those crazy ones. Like he is like, Hey, we'll get, we'll go into the Ozarks and get one guy. I know we, I know this guy. He's got a thing, he's got a little shack.

Andy Ihnatko (01:28:27):
Well, these two are the co-chair, the committee one from one, the Democratic reps from Illinois, the Republican rappers from Florida. Sure. look at

Leo Laporte (01:28:33):
This one's another great bipartisan,

Andy Ihnatko (01:28:35):
I'm not saying that some of these questions are valid when

Leo Laporte (01:28:36):
You get Lindsey Graham and Elizabeth Warren in the same barrel, you've, you know, you're doing something right when it comes to big tech. Enough is enough. This is a op

Alex Lindsay (01:28:44):
Oped because they're, they're, I'm sure they're right on the cutting edge. Oh yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:28:46):
Op-Ed

Andy Ihnatko (01:28:47):
Piece. No,

Leo Laporte (01:28:48):
They want Ally practically programmers. They want, they, well,

Andy Ihnatko (01:28:51):
She know, she sharp,

Leo Laporte (01:28:53):
She's smart. I agree with her. But they wanna start a, a government regulatory commission to regulate big tech. Basically they said, just like the, a horrible idea, F A A F T C F C C, we need to regulate big tech. And it should be, this is the Digital Consumer Protection Commission Act, independent, bipartisan, regulated charge with get ready for this licensing and policing the nation's biggest tech companies. In other words, in order to start a tech company, you'd have to get a license from the federal government.

Alex Lindsay (01:29:23):
We have found, this is what this is saying, we have found that we cannot effectively pass laws, you know, in Congress. So we would like to create an agency that is no longer no longer has to pass laws. They can just make rules. They, that's that's what they're saying. They, but

Leo Laporte (01:29:37):
At the same time, the Supreme Court is undermining that laws capability. So I don't, you know, I don't know

Andy Ihnatko (01:29:42):
What this is. It's not, it's not like, I mean the, the f the FTC has had the most gung-ho than the d a have had one, the most gung-ho antitrust people, and they've been able to get absolutely nothing done just on, just on principle of Congress saying, yeah, but that seems as though like you have power and we would rather have that power for ourselves. So we're gonna make sure that you can't actually do that.

Leo Laporte (01:29:59):
I do, I do think we need privacy regulation. I, I, I don't, I completely agree with that. And they need to shut down the data brokers. That's clearly a problem. And instead of worrying about TikTok, worry about data brokers who are then selling that information from all of our apps onto China, that's the real threat to our privacy. Not TikTok, but it's a lot easier to go after TikTok than it is to actually deal with the problem.

Andy Ihnatko (01:30:23):
Yeah. That, that's one of the biggest problems with policy. People are afraid of of like the big predators, like the wolves and the tigers. And the panthers like ripping apart parts, pers of people's bodies and, you know, eating them. It's actually the tiny, tiny little bugs that reduce a body into dust. And those little bugs, those little insect, it's the cockroaches

Leo Laporte (01:30:41):
You gotta

Andy Ihnatko (01:30:41):
Worry about. Those are right. The million little marketing companies that are, that are actually your biggest problem.

Alex Lindsay (01:30:46):
Turns out mosquitoes kill a lot more people than most Southern.

Leo Laporte (01:30:48):
Absolutely. Yeah. So yeah, mosquitoes and hippos.

Andy Ihnatko (01:30:52):
I was disappointed to find mosquito horses, hippo people in Australia than anything else. That's what, what kills horses, kill more people in the, in Australia than anything other than the tail end of a

Leo Laporte (01:31:02):
Horse. Deadly. I

Andy Ihnatko (01:31:03):
Know, it's just disappointing. Take some, take some of the allure outta Australia.

Leo Laporte (01:31:07):
Stay away from the back.

Alex Lindsay (01:31:09):
Kangaroos. Come on, snakes. Get to it.

Leo Laporte (01:31:11):
What are you doing?

Andy Ihnatko (01:31:12):
Kangaroos?

Leo Laporte (01:31:12):
You're letting us down. They got good poisonous snakes and spiders.

Andy Ihnatko (01:31:16):
He, he got, he, he got a takeout bears submarine sandwich. He didn't take, he, he was supposed to take the bread apart to make sure there wasn't a ring ring, ring. Ringtail octopus hiding in there. The most deadly venom known to humanity. You know, you got, you got you gonna come to Australia. You gotta play it by Australia's sandwich rules, man.

Leo Laporte (01:31:35):
If you had said drop bears kill more people in Australia than any other animal, then I would've liked it

Andy Ihnatko (01:31:42):
Killing us with cuteness <laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:31:45):
Android. Oh, speaking of tracking, Android and Apple have made a deal to warn you about Bluetooth trackers traveling with you. Google made a big deal about announcing it at Google io and they're working with Apple. They they announced their intention to draft an industry-wide standard focused on how users could be alerted to unwanted tracking. There's a problem with Android because you have to actually run an app to see an air tag. So I'm reading this great article, I'm thinking, yeah, right on. Good, good. And then get to the last paragraph. Today, however, Google says this update is on hold. The decision was made to roll out these updates. 'cause Google is now working in partnership with Apple to finalize the joint unwanted tracker alert specification by year end. So they had something they were gonna roll out and find my device on Android, but they decided to,

Alex Lindsay (01:32:39):
I always wonder what it's like for a, for somewhat a baggage handler now, nowadays, because like I, I

Leo Laporte (01:32:44):
Put, I know where my bags are at all

Alex Lindsay (01:32:46):
Times. I know where all my bags are all the time, you know, and I'm like, huh. It's, it's, it's, it's on its way out. And then it does seem like they, a lot of them have turned off the tracking, like, on their phones. So they've, they've made it so you can't, they're not gonna pass. Oh, do you think

Leo Laporte (01:32:57):
They, they, because, yeah. 'cause You need to be in near an iPhone and know where,

Alex Lindsay (01:33:00):
So I know that it's, it's landed with me because there's enough people with iPhones that are on the plane that as it's going out, it tells you, oh, your, your bag is here. <Laugh>. But I used to be able to know when it first came out was I'd be like

Leo Laporte (01:33:11):
A dull in

Alex Lindsay (01:33:12):
The baggage system. And I, and I could see where in the ba like, there was this one point where FedEx told me they couldn't find my bag. And I was like, it is in the northeast corner of your, of your L a x thing, you know? And, and I know, and he's like, oh, I know where that would be. Yeah, <laugh> <laugh>. It's like, you know. And so, yeah, I had 10 of 'em. I had 10 little trackers all sitting in this little, this little bundle. I

Andy Ihnatko (01:33:34):
Was so impressed that United Airlines baggage, Chandler was so worried about my camera bag being left, left overnight in their storage locker, that he took it upon himself to take it to his own house to make sure that no one would steal

Leo Laporte (01:33:45):
It. <Laugh>. Alright, let's take a little break. More stories to come back. Turns out there was a lot to talk about. Thank you everybody for putting in your little stories. I got one. I think Andy put in in just a second. Our show today brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Oh, we love ZipRecruiter. Yes, we do. If you're hiring, it is hard to acquire top talent. You're competing with every other company trying to hire that same person. And with the current labor market conditions, it is even harder than ever. That's why you want a partner who not only gets it, but works on your behalf to get you the right person for that job opening. Ziprecruiter, ZipRecruiter knows it's tough right now, but they figured out a solution to all the problems we small businesses and big businesses are facing. See for yourself right now, you could try 'em for free.

(01:34:33):
Ziprecruiter.Com/Mac break. We use ZipRecruiter when we've got an opening course. That's always crisis in a small company like ours. That means everybody has to work harder to fill in the gap. And, and of course, there's this whole process you have to go through to find somebody. You don't wanna just hire anybody off the street. You wanna hire the right person. Ziprecruiter is ready to tackle these challenges. First of all, with ZipRecruiter, you reach more the right people. 'cause Your job posts to a hundred plus job sites. But then what about this issue of competing with other companies, also trying to hire the best people? Well, you're gonna love this. Ziprecruiter Smart technology finds matches for your job, and it does it sooner. Ziprecruiter will send you, Hey, here's 10 people that f that fulfill your requirements. You look through 'em and you invite the people that you really want to apply to your job.

(01:35:26):
That gets 'em in your door, that gets 'em coming to you. They're flattered. You, you get first in line to hire the best people. And by the way, the pricing and ZipRecruiter very affordable and no surprise costs. You know, before you post exactly what it's gonna cost. Team up with a hiring partner who understands what you need. Ziprecruiter, four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. We generally, it's within an hour or two for us. I'm always, it's amazing. Lisa will post on at breakfast before lunch. She'll be saying, oh, I got one. Oh, here's a great candidate. Here's a great one. Then the problem is, well, we've got too many good ones. We gotta find, we gotta narrow it down. That's a, that's a good problem to have. You wanna try it? Go to our exclusive web address to, to try ZipRecruiter for free right now. Ziprecruiter.Com/Mac break. Ziprecruiter.Com/M Mac C B R E A K Mac break. Ziprecruiter, smartest way to hire. Apple wants to know. I think you posted, you put this one in Andy and ko, apple wants to know why users are turning off conversation awareness on their AirPods Pro.

Andy Ihnatko (01:36:39):
This was, this is, this is associated with the beta where

Leo Laporte (01:36:43):
Yeah, I didn't know we had it. Oh, so you'd have to have iOS 17 and Right.

Andy Ihnatko (01:36:47):
And, and, and, and a lot of people have been turning off that feature and they've been reporting like directly from people who have been using it in nine to five Mac and other sites. And also just regular users saying, I've got a survey. It's asking, why did I decide why I turned this feature off? Does it have to do, whether it was more complicated, wasn't working for me, it's not relevant to me. And that just shows what goes through like a public beta. They really want to know they're, they've got this whole thing wired up and they are watching every touch, every use of usage of every feature to figure out, we thought this would go gangbusters, but people are actually disabling it.

Leo Laporte (01:37:20):
That's why they do beta. So this conversation, awareness, the way it works, you've gotta have an updated firmware on your AirPods Pro. You've gotta have iOS 17 on your iPhone. If somebody's talking to you, it lowers the music volume. It turns on transparency and it kind of aims the microphones at the person talking to you. So they're almost like hearing aids, right? You can have a conversation without doing anything

Jason Snell (01:37:42):
In theory. Although I believe conversational awareness, you need to talk. I don't think that somebody else talking, Keith,

Leo Laporte (01:37:49):
It has to be conversation to talk.

Jason Snell (01:37:50):
Yeah, I got the form. I filled it out too, and I also disabled that feature. Why I, I, so I used it on an airplane. It worked great because you know, my wife hear the flight attend, elbow me, and I would say, what's going on? And it would drop and all of that. And that was, that was pretty cool. That was a good idea. And then after a little while, when the talking stops, it, it goes back up. But for me it was like I was walking the dog and I would tell her to stop or wait and it would be like, oh, oh, conversation's happening. Ah, and, and I had to turn it off because like it was hearing my voice just blurt out a word and decided that I was about to have a conversation. So that's why I turned it off.

(01:38:27):
It's a, it's an interesting idea. I don't know. I mean, I wonder how many, I wonder how much data they're looking at in these betas because it's clear that this is a, like, machine learning model trying to interpret when there's a conversation going on. It's a really good idea. I actually would use it when I'm out of a dog walking context. <Laugh> more. But but it's got, it's got some issues. And it looks like, what I love is that they rolled it out and then they're like, oh can we, could we push a form to everybody asking them why they don't use this feature? And they did. And they collected data done. I've never seen that

Leo Laporte (01:39:02):
Before. Pretty done. That's the, it should be done. One of the choices in the survey if you've turned it off, is how would you like us to make it better? Disallow conversational awareness from activating when I speak to myself, <laugh> or sing? Yeah.

Jason Snell (01:39:15):
Or, or my dog. Yeah. I think that there, there is some truth

Leo Laporte (01:39:18):
That actually if you sing along to music and it turns the music down, that is not what you want. <Laugh>, I have to say, most of the time I don't wanna hear what people around me are saying I turn on. That's why I turn on noise cancellation and turn up the music <laugh>. And so I could see, that's why I would turn it off, is like, well, I'm trying to, I mean, I

Alex Lindsay (01:39:36):
Could see it, you know, like a lot of times I'm in like Whole Foods with, you know, listen, you know, buying my stuff. When I get to the cashier, I would kind of like just not have to take my ears out and everything else. I mean, I just wanna, but you could just talk to them and press Can't you

Leo Laporte (01:39:47):
Just, you just press the stem once to stop the music and press and hold to turn on transparency and now you have a conversation. It's not that hard.

Jason Snell (01:39:56):
Sure. But I mean, it is, that's two steps, right? Yeah. And if you have the ability to do, although they also have that other feature now where they're trying to like split the difference between noise canceling and transparency to make it a little more suppressed. But also some stuff bleeds through. That's an interesting feature that I'm not quite sure entirely works either. But yeah, the, you're, you're listening to your music on the airplane and then the flight attendant wants to know if you want any snacks, right? And, and it's kind of nice to be able to say, oh, what do you have? Oh, I'll have a Diet Coke or whatever. Just go like this instead, instead of having to be like, oh, hold on, lemme take 'em out. And, you know, I just go, eh, what? Eh, what did you

Leo Laporte (01:40:31):
Say young lady

Jason Snell (01:40:32):
Is Biscoff, do you have the, is it the Biscoff cookies? Those love the, this is not Delta. We don't have those here. Delta.

Leo Laporte (01:40:40):
I do love the Biscoff. I admit <laugh>.

Alex Lindsay (01:40:43):
I, I will admit that my, my habits and on the plane have changed dramatically in the sense that I think that I used to look for that cart to come down and figure out when I was gonna get something and now buy something before I get there. Yeah. I have a couple of things of water. I used to sit on the aisle, now I sit on the window and I literally don't interact with anyone. Yeah. <laugh> like,

Leo Laporte (01:41:01):
No,

Alex Lindsay (01:41:02):
I'm that way too. Like in a way that, in a way that I, I was a little more social before now. I like don't, I don't care about anything.

Leo Laporte (01:41:07):
I take off my shoes and socks, put my feet up on the back. I bring usually about a dozen hard boiled eggs. Not do that. I slowly peel them hard boiled

Alex Lindsay (01:41:14):
Eggs.

Leo Laporte (01:41:15):
<Laugh>,

Alex Lindsay (01:41:16):
Did you have that with a little bit of your Limburger

Leo Laporte (01:41:18):
Cheese and a little Limburger cheese. It's so good. And it really takes the sting out. Oh, here's my Biscoff. Thank you Flight attendant. They brought me some Biscoff. Isn't that nice? We actually, yeah.

Jason Snell (01:41:29):
That's the secrets of the Twit studio is that there are are ample supplies of Biscoff cookies out in the

Leo Laporte (01:41:34):
Hallway, but they're hidden. We're the Delta Airlines of podcast. They networks, you know, where they're, I know

Jason Snell (01:41:39):
Where they're Leo. I absolutely know where they're,

Alex Lindsay (01:41:41):
There used to be. There used to be a whole bucket of, of Tootsie Rolls. Remember, there

Leo Laporte (01:41:45):
Still is a bucket of candy. Debbie maintains that there was

Alex Lindsay (01:41:48):
Just, there was just AIE rolls for a while.

Leo Laporte (01:41:50):
Yeah. Well, sometimes we go through phases, don't we? Yeah, exactly. For some reason, somebody's really into slim gyms. There's a massive box, not just of normal sized slim gyms. Lisa, these are this big, they are foot <laugh>, three yard long slim gyms. Is that Lisa? Is that my wife?

Jason Snell (01:42:08):
Yes.

Alex Lindsay (01:42:10):
They are really good. They're just really not.

Leo Laporte (01:42:12):
You gotta wonder what's in those things though.

Alex Lindsay (01:42:15):
I,

Jason Snell (01:42:15):
I, I love eating

Leo Laporte (01:42:16):
Nitrates. Are they Bull Pistols? I mean, what are they really?

Alex Lindsay (01:42:22):
All the stuff left over of

Jason Snell (01:42:23):
Nitrate

Leo Laporte (01:42:24):
Sticks of nitrate and salt? No. Yeah, Brandy, the macho man is endorsing them. That's all I meat pink slime. Could you, could I have a giant bull pistol to eat with my biscoff cookies? No. Okay.

Jason Snell (01:42:36):
Yuck. Ew <laugh>. Don't do that. Alright. I'm salty the biscoff. How dare you? I'm

Leo Laporte (01:42:42):
So, oh, here comes my wife food. Huh? It's just junk food. I junk food. It's just junk food. Nothing wrong with junk food. You eat hot dogs. Oh, she's spread out. She's spread out the big guns.

Jason Snell (01:42:55):
What is more American than a hotdog? Come on. Hot

Leo Laporte (01:42:56):
Dogs. All American <laugh>. It's true. Probably

Jason Snell (01:43:00):
This, it's not apple pie. And Slim Jims, I'll tell you

Leo Laporte (01:43:03):
That. <Laugh>. This is this,

Alex Lindsay (01:43:06):
This week in a D H D <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (01:43:09):
Alright, back to the stories. This one's for you Alex, Lindsay, Pixar, Adobe, apple, Autodesk, and Nvidia have formed an alliance, the alliance for Open U S D. What is this and why?

Alex Lindsay (01:43:24):
Yeah, so I mean, this gets back into something we've discussed in the past, is that when you, whatever you control, whatever you're making money on, you wanna control whatever you're, it's gonna cost you money or make it hard for you. You want to commoditize. Yeah. And for all of these, you know, so when you see a bunch of big corporations wanting to get an open platform, what they want to do is make this easy for all of them to pass stuff between themselves and not have it be expensive or painful and not have a lot of roadblocks. U S D Z is the universal scene description. This was created by Pixar to move whole scene. So it doesn't just move the models. It moves models, lighting, animation, textures surfaces. All of those things from one place to another. It was made it very portable internally.

(01:44:01):
Apple then moved it forward a little bit, and US Disease has been slowly rolling out to replace things like F B X and other, other things that have been used in these, in these formats. But Apple then created U S D Z, which was just zipping that file up so that you could move things around. But now they're kind of, I think that, I feel like they're backing away from U S D Z and really just going towards u 'cause it's hard to get that support. And so I think that they're going, we will just go back to U S D, but we're getting, they're gaining support from basically all the major manufacturers, players that are doing it. Let's just all use the same format to move things between each other. And this is gonna make it much easier to do things in the, that's Nvidia and Apple have a really vested interest because this means that it's easy for them, for their omniverse and for the new headset and Sure.

(01:44:46):
All the AR stuff to be able to get stuff in there and not have to, like right now there's like a, there's a reality converter and that takes many other formats and converts it to U S D Z or Apple. What Apple would like is people just to generate that content. It's been a real challenge for Apple to get proper generation of U S D Z data for the AR stuff coming out natively. Usually you're still going through something or it's not quite <laugh>, it's like weird in, in, in, I don't know if it's still this way, but for a while in, in Adobe Substance, you would export out something that that U used U S D Z as a quote unquote texture map. And you'd think it would all come in pieces, but it came out with one model and, but it was like almost a side product.

(01:45:26):
It was just a very odd way to get it out. And so, in a lot of ways this is just a, an alliance for them to start really building up a centralized way. You know, it's like, let's just use QuickTime or not QuickTime is, is probably, let's use Apache, you know, or, or something like that where we just wanna make this easy for everybody because that's not where we're making money. You know, we, what will this, what's the difference between U S D and U S D Z? Is it zip So it's is zip Oh, U S D, they just zipped it because the problem is U S D Z is really a package and it, it can get, it can blow apart. So the problem, like if you take a if you, if you save out a logic file and it, it looks like a file, but if you push it up onto Frame io, it just blows up into all the folders that were inside that package.

(01:46:12):
So by zipping it and, and treating that zip like a fi a a true file, it makes it more Apple realized. It would make it more transportable and easier to go through things without getting, without the folders being ripped apart. So I don't know if they're, I don't know where the U S D Z part of this is going, because Apple at the last WWC talked very little about U S D Z and a lot about U S D. So, and this is you open U S D. So I think that part of it is other folks don't necessarily wanna work with that pla that format. It's, I think it's a little slower. And and so, so anyway, so I think that that's the, that's my understanding of it anyway, so, but I think it's a really good move. I think it's great that they're, everybody's agreeing on this.

Leo Laporte (01:46:53):
U S D is all of our Pixar was invented at Pixar. Yeah. So but now it's open. It's actually gonna be under the Linux Foundation's J D f, that's where the project will live.

Alex Lindsay (01:47:05):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:47:05):
I, it's, it feels a little bit to me like the video or standards that we went through where we had all different kinds of standards, and then we had wrappers around the standards. And I

Alex Lindsay (01:47:14):
Think the difference here is that what they've learned is that, that they all got together and did eg. Right. But then EG has all these, you know, co you know, copy, you know, these patent Encumberment

Leo Laporte (01:47:23):
Yeah.

Alex Lindsay (01:47:23):
Encumberment and all these patents. And so what they're saying is, let's not do that. Let's just make it, let's just let everybody use these. Like, let's not, because, because you have all these other things growing up, you know, AAV one is the next generation, and it's designed to not use any of the EG stuff, you know, and so, so the so I think a lot of people don't want to have things that are specifically encumbered by patents.

Leo Laporte (01:47:48):
So if you, we have a, we have a beef stick for all appetites here at twit. We've got the mini Turkey stick for people who are just want a little snack. This is the mission Meats beef stick, kind of a medium-sized beef stick. Then, then, then there's the Chomps grass fed, Ooh. And finished beef stick. It's all the stick without the ick, they say. But if you, oh, well, here's another one. A zero sugar beef stick. This is from the new Primal, but then if you're really in the mood, if you're really hungry <laugh>, you want the giant slim gym, the original, the one, the only <laugh> you could, you could beat people with this and not leave a mark. All right.

Andy Ihnatko (01:48:39):
I counted at least four possible show titles from that <laugh>, all the stick without the ick <laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:48:45):
They

Alex Lindsay (01:48:45):
Told me. The thing is, is

Leo Laporte (01:48:46):
That they told me, even published me, this is not good that the Turkey one is not good. So don't eat that one when you're here. I, I

Alex Lindsay (01:48:51):
Will say that, that, that all of the American stuff seems good until you have Bill tongs. Bill Tong is Goods, and Yeah. Once you have Bill Tong and BS Wars yeah. It, you're, you're kind of over south.

Leo Laporte (01:49:01):
Renee Ritchie the side of that. Yeah.

Andy Ihnatko (01:49:03):
When, when you, when you get, when you get proper beef, like packaged beef jerky as opposed to like the convenience store stuff, that's the stuff that, oh, this is why this bag costs $5. It's like, that's, that's, that's like my, one of my two go-tos when like, I'm gonna be at a conference like all day long. I don't know if I'm gonna get lunch or not. It's like, okay, bag of beef, Turkey, so I can just get some protein in me that's like, oh my goodness, this is good.

Leo Laporte (01:49:25):
Yeah.

Andy Ihnatko (01:49:26):
As opposed to snapping into a slim gym. Not my good, no, no. When

Leo Laporte (01:49:29):
I'm in the mood to, to, to bite a piece of meat, I want to go to ConAgra and get a <laugh>, a slim Jim. I mean, I'll,

Andy Ihnatko (01:49:37):
I'll, I'll give him this of all the foods that I could possibly find underneath the passenger seat of my car.

Leo Laporte (01:49:43):
This one is

Andy Ihnatko (01:49:44):
Gonna keep desperate.

Leo Laporte (01:49:46):
Yeah. That

Andy Ihnatko (01:49:47):
Would be probably my go-to.

Leo Laporte (01:49:48):
Yeah. Yeah. <Laugh>. there is a good Wired article, which the Discord has given me that you probably don't want to read, called What's Inside A Slim Gym. This is from 2009.

Andy Ihnatko (01:50:03):
That's, we've been asking Mrs. Jim for 20 years, but you just lawyers up

Leo Laporte (01:50:07):
Nothing but the black heart of a banker. The Sergeant's hands on Macintosh leaps to mind. Paul RA's hands on Windows for the Disc staff side. We're just working on a new AI show with Jason Hall and Jeff Jarvis. It'll be in the club. The We Start shows in the club. 'cause Members pay for it. They don't, they're too small to have ads at first, but if it does, well, like this week in space, it launches out of the club into the public eye. And that's our, that's the best success story we've had so far. So you're supporting that. You're, you get access to the Discord, which is a great place to hang, chat and share animated gif. And you also get, of course a TWI plus feed, which is stuff that happens before and after the shows, extra stuff, pictures of that, of Mr. Jim in his hat, his slim Jim hat all of that for seven bucks a month. And it keeps Lisa in Slim gyms. So that's a good thing. No, we, the money all goes to keeping the programming going, keeping the lights on, and paying the staff, and it is a big help. So if you wanna support what we do, twit TV slash club twit, and you'll know what's inside a slim Jim. So do you, you took the blue one, John Ashley, that's the good one.

John Ashley (01:51:24):
I like the blue one. I like the chomp one as well.

Leo Laporte (01:51:27):
Chomp all

Andy Ihnatko (01:51:28):
The, you

John Ashley (01:51:28):
Should eat the Turkey one though,

Leo Laporte (01:51:30):
<Laugh>. It's really that bad. It's, it's called Think Jerky. <Laugh>, I suppose it'll make you, it'll make Imagine Jerky. It'll

John Ashley (01:51:39):
Make you think about your life choices.

Leo Laporte (01:51:41):
<Laugh>, zero sugar, four grams of protein, 25 calories, gluten-free. All of these are gluten-free, like <laugh>, like, like, oh yeah, we're gonna put wheat in these. Maybe ConAgra wood actually. Maybe, maybe. Slim Gyms aren't gluten-free. It's got a long ingredient list. Alright, Andy, put this one in from the New Yorker <laugh>. He says, A somewhat snooty take on Apple Classical in the New Yorker this week. Apple again

Andy Ihnatko (01:52:08):
Fails to

Leo Laporte (01:52:08):
Save classical music. You said this is this, you should be Frazier Crane or maybe Niles even worse. Should be, yeah. Or should be reading. This is actually Alex Ross, who's one of their reviewers. What does, what does Alex find at fault?

Andy Ihnatko (01:52:25):
Well he basically feels as though streaming is already unique now an environmental disaster. That, that's weird. Yeah, that's exactly, which is, which is bad. He feels as though on the apps music is atomized into bits stripped of biography, history and iconography, even from a predatory capitalist standpoint. Streaming makes little sense. Spotify has yet to turn a profit despite generating more than $12 billion of revenue, all the same. The magical ability to summon millions of songs and symphony in the palm of one hand, in one's hand, has proved irresistible. The seduction of convenience wears down ethical resistance. We we like Apple, well, we

Leo Laporte (01:53:06):
Loved Prime Phonic, which Apple bought, put Outta business, and then 18 months later came up with Apple Classical. Is it as good as prime Phonic, Andy?

Andy Ihnatko (01:53:16):
I'd say so. And it's hard to remember because remember, they, they shut down Prime phonic soon after they, they bought it. I mean, it's, it's definitely it's definitely an improvement, a needed improvement for a type of music that isn't well served by a, a conventional streaming app. It's not so much the service so much as the app that expects everything to be really categorized very neatly and very cleanly with a very small number of, of tags associated with it. Whereas with classical music, you start off with the problem that if you, if you try to stick a, a track from a classical recording into the same display user interface that was designed for pop music, congratulations, you've a lot of this, a lot of the track information is organized as <laugh>, you know, Wolfgang Am Amadeus, Mozart, le notes de firo <laugh> directed by blah, blah, blah, blah.

(01:54:07):
And then you get to the name of the actual song. And so the song, the the Aria is pretty much over with. By the time the actual name of the piece of music you're actually seeing actually scrolls into view to say nothing of the fact that there are lots of different entry points that people are looking for. So if, I mean, my, my particular knowledge is, is opera and using these apps, and sometimes I sometimes I want to hear specifically Joyce Dito. But the problem is that if I ask for everything by Joyce Dito, I only get like the handful of albums that she's recorded strictly as a solo artist. Even when she's done a program with IIL Pomodoro Dero, it's like, okay, well no, that that's you, you, you, you asked me for Joist Dedo you you can't blame me for not fighting Joist Dedo with Iil Pomodoro dero.

(01:54:51):
It is, it, it is it listed as the c creator of the, is the cradle listed as the direct, excuse me, as the conductor, is it listed as the symphony symphony orchestra. It's kind of a mess. And so just simply having a different app that acknowledges that, okay, the queries for people trying to find things is are gonna be different. The interface is gonna have to be a little bit different. And also for people who are not into classical, it takes a long, long time to find that entry point. It's like jazz in that sense where like, well, hey, I, I, I heard a piece of jazz music just like, you know, on the radio or whatever. I've, I don't listen to much jazz. How, where's my entry point here? You need people who can write essays and can write playlists that will figure out, Hey, here's what, if you are interested in opera, if this if if the winner of America's Got Talent singing a slightly ropey version of Nas Dorma got you interested in opera, here is like 10 tracks that will get you kind of interested in exactly what this stuff can do.

(01:55:50):
So I, I think it's very, very good. I just, I, I flag this because I just thought the, the attitude of someone who if most of the people who are writing essays not even reviews about streaming music services get into very, very practical and tactile sort of things with it. Like, oh, well unfortunately makes it really hard to find this album. It automatically, I can add things to my queue, but as soon as I switch a new album, I lose that queue. His, he just seemed to have a philosophical <laugh>.

Andy Ihnatko (01:56:21):
I, I can't put myself in the unisex c crux of a young person exploring classical music for the first time. But Gospel classical strikes me as an oddly clumsy point of entry.

Leo Laporte (01:56:31):
He actually wrote that I can't put myself in the unisex c crux of a young person <laugh> Alex, please. I

Andy Ihnatko (01:56:39):
Have, I have act I I don't recall him putting the, the phrase avocado toast anywhere in here, but I, I would be surprised if that was in one of the earlier

Leo Laporte (01:56:47):
Drafts. Yeah. I, you know, of playlist glad,

Andy Ihnatko (01:56:52):
Such as, as a dawn with Do Sickly puls that according to Apple, but commissioned from a diverse group of artists, I envisioned a studio of talented girls and boys at an orphanage in rural Romania. Like, what the hell?

Leo Laporte (01:57:08):
What

Andy Ihnatko (01:57:08):
What? Now you bring Romania into this <laugh>. There are talented boys and girls in Romania, I promise you. Are

Leo Laporte (01:57:15):
You sure this wasn't written by Andy Borowitz? This sounds like a, a parody.

Andy Ihnatko (01:57:20):
Again, you look at the address bar of the browser and say, Nope, it's not The Onion <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (01:57:23):
No. Wow. He does mention a competitor called Adagio, which is a German company. Have you tried adagio o

Andy Ihnatko (01:57:35):
No, because I was pretty much waiting for Apple Classical, and it kind of did the trick for me.

Leo Laporte (01:57:39):
Yeah. This is not cheap. $200 a year for the premium plus concerts. They do Lossless quality, they do flack, which is nice. Yeah. Of CDs.

Andy Ihnatko (01:57:51):
I mean, there, there is an opportunity there for people who are interested in like, live streaming or getting access to past live streams of like, really great performances. That's, I mean I used to subscribe to the Metropolitan Opera has this, their streaming service where almost everything that's ever been like live at Lincoln Center the, on the old P b s show or recorded for their modern, like live in HD theater productions is now streamable. So if you've, like, if you've heard me like saying interesting, nice things about again, Joyce Gido and Renee Fleming in oh God, was it, ah, they, they, they, they're in a, a, sorry, I can never find, I can never locate a word when I absolutely need it. I'm sorry. But yeah, they had a premier opera last year that was really the highlight of the season for me.

(01:58:38):
And if you're interested in that, Glenn, you can go to the receiving service, actually rent it or actually use it. That's nice. But I'm never you'd have to be really, really particular, I think to know, to know that I want specifically this two hour concert program from the opera professor for in Beru from three years ago. Say, okay, we can do that for you. It'll cost you $200 a year and fine if it, if that's what you want, that's fine. But I think that, I think that Alpha Apple Classical does a really, really good job for what it needs to do.

Leo Laporte (01:59:03):
Yeah. And I think it's gonna win. He does the

Andy Ihnatko (01:59:07):
Hours, I'm saying the name of the opera is the

Leo Laporte (01:59:08):
Hours. The Hours, yeah. Dawn Convenience it's ruined everything <laugh>. But he's, but he's, I mean, there really is a reason to say, well, I'm already subscribing to Apple Music and I get Apple Classical with it. Is is actually probably all it takes to make this a hit. Is Apple Music Spotify still number one, and Spotify has no classic, it has classical tracks, but it really has no Yeah. Real support for classical. And then Apple is right after, I think right after Spotify,

Andy Ihnatko (01:59:37):
They're, they're, Spotify has doubled the market of number two and number three, which are pretty much equal. Wow. Which is like, which is Apple Music, and I tip whether the third one is YouTube or

Leo Laporte (01:59:46):
Pandora, I think see the, or

Andy Ihnatko (01:59:47):
Youtube music. I think it's an actual Asian streaming service. Mm-Hmm. I'd have to remind myself, but I do remember that Spotify is still somewhere in the, like 40%, whereas Apple Music is hovering in the high teens and their next competitor is somewhere like one percentage point under that. Yeah. If my memory serves.

Leo Laporte (02:00:05):
And then finally, the, the information piece on Apple and Goldman Sachs, how the partnership between Apple and Goldman Sachs soured. We know Goldman's been trying to sell off their all of their consumer finance products, including the Apple card to the Apple card and to American Express. This is a story from Lauren Tara La Capra and Wayne Ma. You wrote, Andy. I think that the that the the piece in nine to five Mac is perhaps a little,

Andy Ihnatko (02:00:39):
It's a, the, the information piece is really good, well sourced. And it's a very good long read on exactly how complicated this relationship w was and how difficult this product was to roll out. For people who don't want to, or at least want to want an amused bouch like a little appetizer before reading it. Nine five Max summarizes it nicely saying, <laugh> pulling out from the very, very top the fact that <laugh> engineers from the Silicon Valley giant and the Wall Street Titan were pulling it all night, or a few months before launch, scrambling to find a solution to a problem that had cropped up. Tim Cook couldn't get approved for an Apple card. Oh, <laugh>. That's ultimately go, Goldman Sachs had to do some work behind the scenes to get the Apple c e o approved for an Apple card, but it

Leo Laporte (02:01:19):
Was reasonable. The information says the problem stemmed from the fact that he's such a high profile figure. He's regularly impersonated. And so if you're famous, there's a flag on your account with credit bureaus saying, make sure it's really the person. As a result, Goldman's underwriting system rejected him. This is according to four people familiar with the matter from the information. Goldman was eventually able to make a one-off exception. Tim got his card. <Laugh>. Yeah, <laugh>. But I got, I got a warning. George Clooney, it's gonna be hard for you. The information does point out that it's gonna be tough for Goldman to get out of this. It can't, the information rights offload the business without Apple's approval, which puts it in a bind because few, if any other partners would agree to Apple's terms or American Express runs its own payment network, but the Apple card is a deal in place to run on the MasterCard network until at least 2026. So yeah, that might rule out American Express, apple could even wind up partnering with a less visible bank and handling the bulk of the work itself. I guess the issue is to be a bank requires a lot of hoops to jump through. I know this from watching billions, you <laugh> you can't, you have to go through a lot and maybe Apple is just not in the position to become a bank.

Andy Ihnatko (02:02:37):
Yeah. And this is the, the initial deal when it was first announced, reminded me of the deal that Apple struck with at and t Yeah. To launch the first iPhone where it where at and t correctly saw this as a huge opportunity to, whereas as they were very, they were number two behind Verizon, but a very distinct number two. And they needed after another rebranding froms at and t to singular, then right back to at and t. They needed a huge hit to put themselves on the map and get their subscriber based up. And that's why they agreed to all kinds of demands that Apple was making that no other phone maker could make any, any, any movement with, with any existing network, such as simply, okay, we will allow you to put a real web browser on here. Yes, we will allow you to make, to design the device yourself, as opposed to making the device that we have designed for you and that we've decided that we can, we can support.

(02:03:26):
And so it seemed as though Goldman Sachs was making the same kind of a play where at the time, a few years ago, they did want to really branch out into consumer finance, consumer finance products. And they thought that a partnership with Apple was gonna be the way to do it. And so perhaps they agreed to a whole bunch of terms that taking, they, they were taking on a lot of responsibilities that Apple never didn't really have to deal with. They just, they were dealing with the interface. They were dealing with bringing customers there. But Goldman Sachs was left with all of the money problems and all of the infrastructure problems, and they're living to regret it. It wasn't just the relationship with Apple that's going south. Remember that they, this was part of a full court press towards consumer finance, and they're getting out of it entirely. They're not just simply, oh, we, we don't wanna deal with Apple anymore. It's like, no, this was a bad play for us. We, we, they lost

Leo Laporte (02:04:11):
A a billion dollars in one year according to Goldman. Part of the problem is the deal wasn't great for Goldman. Goldman unlike other credit card companies, does not take a cut of the interchange fee that merchants pay to accept the Apple card. And of course, as you know, the Apple card doesn't have fees. So they can't make money from annual fees, late fees, overseas fees in exchange, apple pays for the daily cash rewards. The expectation was on Goldman's side, the costs and revenue would essentially even out. But no, Goldman has lost a lot of money. Goldman does earn a fee. This is all from the information. Great piece does earn a fee from Apple in the high single digit percentage range of every loan issued to cardholders who opt to split the cost of Apple products over monthly installments. Maybe this is why the buy now pay later came along single high, single digit percentage, eight 9%. It's not I credit card money, but also

Alex Lindsay (02:05:16):
I feel like, you know, apple is still warming up to be their own bank. And I think that they're, you know, so I think the hard part is also bringing somebody else in when they are probably just a stop gap,

Leo Laporte (02:05:24):
You know? Well, they're also tough negotiator. They talked to a, a guy named David Robertson, who is a publisher of the Nelson Report. He's an expert on credit cards. He says, no commercial bank that's experiencing in the credit card business is going to give Apple the same terms as Goldman did. It's just, which makes it just like at t with the iPhone, right?

Andy Ihnatko (02:05:42):
Yeah. With, with the other difference that they're not they're not gaining Goldman Sachs customers. They're, they're sim people who are using the Apple card may not even be terribly aware that they're working, that they're clients and customers of Goldman Sachs. Whereas at and t they are getting new customers new a, the people who are buying the iPhone knew that they're at and t customers. They're getting billed directly from at and t. So when at t decides to stack more fees upon them or give them new offers, they have the ability to do that. So there's a lot about this that, I mean, and obviously we quickly hit the glass ceiling of understanding how finance operations and finance corporations works, but it did seem super, super unusual for Goldman Sachs to say, yes, we are going to, we are going to enter into an agreement with Apple that no bank, no financial institution traditionally would get into when they're trying to make a play like this. Right? It's, it wasn't a conservative play by any means whatsoever. It was, again, we think that this, that this is gonna be our breakthrough, this is gonna be our icebreaker that gets us through that pack ice into this brand new market that we desperately at that time wanted to be in.

Leo Laporte (02:06:43):
The piece is that Apple really wanted to the car just so people would buy more iPhones and would have allow them to pay off their iPhones. But some employees with an Apple question whether the company should get into the business. They brought in a banking consultant to brief at EQ the head of Apple Pay, Jennifer Bailey, about how credit cards worked. The consultant target a singled out a card line there that was under fire for targeting people with poor credit and extending 'em large limits. One person attended the meeting, said afterward, apple executives weren't sure whether they wanted to green light the project, given the predatory nature of the credit card business. They wanted to make a credit card business that was better than that. That's what it ended up getting them into it.

Andy Ihnatko (02:07:25):
Yeah. That, that's why I always found that e even at the very beginning, I found that odd because as soon as people start saying, Hey, I'm, I, I'm, I, I've, I'm way in debt, way over my head in debt to the, to with my Apple credit card and that, and there's a complex season of re reasons why people will get into credit card debt. But that's not a great look for Apple. And it's kinda like what we were talking about earlier, that you wonder how much money and how much opportunity Apple thought was in this business to want to do it despite all the baggage and all the problems that were gonna come into, come into play. I, I have the same feeling about air tags, where how much money are they're making off of air tags, that it was worth two or three years of it being synonymous with, Hey, air tag.

(02:08:05):
Congratulations. You got the, you've got the, just like people do Google searches. People used to tweet, people use bandaids, and I don't people do air tag stalking. Like, no, that's not the, that's not the free promotion we wanted. It's, it was, they, they knew there was gonna be an unsolvable problem, that they could only mitigate it slightly. And it makes me wonder what kind of presentation that someone made to convince someone else that there is, this is a big enough opportunity for us that despite unsolvable problems, we're gonna take that hit because it's too much of a plus for us.

Leo Laporte (02:08:33):
Yeah. There were, there were a lot of negatives from Apple's point of view, and Apple did its usual thing. I mean, this is a new business for them. They did their usual thing. For instance, most credit card bills come on the date you started the credit card. Apple said, no, no, we want it to be calendar months. And Coleman said, what are you, what are you crazy <laugh>? Yeah. they apple wanted cashback rewards to be credited instantly, but Goldman said, we can't do that. Credit card purchases are, are processed in batches and not in real time. And this is probably the most telling sentence, there wasn't much financial incentive for the outside vendor to modernize those operations.

Jason Snell (02:09:15):
Yeah. I mean, there's a fine line, right? Between being the bumpkin who stumbles in and says, I, I wanna do things different. Yeah. And they're like, no, no, no. You don't understand <laugh>. We do it this way for a reason. And the modernizer who's coming in saying, you guys are doing stupid things, you should not do them. It's bad for consumers. Let's do, do them a new way. And I feel like if you're Apple and you're one of the world's biggest companies, and you got all the money in the world, and you have a very wealthy customer base, you know, you look at the financial industry, I feel like Apple does this in a lot of industries. And they're like, you know, why don't we do that because all of our, 'cause you, you start to think, let's do partnerships and let's make traditional deals. And then you look at the details of what that product would be, and, and you realize it's not a product you want to be associated with, right? Like, it's like we could make a crappy Apple credit card, but it's gonna be just like all the other credit cards and why are we bothering here's

Leo Laporte (02:10:10):
Another, here's another

Jason Snell (02:10:11):
Example. Why don't we just do it ourselves? And, and they've got the money, right? Like, let's just do it and see if we can make make a change for the better.

Leo Laporte (02:10:17):
But they still have to deal with these middlemen and all of that. Apple's. This is another example for now. Apple's obsession with design also meant Goldman's legal team had to determine whether certain ideas would fly with regulators. For example, card agreements typically need a two column box that displays a car's interest rates and fees. Apple, the designers wanted the box in a single column since a two column box wouldn't display well on the iPhone's narrow screen. So it is a single column on the iPhone, although the downloadable card agreement is two columns. Yeah. and

Andy Ihnatko (02:10:50):
Stuff, stuff like, and stuff like that is how people with like 7,000, like with like a a a $80,000 left on their mortgage can simply like hire a $300 lawyer to say that while you were required in this state to process this paperwork, this way, when you sold my loan to somebody else, you failed to do that. And therefore, this load, this $80,000 is now null and void. That's mistakes like that are why you have, why you have two column boxes or why you have people who've been in, in this industry for 30 years and been working with people who've been in the industry for 50 years. It's, it's tough.

Jason Snell (02:11:23):
And, and the only way if Apple does want to find in the long run be in financial services, they gotta learn. Exactly. I guess this is how, I guess this is how they learn and, you know, and it can't hurt. It essentially can't hurt them, right? Because first off, they got a partner to take the billion dollar loss, and second, they've got the money right to do it. And I love it. It may not work, right? But I like, I appreciate the moxie to sort of say, wow, all these credit cards are stupid. W why can we make one better? And I don't know if they can, but they're, they

Alex Lindsay (02:11:52):
Tried and, and now they have all the data. Like, like, this is the thing is that they have a ton of data. They have a, they have a, a, you know, someone that they could throw under the bus. They, you know, Goldman SPACs Sacks is basically the red shirt, right? So they're, they have a, they went down, they went down to the planet with a red shirt, you know, and, and just said, you do this, you know, and, and so then, but they set the rules so tight that Goldman Sachs can't renegotiate that. And so, so I think that the, the issue is, is that they've got Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs in this mind, but they're learning, you know, very, very quickly how to make, you know, how to make this all kind of work. And, and I think that, again, when you look at what's coming, you know, the, whether the ar the headset works or not, if they, if they actually produce a car with all the phones and the computers and everything else, they are still the only company in the world that may get to a point where they, most of your loans are given to them and then redistributed to other people in their network.

(02:12:50):
It is a closed system. And that, that is a crazy thing. That's crazy concept that Apple is the only company that in the world that's ever been big enough in, since credit cards have been out to be able to actually build something where when you borrow money from them, they're using your money to loan it to other people to buy their products. And that's gonna be a, a regulatory nightmare. <Laugh>. Yeah. Like, so, so like, because it's gonna scare a lot of people because they're suddenly not gonna need anything on the outside. So so it's gonna be really interesting to see. But that's, I think that's where they're, that's where they're capable of getting, I don't know if they're actually gonna do it or not. Yeah.

Andy Ihnatko (02:13:25):
What? And then they, and then if you wanna expand this product outside the United States, you get to start the game All right. All over again. Right now with bribes

Leo Laporte (02:13:33):
Wayne Ma and Lauren Tara Lakora write that Apple could ultimately decide not to have a big name partner and go it almost, almost alone. People familiar with the company's thinking and potential options said the tech giant could choose a bank that is large enough to take on the Apple cart's portion of Goldman's $17 billion credit card portfolio as well related savings accounts. And that partner could do everything necessary for regulatory reasons, but otherwise remain invisible to the customer. Apple could become more involved with the aspects of the business that Goldman now manages. It sounds like because of, you know, banking regulations, getting a bank charter isn't just about how big you are, how, how, how much money you have. How big

Alex Lindsay (02:14:23):
The question is that why would Apple, why would Apple do this before 2026? I mean, that, that's the hard part, right, that Goldman Sachs is in, is Apple can just sit on it, you know, it's, you know, they're, they, they, they, they tighten that agreement so tight. It's like the user is not going to feel it. No. all the losses are gonna go to a Goldman Sachs. Apple has no, I don't think Apple has any reason to, to renegotiate this.

Leo Laporte (02:14:46):
No. In facts with this take, the article wraps up saying it's gonna take time for the sides to find a new solution and dissolve their marriage, perhaps as long as 18 months among more than a dozen people, the information spoke to about the potential outcomes of an exit. Few envision a scenario, or Apple and Goldman worked things out, given how much pressure Solomon the c e o has been under, still in an ear on an earnings call last week, Solomon said the card partnership with Apple as well as the one it has with General Motors are long-term commitments that can't be changed unilaterally. They definitely can operate better. We're working with Apple and also GM to do that. So as much as Goldman would like to get outta the consumer business, it can't just pull the plug, it's gonna take a while.

(02:15:29):
So it's a, it's a really good story, a fascinating story. I I think your best analogy, Andy, is absolutely right. This is just like the iPhone's launch with at and t. You know, apple got huge benefit. At and t got the exclusive Randall Schwar Randall what was his name? Stevens, the c e o of at and t said, giving Apple users unlimited free data or unlimited data forever was a huge mistake. And they deeply regretted it really hurt the at t network for a long, long time. And eventually they, they lost the exclusive. This wouldn't be like that. Apple's not gonna have multiple banks supporting the Apple card.

Andy Ihnatko (02:16:09):
But, but, but in the end, the si the number of signups that app at and t got to make them on the parody, if not the, it

Leo Laporte (02:16:15):
Helped, right? Yeah.

Andy Ihnatko (02:16:16):
With, with Verizon, yeah. They are, again, at and t was, and also ran Verizon owned, owned them. And, and the, I'm sorry. There, there were a lot of different players in that market, but however, Verizon was number one at t was trying to

Leo Laporte (02:16:28):
Find a way to make some magic happen and they were failing. And finally a kind of nice story, I remember back in 1994 when my daughter was just two, and, and Henry wasn't even born yet. Jennifer was pregnant. We spent some time with Steve Jobs and his young family, and I remember Jennifer reading a kid's book to Reed Jobs, who was roughly Abby's age, who was a little, little around two years old. Reed's now all grown up, of course, and he has a new venture fund, Yosemite, he's got a little money. I think Reed inherited a little bit of money. So he is launched Yosemite, a $200 million venture capital firm, but with a good idea. It's aimed at cancer treatments. And of course, his dad died of a pancreatic cancer. The Yosemite is Na, the named after the National Park where Steve and Reine got married.

(02:17:24):
They've raised $200 million from a wide range of investors and institutions, according to Apple Insider, including Sloan Memorial Kettering cancer Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the Rockefeller University in m i d. They're looking to create new cancer treatments. My dad succumbed to cancer when I was in college at Stanford, said Reed, he's now 31. I was pre-med because I really wanted to be a doctor and cure people myself. But just completely candidly, it was really difficult after he passed away. It's a spinoff of the Emerson Collective, which is the philanthropic arm created by l Powell Jobs after Steve's passing. So it's

Jason Snell (02:18:02):
My understanding that he's been doing the due diligence and talking to a bunch of people who are involved in cancer research. I think he, I heard through the grapevine that, like he talked to Mike Milken, who's really involved in the prostate cancer foundation's because

Leo Laporte (02:18:13):
Milken had

Jason Snell (02:18:14):
Cancer. Yeah. And like this is, yeah. And so I, I kind of love that idea that Mike Milken, who is sort of elder statesman of cancer research, is talking to Reed Jobs, who is so young about, it's not necessarily a passing of the torch yet, but it's sort of like going down a few generations to talk about how they're gonna continue funding cancer research. I think that's pretty cool.

Leo Laporte (02:18:33):
Yeah. It's a, it's a, a bit of a hybrid. It will operate as a for-profit business for investments, but it's also going to kind of be a nonprofit that will offer donor-advised funds that can provide grants to scientists and researchers. Emerson Collective, of course, is a nonprofit. The donor fund will provide no strings attached to grants. And then the hope is that if you've got the grant and you come up with something that you'll return to Yosemite for venture funding, it's actually a really clever idea. Reed Jobs says he wasn't initially keen on creating a VC fund saying quote, he'd never wanted to be a venture capitalist. But I realize that when you're actually incubating something and putting it together, you can make a tremendous difference in what assets are part of that, what direction it's gonna take, and what the scientific focus is going to be. Reid did get a little education in business because in the, during the iPhone four fiasco, you're holding it wrong, fiasco. Steve was vacationing at Kona Village in Hawaii and was forced to come back, <laugh> to manage the the PR hit. And he took Reid with him, I think Reid was probably 13, something like that. And he said, come on, Reid, I'm gonna show you how business works. <Laugh> <laugh>, which is pretty cool.

Andy Ihnatko (02:19:50):
And what, explain why he seemed so peeved, <laugh>, not, not at, not at his own engineers, the people who were Oh, yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:19:55):
He was on vacation. Yeah. He was on, in fact, Kona Village at the time. It's, it got blown away by a hurricane, I think in Ike. But Kona Village at the time, there were no phones, no internet, no TV sets. So somebody must have sent a courier. <Laugh>. Steve, we had a problem. <Laugh>.

Andy Ihnatko (02:20:13):
Hey, yanked the shave ice right outta my hand. <Laugh>, I've been looking forward to an entire flight.

Leo Laporte (02:20:18):
All right, we're gonna take a little time out and then it is time for your picks of the week if you would assemble them. Gentlemen, you're watching Mac Break Weekly. Let's kick off the picks of the week this week with Andy in naco. Andy

Andy Ihnatko (02:20:34):
My pick is a really cool app that solved a big problem for me and created like opportunities for me, which is all I can ask for to software and technology. It's, it's actually just as much as I've been joking about, you know, early 1980s, like home computers home computer, as they end, mom will use it to organize her recipes. I started using re the, the app Recipe keeper, which is cross-platform. It's a recipe keeping app for Android, iOS, iPad, Mac, windows. And boy does it work really, really well. Over the past year or two, I've been trying to like up my kitchen game. 'cause You know how, you know how you get, like, you might do cook something special on weekends, but then you get into the rutt of three days a week, the same like weekday weeknight meals and then take out like one or two nights a week.

(02:21:16):
So I've been trying to, so I've been acquiring new recipes and trying to inspire myself to try new things. And this is one of the, this is really a very slick solution that is aware of how many different sources you get recipes from and what you need to do with them. I, I just have tons and tons of bookmarks when I'm on Reddit or elsewhere about, oh, that looks like it might be simple enough to be like a good Wednesday meal. And now all I have to do is use the standard sharing sheet and whatever app and, and software, excuse me, platform I'm using to simply share it to recipe keeper. It will break it, it understands the formatting of recipes. It also understands specifically how Epicurious and other sites specifically format them. So you wind up not just bookmarking this site, but with its very, very nicely standard formatted recipe sheet with pictures taken from the recipe page and everything.

(02:22:01):
And if you need to like take, oh, this is serve six, I really want it for serving three, easily do the math for that. When you're doing shopping, if you're doing meal planning, you say, oh, I want to cook that on Thursday. And then suddenly if you, when you're doing your shopping on whatever day of the week you do it, like, oh, that's right, I do need like garlic paste because I'm making that thing on, on Wednesday or, or Thursday night and makes it really, really easy to tag these things and organize them and find them. Again, it's, it's not as though it's using the, the power of chat g p t on the blockchain to improve productivity and connectivity. It's a very, very simple task that it does extremely well. The free version is really robust, and if you give them 13 bucks, I think for a lifetime purchase, suddenly you get the ability to sync between devices and between platforms. And yeah, and I really, this, this came about because things got complicated enough that I started like keeping a notebook like in the kitchen with just, oh, here's su v here su v times or, and things like, oh, well here's how to use pap. I can't believe that I had actually, actually had a page. And here's how to use paprika. <Laugh> because sometimes, sometimes some, some spices you're like, oh, I

Leo Laporte (02:23:05):
Throw it in by the Fistful, but that doesn't always work. Yeah, well, yeah. Be

Andy Ihnatko (02:23:09):
Well, well, because like, I, I, I was wondering why things weren't working, and then I learned that, oh, well here's, there's some spices you put, you put into the pot. Like at the beginning of a cook, there's some spices that you put like near the end because otherwise you cook, they they cook out, right? And you sort of burn them out. And, and so after like two weeks of that, I started looking at thinking that, oh, well this is a good, this is a good excuse. As someone who occasionally does pixel the week and stuff like that, thinking that, okay, I'd find two or three, one of them would be kind of nice enough to recommend, but I'd be just back to the notebook. But now, yeah, that's completely supplanted it. And once again, mostly it's because I find recipes without looking for them.

(02:23:42):
It's just, I find it's, and now those things don't just disappear into my bookmarks folder. It's like if I'm bored on a bus or something, I can be scrolling through, oh, that's right. That was that chicken stew recipe that looks crazy, stupid, simple that I can't possibly work. I'm gonna try that this week. And so keeps it back at the front of your mind. And it's, and it's again, helps, it's helped me to up my game and go from, okay, I guess it's, it's Wednesday night, I guess it's another pork cutlet with rice and maybe some black beans mixed with corn. So

Leo Laporte (02:24:11):
Do you put paprika in ahead of time or at the end of the meal?

Andy Ihnatko (02:24:15):
Smoked paprika at the end. If you're using the other kind, it's saying that basically using it as part of a spice blend, you can put it down at, at the earliest. But if you really want like, the heat of smoked paprika, ah, if it's like a, if it's like an hour long like cook that you're putting like chicken and chicken and stuff, like in a pot, you don't put it at the very, very end, but maybe like 15 minutes to the end of cook time, so it doesn't completely, it's

Leo Laporte (02:24:37):
Funny, like disintegrates. It's funny because I didn't know that, but the recipe app I use is called paprika. So I should, but <laugh> I, I am with you. I, I know Jason. You have a recipe app you love, but it's Apple only and I'm with Fred. Me, me. Yeah. I'm with I, which I love. It's beautiful. But I am like Andy, I'm completely cross-platform. So I need something. I can do it on iOS and Android. Very

Andy Ihnatko (02:24:58):
Nice. And it, it ex by the way, it also exports really nicely too. So

Leo Laporte (02:25:01):
It's, yes. I want you to share your sous v burrito recipe with me. Will you <laugh>?

Andy Ihnatko (02:25:07):
Oh, that's, that's my recipe. People come from miles around. I'm known as Sovi Burrito Bay on, on TikTok <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (02:25:15):
As long as you don't let it run down your forearm. I think that's okay. I <laugh> we, yeah, we were having dinner the other day and Lisa says, where's your dinner? I said, well, I'll, I'll have it. And had an hour and a half. I'm still feeding a burrito. <Laugh> <laugh>. She thought I was a little crazy. But I did follow your technique of of, of frying it up in the pan at the end to get crisp up the the tortilla

Andy Ihnatko (02:25:36):
Again, it, you people, everyone's laughing, but the first time you try it, you realize that this, this stupid microwave burrito that I stopped eating in college 'cause they're awful and they're impossible to cook. Much better. This is like, now I'm, yeah, now it's like, oh, this is not as good as a restaurant, but as good as not having to go out of your house to pick up a take out order in a restaurant.

Leo Laporte (02:25:55):
That's true. Of course, if you lived in Petaluma and you had El Rice's taco truck, you might not good use a

Andy Ihnatko (02:26:00):
Exactly.

Leo Laporte (02:26:01):
Sofi Burrito.

Andy Ihnatko (02:26:02):
It's faster. I'm in, I'm in, I'm, I'm in coastal. I'm on coastal New England. We are not really well known for burritos.

Leo Laporte (02:26:07):
No, I can't get lobster roll and cakes, cakes here. So it's, you know, it's a trade. I'm, I'm not sure which I prefer to be honest,

Andy Ihnatko (02:26:13):
One must one must suffer for our geography. <Laugh>. Is that not true?

Leo Laporte (02:26:17):
No. Dell's frozen lemonade for me. Mr. Jason Snell pick of the week.

Jason Snell (02:26:23):
Yeah, I was talking before the show a couple weeks ago with Alex about this. I recently did a get together of a bunch of the incomparable podcasters. Yeah. And we did a bunch of podcasts. Big surprise, Micah,

Leo Laporte (02:26:34):
A bunch of podcasts. Micah was there and he said he had a great time.

Jason Snell (02:26:37):
We had, we did, we had a great time. A whole bunch of people who never see each other in person. 'cause We're all just on, you know, far away on Zoom. And so my thought was, I want to capture some video of this. And so I got a 360 video camera, not gonna mention its name but I'll just say that it was an instant <laugh>

Leo Laporte (02:26:54):
Instant hit.

Jason Snell (02:26:55):
Yes. 360. Yeah. Mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. anyway what I found out is that you couldn't set that up to get, the idea is it's too, okay, my pick is a GoPro max, which is what I bought, and I returned the other one. And really,

Leo Laporte (02:27:09):
Because I have the other one. And you, you prefer

Jason Snell (02:27:12):
This, huh? So I prefer this one. And this is why you other people with different priorities might have a different opinion of it. But it's 280 degree lenses on either side of the camera. So you are gonna get a full 360 video out of it. And so I put it on a little tripod in, you know, basically on the floor or on the table. And while we recorded a podcast, sort of just around the table and after the fact, you export out a 360 video file, pop it into Final Cut Pro, it has all of the controls to pan and zoom and tilt around that 360 degree space. And you can actually, like, say presets and basically make it look like you brought multiple cameras to that thing when there was in fact a little teeny tiny portable camera sitting in the center. Now the reason I I ended up with a GoPro is that the other model stopped recording video after 30 minutes and then started again 10 seconds later. Oh

Leo Laporte (02:28:10):
Yeah, we talked that, yeah,

Jason Snell (02:28:12):
Yeah. Before the show. The other week we talked about that. Gopro every eight minutes or so, it makes a new file on the SD card, but there's no drop frames. It just keeps going. Ah. And if you pull the, if you, if you just plug it into U s B power, it will go. 'cause The battery otherwise will die after a while. But it will go until the SSD card is full if you have it plugged into power. And I can't be happier with the output, like the fact that I'm getting, 'cause I'm ne I'm never in my hobbyist podcasting especially gonna set up a full on like a bunch of different cameras and maybe with camera operators and like, that's never gonna happen. But this 360 grabs everything. And then you can not only lock off those shots that you want, but you can do stuff like, you can set a couple of, of transition points and do a pan and a zoom and a tilt and make it look like somebody's operating that camera.

(02:29:05):
But it's all happening after the effect because it, it has captured everything. The people around the table, the stuff that's on the table, the ceiling, if you wanna show that, if there's like a bug on the ceiling, you wanna cut to that, it's up there. You can see it just, I, the technology's amazing. It really is like a taking smartphone tech and smartphone camera tech and boiling it down to this. And yeah, this is also a GoPro. It has lots of other uses as an action camera and as a waterproof camera and all of that. But there are probably better choices. This is a little bit long on the tooth, but has a 360 camera to capture an event and maybe, who knows, we'll have headsets and stuff where that 360 video will also come someday. Someday. But, but just to produce on the fly some relatively decent video of different angles of people around a table.

(02:29:54):
You plop this in the center, maybe on a tripod, and then you export it right out of the awful software. All the universal thing of all these apps is they come with little, or all these cameras is they come with bad apps, bad Mac apps, bad Windows apps, <laugh>. But you know, you export the file and then you drop it in your video editor of Choice and Final Cut. So you, so so you, you edit it in Final Cut. I used final cut for it. I saved presets for each of the different camera angles. I'm gonna write about this on Six colors. 'cause There's a bunch of things I discovered about like stupid things. Final Cut doesn't let you do, like save presets and then bind them to a keystroke. It, it's like, I don't know. I don't know how to do that. But I, I did do that.

(02:30:30):
And what it affords me is, first off, it's a lot smaller file to have one file that's a 360 file. It's big, right? But it's not three or four, five or six, right. You can kind of an arbitrary number of camera angles and then you can also do animations where you can actually pan and zoom. And there's a moment where people are being introduced around the table. And in my Final Cut project, literally the camera just keeps rotating around as they're red introduced. Nice. It's so great. Yeah. So, and, and it's all just in that single file, that final cut understands, can we watch this, the final show? Where is that? Oh, that's, that's a good point. I, I should get you the, I should get you the link for that. Do I have to the subscriber? I probably do to the Incon? No you don't. There's a, there's actually, I will put the because I'd like to see the result. I'll put the YouTube, I'll put the YouTube link of the first one of these up for, for people to check out in our Discord. And you can put it in the show notes. Cool. But yeah, it's, I mean, the first one we did was in a poorly lit basement that looked like somebody had been using it as their murder dungeon <laugh>. That's okay. You doing the

Leo Laporte (02:31:32):
End, you're doing d and d I think it's appropriate. <Laugh>, it's

Jason Snell (02:31:35):
Pretty close, right? Like it's not that far off. But you know, they, they ended up looking, looking pretty great. Nice. So that, that's the part that, that amazes me is that I was very happy with with how it all turned out.

Leo Laporte (02:31:47):
I'm interested, I'm surprised that Final Cut understood the output final.

Jason Snell (02:31:51):
Yeah. So what worried me was that when I bought the Insta 360 there, I said it when I bought that it said, well, we've got a premier plugin. And I thought but nothing for Final Cut. And I thought, oh, geez, it turns out, yeah, final cut just reads the 360 file. It knows it's a 360 video file that automatically gives you the set of controls that are uniquely for the 360 file. Oh, that's nice. So in the end, it actually worked out. It worked out great. So I if you're, I, I know it's a really niche kind of thing, but like, if you've ever been like, I want to capture this group of people just hanging out together. I want to capture, you know, anything that like, is not something that you can capture with a single camera. This is a way that you can do it.

Leo Laporte (02:32:38):
The GoPro Max, which I wonder if they have a new one coming. It is, it's

Jason Snell (02:32:44):
Not, it is. I don't, it's a, it's a bit old, although, I don't know. I mean, yeah, I

Alex Lindsay (02:32:48):
Don't think they're gonna go down that path. It's, it didn't, I don't think it was a real success for GoPro, but it is a really cool, I mean, it, it's the best camera in that little area. It's been mostly the post in that niche

Leo Laporte (02:32:58):
Go

Alex Lindsay (02:32:58):
Better, better than the how does it take to, how long did it take to render it?

Jason Snell (02:33:03):
Export? Actually exporting from the GoPro is a lot faster than exporting from Insta 360 on, I dunno why. Oh, interesting. But the, the, and the beauty of it is, I, I, first, the first set I did, I was rendering the individual shots. And that took forever. But rendering, just exporting out the 360. Yeah, it stitches it all together. That didn't take too long. And

Alex Lindsay (02:33:22):
Then I think, I think I was trying to, when I, I have one, but I have, I barely use it. I used to open it up and it was, I tried to do it inside of their app because it does stabilization and it does all these other things. And I was like, oh. And it was so painful. Their app

Leo Laporte (02:33:35):
Is quick. Q U I K, they acquired quick, right? Yeah.

Alex Lindsay (02:33:38):
It was, I, yeah, I, I don't remember what the app was. It was many years ago now <laugh>, I was just like, I don't wanna play anymore. Well, there's an, there is an

Leo Laporte (02:33:44):
Advance to using the appt. It comes with the camera because they have, they understand better than Final Cut or Premier. Right. But

Alex Lindsay (02:33:49):
What exactly is going on? But what I didn't do is, what Jason's doing, which is really interesting, is

Leo Laporte (02:33:53):
To the points

Alex Lindsay (02:33:54):
Exporting the raw version. Because when I did it, there was not, the tools and Final Cut were very, yeah, crude. I think it was probably 2017, I think is when I was, when it came out. It was new in 2017, I think. So that was, yeah.

Jason Snell (02:34:06):
So if whatever happened, final Cut was like, no, we get 360 video as a thing and we wanna support it. And so you can set up a project and, you know, and this is a, an enormous video file, right? Like, it's like a five point something K video file, which is good because you have to chop it up into little bits in order to get your shots. But it still ends up being pretty decent. And if my stuff was actually well lit, it would've looked great. It was not well lit. We were just in a Airbnb at a table, but it's still pretty decent. So I was, I was amazed by it. So I think that there are places where people will have that moment of like, oh, for 500 bucks. And you can usually find it a little cheaper than that. Totally worth doing.

Alex Lindsay (02:34:46):
And a and a in the center of those, a big Chinese ball with a bunch of really bright for the lights, CFLs or, or LEDs. We'll just give everybody this nice warm light.

Jason Snell (02:34:57):
I like the way you think. Yeah, yeah,

Leo Laporte (02:34:58):
Yeah. This is kind of cool. I mean, you, this is one little camera in the, in, in the middle of all you guys, and you're just picking who's, who's on camera and Yeah. Where's the pan and advantage of? Is that at the beginning or

Jason Snell (02:35:11):
The pan? There's no pan in that one. 'cause That, that's the one where I had the individual shot sectioned up before. Mike is in there. But in the new ones that I did, I learned my lesson from that first one. And I've, I've built in the pans and it's eerie. Like, it literally looks like there's a camera operator there, but it's just me setting. Yeah. You know, setting animation points and final cut after the fact.

Leo Laporte (02:35:30):
And you've got eight people. So, and you were able to really get some shots here. That's really good. And, and of course, yeah, the washer and the dryer, which is, is

Jason Snell (02:35:39):
Nice. And, and, and the rest of the murder basement, it's all there <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (02:35:43):
The Airbnb murder basement, let's not forget, they

Jason Snell (02:35:45):
Didn't, I don't think they wanted us down there, but we, but all of a sudden we set up a podcast there. So that's never, never rent your house to podcasters, <laugh>, stuff like this is gonna happen. You're gonna regret it.

Leo Laporte (02:35:56):
All of a sudden we set up a podcast circus people are

Alex Lindsay (02:35:58):
Fine, but podcasters

Leo Laporte (02:36:00):
Never <laugh>. This is cool. Boy, I wish I I I bought the Insta and I'm happy with the Insta. But that you, you nailed the one thing. And we're talking about this. How do you record continuously if it's more than half an hour? Yeah. Mr. Alex Lindsay, I think you can wrap things up with your pick of the week.

Alex Lindsay (02:36:22):
Yeah, I, I I, I, I went to a a, a movie 32 Sounds. It is a very small art house movie. And if it's going through your town, you should go <laugh>. Oh. Like, you should go. I like, you know, it's so a friend of mine flock was like, you have to go, you have to go see this movie. And so I was like, okay. And I didn't know anything about the movie. Like, it just flock told me to go see it and I'll go see it. So I, I showed up I went with a friend and, and and we went and and checked it out. You get there and they give you headsets. So the whole thing is in binaural, so that they give you headsets, little fm headsets, and, and you're exploring 32 different sounds. And John, we

Leo Laporte (02:37:00):
Have to go

Alex Lindsay (02:37:00):
See this. How sound,

Leo Laporte (02:37:01):
This sounds like something John would want to

Alex Lindsay (02:37:02):
Do, unfortunately for you, as he just did sixth over the weekend, and that now he's on a tour. So the great thing is Sam Green, who's the director he comes with the movie. So he's going to all these locations and at the end there's a q and a with him. And so he talks a little bit about it and answers questions. So

Leo Laporte (02:37:19):
Coming to Westerly westerly Rhode Island, August 29th. I can go see there. You Andy. Go see Mom. Yep. There, go see the movie. Go there. You, you

Alex Lindsay (02:37:27):
Go. So there's, there's your reason to go to there. I would highly recommend it. It is, it's, it's a, you know, it's, it's not a action packed film. It's just like you kind of, and at the beginning, I think I, I was a little restless for the first 30 minutes, and then I found myself just sinking into the experience of just, of experiencing sound. They, they showed a, there's a woman who has been spending the last 50 years, she's been recording sound underwater. They have a, a, a sound a audio artist who is deaf. So she's, she's actually talking about how the sound makes her feel. There are, you know, there's lots of different how binaural works versus Ambisonic. There's all these, it's not really technical as much as experiential. And I just, I just really enjoyed it. And I I'm really glad that movies like this get made, you know, so, so I'm hoping that people go out and see it.

(02:38:11):
So we get more movies like that. But it's, it was a really just an exploration of sound. And it got me thinking about binaural a lot more. I I deal with a lot of surround, so I mostly think about Ambisonic and Atmos and, and 5.1 and all these other things. And you know, I, I've kind of skipped binaural because it's just with headphones, but when you put the headphones on, it was kind of fun. So hopefully it'll come out some, it'll get distribution somehow and we get to put headphones on and watch it at home. But it's a pretty well that would be

Leo Laporte (02:38:37):
Cool. Pretty great movie. Yeah. Well, I'll keep an eye out for that. Yeah. Because I don't know if I'm gonna make it to Westerly in a month. You should. You should. Here's the here's the pan. Jason uploaded a little, a little clip of the of the pan. So you're doing this, the camera's recording everything. You're doing this in the software panicked from

Jason Snell (02:38:54):
Person to person. Yeah. You said little tween points, right? Yeah. You set little, little key frames.

Leo Laporte (02:38:58):
Key frames, yeah. And you

Jason Snell (02:38:59):
Can, yeah. And you can go around and yeah, so this video pans literally all the way around the table, and then in the end sort of drops down and shows the map and shows everybody's like soda and dice. 'cause It's a d d game. So you gotta, for, for verity's sake, you gotta do that. But yeah, it's just, it's a fun, it's a fun idea. I I, I literally, somebody said to me the other week when I was talking about this, they said, it's kinda like that seventies show, right? Where they were all those scenes where on that 70 show where they're sitting there talking to each other and the joke is that the one you don't see is the one who's smoking pot at that moment, <laugh>. But it keeps turning around. And, and they said, so it's kinda like that. And I said, that's, yes, that is literally my inspiration for this idea. That's was what if you could put a camera in the center and then cover all of the different angles around a table, wouldn't that make like with Micah and Dan, wouldn't that make a great episode of Clockwise? The whole premise of it is that you're sitting around a table, they're never actually around a table, but what if they were right? So yeah, it's, it's worth, it's worth checking out if you're that person.

Leo Laporte (02:39:57):
Very, very, very cool. It's kind of, it's kind of amazing. You just had one camera there and got all of this.

Jason Snell (02:40:04):
Yeah. You can see our dice and our, our sodas. It's like true. Very similitude of d d

Leo Laporte (02:40:10):
<Laugh> Looks like a quiet drone, just hovering and pivoting. Right. Cool. Well that concludes this edition of the, we had absolutely nothing to talk about. Mac Break Weekly, three hours later, <laugh>. Good lord. Thank you. Jason. Snell, six colors.com is his website. Six callers.com/jason is the page where you can see all of the many, many things. Jason does so many things, the many podcasts and so forth. Where is that d and d show gonna be?

Jason Snell (02:40:42):
That one's not gonna be up for a little while, but the, the game show that we did in the Murder basement is coming out next week to tomorrow. I think it's tomorrow actually. So that'll be up. The audio and video version will be up for everybody

Leo Laporte (02:40:55):
To see on the incomparable. On the

Jason Snell (02:40:57):
Incomparable Yep. Incomparable game show. But you can just go to the incomparable.com and you can see

Leo Laporte (02:41:02):
It there. Nice. Very nice. Many, many wonderful things Jason does in August.

Jason Snell (02:41:10):
I keep my terrible things a secret

Leo Laporte (02:41:12):
<Laugh> as we all do's. Thank you. Andy Naco, W G B H. When are you on next?

Andy Ihnatko (02:41:21):
I'm off this week, but next Thursday at 1245. Go to wgbh news.org to stream it live or later or any

Leo Laporte (02:41:27):
Of the previous stuff I've done on that show. Very, very nice. Thank you, Andrew. And of course, Alex Lindsay is at Office Hours Global all the time. You had a raster versus Vector Cage match <laugh> today talking

Alex Lindsay (02:41:42):
About how, how, what Raster is versus Vector. So it was very geeky just really digging in. We got into the history of it. It was, it was a lot of fun. I love that. We had a great presentation on using, you know, kind of a hybrid theater on Monday, which was which was really cool. And, and so it was and, and you know, of course it's just, it Geek Fest one, one one day at a time. So we had a, by the way, on the Gray Matter show with Michael Krasney, we had Brian Lowry on talking about the nature of community and how we, how we look at that. And it's Gray Matter show and it's worth listening to. I mean, we, all of them are worth listening to David Rubenstein on last, last week, or he just, it just came out today. But, but Brian Lowry's was really, really an, an interesting one that I think this audience might really enjoy talking about the future of communities and, and and how we interact. So it's really cool.

Leo Laporte (02:42:34):
Very interesting stuff. He knows everybody, which is so fun. So you get everybody on the show.

Alex Lindsay (02:42:40):
His, his, his Rolodex

Leo Laporte (02:42:43):
Is pretty impressive.

Alex Lindsay (02:42:44):
Yeah. When, when David Rubinstein, who's a billionaire, his folks reach out and say, we'd like to be on the show. Hey, we're getting there. That's nice. Yeah. So

Leo Laporte (02:42:53):
Gray Matter show at Gray Matter show with Michael Krasney and Alex produces that in the basement, in his murder basement. It's actually not yours, but it's where you work. Yeah. Thank you everybody. Office Hours Global, and of course, if you wanna hire Alex 0 9 0 Media, 0 9 0 Media. We do Mac Break Weekly every Tuesday, 11:00 AM Pacific, 2:00 PM Eastern Time. 1800, no, I'm sorry. Is it 1800 or 1900? 1800 utc? You can watch the Stream live twit tv that's got audio or video after the fact. Of course you can watch the show or listen to the show. There's various places to get it. Our webpage would be the first place you might want to go. Tweet tv slash mb w you'll see links there to our YouTube channel also to many podcast players. And the pure RSS feed you can use in any podcast player or just search for Mac Break Weekly in your podcast player and subscribe cost you nothing. And you'll get it the minute it's available. Thursday, Apple's quarterly earning results. We didn't really talk about that, but we will I'm sure be talking a lot about that next week on Mac Break. Weekly gonna be a good or bad quarter, Jason.

Jason Snell (02:44:09):
Bad, I mean, for Apple, which is better than almost anything for anyone else, but it'll be down year, over year, quarter. Everybody's predicting that a little bit, a little bit down. Yep.

Leo Laporte (02:44:20):
It is after all, not a big selling quarter, it's next quarter. That and the quarter after that, it really make Apple fly. Thank you everybody. We'll see y'all next week. But now I have to say, I'm sad to say my duty is have another slim gym, but you gotta go back to work 'cause break time is o over.

Rod Pyle (02:44:39):
Hey, I'm Rod Pyle, editor in Chief Ad Astra magazine, and each week I joined with my co-host to bring you this week in space, the latest and greatest news from the Final Frontier. We talked to NASA chiefs, space scientists, engineers, educators and artists, and sometimes we just shoot the breeze over what's hot and what's not in space, books and tv, and we do it all for you, our fellow true believers. So whether you're an armchair adventurer or waiting for your turn to grab a slot in Elon's Mars Rocket, join us on this in space and be part of the greatest adventure of all time.