MacBreak Weekly 949 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.

0:00:00 - Leo Laporte
It's time for MacBreak Weekly. Alex, Andy and Jason are all here. Jason calls this show the Upside Down because we're starting with the Vision Pro segment. Then we'll talk a little bit about Apple's woes in government and actually Jason has, I think, a very sensible way to move forward with the iOS App Store. I wonder if you agree I don't think Alex does, but you'll get to hear that whole conversation in just a little bit and why there will not be a sequel to the George Clooney and Brad Pitt Wolfs movie. All that more coming up next on MacBreak Weekly.

This is MacBreak Weekly, episode 949. Recorded Tuesday, November 26th 2024. Glick-ed, it's time for MacBreak Weekly, the show where we talk about the latest news from Apple. We have, of course, as always, our wonderful panel here, Jason Snell from sixcolors.com. Congratulations on once again gaining the axe.

0:01:12 - Jason Snell
We got the axe. We got the axe. We kept the axe. Here's my. I have my replica axe.

0:01:19 - Alex Lindsay
That's not the real one? Gosh, I thought that was it

00:01:21 - Jason Snell
Again. I mean, it's all out of of perspective. It may be very large and I'm holding it far away.

0:01:27 - Leo Laporte
But regardless, the axe is in my hand. Do you etch a new date into each of those little...?

0:01:30 - Jason Snell
Unfortunately the replica has just little lines there, but I could put a new line with a marker if I wanted to. Just to extend it further down. But yes thank you. College football rivalries are fun, and they're more fun when you win them.

0:01:43 - Leo Laporte
I really like shows where they do inside stuff like that and they don't ever explain it and it's like you know you're either in or you're out. So just saying, did you get the axe? And you say, yes, we got the axe. That's all we have to say we got the axe, and of course so is Andy Ihnatko. He's here.

0:02:07 - Andy Ihnatko
Did you get the three seashells? Ah boy, I get three, three, three, three seashells. Say it fast, I get the three seashells a good three hours after I get up. At least it depends yeah, I take supplements because you know lower gi.

0:02:19 - Leo Laporte
Health is very, very important, as you skip in not gocom soon, coming soon to a web browser near you. He's also uh weekly or semi weekly on wg bh in boston. Good to see you, andrew, just on my library and uh, from his uh little little fortress of solitude, uh, there in the beautiful office hours studios, mr alex lindsey, hello, hello, good to see you. Good you watched the uh, the new, uh, vision pro surround sound. I guess I should play the vision pro jingle. Dare we start the?

show with the vision pro go ahead, do it let's do it. I don't know how many stories there are. We all did the Snoopy dance, so Apple keeps on.

0:03:13 - Alex Lindsay
You know, they seem to be getting into more of a pace. Where they start, it feels like they're releasing something, maybe almost every week. You know, it feels like there's some little piece that they're putting out. They're not very long, so I keep on thinking oh, I got to get around to this, I gotta get around to this. Then you open it up and it's like seven minutes, you know, or three minutes, or four minutes, which is fine, that's, that's fine, especially when you're kind of experimenting. Um, the one that came out last week was the uh, I think it was concert for one um, which is um.

0:03:40 - Leo Laporte
So ray was the, the artist, and uh she has a rather band and we were asking last week. We were wondering if they were going to shoot it as the from the best seat in the house or if they were going to do the you know, cutting in.

0:03:53 - Alex Lindsay
Well, the funny thing is is that is that I was pretty excited about it, because this is something I work a lot on, is this kind of experience, and so I was excited to see what Apple is going to do. I have to admit, you know, I think sometimes Apple has this approach of like we don't pay attention to what anybody else is doing, we're going to find our own way, and they're still working on it. So, anyway, you know, there's a bunch of rules that a lot of us have kind of grown up to believe in, and maybe Apple's breaking those. I haven't been sold on.

What Apple did was better than what we've already learned not to do, and I felt like this was a pretty good example of almost all the things not to do, you know. So they packed almost everything that I wouldn't do into one piece, so part of the problem was so there's a couple of things when you're doing 3D and specifically 180, that I think that we all do the same things the wrong way first, and then we all go, okay, let's not do that again, right, you're like I just did it and then published it, so so, anyway, so there's a couple things one is is that you have all of these people.

I can't hear the edge, oh we learn, there we go.

0:04:57 - Leo Laporte
I had to push the wrong button the there.

0:04:59 - Alex Lindsay
What's that? This is like the 180 view right, and so they put all these people around the 180 view. That's like the proscenium arch right, and so what happens is is that, as a 3d person doing 180 or 360, you you're tempted to put people everywhere so that you force people to look around so you can see that yeah yeah, whatever it filled, it filled the view.

In other words, yeah, the problem with that is that when my field of view goes this way, I see the edge, and that takes me out of the experience. And so you don't want to see the edge ever like ever. And so what we learned? You should really be doing like 90 degrees. So what we learned to do is you can go a little bit more like a one, 20. This is your area of action. Maybe a little bit leaks over here and here, but you don't have a lot of people looking sideways because the idea is, this is the ambient that that keeps you feeling like you're in the event.

Um, and not what, uh, and? But Apple built this thing where people are literally on the edge, like, if you turn over, there's still more people over there, um, and so they did that and, again, it's not a natural experience. The other thing is is that then they have an artist here by themselves and they have a flat wall back here and the long distance in between, just represented by green dot the. The problem is with this is that a big drop off. Yeah, it looks fine, but what really makes 3d look good is lots of things that are creating vanishing points in that back area, and so so what they didn't do? But if they had stacked the band the way you would have seen it on a, on a stage, it would have looked very 3d, it would have felt very immersive and you would have felt like you were just sitting there watching this band play and you didn't. You know, and and I think you probably could have gotten away with even a single camera Um, but you could have played around with if you wanted to when they cut, they go the opposite direction, which is they get so close that it's uncomfortable and even for me, who I'm pretty thick skin about it, I was like, wow, that's really close, like that's too too much, you know. And uh, and so they did a little bit of this in in um.

They did a little bit of this in the submerged.

They did a fair amount of it in the weekend which I don't think I would have released if I had finished, looked at the finished product.

And then they um, and then they did a lot of it in this one where they're doing close-ups on the singers and they're doing close-ups on the main singer. And again I think that they it just it feels like I'm curious to see how this goes no-transcript VR, because they they want to take their old ways of doing things and immediately just apply them to VR, you know, and like I still want to, I still have to have these cuts and I have to have these closeups and I have to have the over the shoulder and I have to do this thing. And you know, you may not need to like, you may not need to do all those things to make this work. It's a different platform and so so I think that handing it to really you know people who are very good in the 2D world and expecting them to suddenly make it great in the 3D world hasn't been successful in a way that we've seen for a decade.

0:08:04 - Andy Ihnatko
You know, the only filmmaker that's really good at this is James Cameron, alex but I have one question Like what if Kendrick Bourne is on the injured reserve this weekend? How will that affect the Patriots offense against the Colts this weekend? That's a special joke for people watching on YouTube who saw Alex writing all those diagrams about him. Oh right, right, right. Oh, he was doing his John Madden. That's a special joke for people watching on youtube who saw alex writing all those diagrams about.

0:08:26 - Leo Laporte
Oh right, right, right oh, he was doing his john madden, I get it now. Yeah, no, that's but it's.

0:08:32 - Alex Lindsay
But what is the?

0:08:33 - Leo Laporte
disconnect. I mean, uh, surely there are people like you who are telling apple don't go 180 degrees, go 120. Uh, put, put stuff in the, in the distant backgrounds. I mean why?

0:08:46 - Alex Lindsay
are they not?

doing it now I will admit there's probably and I don't mean to overstate my background, but there's probably 20 of us that have done stuff with budget in the last 10 years, like you know. Like that's why cameron knows how to do it, because he's been doing it for a long time. He had all the budget, you know, and he and what you see is someone who took filmmaking and then had all the budget and you look at how he designs the shots, the length of the shots, the framing of the shots, everything. It's still a film and you can watch it in 2d. There are things that I think he's backed. I think he even has backed away a little bit so that people don't push back too hard on it Like he. He does the 48 frame underwater, but when it comes back up you very quickly realize you can see 24 really clearly after you've seen 48. Um, you know. So anybody with high that are used to high frame rate or higher frame rate is something there, and so I think that that's you know. Cameron really knows how to build that and he really built it with a true experience and understanding of that.

There are a lot of people and I think that most of the people that are that know how to do this really well. A lot of them got out of the business. I mean, they moved on to other things when things you know they're not doing that anymore so they're into something else. There are a handful of them, like Radiant Images down in LA, that still are doing, you know, bits and pieces, but a lot of them are working for Meta. So Meta has been doing way more of this for the last. You know, they've been continually doing this production for the last bit, and if you're working for Meta, you're probably not working for Apple, so I think Apple probably would be sensitive to that. So I think that Meta has probably half of the people that know how to do it working on a variety of things.

Problem there is that for a lot of the meta solutions, they don't have the leverage or they're not using the leverage to say, hey, we want to just do it perfectly for the online audience, because that online audience is still pretty small, you know. So there's, you know, hundreds of people or low thousands of people watching. Like meta has this challenge that the people who have the headsets are in the kind of the 28 to 50 range in age group. All the music that they that they do concerts for, are like 18 to 25. So there's this. So the kid doesn't know what shows up because it's like.

It's like the people who own the headsets don't know who these artists are, you know, like and so, and so there's this weird thing where they're desperate to kind of grab on to a audience, but you know, and trying to use the headset, but the people who are buying the headsets are not 18 years old. You know, typically most of them are older geeks than than the younger ones, and so. So meta has got one problem where they're just they're, they're trying to be something that they're not, but they have a lot of people with experience working on it and they're freelancing, and so on and so forth. It feels like, again, apple eventually will maybe get to a point where they you know they and again, I think it's not important for Apple to do to get good at this. It's important for that camera to come out, you know, and for all of us to have access to the tools that we need.

Right, you don't even have access to the cameras yet. No, no, that camera I don't know if they're done with it yet.

0:11:44 - Leo Laporte
You know like they announced it in June, but it hasn't been released yet, and so I think that so you can't use the Canon or some other solution.

0:11:51 - Alex Lindsay
You know we're talking about. I mean, yeah, the Canon you can use and you can get something, but to get to the level that Apple's, the problem is is that the new the Canon is only going to be at a lower frame rate, lower resolution. You know, per eye it's 4K per eye, you know, when it's bound together, and so the difference is that the Blackmagic will be 8K per eye at 90 frames a second. That's a much different. Those frame rates and that resolution makes a huge difference in how it goes. And then when you have a variety of people that really understand how to build this, I think you're going to end up with much better content. You know, when you have the um, the a variety of people that that really understand how to build this, I think you're going to end up with much better content. You know, when you take that, when you kind of unleash the folks that really have done this for the last five to 10 years.

0:12:33 - Leo Laporte
So are you saying meta is doing a good job or that they can't do a good job because they have a mass audience and they have two problems.

0:12:40 - Alex Lindsay
One is, again, they're trying to go after an audience. Most of the work that they do is that they're trying to produce content for an audience that doesn't have their product. The people who buy the quests are older, and so if you did the kind of stuff that I've been doing, like the Toad of the Woods, rockets and folks from the aughts and so on and so forth you probably have a lot more people watching. But that's not the people that they're interested in.

0:13:00 - Leo Laporte
They're trying to get back to them If they would use the Doors. Jimi Hendrix, janis Joplin, I would watch that.

0:13:10 - Alex Lindsay
But if you went to the 90s and the aughts you'd probably have a better chance. The other side of that is that the Quest is dramatically lower quality than the Vision Pro. So you know you can't do the kind of things that are possible on the Vision Pro because the processor isn't there. That's why the Vision Pro is so expensive is because that's the cheapest you could build that quality for right now. And so I think that there's that's the challenge, and I think meta getting in early sometimes the move fast, break things creates a lot of spaghetti.

0:13:42 - Leo Laporte
There's a guy in our Discord Clarkzone who says there is a blog post from Mike Swanson. I don't know if you've seen this immersive video production tips. I haven't seen that. I know who Mike Swanson is. I haven't seen the um. He's doing it for the Oculus right.

0:13:59 - Alex Lindsay
So, yeah, and so you know, and and again, Apple broke some of those rules in a way that I will say to Apple's credit in some submerged. Pushing the camera that hard in some of those shots was something that most of us would not do. I mean, we had versions of that, but it worked. It worked, I think. Well, some people said they took their headset off and never watched it again, so maybe it didn't work for everyone.

0:14:20 - Leo Laporte
This is the problem with the Vision Pro.

0:14:22 - Alex Lindsay
It's not for everyone, but for me I felt like I was like wow, I have never seen a camera move that had as much physical impact on me as I saw with those moves, and so I was like okay, I can see how it is.

0:14:35 - Leo Laporte
A lot of people are agreeing with you. Jay Ware in Discord says the weekend video. He said I don't want to be that close that it's like someone invading your personal space well, and there was then just a lot of shots that are fine for 2d.

0:14:47 - Alex Lindsay
You just tell that someone who normally does 2d shot that video like it wasn't.

0:14:51 - Leo Laporte
Someone just says to people go ahead, do it, here's the camera, and doesn't say anything else. I think they.

0:14:58 - Alex Lindsay
I don't know how apple does it.

0:14:59 - Leo Laporte
It might be that they want these directors to experiment so they could find what works and doesn't work, and that could could be the case.

0:15:05 - Alex Lindsay
It, you know, put it out then, though but I, you know well, if you don't put it out, then the directors are upset. So so the you know you can't, you can't shoot something with the weekend and not release it, like you know, like the weekend won't come back. So so the um, and then it's all week back to the show. So, but I think that again, I think that the thing that the most common thing for all of these companies whether it was Google or Facebook or Apple is you take people who you feel like already have a lot of experience in production and you hand them the camera, and you probably have people that are giving them input. I mean, this is what other platforms have done.

0:15:48 - Leo Laporte
If Mike Swanson could put this in a blog post.

0:15:49 - Alex Lindsay
you could give them a little booklet that says hey, here's what we've learned so far. Yeah, I mean, they probably read all of those things. I just think that they, they still have this opinion, that it's in their head let's try this and let's push this thing. And I and I feel like those are, it feels like a lot again, a lot already knew that that didn't work. You know, and, and, and.

0:16:04 - Leo Laporte
so the clock is ticking though, alex, if, if, if, if Apple can't put out a product, an immersive video that gets people to say ah, this is it.

0:16:12 - Alex Lindsay
I think that. But I think that different people have now again in, in, in the difference. For me, I mean like or the or in is like my, the owner of own. I know Mark Mark East love the weekend video and said he was much more likely. He said after the submerged he didn't really feel like he needed to watch more of that after the weekend. He was like I want to see everything in immersive, and so so it's not.

You know, my opinion is one is one opinion of what those things are. And so there, there are definitely people who have I'm not, it's not everybody hated that video. Um, I think that people who have done immersive for a long time also probably are a little more sensitive to those things. But the um, uh, but I think that that's so, so anyway. So I think that there's I. I think that what Apple has done, which is work with black magic to make sure that they have a camera that can do that is one of the more important things to do, you know, is is to make sure that lots of people have access to the hardware to to shoot it.

0:17:07 - Leo Laporte
And I think it's black magic making this camera is that black magic's making the camera?

0:17:11 - Alex Lindsay
Yeah, but it's. But it definitely appears that I mean Apple announced it that they're working with them on it, um, that they worked with them on on those things, and so so, yeah, so we know of any timeframe.

0:17:21 - Leo Laporte
I mean, mark Kerman's not exactly leaking this one.

0:17:23 - Alex Lindsay
We think that Blackmagic will not want to show up at NAB without a camera.

0:17:30 - Leo Laporte
Okay, so we think that's spring right, yeah, yeah.

0:17:32 - Alex Lindsay
So we think that late March is the most likely time for the Blackmagic camera to be released, maybe even the week of very first week of April. So that's the most likely time. But we think Blackmag magic doesn't like in the past. Black magic would release things. It would go more than a year after they released it and uh, we have, um, uh, learned that we've seen over time that black magic would very much prefer not to be at the huge booth where they spend millions and millions of dollars on the booth having every person come to them and say where's this product? Why didn't you release it?

0:18:08 - Leo Laporte
you announced it a year ago, kind of thing, so they usually get things done by then. Sometimes they're not perfect when they get get out, but they get out. I have seen, or have heard of, anyway, the killer app that I would get actually probably buy a vision pro to use. Unfortunately, the test flight has been paused. It's it's. It's an f1 spatial viewer called lapseAPZ L-A-P-Z. What a great. So if you're a Formula One fan, you know that one of the things F1 TV, which is a paid subscription streams, is you could see a camera from every car. You can see multiple views. You get multiple soundtracks. There's a lot of information. F1 is very highly digitized. There's a lot of information. F1 is very highly digitized. There's a lot of information, and this is a really interesting way to look at an f1 race. I'm already using an f1 viewer that opens multiple windows, but this is this is like you're immersed in what I didn't quite real understand.

0:18:56 - Alex Lindsay
I looked at the article.

0:18:57 - Leo Laporte
It looked like a licensing thing because so the viewer I use you log into your f1 tv subscription and then it takes what what you're're getting and puts it up on the screen. This is how LAPS worked. It's made by a VFX artist named John Lepore, but apparently they're saying and this is from a story in Upload, which is a VR magazine that LAPS says it's working to secure digital life.

0:19:25 - Andy Ihnatko
Helping Lapps Sounds like F1, which I'm sure is extremely proprietary, to put the nicks on it which is too bad, even though it was just in test flight, so it wasn't on the App Store or anything. They were just trying to get this thing going. The developers they started off by just doing a concept video that blew so many minds that, oh, there's a market for this. I should actually start building this. And he started building it. And if you look at this demo video, whether you're looking at what he's actually got going in TestFlight or what he was conceiving of both of them are you're right. It's like if you're an F1 fan, it's like what do I need to buy to get this experience?

0:19:59 - Alex Lindsay
A lot of my clients are asking what would make I would buy this right away.

0:20:02 - Andy Ihnatko
We see people literally spend 3500 bucks. So so like on the desktop and so you've, got a virtual screen in front of you that has like the basic, like tv view of where they switch. For you on the desk there's a virtual version of the race route, like on the map, with all the cars, like in real time, animated around them. Uh, that's what he's got going right now in test flight in the demo and he's also, but I don't hear him.

0:20:25 - Leo Laporte
Oh, is that me? Uh, am I, that's you yep, um, be me.

0:20:31 - Andy Ihnatko
I hear him, but but but the, but the, but the in the, in the demo version. That isn't real. It's like I also want to see cockpit views from this driver and this driver I want to see like another view that has just like the standings, because f1 is one of the most. You don't have to really care much about the sport to think that it's a really entertaining thing to watch because, boy, what great work they did to make sure. If we wire up all these cars so that not only are you getting live video from each car but you're also getting live telemetry, and not just for, uh, not just for the pit crews.

0:21:02 - Leo Laporte
So much data. There's terabytes. A second, yeah, yeah I mean it, it.

0:21:06 - Andy Ihnatko
It is one hell of a demo. I'd be. I'd be if, if I were at apple and I and part of my fortunes were tied into the fortunes of vision pro, I would be volunteering myself as a go-between between you know, apple is producing this f1 movie yeah, uh, with Brad Pitt.

0:21:22 - Leo Laporte
That's coming out next year. It's uh, and tim cook was at an f1 race last year in Austin. So there's definitely something going on. F1 is owned by an American company called Liberty Media. You might know the name and you know I wonder if there's some sort of I'm sure negotiations have been ongoing for the last couple of years. This is such a natural use of the Vision Pro. I think it may also be that Apple said no, wait a minute, we want to do that. Who knows, who knows? You know, apple might've said we've got a tie-in coming up with F1 and we don't want this app to be in the way, but it shows you what a great platform this could be for watching live sports Baseball.

0:22:01 - Andy Ihnatko
Same thing you, this could be for watching live sports Baseball. Same thing you have the diamond in front of you, you have again the network sort of coverage so that you don't have to do switching yourself. But you also want I want a static view of third base because I'm concerned, I'm interested in like the fourth the play coming up and have all the stats that are not going to simply overlay and interrupt you, but are there for you because these are things you're actually interested in while you're actually working, looking at, like the two other games that you're betting on that decide whether you go to work tomorrow, you retire or you go on the run. It's, it's a good app.

0:22:36 - Leo Laporte
Killer app. All right, and that was our Vision Pro segment. How about that?

0:22:40 - Jason Snell
Now you see, now you know we're done talking the Vision Pro.

0:22:53 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, wow, to see. Now you know we're done talking the vision pro.

0:22:54 - Jason Snell
Wow, that's. Uh, we've never begun a show with a vision pro segment since, well, maybe when the vision pro came out, but that's it. That was before we had the cool theme song, though, so yeah, yeah man to start with that.

0:23:00 - Leo Laporte
That's just wonderful. Uh, let's take a little break. Uh, is it too early? No, that's not too early, let's take a little break. When is it too early? No, that's not too early, let's take a little break when we come back. There is lots more to talk about. Actually, I I was joking before the show that we were light, but no, we are not light. We're going to get into the beef between drake and Kendrick lamar in just a moment I might be having my problems during that section of the show.

0:23:24 - Andy Ihnatko
Hello, hello, I can hear you, but I don't know if you can hear me, he left, he left, he actually left.

0:23:31 - Leo Laporte
Well, they're pulling Drake, is pulling Tim Cook into this, so we have to talk about that and more coming. There's a lot more coming up in just a little bit Andy Ihnatko, Jason Snell and, of course, alex Lindsay on the show today.

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Um, you've heard of gray key, right? Oh, I was gonna do a when Jason gets back from the bathroom.

0:27:56 - Jason Snell
I'm gonna do Kendrick, lamar and drake, because I know you really care I'm sitting right here, although, if you would like, I'll go to the bathroom while you talk about it I saw you run out the door when I when I just slid my chair away from my microphone, so I couldn't say something that I regret so I don't know anything about this, but uh, there are a couple of uh well known.

0:28:19 - Leo Laporte
Uh, do we andy you? You probably know you're our, uh, you're our ticket into the younger generation. Is it hip-hop or rap?

0:28:27 - Andy Ihnatko
I don't know. Uh depends on whether you're going east coast or west coast.

0:28:32 - Leo Laporte
Okay, well, drake's canadian, what do you? How did what? Does that count?

0:28:36 - Andy Ihnatko
as, uh, he's bundled up very, very securely. A lot of hats, a lot of puffer jackets?

0:28:42 - Leo Laporte
I think so, apparently Drake and Kendrick. Kendrick Lamar is kind of I'm on his side, I'm team Kendrick. I got to say he's amazing but his lyrics are incredible, but he and Drake are I don't know. This is very common in the rap world having some sort of beef and in fact, Kendrick and Drake each made songs, this and the other. Kendrick and Drake each made songs dis in the other. Okay, now Drake says that Apple is has trained Siri.

Siri has been bribed to pay to play Kendrick Lamar's not like us. Even if you ask for Drake's certified lover boy, okay, drake says it's payola. In fact. Fact, he went after and sued universal music group. I believe he lost uh on that one and now apparently uh he's. He's decided to take aim at apple on information and belief. Umg paid or approved payments to Apple to have its voice-activated digital assistant. This is the court filing Siri purposely misdirect users to Not Like Us. Online sources reported oh, it's the old online sources that when users asked Siri to play the album Certified Lover Boy by recording artist Aubrey Drake Graham doing business as Drake, siri instead played not like us, which canes contains the lyric certified pedophile as an allegation against Drake. So what's going on? Is it? Is it anyway? I don't. I don't know what's going on either. I have had apples Siri misplaced stuff. You know as long as I've had. I don't know what's going on either. I have had Apple's Siri misplay stuff. You know as long as I've had it. Yeah, that's the hard part.

0:30:30 - Alex Lindsay
It's so inaccurate. It's like you know, like I always, every time I ask for a song and Siri decides to play me either the wrong song or, more importantly, the live version of the song. I'm like when would I ever want to listen to the live version of the song if I didn't ask for the live version of the song? So my, my opinion about series accuracy is very low. If they could, maybe, if they saw it consistently, but it just seems like it small beans for apple, like. Why would they do that? Like why would they? You know, there's a little bit of a is a.

0:30:59 - Leo Laporte
Payola is a very big crime ever since, uh, the 50s, when there was a big scandal payola scandal that djs were being paid. As you know, alex, you were a music director. I had.

0:31:09 - Alex Lindsay
And no one ever gave you cocaine, no, but they bought me so much sushi, you know I think there are is within that.

0:31:17 - Leo Laporte
That's within the scope. They're not in the scope of general entertainment.

0:31:20 - Alex Lindsay
I never got any cocaine. I got cocaine in it.

0:31:22 - Andy Ihnatko
I got a lot of money in it passes, that's.

0:31:24 - Alex Lindsay
That's all I got out of the whole thing.

0:31:26 - Andy Ihnatko
But let's point to a problem that you have all across the online experience. Whenever you search for something, is it going to give you the thing specifically you asked for? Is it going to give you the thing that is related to what you asked for, but they paid Google Search or Spotify or Apple Music to say, whenever someone asks for this, make sure you throw this thing that we've sponsored into the mix? Or is it a organization that's gaming the system to make sure that, if we tag this to the wazoo, we can figure out how to make sure that people do not? When people specifically ask for Coke, they get directed straight to Moxie instead.

0:32:01 - Leo Laporte
That's not what they asked for, but we can game, the system an example of of this, this president eisenhower called payola a issue of public morality. That's how long this has been going on, since february 1960. Um anyway, laws were passed. It became a big issue in the late 50s and a number of djs lost their careers or paid big fines there was a.

0:32:29 - Andy Ihnatko
There was a time when morning djs were like the village priest that was. He was the voice of authority, the voice of morality. You came to him with your problems. He kept the community together. And then, when that all blew apart, like a, like a, like a wax hey everybody, this is father wolfman jazz be seated alan freed, the legendary cleveland disc jockey who gave rock and roll its names.

0:32:54 - Leo Laporte
Career was destroyed in the in the payola scandals. Dick clark, almost, by the way, almost he got away with it.

0:33:01 - Alex Lindsay
Um so payola has a long story history of. But in a big, giant tech company with a thing, I mean it. Just why would Apple take? Why?

0:33:09 - Leo Laporte
would you do that? They don't yeah.

0:33:11 - Jason Snell
So clearly the whole. You see a conspiracy, when it's actually incompetence I mean the stuff that Siri plays for me. That is not what I asked for. It's I mean, come on, it's a miracle when it works right. So for them to have like a nefarious conspiracy? I'm skeptical, I'm I'm deeply skeptical of that yeah it just.

0:33:32 - Alex Lindsay
You know, it's kind of like like google there's places that it shows you things because you paid for them um once you get below that line. They're just doing the best they can to give you what they, what you asked for you know.

0:33:42 - Jason Snell
I mean I don't think apple would ever design something to override your choice and play something else that they got paid for, because I'm not sure that's illegal.

0:33:51 - Alex Lindsay
But the damage to their it would be illegal regardless of legality or not, the damage to their brand if they actually did that like, if anybody saw that anywhere at apple. I mean, even folks that just got to apple would be like, oh, that's about it wouldn't be money anyway.

0:34:02 - Leo Laporte
Wouldn't be money anyway. It would be something like Drake saying or Kendrick Lamar saying, I'll give you an exclusive concert.

0:34:09 - Jason Snell
Kendrick gets an immersive video on. Vision Pro. Oh, there you go. That's why the Weeknd's not involved in any of this is because he's just rising above it in his ambulance, on his stretcher and whatever that was in that video. I mean whatever.

0:34:25 - Andy Ihnatko
How about a free set of Mac Pro feed? Huh.

0:34:29 - Leo Laporte
Would that subtle thing make you happy? Hey, don't knock it. Those are hundreds of dollars on retail. I'm ready for the prices. Wouldn't it be funny if the Price is Right? put those wheels up and had people guess oh, that's got to be $39.99, right.

0:34:46 - Andy Ihnatko
Back when I used to watch Price is Right, it's like I realized that I would be absolutely insufferable if there was an. Okay, is that DDR3 or DDR5 RAM? It says here it has RAM.

0:34:57 - Leo Laporte
They had RAM, they would actually have RAM. On. The Price is Right.

0:35:00 - Andy Ihnatko
Wow, I don't know Again. There were a couple times where there were like a Mac system and I would be there with those.

0:35:09 - Leo Laporte
there were a couple of times where there were like a Mac system and I would be like thinking, ok, let's get really careful here, I need to know the specs. Speaking of things that we will not, that I did see, by the way, because it wasn't immersive and I don't have a vision pro. But I enjoyed was the George Clooney and Brad Pitt vehicle, wolves, which was an Apple TV. Well, it was going to be a theatrical release.

0:35:30 - Jason Snell
Yes, it was, it was and.

0:35:33 - Leo Laporte
Apple decided yikes, after Fly Me to the Moon did not fly to the moon, they decided. You know, maybe we shouldn't put Wolves out in the theaters. We're just going to stream it directly. To which Brad Pitt and George Clooney said something unprintable yeah, because their compensation was tied to theatrical revenue.

0:35:56 - Jason Snell
They'll take yeah, apple presumably paid them off and I'd be surprised if there wasn't some sort of payout, if there wasn't a theatrical release.

0:36:04 - Leo Laporte
It'd be a suit. Remember Scarlett Johansson? Exactly. So I paid them off and I'd be surprised if there wasn't some sort of payout, if there wasn't a theatrical release, it'd be a suit Remember Scarlett Johansson?

0:36:08 - Jason Snell
Exactly so, I think There'd be a suit. There would almost certainly be a payout in that scenario. I think the problem here is how Apple like. Reading all the coverage of this, I don't think anybody's questioning Apple's decision to not release it in theaters. I think the problem is they did it last minute. It was like a week before, I think is what John Watts, the director writer, said that he heard about it, so it happened last minute. It obviously was a blow to them, because there is prestige involved with doing a theatrical release and you're working with creative people. Apple handled this more like canceling a product right, which I'm sorry. It really does feel like they don't understand the relationship issues in Hollywood that you need to have good relationships with the creative people who generate the content. The money is good and they'll take your money, but they, if all things being equal, they'll work with somebody the more comfortable with and then well, that interesting twist on this is not only releasing it only on Apple TV, not not in the theaters.

0:37:05 - Leo Laporte
Apple also put out a press release saying and a sequel is in the works, wolves 2, to which John Watts said uh-uh-uh.

0:37:12 - Jason Snell
No it was yeah, a sequel was in the works though. That's the thing. But when they killed the theatrical release, john Watts said take the sequel, please don't mention the sequel in your press release because I don't want to do it. I'm unhappy with you and they. And they said it anyway, which is also a betrayal, and clearly there is a face-saving measure.

I think they probably figured they were also saving face for john watts and and everybody else involved to say no, no, we like it creatively. This is a business decision. But when they, when the guy tells you not to mention it cause he doesn't intend on doing it, and you do it anyway, that I think that's worse. That is a worse sign of disrespect for the creatives in Hollywood than the one week's notice to pull it from theaters. And again, I don't think it's a bad business decision. Apple's movie business is being completely realigned because it's been a disaster. They're going to make a whole bunch of different decisions about how they do movies going forward. You've got to take care of the talent and you've got to be aware of the relationships.

0:38:14 - Alex Lindsay
It wasn't just Apple either.

0:38:15 - Jason Snell
Disney, warner Brothers they've all got locked horns there have been hyperbolic stories about how Apple has burned its bridges in Hollywood over this. I'm like guys, every studio does things that make everybody angry at them. They all have it. It's like, it's like saying I'm never gonna fly this airline and you run out of airlines at some point.

0:38:34 - Alex Lindsay
You can't do that again you know, disney did the about face, warner brothers didn't about face. Many of them have done these about faces where at the last minute, they switch over to streaming because they don't, because because the problem, the real problem, is that we all have pretty big screens at home and we all have a ton of content and if you don't knock it out of the park, like this is worth seeing on a big screen, people just go, everyone just goes. I'll just wait until it comes out. You know, like they don't. There's not the drive that I have to go see it in the theater is not like.

Part of what drove an incredible weekend for wicked was the, the camaraderie, people being so excited about it and talking about it and making it. But that's a very unusual thing to have happen. You saw it with um, uh, barbie Heimer last year. Um and so the um, but I think that the issue is pronounced Barben Heimer, barben Heimer. Yeah, there you go, barbie, barben Heimer. Um, this one was supposed to be. I thought it was like what was it? It was Glick, jiminy Glick. What Gladiator. They were trying to make it into a PR, they're trying to Glick it, I think. They're trying to get the Gladiator thing together.

0:39:37 - Leo Laporte
Or else Wadiator, which may be not the right image. We Gadiator.

0:39:42 - Alex Lindsay
We Gadiator. So anyway, the problem is is that if films neck now, like, for instance, I think wolves was great, I think it was a great movie, it was really fun.

0:39:50 - Leo Laporte
I would have never gone to see that theater ever.

0:39:52 - Alex Lindsay
And that's the math. The math problem is is and if I had gone to the theater, I probably wouldn't have loved it as much, because I enjoy as a free film that had Brad Pitt and and and George Clooney and had a reasonably good thing, it was fine, it was like a good, it was a good ride, but that's not good enough to go to the theaters anymore, and that's the problem that a lot of folks and that's what the reality is starting to set in. And then the problem is is that, even though the primary use is streaming and you release it to the theatrical and and you're you're just offsetting some costs and you're getting PR what you get is a bunch of bad press. This was, you know, napoleon was a disaster and this was a disaster. You didn't get any, because the press the Hollywood Reporter and Variety are only comparing you to other film releases. Not, oh, this is a streaming thing that we also put out on theatrical. We don't really care. If it makes money, it doesn't have to. We offset some of the costs.

0:40:49 - Leo Laporte
We get a bunch of pr out of it, blah, blah, blah, and so it that's flipped right. But what's happening is that in the theatrical you make it in the streaming. Now, well, they, I don't know, you know that's the.

0:40:52 - Alex Lindsay
that's the theory, that's the theory. The theory is. The theory is is that that you, you know you're going to supply this feed of people that are constantly paying that subscription and you got to figure out how to, how to uh, rationalize the cost of the film? The bottom line is is that it's going to be really interesting to see whether theatrical survives this, because for these streamers, I don't think that, like the math doesn't make any sense for the, I mean, the problem is is that the big tent poles are not, they're not consistent anymore, and so no one knows where that's going. Anything less than those big tent poles are generally not doing well in the movie theaters. Even Marvel isn't doing all that well Because, you know, I think a lot of people don't really like the multiverse.

0:41:33 - Leo Laporte
They had to spend so much money marketing Wicked. I mean there were Wicked tie-ins at Target. They had to spend so much money on Wicked to market it.

0:41:42 - Alex Lindsay
Because they have another one, that they have part two. That has to succeed. You know, like, like and and and so, but that's a big deal. Like it's like you. You've already, you know, gone down this path and shot another one, and it has to be well.

0:41:54 - Leo Laporte
The Thanksgiving movie was Mary Poppins and there were lines around the block to go see Mary Poppins. So I guess there's a there's a Hollywood tradition of oh, you got to have a kid movie for Thanksgiving. That is box office.

0:42:07 - Alex Lindsay
You know, and and and I think that the reason they put that kind of marketing in is because it's a good movie, like I haven't seen it yet. Did you see it? I haven't seen it yet, but every person I've talked to said that wicked is really I mean, andy's probably more of a more of a theatrical person than most, more of a theater person than most of us who you've seen.

0:42:27 - Leo Laporte
I'm sure andy wicked in the theater, right, yeah, and like, live in theater. I haven't seen this. The movie. I saw it on the theater, I saw it on broadway, it was quite good great yeah, great show yeah so I think, I think

0:42:32 - Alex Lindsay
well, the first two acts, the third act flopped.

0:42:34 - Leo Laporte
But anyway, that's neither here nor there, since in fact the the two and a half hour theater experience is being stretched to two different movies over two different years.

0:42:45 - Alex Lindsay
Yes, right, which doesn't they have to have? Well, like it's a big, you know, but they wouldn't have put the what. What you see in hollywood a lot of times is, if they don't think it has legs, they would have, they would have dumped it like they would have done something quietly, just let it die. They saw a film that was really good. They have a. They have a sequel.

That's already put the market into it they were like we got to make the first one successful or the second one's going to. You know, this is going to be a real problem. So you see a lot of marketing in it and it's again a good film, it's a good property, it's good, it has all the right things you know in that area and so it's got green and it's got pink, so you're set man, but no red, because red would be a copyright infringement on the wizard of Oz, the movie, while Silver is not a copyright infringement against the.

0:43:26 - Andy Ihnatko
Silver yeah, the original Wizard of Oz. She wore silver shoes, not ruby slippers. Ruby slippers was an invention of the MGM movie.

0:43:34 - Alex Lindsay
Yeah, so that they could show off, is it still?

0:43:36 - Leo Laporte
copyrighted. It's like 1939 movie. No, it's still.

0:43:41 - Alex Lindsay
I think it's until we're not there yet. 2034? You can't do ruby slippers. I think it's until 2034.

0:43:45 - Andy Ihnatko
They made sure that paperwork was up to date. And also there's an original set of Ruby slippers up for auction at Heritage Auctions right now. There you go. If you want to see them in absolutely 8,000 pixels by 12,000 pixels, you can go to Heritage Auctions and download these pictures. They're quite amazing.

0:44:03 - Leo Laporte
I don't think it's just John Watts. He returned his money. Well, I wonder, do you think so? I don't think it's just john watts I. He returned his money after the press release and said I don't trust apple anymore.

0:44:10 - Jason Snell
But I wonder if, if he also realized george clooney and Brad Pitt were in the same boat, I mean, yeah, I think the truth is that what's happening here is that, um, creatives are being taught that when you take money from a streamer to make your movie and you get to, you know, put in that swimming pool or whatever you're going to do by by that another house on Lake Como, whatever you want to do, that he sold that house by the way.

Well, that's why he's got to buy a new one. When you do that, you're taking money from a streamer. You are going to give up. They might make noises about theatrical, but unless it tests well or the schedule looks right, you may not get theatrical with it and you just have to accept that. Or you're going to need to take less money from somebody who really is going to give you an ironclad guarantee.

And I think we've been in an era where everybody's been a little mealy-mouthed about it and they're like well, yeah, we'll do it. I mean, to Netflix's credit, they're just like no, we're not interested in theatrical at all, whereas Apple's like sure, ridley Scott, we'll let you put Napoleon in a few places and all of that. And and I think we'll get over it. I think this is a period in time where there are going to be a lot of these kinds of harsh lessons and the streamers are going to firm up what their, what their deals are going to be and there will be a more clearly defined thing where creative types are going to have to say and I love them, I'm one, I'm a creative type in a different area, but like and I love them, I'm one, I'm a creative type in a different area, but we love actors and directors and writers, but they're going to end up probably having to choose.

Do you want the ego boo of being in a theater and how many millions of dollars are you willing to take off of the top line in order to get it? And when you're like, oh yeah, I mean I love the theater, but $10 million more sounds pretty good, we'll stream that baby. Right, I feel like we're headed there. But we're going to have a series of these incidents where I think Apple behaved badly in the standpoint, from a relationship management perspective, but also it's also the cold hard facts of the business and I think it will resolve itself. I do think there's a future for theatrical. There are a bunch of movies that have made billions of dollars this year and that will continue, but a lot of these movies that are getting these kind of obligatory releases with these huge budgets. I mean you're already seeing the retrenchment where Apple might do a couple of big movies a year, but they're not going to do eight big movies a year with big budgets. It just it doesn't make any sense for anyone.

0:46:44 - Alex Lindsay
And the thing is is that what I will say is that most of the streamers are looking really, really hard at series and you're going to see more and more of these series. It's a much better math for them to do these, and so the thing is is that they went into features because that's how they attract all these actors. But where they're really kind of leaning more and more towards is building less and less features, spending less on them, figuring out how to make them more transactional, because they're they're really high risk. You know, two hours of something is a super high risk thing for unless you just absolutely know it's going to work. You look at red one. They put a lot of time and money into red one and it was a disaster. I don't know, yeah, Money-wise.

Oh yeah they. They took a bath.

0:47:21 - Jason Snell
It looks awful to be honest with you.

0:47:23 - Alex Lindsay
Well, I didn't see it. I haven't seen it yet. That's the problem is, I haven't seen it yet.

0:47:26 - Leo Laporte
You know like not I, but I mean a lot of people are like Aren't people just saying, unless it's something like Oppenheimer where that are worth going to see in the film?

0:47:43 - Alex Lindsay
in the theater. So I mean that that are taking advantage of that medium at that scale, because there are dumps, you know. So you know, denny, uh, james Cameron, uh, chris, christopher, Nolan, um, these are the folks that think in very large visual, you know, like. So they're thinking in really big.

Because what's interesting is, as I do a lot of work where I I do stuff for the phone, I do stuff for theaters, I do stuff for, and each one of those mediums actually looks, there's a the way you shoot it changes it. Like things that work really really well on a big screen don't always work on a TV as well and definitely don't work on the phone because they're too wide and definitely don't work on the phone because they're too wide. And so the thing is, is there's some people that think of in epic proportions and in those when I see an Oppenheimer come out or a Dune come out or those types of things, I think, oh, I got to go see that in the theater because that's going to be an experience Like Interstellar. They're doing the 1570 release of Interstellar again, I think next weekend, next.

Friday oh, I'd like to see that release of interstellar again, I think next weekend, next friday. I'd like to see that.

0:48:45 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, it was on sale for three hours and the metreon was sold every seat, like it was like, because 70 millimeter film there is a future theatrical.

0:48:51 - Jason Snell
It's just not the future that that is going to have a kind of a shambly uh uh movie like wolves in it, right like that and I love those movies.

I love like there's never going to be a big blockbuster release of something like, uh, out of sight, or some of those other stephen soderberghs or, or oceans 11 or like. I feel like those days are over and if you look at the charts for this year you can see it right. Denny villeneuve is there, doom part two is is number four and and gross like 700 bill or 700 million. But like inside out. So there's a pixar there, there's a marvel, deadpool and wolverine was the highest grossing r-rated movie of all time. Uh, you know inside out and despicable me, so you have. And kung fu panda 5 is in the top 10. I mean there are for, for kids and action and certain directors and certain franchises like and like even oppenheimer, a serious drama, a serious adult drama rated and it was a hit.

0:49:46 - Alex Lindsay
It will happen. It will happen, but it's not like it was Not like it was, and the problem is that it's. Can you keep selling enough popcorn to keep the theaters going? Between those, there's just not enough. Marin County update right.

0:49:59 - Jason Snell
All our theaters are basically disappearing because they just can't fill them, and so they're all just sort of vanishing now and we're down to a smaller and smaller number. I think that will happen Something you said there, alex, about TV series. I was thinking about this. I think that in the streaming era, one of the things that needs to change, in addition to sort of like this trade-off between you want to get more money or do you want to be in a movie theater, I think, is we are seeing the very slow erosion of the movie star as being like I don't do that, I only do movies, and I think there was a, there was a headline this week that really put a knife in it about how, uh, Wolfs is the most expensive tv movie ever made, which, like, hey, congratulations, and george clooney, you're in a tv movie. I mean it's not, but it is.

0:50:44 - Leo Laporte
And I do wonder it means a very different thing than it did back in the day.

0:50:46 - Jason Snell
It does, but I think, so like novels are more successful and popular than short stories, Movies are short stories. It's always been interesting that movies have been so successful, but I think in the streaming era, I think there are some things that really should be movies, but there are also probably a lot of things that are not only good.

But you could spend that money and do a six-hour miniseries or an eight-hour miniseries or something you call a series instead of a movie, with the same budget and the same stars, and people might like it better.

0:51:15 - Leo Laporte
Interesting to hear Apple's Dune series with the villain of Dune you mean Disney's.

0:51:22 - Alex Lindsay
I'm sorry, Disney's.

0:51:23 - Jason Snell
No, it's HBO. Hbo, oh my gosh Warner does.

0:51:27 - Alex Lindsay
Dune, I know you can't keep track of that.

0:51:30 - Leo Laporte
In any event, I wonder how long it is before creatives go. Well, you know, the thing about this long-form, multi-episodic TV is we can really stretch our legs. Alfonso Cuaron decided, after reading Disclaimer, to make it an eight-part series instead of a two-hour movie, and I think, as a viewer, I'd hate to see Game of Thrones the movie. I think it was much better spread out over seven seasons, over four.

0:52:03 - Alex Lindsay
Four seasons. It slowly wound out.

0:52:07 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, I mean, that's the you know, that's what, that's the thing they're going to have to learn. There is a natural length to these things. Don't don't do you know the seventh season, because it's a mistake. I think that there's a new and and for us as viewers, we have much better screens now. We have much better sound at home. I think that people are happy watching stuff at home.

0:52:29 - Alex Lindsay
The hardest part for series is for, I think, writers to not lean on things that are easy, like relationships, because the number one reason that people in my family stop watching things is because it, quote unquote, got soapy. You know like it started off as there's a thing, a thing, and then suddenly everybody's in a relationship.

0:52:45 - Leo Laporte
They have to learn, just as they have to learn, you know, immersive video. They have to learn this new medium.

0:52:51 - Alex Lindsay
I mean, and I think that like a perfect example, example, one that's doing it well is, is slow horses, which I just think is just one of the best, incredible incredible and they just keep. I think I'd watch that. Every you know. And Silo just came out again with the first two episodes, which I love, silo.

0:53:06 - Leo Laporte
You're proving my point, and I think creatives people like Scorsese and others are going to eventually say, yeah, this is probably, this is the future. Economics is forcing us in that direction, but this is a future. It's sad because Apple has an opportunity to be the HBO of the next era, where they creatives trust them, creatives love them, they have lots of money, they get to do what they want and it seems like this was a fumble.

0:53:31 - Alex Lindsay
Well, and I think again, I think that they've all fumbled in that area. You know, they've all had that, that problem, and it's because this is a fast moving market. Everyone's trying to put COVID put a huge wrench into the whole system and things are still flying around Like we think that it's all over because we can't. You know, we were all able to go out again, but people's behaviors changed dramatically and they haven't gone back and they're not probably going to go back. And it wasn't because of COVID, it was because streaming happened to be ramping up at the same time COVID hit, so suddenly all this stuff got flown into that. People got used to that and then they don't want to go back to where they were.

And I think that that's the and the problem is is that the theatrical business is too risky right now, you know, and to do big films, and I think that you know especially what scares people is not that Ocean's Eleven might not be able to be released or whatever.

What terrifies people is if Marvel puts something out that doesn't make a lot of money. It means there's no automatic money anymore. And so they did really well in Deadpool, obviously, but some of the other Marvel products haven't done as well, and that terrifies people because it just means that there's not oh, if we go to action, adventure that type of thing, we can always come back with a paycheck. That makes everything less stable, and so I think that that's the thing. That'll be really interesting to see what happens next. But I think that streaming is the future of some kind. We're going to see more and more of that, and I think that I do agree that there'll be still some theatrical, but I think that you're going to see less and less and less of it, and the theaters are, I think, going to probably find other things to do with their screens, you know.

0:55:05 - Leo Laporte
Well, I think uh want to take a break here, because Jason snell is now uh so bored. He's talking about marin real estate, and I am cultivating an online community, leo you leave me alone the problem is, I also live in west, in this area, and I want to contribute, I want to get participate in this. I see, yes, yes, one of our, yes, one of our good friends in the Discord has been living. His family's been living in West Marin since 1862. I mean okay, wow. That's way up there.

0:55:31 - Jason Snell
Taylor.

0:55:31 - Alex Lindsay
Sheridan. I come from a long line of abalone farmers.

0:55:35 - Jason Snell
This has to be a Taylor Sheridan series he could do 1862. The whole family Wreck On 5. The whole thing.

0:55:46 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, all right. 1862, the whole family, the whole thing. Yeah, all right, you're watching. Seriously, we have some news. Actually, I want to talk about Brendan Carr's letter, uh to Sundar Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg, Satchin Adela and one Tim Cook saying that big tech is exercising a cartel, a censorship cartel. Given that he's going to be the new chairman of the FCC, this probably is something they should pay attention to. We'll talk about that in just a bit. You're, uh, listening and watching to MacBreak Weekly, the show we cover, weekly apple news and sometimes the media stories too and things like that.

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0:59:33 - Jason Snell
This letter from oh, are we in the letter segment? That's exciting.

0:59:38 - Andy Ihnatko
Yeah Letters. Let's open the MacBreak mailbag. This is a weird show today.

0:59:45 - Jason Snell
It's weird, you said it was upside down.

0:59:46 - Leo Laporte
We should have started with the pics. Pics of the week should have been first.

0:59:49 - Jason Snell
Then the Vision Pro segment.

0:59:50 - Leo Laporte
We missed that one a little bit Working our way backwards.

0:59:54 - Jason Snell
It's the old pyramid. The hard news is later.

0:59:56 - Leo Laporte
Is that what you're saying? Building a pyramid? Yes, it's the non-inverted pyramid.

1:00:00 - Jason Snell
It's just a pyramid. Yes, it's the non-inverted pyramid. It's just a pyramid. We start with the narrow stuff and we whiten as we go.

1:00:04 - Leo Laporte
There's a reason for that. I'm trying desperately to not get too political, to give people some fun in their lives. Right, we need fun, I appreciate that yeah. I'm trying to respite.

1:00:16 - Jason Snell
What's more fun than Vision Pro and rapper feuds? I say Nothing.

1:00:21 - Leo Laporte
We talked about media.

1:00:25 - Andy Ihnatko
I mean and rapper feuds. I say nothing, we talked about media, I mean I?

1:00:27 - Leo Laporte
I think we're we did. Multi-millionaire celebrities being upset. Yeah, did I mean? There is a debate over whether George Clooney is selling that lake como house. He bought it in 2002 from the heinz family for 10 million dollars. It was rumored last fall that he was going to sell it for 107 million dollars a nice, tidy little profit but he's denied that, so we'll just have to wait and see how about that now. You like it all right? Letter from the uh brendan car, who is currently a commissioner and will be the chairman of the FCC. No confirmation needed because he's already been confirmed as a commissioner over the the past few years to Pichai, Zuckerberg, Nadella and Cook.

1:01:07 - Leo Laporte
Over the past few years, Americans have lived through an unprecedented surge in censorship. Your companies played significant roles in this improper conduct.

1:01:16 - Leo Laporte
I'm going to use this voice for him. I don't know what he sounds like, but I hope you don't mind.

1:01:19 - Leo Laporte
Big tech companies silenced Americans for doing nothing more than exercising their first amendment rights. They targeted core political, religious and scientific speech and they worked, often in concert with so-called quote media monitors, end quote and others, to defund, demonetize, in other words put out of business news outlets and organizations that dared to deviate from an approved narrative he calls it a censorship cartel?

1:01:45 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, should they be shivering in their boots.

1:01:49 - Andy Ihnatko
No, they should, they should, they should be worried. This guy is a piece of work.

1:01:54 - Alex Lindsay
I just want to agree with Andy, whatever he's about to say, because I'm going to say that I think that that a lot of the big companies thought that when Trump came in, things were going to get easier, and what they what they're mostly, what it looks like they're mostly going to get is exactly what they had before, with a dash of crazy.

1:02:12 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, like really nuts. These people are going to he's. You know, like the injecting bleach wasn't crazy enough. Ladies and gentlemen, we're really going out.

1:02:18 - Andy Ihnatko
He's a piece of work like we're. We're thinking about how bad quote unquote it was, relatively speaking, with ajit pai. Uh uh, trump's previous fcc commission uh head, uh chief commissioner, chief of the fbc I feel like, did he inherit ajit pai or was ajit pai trump's nominee?

1:02:34 - Leo Laporte
I think he inherited him, um he was a.

1:02:36 - Andy Ihnatko
He was a I mean, I'm not sure he didn't. Yeah, traditional, traditionally that the FCC is usually keeps a three to two balance, with the majority on the side of whatever political party owns the white owns the White House at the time. Traditionally, whoever is the chief of the FCC when a new president comes in resigns, and then the new president was chairman in 2017 through 2021.

1:03:02 - Leo Laporte
So he predated Trump.

1:03:04 - Andy Ihnatko
Right and then yeah, and traditionally they promote from within whoever the rep Right and he was terrible by the way.

But he was terrible. But the thing is that now here's first term, he issued an executive order that basically did away, intended to do away with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act by saying that doesn't qualify anymore. You can that Twitter and YouTube and everybody they're censoring conservative speech and religious speech on the basis that, like conservative speech and his own speech that was violating user policies, was being removed because of stated user policies. Even Ajit Pai was like, yeah, we're not going to be doing that because that's-.

1:03:53 - Leo Laporte
Actually, you're right, pai was Trump. It was 2017. That was Trump. Pai was Trump's guy.

1:03:58 - Andy Ihnatko
But Brendan Carr was the one saying no, absolutely, this is exactly what needs to be done. And when you look at everything I spent we talked about this on GBHNPR last week so I spent like two days reading all of his letters and all of his dissenting opinions. And it's not just that he's been on this kick about being hyper, hyper, hyper, hyper, hyper, hyper partisan, it's the but it's also that even when he says something, he issues a dissent. That's kind of sensible, where he's making the case that actually, this is more. This is not in the domain of the FCC. What is this policy is being proposed? This is the FTC's domain and we shouldn't be stepping over the line.

He'll be preceded by 800 words about what a bunch of jerks, ineffective enemies to democracy the Biden administration is, and it will end with and this is how horrible the tech industry is at silencing dissent and silencing opinion.

He will not find, he will not pass up any opportunity to diss both technology companies and the Biden administration, which means that he's not really thinking technology companies and the Biden administration, which means that he's not really thinking. And if anybody and he also wrote he also wrote the FCC chapter on the on project 2025, outlining exactly what he intended to do with four priorities, and number one priority was not make sure that the underserved in America get access to affordable and speedy broadband. Number four was essentially getting after tech companies, and his plan has always been, as stated, to basically defang Section 230. What he's homing in on is the idea of A Section 230 is under the control of the FCC. So he's, in this letter and elsewhere he's warning the tech companies that, by the way, I we don't need an act of congress. This is basically your, uh, your, you are subject to my authority as the commissioner of the fcc.

He's also saying which is specious, by the way, which is which is there's, there's a, there are limits to volumes, what he can do, but the what he's trying to he's. He's also trying to say he doesn't have to get Congress or an executive order. The shield provision of Section 30 is based on quote good faith operations by the tech companies. So he's declaring that if, in his opinion, as commissioner of the FCC, they are not acting in good faith, he can do whatever they want and the shield provision does not apply. This is terrible, terrible stuff.

1:06:25 - Leo Laporte
The more you Well, there's First Amendment. I mean what's ironic is? Republicans used to say let's keep, let's reduce regulation and keep government out of people's lives, and this is the exact opposite. Yeah, before.

1:06:37 - Andy Ihnatko
Jason jumps in. Can I just say that's another thing that you get from reading his dissenting opinions. Before Jason jumps in, can I just say that's another thing that you get from reading his dissenting opinions. Anything that the FCC is thinking about doing that he doesn't like it's a blatant overreach of FCC authority. Anything that he wants the FCC to do that he likes is exactly within their remit and they don't even need authority from anybody else to do it. He's not right. The guy just needs to be right.

1:07:00 - Jason Snell
That's modern politics and modern Republican politics. This guy you know it is very troubling. I want to. I mean, this guy's a clown, but unfortunately he's a clown with power. And I just want to zero in on that letter for a moment because, just to be clear, we are not talking about a letter that is about a systemic censoring by the government of the populace. We are. This letter is about a browser plugin from a company that's an independent company that has decided to rate news sources based on their trustworthiness NewsGuard, or.

1:07:30 - Andy Ihnatko
Welly and Name NewsGuard.

1:07:34 - Jason Snell
So in the end, this guy is making the boo-boo kitty hurt face about the fact that some right-wing things are marked as being right-wing and not truthful. Now, what's chilling about that is, I think the end result here is that he wants to threaten everybody, that you can't call a right-winger a right-winger. You can't call a lie a lie. You have to pretend that every opinion from every orifice should be taken at face value. And the fact that he's rattling his saber at Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai because an independent company wrote a plug-in for their open browser plug-in specification shows you how bananas this is. This is just a pretense, just a pretext to warn them that you do what we want or we will make your life uneasy, because it's silly On its face. This letter is ludicrous.

1:08:29 - Leo Laporte
But well, and it's not the only threat to Apple's business. President-elect Trump has also said he is going to on day one and there is again some question about his ability to do this he has to declare a public emergency. To do uh, at a 25 percent tariff to canada and mexico, at a 60 percent tariff to products brought in from china. Uh, this is problematic for apple. Uh, what's interesting is wall street journal has an article, uh, that came out today, how tim cook cracked the code on working with trump. Yeah, yeah, that's true, we should have read this this on MacBreak Weekly a few years ago.

1:09:06 - Jason Snell
We've been talking about this for a while now. No, we had this.

1:09:08 - Andy Ihnatko
I remember we, we, we've gone through this before, or rather Apple's gone through this before tariffs where? And the wall street journal puts a lot of like past reporting into really good context of how good Tim Cook at playing diplomacy, and it's not just about hey Trump, why don't you come in and have a photo op at our big factory so you can see how well your Made in America product is going. It's like not only is he close enough that he gets private dinners with Trump, but also, again, the reporting of the Wall Street Journal is that he is focused. It's as if he knows he's dealing with someone who does not have a big attention span. He keeps it focused on exactly one topic and exactly on things that will benefit him as opposed to. Here's why we have problems with with a certain tariff here's the example the journal gives.

1:09:56 - Leo Laporte
Cook's biggest win took place in 2019 yeah, when apple was facing down a potential 10 tariff on all imports from China, where Apple still overwhelmingly produces its devices. Cook personally lobbied Trump explaining how tariffs would increase iPhone prices and help foreign rivals like Samsung. Days later, the administration announced it would scale back its tariff plan, giving exceptions to a range of electronics, including the iPhone. Can he do it again?

1:10:25 - Andy Ihnatko
And the thing is, and the Apple watch as well. That's one silver tongued.

1:10:29 - Alex Lindsay
CEO. Well and I think that part of it is is that I don't think that. I think the one thing that Tim Cook has that a lot of other CEOs have trouble with is that he doesn't have a big ego about what he needs to do. He is focused on what needs to get done. Whether he should have to do it, whether, like Steve jobs, would be just like, screw that guy, I'm not going to talk to him. You know, like you know, and and everything else, and Tim Cook is like he just all he cares about is moving the ball forward and he is looking at what are the options there.

I'm sure that there are tons of meetings at Apple and tons of like how do we frame this and what do we look for? And, and they're not based on what it should be right or what should it be, or how it should. You know, there's no shoulda, coulda, woulda, there's just like okay, how do we interact with this leader so that he understands why it's important for us to have this? You know, and they're not, and I think that Apple's discipline in that area is a big reason why he's able to execute his discipline as well, and and again, his own personalness getting out of the way of like, I don't care what it, what it takes. I've got a bunch of employees and a bunch of customers and I'm going to try to make sure that they're taken care of and I'm going to stay out of that that process. I'm just going to sit there and talk to him and I think that he probably can't.

I think that Apple Apple has a lot to gain from a change in regime here and it'll be interesting to see what. Like number one, they have a lot to lose if they can't figure out the tariffs. But they also Trump on their side has a big stick telling the European Union to go stuff it. You know, or we're going to start putting you know, like I can give you some tariffs, but I can show you what real tariffs look like if you keep on messing with Apple.

1:12:04 - Andy Ihnatko
That's a whole nother layer of I'm sure that those conversations are going to happen. A lot of apple's problems going to get this will start to go away again. The doj antitrust suit against uh, against apple biden was not willing to give him any help. Uh, when, uh, when they lost the trade suit about importing uh apple watch with uh o2 sensors, biden could have stepped in and said okay, well, this is no good for America, so thank you for judging on this, but we're going to let Apple import this stuff. No help from Biden. All that stuff can come back away.

And the more you look at what's going on again, I'll try not keep this hyper political, but just stating some facts. There's never been a sharper divide between you are either a friend of Trump in a corporate way or you are an enemy, and there was no in between. I mean getting back to Brendan Carr, so Elon Musk, there's no secret exactly how cozy he is with Trump, but like so, here's something that happened a couple of years ago where Starlink got about $900 million in subsidies to use Starlink satellites to bring broadband to underserved areas. This is part of a $12 billion fund that the Biden administration had. Excuse me, that had been approved. There was a two, basically. They were. The FCC provisionally awarded them $900 million. Then there was a second part of the application process where Starlink had to basically demonstrate that you have to prove that you are capable of delivering exactly what you said you would be able to deliver exactly what the FCC has asked you to deliver. On that basis, they failed to do that and so that $900 million was withdrawn and there was protests about it, because again, this is elon musk, uh, and went through a second review of the process to make sure that was done fairly, and was decided that no, this was a fair call, it was. It was because the this starling failed to do, failed to do the second long form application they were supposed to do. That's it's all done and dusted. And so there's a dissenting opinion from brendan carr that's it's all done and dusted.

And so there's a dissenting opinion from brendan carr saying that not just was this wrong, uh, but but it would be within his purview to say that, look, the the administration has not been doing enough to bring mobile broadband to underserved areas. This would have solved a whole bunch of problems. They're being a stick in the mud about looking for fiber optic, when they could have been looking at satellite services. But there's also preceded by two paragraphs about how the biden administration has it in for elon musk because he bought twitter and started using it as a way to suddenly revive uh, revive a long censored debate and discussion about how awful the biden administration is. And they wouldn't. And that's the reason why they took away this 900 million dollars, because biden wanted to punish elon musk personally. Again, he is not right.

This is going to be a very, very rough ride for the next four years unless basically, congress and the senate decides that that this, this congress, has always had sort of an adversarial little bit of a relationship with the FCC, in that if they're doing things that support party policy, that's great, but Congress, as a beast, does not want to give up regulatory authority. So a good tactic is to basically approach Congress saying hey, fcc is trying to do away with Section 230. They're not allowed to do that. That 230. They're not allowed to do that. That's the congressional authority. Are you going to stick by and have the FCC steal away some of your authority and that's a way for them to attack back?

1:15:31 - Alex Lindsay
But it's going to be a rough ride and the teeth are there. Because of the Chevron agreement, there are limitations to what all these bureaus can do without Congress and congressional oversight.

1:15:48 - Jason Snell
Back to Apple for a second. I want to talk about Tim Cook and Trump and just say that I think we'll see how they play this, but yes, I want to agree. The status of Apple as one of America's great companies, I think, gives Tim Cook a lot of latitude, and the fact that they are also not, despite being the fourth mentioned company in this letter from Brendan Carr they're not a gatekeeper. They have not built up a lot of conservative ire about their content, decisions right and they are perceived as being one of.

1:16:16 - Leo Laporte
America's great companies and great assets and then encryption of the FBI is not a law enforcement. We'll see, but I would say that that is not a big fan Law enforcement.

1:16:23 - Jason Snell
We'll see, but I would say that that's not a culture war thing and therefore is less important, because I think that most of the stuff they're focused on is culture war stuff.

And when you talk about one of like, I think it's going to be a more broad question with the big tech stuff, which is these are American companies that dominate around the world and these are American companies that dominate around the world, and do you, as an American administration, want to harm the American companies that are dominant around the world or do you just want to change their behavior and bring them to heel?

But I do think that's going to be difficult and I think it's going to be very difficult with Apple, and we saw in the first Trump administration exactly this, which is Tim Cook was able to say, for example, all you're doing is benefiting Samsung by making us weaker, and that had legs, and I think that there's a lot of, even though Apple does, you know, make a lot of stuff in China, and this incoming administration is going to be hostile to China.

I think that in the end, it gets laundered through the fact that it's an Apple product and it comes from one of America's great companies, and I think you have to do some politicking and you have to have a relationship with Donald Trump in order to make it work, and that's where Tim Cook is working, but I it's a fascinating dynamic, right? Because some of the things that this incoming group is opposed to are things that are happening at dominant American companies and traditionally in politics, what you don't do is hurt your guys because that helps the other guys. You want to boost your guys, so we'll see when push comes to shove, how much they're willing to do to harm American companies. I'm a little skeptical about, especially for a company like Apple or Microsoft that is not playing in this sort of like content moderation, culture, war, space.

1:18:06 - Andy Ihnatko
Yeah, both things can be true. For instance, looking at Google, they're facing a potential breakup because of name any of the antitrust suits that they're facing. Trump has said in the past that maybe it's not such a good idea to break up Google, specifically because China is terrified of Google. At the same time, they are absolutely in the crosshairs for quote, censorship, unquote of certain political and religious content, and one of the reasons why they're concerned about NewsGuard is that it's not just a plug-in for a browser, although I think that's one of the specifics that's addressed by the letter. It's also. They offer services to a wide range of clients, including as a user. You can subscribe to the service and get their plugin and it will basically tag as you navigate the web like a trustworthiness score for every site that you visit. And we won't get into it, but there's a very, very long, nine point metric that they go into. It's owned and run by editors and journalists, and so it's not as though this is politically motivated, but they also sell those services to, again companies like Google, who will introduce some of that.

They also do live tracking. Fingerprinting of misinformation calls to violence. That sort of stuff calls to violence, that sort of stuff, and so a lot of services also use that as a metric to decide. Is this something that violates our terms of service? Should we get rid of it? And thirdly, again going back into Trump, having the ear of Elon Musk. Advertisers are also using it to basically, as they're deciding where to put their ad buys to decide. Here is a site that we kind of want to advertise on. What is their score for disinformation? How squirrely are they? Are we going to look horrible by having our ads placed on this site? And that's the sort of thing that they're coming after about saying oh, this is the Orwellian-named NewsGuard, a third party that is deciding what should and shouldn't be read and censored across the Internet, when, again, it's just an independent company, a third party service that does things in what is generally accepted to be a pretty above board nature.

1:20:13 - Alex Lindsay
Well, I think that. I think also that that a lot of the companies in 2020, 2021, 2022 were very complicated years and a lot of the decisions that they were made were considered life and death and they didn't always make the right decision. They might've been a little heavy handed in some areas and it definitely created a lot of upset when people were just turned off from saying anything that was related to anything, and I think that. But I think that at the time I think that's the hard part is that when you look back, when those decisions were being made and how they are being made, it was an imperfect situation and they're making imperfect, you know, responses to it and it made a bunch of people upset and and I think that that now the those are, those ends are coming home to roost in that area, I think that Apple probably has less to do with this.

I don't even know, I guess it's the plugin for Safari that they would have to. You know, I don't even know, I guess it's the plug in for Safari that they would have to be part of. But I think the focus on this kind of thing, apple has kind of skirted a lot of the social people posting things socially, so they have a lot less to worry about related to filtering than others. But there is some, I guess, tangentially connected things to Safari. But that's about it. I mean, apple hasn't really gotten into the mix of this in the way that that Google and Facebook and X and many others all have to kind of juggle, and it's a complicated problem because there's a lot of misinformation. I don't think X has to juggle anything at all.

1:21:35 - Leo Laporte
That's another matter.

1:21:37 - Alex Lindsay
I realized, because I have so many filters on X, I still don't see it. To me, me it's fine, because I have like 150 terms that I that I block out, and so all I see is is the stuff that I'm interested in, and so I I guess it doesn't. It doesn't show up for me like that because I don't see any of it.

1:21:51 - Leo Laporte
You're never going to see brennan carm writing a letter to elon musk saying you need to tell me what you're up to. By the way, tim cook is in china as we speak. He flew there yesterday. See, he's really pulling all the levers. The term is he'd rather be effective than right, and that was the exact opposite of Steve Jobs. Jobs said I'd rather be right than effective. That's why the board said and you'd probably not work here anymore.

1:22:18 - Alex Lindsay
And I think that a lot of CEOs, when they're running it, have a little bit of an indignation of I'm doing the right thing or I'm doing the thing or whatever, and they're mad about it and that shows up and I think you can't even feel that when you're talking to Trump and expect to go down the right direction. I think that Tim is able to steel himself to. I'm just looking for this outcome and I'm just going to keep on.

1:22:38 - Leo Laporte
I'm going to stay focused on the outcome. You've got poker player. You got to focus on the outcome. So he's in china, apparently because of one of the issues with apple intelligence in china is that china doesn't allow uh offshore llms ais to operate in the country. So he's trying to find a way to get apple intelligence into the devices sold in china by talking to chinese tech companies who have LLMs. A top Chinese tech regulator told the Financial Times the Financial Times story that foreign groups foreign groups like Apple would face a lengthy and complex approval process to run their own models. That's why they're going to focus on a local option. A high ranking official of the Cyberspace Administration of China said it would be a comparatively simple and straightforward approval process if they use already vetted LLMs from Chinese groups.

1:23:36 - Andy Ihnatko
I'm sure that's what Tim Cook is planning to do MLMs in China, because China would require them to basically turn over all the secrets so they can putatively, so that they can figure out exactly how it works and make sure that if someone asks about a certain date event happening in central Beijing and in 40 years ago, that they get the approved answer, that sort of stuff.

1:23:55 - Leo Laporte
Apple's 17% of. I mean China is 17% of Apple's revenue. I mean China is 70% of Apple's revenue, so it's a big part of their financial structure. Tim Cook has been there three times this year.

1:24:12 - Jason Snell
This is his third visit this year, but one of my favorite stories.

1:24:15 - Leo Laporte
It's difficult to understand how Apple intelligence can be modified, though, to not use Apple's own models, because these are on-device models.

1:24:24 - Jason Snell
Well, I mean there's a question on how they work it. Do they ship an alternate model in China? Do they use a third-party model that they turn on and let you use in China, because they're working? You know the OpenAI announcement and they've said look others also, but they only have been working on OpenAI. It feels very much like they're going to get the API right with OpenAI and then they'll probably add others and so they've got ways to do that where maybe that's a Chinese-approved model.

1:24:50 - Leo Laporte
But that's when it goes off-device.

1:24:52 - Jason Snell
Yeah, but in China.

1:24:53 - Alex Lindsay
Remember when you're on-device on the iPhone.

1:24:55 - Leo Laporte
It's doing it on-device with its own model and then going to Apple servers.

1:24:59 - Jason Snell
But in China maybe they put a different model on the device or maybe they do less on the device.

1:25:03 - Leo Laporte
They have to have servers there, or maybe they just don't do as much. Yeah, I think that's the issue.

1:25:07 - Alex Lindsay
They could just shunt it past the server farm and the device and just go straight to the Chinese. Llm as Jason was pointing towards, and I think that would be the easiest way for them to get out of the middle of that.

1:25:19 - Leo Laporte
Or just not offer Apple intelligence. I don't think it's gonna yeah, I don't.

1:25:27 - Andy Ihnatko
How important is that in china? I don't know. Yeah, I'm sure that's what tim cook's trying to find out, especially because it's not a homegrown solution. I I gotta wonder if part of the the calculus that tim cook and the rest of apple are figuring on is that. Um, how much longer can apple uh compete with huawei and other chinese-born companies, who are not necessarily government-owned, but they are government-controlled? They're blessed by the Chinese government, as here is a homegrown company that's moving year after year closer towards. Hey, now we can design our own chips. Hey, now we're manufacturing our own chips. Hey, we're using they're even moving.

Huawei is even creating a new operating system with actually the very first mob, truly new mobile operating system, and in an eternity. Uh, most of the opera os is that. The honor os that was running on huawei devices was based on open source android. Their new operating system is built from the ground up, does not even use the linux kernel, so it's entirely homegrown, has its own app store. It's possible, I mean, that in five years, maybe 10 years, that china will basically succeed in completely locking apple out, because at some point, what is the advantage of letting a foreign company sell foreign cell cell phones in their country, when they could essentially get the entire population using entirely stuff that's being domestically made, which is great economically, but also which the government can absolutely 100% control, and they know that they don't have to have dinner with a CEO to discuss a change that they would like to make, either something that the company wants to do that the government does not want them to do, or a surveillance change that they would like to make either something that the company wants to do, that that the government does not want them to do, or a surveillance technique that they would like to have embedded in all devices at some point.

I think apple is not is going to outgrow and outlive their usefulness to china well, and I think at that point it's going to be, it's going to be rough. I'll just finish by saying that like uh, there's the sales data are back out from the Singles Day, which is like a big, big gift purchasing day in China. Sales of iPhones during that holiday were down double digits. Huawei was also down, but not by nearly as much. They're having trouble competing. It's not a crisis yet, still very, very valuable, and also they also can dangle the idea of well, here's how much money we're spending on manufacturing inside China. Do you really want to like make us pick up our, pick up our tools and go to India with them 100%, go to Vietnam with 100%, but nonetheless, that's gotta be part of the calculus. At some point it's going to be a law of diminishing returns, I mean the.

1:27:58 - Alex Lindsay
I mean the. It's a good idea for Apple to get disconnected from the Chinese economy over the next decade, because most of the foundation is washing away. Like you know, the thing is is that China's got a whole bunch of bigger problems. We assume that China will be here in 10 or 20 years in the same government structure that it has, but there's a lot of things that point towards the fact that it may not, like it may not survive the next 20 years because, you know, in the current structure, because they have, they have all kinds of population problems, they have all kinds of financial problems. You know the way that they built this up is, you know, is a house of cards, and that's I'm sure they're saying the same thing about us, by the way.

1:28:35 - Leo Laporte
Sure, sure, except that with maybe some more merit to it. I don't get opportunity for Canada.

1:28:41 - Alex Lindsay
I mean there's, there's an awful lot of, you know, things are spread out in a way in the United States that is hard to reproduce, you know, and I think that that's the Chinese.

As you centralize economies, they tend to become less stable, like that just happens. That tends to be the way, and because we've got basically 50 countries that are that don't really 50 countries inside of one United States, that all kind of have their own way of doing things, it does that that heterogeneous nature tends to make it more more stable. Um, and so I think that the you know, the United States has got a lot of problems that it has to deal with, but China has got some trillion dollar problems that are that are, you know, um, uh, you know, and they're. If they actually decided to be dumb enough to go into Taiwan, all those problems would come to the surface really quickly, you know. And so I think that that's going to be cause I don't think Apple can produce anything in China if they invade Taiwan, like it's the no, that'd be catastrophic for Apple, but you know it'd be catastrophic for the world too.

So well, but I'm saying that that they, I think that the but you're seeing Apple and many other companies slowly trying to get out, before that potentially would happen. You know, like so they're all. They're moving to India, they got Brazil and then some of those have laws that are pushing Indonesia once more, but all of those things are yeah.

1:29:56 - Leo Laporte
Indonesia, by the way, turned down the $100 million offer. They million dollar offer. They're holding out for more. They want more because they know they got it. They know apple's got it. They're like you're gonna give me 150 million, you're gonna give me two million. You know what's cool? Not 100 million, 100 billion, that's cool.

1:30:12 - Alex Lindsay
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and the thing is is that they just? Roll another bill off of that, of that wad that you're holding on to. That's what we want, is one more bill.

1:30:19 - Leo Laporte
You know like actually the trouble ahead. In brazil, the brazilian antitrust body, cadet, has ruled apple has to lift restrictions on in-app payments. Yeah, uh, this is yet another country that's saying apple, hey, the app store is not working and you're gonna have to change something. You, I want to take a break because you have an interesting article, Jason snell. Uh, a plan for apple? That's controversial, but I agree, agree 100% with Nice. I love it and we will talk about that in just a moment. You're watching or listening, or consuming in any other way possible, sipping with a straw.

On your Vision Pro On your Vision Pro At MacBreak Weekly with Jason Snell from sixcolors.com, andy Anako from WGBH in Boston and OfficeHoursglobalMaven Mr Alex Lindsay, sixcolorscom, uh andy and ako from wgbh in boston and office hours dot global maven, mr alex lindsey. Once again, the only way forward is the mac, says Jason. I love this idea. I think the model for the, the way the mac app store works and the way you can decide load apps on the mac, works great. Why? How does that work on ios?

1:31:25 - Jason Snell
yeah, so. So I mean. So I wrote this piece because I just had that moment where I remember that all the computers that I used to use, I could do whatever I wanted with them. I bought them and then I used them and I feel like we have gotten kind of beaten down by the app store model that the only thing you could ever do programs from magazines if you were so inclined and like and I had.

So I had that moment where it's like I understand how we got to the app store approach, but I do think that what happened is apple did it for a lot of expedient reasons and then, over time, realized that there was a lot of money to be made and to exert complete control over a market. And here's the thing. I'm not saying there shouldn't be an app store and i'm'm not saying that Apple shouldn't curate it, because I think there are a lot of people, including Alex, who feel very strongly like I don't want anything that doesn't have the boxes checked, and I think that that is a strong, strong argument. It's one of the strongest cases for the app store. However, I don't like the idea that it stops there, because, first off, I think it tempts Apple to behave badly and seek rent for just your presence and tell developers what to do, and that there's a chilling effect where apps don't get developed on iOS, because if you do all that work and Apple doesn't like it, you can't do anything else with it. It's over at that point because there's no alternative. And the funny thing about this and I hear from people who say, oh, but Jason, you don't understand the iPhone. It's very important. It's got to be secure, blah, blah, blah. And the thing is and the Mac is old, that's the old school, forget about it. But here's the thing Apple invented that App Store market in whatever 2008, 2009, in there, 2010, adding the App Store and in-app purchases and all that stuff.

In 2017, 2018, apple introduced an entirely new model on the Mac because they wanted to secure the Mac. And on the Mac, the model is you start with the App Store and it's at the center of trust. And then they layered this notarization system on the outside, where you have to be a registered developer, you have to sign your app. Apple has to scan it. Apple signs it too. It can't be tampered with after that, which will reduce malware, and there's a broader sense of trust, and that gets you the ability to put your app on the platform without having to pass through Apple's very specific filters that they set up. And then on the outside is all the crazy stuff that doesn't get notarized at all by apple and you have to jump through some hoops to launch it. But you can launch it.

1:33:46 - Leo Laporte
I have, uh, you know, would you allow that on the uh, on the iphone I mean?

1:33:51 - Jason Snell
would I? Yeah, I think I. This is what I'm saying is I think you should ultimately be able to do whatever you want with your thousand dollar plus computer that you bought that can run arbitrary software from arbitrary groups, third-party developers and all that. I think you should ultimately be able to run anything. I don't have a problem with Apple putting up barriers, because I know that a lot of social engineering goes on by people who are doing malware to get people to turn off all of those restrictions, which is why Apple has added more of them. But it's a beautiful system that allows-.

It's a little nanny, isn't it? I think so and I think they do it too much. But what I will say is I also understand the counter-argument, which is people get you on the phone and you think that they're an authority and they talk you through clicking on things, and then the malware is installed. I've had people in my family that this has happened to, so I get why they want to put up a lot. I do think it's a little too much and that they've taken away some of the steps for expert users. But as a whole, more recently than the App Store, apple invented a system that allows some user choice, allows developers to not only do what Apple says, and if your administrator or you, as the person who owns your device, don't want to do that, you don't have to. And what you're seeing in Europe and other places like that is Apple is already kind of like stealing from this system in order to create things like notarization for iOS apps under the DMA. In Europe they're doing it in a little bit different way, but it's a very similar kind of thing, and I just wanted to put it down there that, if I'm thinking about the future of our computing devices going into the rest of the 21st century. I don't like the idea that when you buy a computing device, the maker of it can basically say look, there's software we don't want. And we're going to all the developers who write software for our platforms really work for us and we tell them what to do and if they don't like it, they don't have a product and there's no way out for anybody.

I think that there's already a better model that allows that level of security and safety and then lets you gradually step out of it. And guess who built that model? Apple built that model. It's an Apple designed and built model. They built it for the Mac because they had to or because they really wanted to, and it's a good system. And I would much rather live in a world where we had the right to step outside and developers had the right to step outside a curated store and where Apple had to compete with other platforms and other developers on its platform, rather than Apple sort of taking a thing that was built for expediency's sake, which is the App Store, and turning it into what it is, which is, you know, it's about power and control and not competing so that you can maximize your revenue. And I just I don't want to live in that world and I think it's really unfortunate that people think there are a lot of people who think well, but Apple can't do that. It's too complicated and this is my argument.

Apple did it. They did it on the Mac. They already did it on the Mac. They already did it. They did that after they invented the App Store. This is Apple's most recent attempt to come up with a gradual system of security for software running on arbitrary devices. So in the long run, I think it's the right answer.

I think a graduated set of these concentric circles of trust are a better approach that we could all use on all of our devices. So I hope it happens eventually. It won't happen until apple is pushed into it.

1:37:07 - Leo Laporte
They'll be forced to by governments to do there, so why doesn't apple do it now?

1:37:12 - Jason Snell
well, I had somebody say ask me, well, like why, why doesn't apple want to compete, isn't it? It doesn't have a lot of good self-esteem and I think it does, but but here's the thing it's not a self-esteem issue.

1:37:24 - Leo Laporte
Friends, right, it's a profit issue. I'm a.

1:37:28 - Jason Snell
I'm a right, I'm a college football team, I'm a blue chip, I'm michigan and I'm paying a million dollars for appalachian state to come play because I'm going to sell a lot of tickets and it's an easy win. And then app state beats me. Doesn't happen a lot, a lot, but it happens. It happened to Michigan, it happens. You know what's better than weak competition is no competition. What's better than advantage competition? Where you're the platform owner, you know where the platform is going. You have all these advantages. Most people are going to want to still use your baked in app store. All of these things. That's good. But what's better is everybody has to do what you say and there's no competition, right, that's better. And so, unless forced, why would you even risk it? And I think that's the that's what's behind all of it.

1:38:11 - Leo Laporte
And Apple has a good argument which they will use, which is security, but the real truth is it's money.

1:38:19 - Alex Lindsay
And the notarization system is is an added level of security and trust so it's an added level security, but I mean, it's also um, I I don't think apple's only reason is money. I think money is a big part of it, but I think that there is. It is going to always be more secure inside that sandbox. I mean, when they say it will be less secure, they are telling the truth yeah, it will be less secure.

1:38:39 - Jason Snell
That's why you should have a default that allows people to be to remain secure, right?

1:38:44 - Leo Laporte
I think that's true yeah, and the problem I have the same argument for, uh, having parental controls on a device, but you don't, you don't become the nanny. Apple doesn't say, well, this has adult content, but you put parental controls in so that the user has control of what they see and what they can't see. Apple made a huge error and probably was good for profits, but it was a terrible tactical error to decide to lock this thing down.

1:39:10 - Alex Lindsay
And again, as what I, what I will say is that, as a user, I don't want to be forced to buy your app outside of the app store. So that's what.

1:39:17 - Leo Laporte
That's the other side Don't buy it.

1:39:19 - Alex Lindsay
No one's forcing you Okay. So if netflix moves their app, if an app that I've been so you don't use it, I know okay. So the point is is as apple users, there's a lower level of satisfaction for an apple user.

1:39:31 - Jason Snell
You know the, the, you know um, because there are apps you cannot use because apple says no, and alex, I really disagree with that point because, um, if, if I'm going to netflix's website and they have a link that just downloads the Netflix app, like I would do on a Mac, and it's notarized, approved by Apple in all of those ways, it's just not in the app store. Yeah, but I don't want to deal with Netflix.

1:39:55 - Alex Lindsay
Like you know, the thing is is that I don't want to deal with their stupid membership stuff.

1:39:59 - Jason Snell
I don't want to deal with email. So you want to watch Netflix, but not Netflix. Deal with.

1:40:03 - Alex Lindsay
Netflix. I'm happy to pay them. You know, the thing is. Is that the thing is?

1:40:06 - Leo Laporte
I'm happy to pay them.

1:40:07 - Alex Lindsay
You want the Mac to be that locked down too. I mean the reason that I still believe. Shouldn't the Mac be equally?

1:40:12 - Leo Laporte
secure Alex.

1:40:13 - Alex Lindsay
No, I think that it's too late for that. I mean, it's too like, but the thing is.

1:40:16 - Leo Laporte
Well, let's say, you could.

1:40:22 - Alex Lindsay
Let's say, in the perfect world you could. The thing is, I believe, that the Apple TV there was a goal to have apps on the Apple TV. That has been a complete disaster because they left it open oh, you can sign up any way you want because they had to deal with all these cable networks and so they left the whole thing open. And you open it up and there's some janky, weird idiot's idea of how to log into an app.

1:40:42 - Jason Snell
So here's the thing, alex I know you bring this up every time we talk about this which is you don't like all the different logins, and I think that we're right, but this is where this is where. So this is what I'm not saying. What I'm saying is Apple providing an easy login system and letting and having different companies opt out of it, like again, I get what you're saying there and that that's potentially junkie, but that's also competition.

1:41:09 - Alex Lindsay
They're all idiots, though. I mean, every login other than Apple's is idiotic. You open it up and you're like you people are dumb. You're just like why am?

1:41:18 - Jason Snell
I doing this If you live in a world where only Apple does it right.

1:41:25 - Leo Laporte
Of course you want.

1:41:26 - Alex Lindsay
Apple to lock everything down, but I live in a world where I want choice on my $1,000 device.

1:41:32 - Andy Ihnatko
I don't think that's a reasonable world?

1:41:34 - Leo Laporte
I don't think Apple's the only one that can do things right?

1:41:37 - Alex Lindsay
I think you're right, and if you want all that choice, there's a whole platform that lets you do it any way you want, called Android.

1:41:43 - Jason Snell
That's a love it or leave it argument. That's a BS argument.

1:41:46 - Alex Lindsay
I think 90% to 95% of the users we are in this tiny percentage. That is talking about choice, and I think 90 to 95% of the users of the people who buy an iPhone, they just want it to work, but that is the effect of it being a closed platform?

1:42:01 - Jason Snell
What's the percentage of Mac users that only ever use something from the Mac App Store? It's probably 70% or 75%. It's probably very large, but it's not 90% or 95% because iPhone users are using a completely closed platform.

1:42:15 - Alex Lindsay
They don't know any better, but I don't think they care.

1:42:16 - Jason Snell
We don't see people like other than the 1% are like hey, we're going to swing this flag.

1:42:19 - Alex Lindsay
How could they care? But the thing is is that they got a bunch of apps. It just works. I think that it will. I's when they'll care is when I I I will when they care because they've had this is when a big company like facebook or netflix or disney takes their app out of the app store and now they have to, you know, deal with their idiot, idiot, idiotic logins and rules and hard to subscribe and everything.

1:42:41 - Jason Snell
Then people will be really mad, like they're going to be really mad that they, yeah, but you took that away from them, but if you're not, you that, and that's part of your competition and your risk that you have to choose, whether it's worth it for you, and my question is Then?

1:42:51 - Alex Lindsay
it's really hard to put that cat back in the bag and 90% of the population will want to put the cat back in the bag Like. They'll just be like, hey, this was not a good idea and we've seen people ruin stuff all the time.

1:43:02 - Andy Ihnatko
When they get upset about that, are they going to be upset with Netflix or are they going to be upset properly with Apple for creating a circumstance in which that is simply the only sane business decision to make? We are already stuck in an insane situation in which I can open the Kindle app or any other kind of digital content app and I have to leave the app and go to the web to buy a book. That's stupid and I don't blame Kindle or Comixology for doing that. I blame Apple for having this insane idea that if there's a dollar spent on the app store, that customer would only exist because of Apple.

That customer would only be buying a comic book because Apple blessed this platform and helped them out, when none of that is actually true. I think Apple has to take some responsibility for this.

1:43:53 - Alex Lindsay
Part of the reason that people spend so much money on it, though, is that it has been easy and it has been seamless, and it has been all these things, and I think that the average user, for the average user that's out there, I buy it. It's going to work. I don't have to. You know, there's a bunch of things I don't have to worry about in that, in that environment, and I think that that ease of use, or that ease of purchase, has made billions and billions of dollars for Apple and for a lot of developers.

You know, I think that they, I think it does make sense when you're providing, and I think that you know if developers want to do this, they should have to. You know that if developers want to do this, they should have to. When they get outside of that, they can pay for those downloads, but for a small user, for a small developer being able to have the access and I have been a small developer the 15% is not a bad deal. When you're talking about it being able to be downloaded, it being able to be secured, it being able to be updated, there's a bunch of tools there that are available, that are pretty good deals.

1:44:49 - Leo Laporte
Jason's proposal doesn't lose that.

1:44:52 - Alex Lindsay
What happens is? It just makes it messy Apple just has to compete. Or it doesn't.

1:44:56 - Jason Snell
That 15% becomes a value choice where I would actually argue that, if you're on, I know a bunch of indie app developers and I would say that most of them say that if they had the option of using something other than apples in app purchase system, that would save them a little money. They'd still use apples in app purchase system because it's so convenient and that's the home field advantage. I do think that if you're Netflix, you might try it, but you might end up saying, oh yeah, actually it's really hurting our uptake on iOS. We need to change this and maybe offer that as an option, and that's a business decision that they could have the option of making, but right now they can't because the rules are so specific and they can't link out or they can only get to one website. I mean, it's so very specific at this point.

1:45:40 - Leo Laporte
The real issue at this point is lack of competition. It's really a duopoly. It's Apple or Android. Android basically does it similarly, with a little bit of a loophole in the back end. It would be sure. I mean it's not going to happen. It sure would be nice if there were three or four different phone platforms to choose from. Then somebody could go the way Apple could go, and if there were some competition Apple might even consider it. But there isn't, and Apple's got a credible story oh, it's for security, and so they're never going to change.

1:46:08 - Andy Ihnatko
Yeah, I mean. It's definitely not a coincidence that the one thing that every government regulator across the globe is hammering Apple for is how they run the app store. Like the UK is looking at how the fairness of the Safari browser, because one of the complaints is that the Safari browser doesn't support progressive web apps as well as other browsers, which makes it difficult for an app developer to create a progressive web app that can be used through the Safari browser outside the app store. That could potentially, who knows, provide a better user experience for the uh, for the end user, and that and apple is now going to be taking a task to say, explain why safari is not a great platform for running progressive web apps.

When steve jobs himself said that, hey look, if you don't want to run through the app store, do it through the web, because we've got a really nice, sophisticated browser that supports all modern technologies, it means that this house is a mess and they have to address it. And the only ways that they ever address these problems, like the only times when independent developers start getting to spend 15% or 0% on sales of their apps instead of 30% across the board, is when people start applying pressure to them saying that why are you getting 30% off of someone who's selling who's who's selling 110, uh copies of a certain app every quarter and earning like, maybe 500, like why? Why, that's a huge amount of money for someone who's put who's the the kitchen sink excuse me, the kitchen table developer of this app? Only when you apply pressure to them do they start to argue back, saying maybe there is some leeway here. And, given that this is the one area in which I've said it before, the way that apple runs the app store is the single, probably the only, truly unapple thing that apple does.

It's the sort of stuff that we make fun of other companies for doing. Okay, there is no justification for it. They can have excuses for it, but they don't adequately explain the facts behind those excuses and I just want to see them continue to feel pressure about how they run the app store because it's just nuts. Remember that the developers are also their customers, not just the people who are buying apps, but the developers who contribute to the app store, who are paying money to be on that app store, are also customers and they devote. They deserve to be treated just as well as all other apple customers you see, you said it very well, Jason, in the article.

1:48:33 - Leo Laporte
Once again, the only way forward is the mac, it's not macworldcom. Uh, I, you know. I felt this way for a long time. I don't think anything's going to change, unless you know the eu or brazil or somebody makes a change.

1:48:45 - Jason Snell
I just wanted to point out the reason that this came to mind and why I wanted to write about it. It was very much that I appreciate how the mac provides that level of security, lets you choose and, I think, gives you an outlet I use the app store on the mac almost all the time because of the updates and everything.

1:49:02 - Leo Laporte
It's just a great way to go chilling effect apple has so many advantages.

1:49:07 - Jason Snell
The chilling effect of having a platform that if you don't do what Apple wants you to do, your product can't exist has led you know it's very hard to see opportunity costs sometimes, but it has led developers to not develop software that might have been great because they can't take the risk.

And it has led to a position where you know it's like the golden handcuffs a little bit where if you're a developer of Apple software and your expertise is in Apple's platforms and Apple decides that whatever you're doing is something it doesn't like, you have very little recourse other than running to the press and hoping that some press coverage will change Apple's ruling because there's nowhere else to go on iOS and iPadOS If they don't like what you're doing. You either have to change or you have to disappear and your business disappears with it. And that's again I. Just how do we get here? I know the technical reasons why, and I know the reasons why Apple does it, but I find it unpleasant and I feel like the Mac's approach is better because it offers people a variety of choice. So I hope that one day. The good news here is, as Apple has gotten pressured by regulators in various places especially you Guess what they do.

Guess what they do? They have built their fallback system Right Already. They already have it. Notarization is already actually the EU. Guess what?

1:50:27 - Leo Laporte
they do, guess what they do. They have built their fallback system. They already do, they already have it.

1:50:29 - Jason Snell
Notarization is already sitting there. This is if Apple is forced to completely open up their platform in a region, in a market, wherever we know what it's going to look like.

1:50:40 - Leo Laporte
I just want Emacs on the iPhone. I don't think it's a lot to ask.

1:50:47 - Jason Snell
I mean the moment that this would happen. You would get parallels and vmware and who knows who else running, uh, emulators that would let you run windows and mac os on an ipad too.

1:50:53 - Leo Laporte
So, yeah, maybe that's why they're not doing it. You also had a great article and I hope, I hope to influence you on this. You have, like I did, a mac studio m1 max and you're looking, as I did, with lust at the mac mini, especially at the benchmarks I compared my m1 max mac studio to those m4 pros and um.

1:51:17 - Jason Snell
Well, actually the story is that, yes, it's like twice as fast at cpu or something it's ridiculous, but at gpus because there's so many gpus in a max chip it is actually only like a 7% boost, which made me realize I probably don't want to buy a high-end Mac mini, because if I'm going to buy a new computer for the first time in three years or whatever, I should expect more than a 7% GPU boost. Right, like I should. That is pretty. The CPU boosts are great, but I do a lot of stuff that uses the GPUs too, which means, yes, I fall into yet another conundrum, especially since I'm often using two different rooms in my house in the winter to do my work, which is I had a couple of very evil friends of mine say well, what you should do is just go ahead and buy the MacBook Pro as an M4 Max and then just take it between the rooms and you don't have to worry about your files syncing anymore.

I was like you know, I did not need to hear that You're not helping, even though if I am really working in a couple different locations on a regular basis, it does stink to have to sync your files and stuff back and forth.

1:52:21 - Leo Laporte
It's totally true, Even now with all the cloud stuff. I use SyncThing. It works perfectly well. I have an M2 MacBook Air is the one I carry around. I replaced the M1 Mac Studio with the Mac Mini high-end. Couldn't be happier. Love it. It's a beautiful thing, it's cute, it's elegant. I don't know if it's faster, I can't tell. But just come on in. The water's very nice, I don't know.

1:52:43 - Jason Snell
So I'm giving the laptop thing at least a thought, because I used to be a laptop-only person who docked it, but that was in the Intel days and Apple's laptop experience back then was really not very good.

Things would not sleep, attaching to monitors and peripherals got weird. All that stuff is way better now and actually the computer I use in the back of my house is my laptop, so I'm already doing it there and it works pretty well. And I laptop, so I'm already doing it there and it works pretty well. And I did have that moment where I thought, oh what, what happens when I go to an app that does not have a cloud sync for their stuff and I realize that this key thing that I need is on the other computer? I hate that. It would be really interesting to just embrace the idea that I have one computer, put it wherever I want and when I travel at that point, even though it would be heavier than my macbook air, it would be the same computer, still what an idea what about one computer everywhere, an m4 max max studio?

that's probably what you want, right well, it probably would be the base model m4 max max studio, which would probably is probably going to be several hundred dollars cheaper than an m4 max macbook pro but, you know if it replaced all my other computers. Maybe that?

1:53:50 - Leo Laporte
would be worth it. I'm sitting here with an M3 Max MacBook Air, macbook Pro rather that I got last year, very happy. It's the centerpiece of the streaming studio. I don't actually ever undock it, so I should probably just replace it with the Mac Mini, but that's not a bad way to go. And again, sync Thing syncs it up to all of my machines Mac, pc and Linux beautifully and I never have a problem with that. So I just would recommend that let's take a break. Let's take a break. It's free, it's open source. You'll like it. Sync Thing. When we come back, it's going to be pick of the week time. You're watching MacBreak Weekly Andy inaco, alex Lindsay, Jason Snell and moi uh, stay tuned. If you're hearing a terrible ad next, you should join the club so you don't hear any ads. I shouldn't say that, should I? If you're super excited to get to the pics and don't want to wait even for a?

1:54:45 - Jason Snell
wonderful say that should I? I thought that was a little over the top.

1:54:46 - Andy Ihnatko
I should admit that If you're super, excited to get to the picks and don't want to wait even for a wonderful advertiser to support the show that advertiser will be crying himself to sleep on a huge pillow.

1:54:56 - Leo Laporte
Well, I don't care, we didn't sell that anyway. That's Libsyn up there. Hey, guess what? Guess what everybody. Thursday is Thanksgiving Day in the United States of America. Okay.

1:55:10 - Jason Snell
Canadians.

1:55:11 - Leo Laporte
I know you already had yours, but we got ours coming. You know how I avoided the whole family issue, because there's three different families, it could be a nightmare Actually four. And then there's my mom in Rhode Island. Lisa and I are going to go out to eat. There's a hotel in Sonoma. It has a lovely Thanksgiving. We've been there before. They've got a caviar bar, a cheese bar, they've got turkey, but they also have prime rib. We're going there. Solved, problem solved. However, Jason Snell, you are going to be cooking.

1:55:47 - Jason Snell
I am, I am. However, Jason snell, you are going to be cooking. I am, I am. And also, this is going to be great because you're going to see me and alex uh at at opposing sort of opposing views again in our turkey picks. Um, I'm going to do a roast turkey this year with a wet brine. Uh, I, I my so my traditional, my first half of the pick is the good eats roast turkey the recipes at the food network.

1:56:09 - Leo Laporte
This is from alton brown I think uh alex would agree.

1:56:12 - Jason Snell
He's an alton brown yeah absolutely, and you're gonna see the. You're gonna see the turkey uh, derrick pretty soon for the fried version. But this is the. If you are afraid of deep frying a turkey because it will burn you to death or whatever, like I am, you just get a five gallon bucket from the home depot and you build a and you build a little brine rig that you put in your garage or whatever overnight and then you cook that turkey and it's juicy.

1:56:34 - Leo Laporte
I've done this for like 15 years now if you have a big sous vide, you could put it in the sous vide pot that you use you could.

1:56:41 - Jason Snell
You could do that too right. You just need a big container. Five gallon bucket is cheap and easy at your hardware store too. That's what I usually use. What do you do?

1:56:47 - Leo Laporte
what kind of brine? What's in the brine? Not just salt that's well, it's.

1:56:50 - Jason Snell
It's in that recipe. There's a bunch of stuff in there. There's there's stock and there's there's various spices and stuff and a lot of salt and the whole.

The way a brine works for people who care about the science of it is by elevating the salinity of the liquid. Uh, what happens is that the? Uh, it's an osmosis thing, where now there's free movement from the liquid side to the meat side, which means that the spices and stuff flow into the meat of the bird. So when you cook it, it's juicy and tasty. It's science, people. Uh, and then, and really, isn't thanksgiving?

1:57:21 - Leo Laporte
day about free movement, after all?

1:57:23 - Jason Snell
I think it. It could be, if you want it to be about. It's about osmosis, leo. And then, secondarily, last last thanksgiving we were visiting my uh, my brother-in-law and he did a smoked turkey in his traeger backyard smoker I have done that as well, and it was so good that I started thinking I think I'm gonna have to get one of those so my combine the two so my second pick instead of using well, you wouldn't use a brine on that, but anyway, my second pick is a Traeger.

Yes, traeger 650. I guess. So I guess you do a dry brine, maybe Traeger 650, which is what I. This is the Christmas present for the Snell family, by the way, so we're going to get this. So for Christmas this year I think I will have a smoked turkey, but for Thanksgiving it will be the roast turkey using the Good Eats brine method.

1:58:13 - Leo Laporte
Alex, we have a Traeger that we love and I have used and I've brought it with me everywhere I go and it is definitely a great way to I'm looking forward to playing with it, yeah.

Low and slow yeah, I love it. It's easy because it's pellet you and slow yeah, I love it, it's easy because it's pellet you. Know a true, a true turkey fan like my brother-in-law. I'm a true smoker fan like my brother-in-law insist that you have to take a barrel, cut it yeah, I'm not going to do any of that with a welding iron.

1:58:37 - Jason Snell
I want the computer operated, wi-fi enabled.

1:58:40 - Leo Laporte
Pellet based wood smoker actually burned the turkey last year. He actually burned it and I said, well, don't you have a thermometer? He said, no, no, I only use the thermometer on the barrel. I said, dude, you need the thermometer in the turkey. Probe thermometer, please.

1:58:54 - Jason Snell
I will recommend.

1:58:55 - Leo Laporte
Actually, I'm going to add a pick of the week. I'll recommend what thermometer I wish I could get my brother-in-law to use, but refuses to. But next up, Alex Lindsay with a better idea.

1:59:05 - Alex Lindsay
The dueling, the dueling, uh, alton Brown specials. So the the. I saw Jason's and I was like, so I believe. So this is season 10, episode six fry, turkey fry, um and uh, it is uh in my opinion. Uh, the I don't think that's the one, but is that? I don't think that's.

1:59:23 - Leo Laporte
It says deep fried turkey. Okay, don't do it in the house, though, please. So what I will say is you do it outside he builds a derrick.

1:59:29 - Alex Lindsay
He's got On his.

1:59:30 - Jason Snell
YouTube channel right now there's a whole series of like various terrible ways of making a turkey, and then you can use his method, which is the deep fry.

1:59:37 - Alex Lindsay
Fry it is very good and it's very good.

1:59:47 - Jason Snell
And I anyway. So, um, this is 14 years ago, I think that was mine is the one that they were showing the video from, whereas then then he was like okay, I'll show you how to deep fry one, and it's safe the, the, the, the fried turkey fry, uh, one that I think that is the.

1:59:58 - Alex Lindsay
It's the thanksgiving turkey fry that he showed. In my opinion is one of the best training videos ever made. Like, just, it's up there very close to connections. It's funny. I think I went back and forth with Alton Brown one time on Twitter and talking about, uh, how close good eats was to connections and he said, oh, I just watched a lot of connections and thought about it Like it was definitely not by accident. Um, but it's that one episode. When I think about how I want to build training, I think about that episode. It's just so well done.

2:00:25 - Leo Laporte
I have found the video. Here's the video from Alton Brown. Here's the derrick deep frying the turkey. He's dropping it in the fire. Oh my God, it's caught all the humanity he has.

2:00:36 - Jason Snell
you construct a derrick with a ladder.

2:00:39 - Alex Lindsay
That's part of that episode.

2:00:42 - Jason Snell
Do not do this Burn unit.

2:00:45 - Alex Lindsay
He's talking about not using water.

2:00:46 - Jason Snell
Second degree folks.

2:00:49 - Alex Lindsay
That video is the build-up towards how to build the Turkey Derrick. Anyway, it's just really really well done. Camera work, everything is so well done. Now I admit, and I have built the Turkey Derrick that Alton Brown put in to the T like everything he said to buy, and it worked perfectly. I will say that these days I cut the turkey into pieces and I sous vide it. Call it a day. Because of how good the that's what my friend does.

2:01:16 - Leo Laporte
He says it comes out really well, because the problem, the whole issue with turkey, is the dark meat and the light meat. They don't cook at the same time. Cook at the same time. Alton Brown's method there is that he puts a.

2:01:28 - Jason Snell
He folds aluminum foil into a like a breast breastplate triangle and puts it on the breast so it retards the cooking of the breast a little bit. That works really well. But and sous vide is a great option that will again, you can, you can brine it and then sous vide it, and that works too.

2:01:40 - Leo Laporte
Here's another way man I've got. I think this is the video with the Derek. Let's just check and see. Still not the one, oh.

2:01:48 - Alex Lindsay
God, no, no, that's the one not to do On your porch. Such a great idea.

2:01:57 - Jason Snell
Yeah, his method. By the way, one of the key pieces that you can see in all of these disaster videos is what you do is you put the turkey in and put the oil in together before it's heated so you make sure that it doesn't overflow, and then you take the turkey out and let it wait while you heat up the oil.

2:02:11 - Leo Laporte
That is a very important step. That's the problem with deep frying. Turkey is the overflow.

2:02:14 - Jason Snell
Exactly when the oil comes out, you get an oil fire and then have a get a fire extinguisher and make sure it's right next to there, because that is your risk I just bought a fire blanket and I saw it on tiktok.

2:02:25 - Alex Lindsay
Well, and and and the thing is, all I'm going to say is is turkey at 145 degrees? As soon as you have that, you'll never go back to cooking in an oven. Like it's just, it's like you let it, you know, like, like it's just once you've had. I mean turkey. My complaint with turkey growing up, well, for the first 50 years of my life, uh, was turkey was dry, like I just didn't I just always felt like it was everybody's complaint.

Yeah, and and. Once you sous vide a turkey at 100 like you just you I just cut it up into pieces, put them in different bags. Now I have a bunch of so I have like four of them sitting there

and you do it to 145 is that you're 145 degrees, because, remember, 165 is a peak uh, one centimeter is a peak of where it needs to be for food safety. But it stays there for an hour, it has the same effect, right? So so if it stays at that one, if it gets to that heat and stays for a long period of time, it's going to kill everything off anyway, but the meat. And if you go below 145, it's still, I think, safe until 137, but it doesn't change color.

2:03:20 - Jason Snell
But what tastes everybody else, that's, I think, 145 tastes the best.

2:03:23 - Leo Laporte
I mean, I think that it's. So it's also a texture issue. I know this with chicken because we are used to chicken being kind of a little stringy. So the issue that I have that's a little higher temperature for the sous vide.

2:03:34 - Alex Lindsay
What I tend to do is go and now with the turkey I go a little longer to like 90 minutes on it. On chicken I do an hour now if you leave it. The problem with sous vide in general is if you leave it in too long it just continues to denature the yeah and so it just comes. I once forgot I had. I had my. My first sous vide didn't make any noise, it was just a box.

Forget the sous vide I left I left for europe and came back and my I leaving it on it just sat there and I came back. I came back two weeks later. It was liquid like the whole thing.

2:04:04 - Jason Snell
Yeah, it's just bouillon. It's all that's left there after all that guys, let's do a cooking show, can we? Can we like our christmas episode? Let's do a in our discord.

2:04:14 - Leo Laporte
He says uh, stuffing is the key, it tastes the best. I'm gonna give you one more thing to make your turkey day better. I thought when I bought this this is the most expensive thermometer I've ever bought. I'm probably a nut Again an Instagram purchase. It's the Combustion Smart Thermometer.

2:04:32 - Jason Snell
This was my pick, like a couple months ago.

2:04:34 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, it's awesome Well let me throw it back in the pot, because this is and they have a second generation. The idea is it has eight sensors, so it doesn't just measure one temperature. It tells you the temperature for all the way from the outside to all the way the inside and figures out, based on the coldest temperature, when it's going to be done. It predicts what it'll be done and it does a fantastic job. You still like your combustion?

2:04:59 - Jason Snell
yeah, mine, uh, mine, bet met its demise on my grill um. The new version has a higher temperature max yes and that's good 900 degree max. Yeah, you don't want to melt it because because it goes to a high temperature, like in an oven, but when you're on a grill and there's flames coming up, it got very angry with me. So yeah, they replaced it.

2:05:17 - Leo Laporte
It was nice of them all, right it is 200, highly actually, if you don't you don't need to display because you can use your phone. So skip the 150 version, um, and just remember to keep it charged, because the worst thing which happened to me last time I did a brisket is if it's dead, and then you can't use it and you're in trouble. All right, annie, and otko is not going to do a cooking tip.

2:05:39 - Andy Ihnatko
Yeah well, I want, well, I want to be part of the fun. So I will add two other things about sous vide that make it a star, particularly on thanksgiving. Uh, yes, it's true that if you leave it in the sous vide for upwards of five days, you're not going to be happy with the texture of the resulting product. But, but the great thing about it is that you can't, because the bath is being held at that 140 to 145 degrees. You can, can't overcook it, it's not possible. So that means that, whereas historically you're really running like a maniac inside the kitchen knowing that I don't know when the turkey is going to be ready, but that's when we need to have everything else ready and sit down to eat you can actually plan ahead. There's at least like an hour or two of latitude, so that's so long as the, as soon as the turkey is just deemed to be done, which is probably about an hour, that usually means great. So now I've got one hour to like prepare all the sides that need to be done, like immediately, uh, and you can get everything hot and perfect, like on the, on the table at the same time, including, again, perfectly juicy, perfectly seasoned turkey and the other. And the other part about it is that oven space is always at a premium. Uh, uh, stovetop space is always at a premium. This is as long as, and as long as you've got a part someplace inside the house that can support a bucket and has access to a, to an outlet, you can sous vide all of your turkey, like inside your office, and basically you've got the rest of your oven completely unoccupied, all your burners completely unoccupied. Again, I it's try it once in a non-combat situation, like you know, uh, with a chicken, and do it like in february or march or april, just to prove to yourself how well it works, and then you'll be a convert forever.

Okay, so, but, uh, my pick of the week. I intend proudly to set a record for the most number of alex's for a pick of the week coming in at 1714 alex's. It's judy garland's ruby slippers screen matched to the actual wizard of oz. Uh, current, the current bidding is up. To beat the current bid, you need to get up $1.2 million. The auction still has a couple of weeks to go, so you can expect to go up from there. The ruby slippers are a vintage pair of Innis Shoe Company red silk fall heels with uppers and heels covered with hand sequined silk georgette lined in white leather, and the leather soles are painted red how do we know these are the actual rubies?

2:08:09 - Leo Laporte
weren't there many ruby slippers there?

2:08:12 - Andy Ihnatko
were several. Actually, there's a really interesting book about how the ruby slippers were like, recovered. Back when in the early 70s, like 1970, when mgm was selling off its back lot, uh, they prepared this huge auction of like all of their, all of their props and they just wanted to empty out everything. There was one person who kind of volunteered his time and his deal was if I find a pair of ruby slippers, if I find more than one pair of ruby slippers, I get to keep a set. And we're not talking about oh well, they went to this file cabinet that was marked Wizard of Oz, judy Garland, precious Ruby Slippers. Open this drawer.

2:08:48 - Leo Laporte
It was like stacks and stacks and stacks of shelves in a warehouse and they found like three or four yeah, if you've ever been to a Hollywood prop warehouse, yeah, I mean they were just stuck somewhere and moved somewhere, it's wonderful, yeah, yeah.

2:09:00 - Andy Ihnatko
And so there are three or four pairs this is like one of two that are considered. There's one pair in the Smithsonian, and then there's this pair that are considered like the top of the mark.

2:09:09 - Leo Laporte
Andy, why is there never a giant bid for the blue ankle socks that go with the ruby slippers? You don't see people you know going crazy over the blue ankle socks.

2:09:19 - Andy Ihnatko
Well, because Judy Garland had a lot of troubles in her childhood. One of the most stinky feet it was things that the PR department at Gem could cover up a lot of stuff, but they couldn't cover up that.

But yeah, and there's a great story behind this one too, so it was. So again, they're great pair of ruby slippers. They were loaned by the owner to a Judy Garland museum and in a movie that has to be a comedy starring Paul Giamatti as the thief, there was like a 70-year-old thief who was enticed into one last job because someone told them that oh yeah, these ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz they're in this museum. And gosh, they must. And they're worth like a million dollars or something, which means that, well, they must be covered with genuine rubies to be worth that much, he figured. So he broke in and stole the slippers, intending to like, pull off these million dollars worth of rubies. And when he find out that, no, they're sequins and they're like little shiny things and took the FBI like five or 10 years to find them and return them.

But in case and I would suggest that, like, if you're looking, if you think that's a lot of money, if you pay for it with your American Express card, you'll get miles, maybe, maybe there'll be cash back on your Apple card. But the other thing is that it's on the Heritage Auction site entertainmenthacom. This is one of the sites that I visit all the time. I sometimes buy comic art from the site, but mostly it's because I'm not going to spend $20, for an original piece of jack kirby, like fantastic four art from the 60s. But they produce, they put up like super high resolution scans, in this case super high resolution photos from every angle of the ruby slipper.

2:10:58 - Leo Laporte
so I'm there like right clicking, like a like oh, and this has judy garland's name in it sewn in them.

2:11:04 - Andy Ihnatko
Yeah, the provenance is absolutely spot on. Again, it's also matched to screen match crayon, also matched to the pair. That's the exact same make and model of shoes that are in the Smithsonian. So, yeah, this is going to be. This is like the Mona Lisa coming up for auction. There's going to be. I'm keen to see where they turn up and I hope it's not just daddy, I want the pair of Ruby slippers, daddy, daddy, I want the pair of ruby slippers. Daddy, I want to wear them at the Met Gala. Daddy, buy me the slippers. Daddy, I hope it's like some nice museum that wants to put them and display them and treat them nicely.

2:11:33 - Leo Laporte
I do hope Elon Musk doesn't buy them, but you never know.

2:11:38 - Andy Ihnatko
You never know, there's nothing he can't ruin, so he's aiming high this time.

2:11:43 - Leo Laporte
If you haven't seen Wicked, go see the Wizard of Oz Now there's a movie, yeah, and look for the ruby slippers. Thank you, andy Anako. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving Back at you. Enjoy the pizza and the thin man. I think that sounds like a perfect combination.

2:12:00 - Andy Ihnatko
Cozy Thanksgiving when will you be on GBH next? I was just on last week, so go to GBbhnewsorg to stream that live or later. I think my next one is not next week but the week after that, also on a Thursday at 1245 Eastern Time.

2:12:16 - Leo Laporte
Awesome, awesome. Mr Jason Snell is at sixcolorscom. His podcast is at sixcolorscom. Jason, I hope you have a wonderful time in. Where are you? You said Arizona, yeah, la, orange County, la. I hope you have a wonderful time in where are you?

2:12:28 - Jason Snell
You said Arizona, la, orange, la. Yeah, my, my wife's family. So, yeah, we'll have a good time and and I'll report back about Turkey business. Do they watch football in this family? When I started going there 30 years ago, they were basically a non-sports household and I was the one sports intruder. But my brother-in-law turned out to be a sports person and his wife is a sports person and I converted my wife into be a sports person and my. So we've my, the, my my in-laws, uh, are they're out of luck where the football will be on?

2:13:00 - Leo Laporte
yes, it's a. It's a glorious day for football. It is. Get your turducken and your touring bus and enjoy it with the TV.

2:13:10 - Jason Snell
All Madden, all the time.

2:13:13 - Leo Laporte
I miss John Madden.

2:13:14 - Jason Snell
Yeah.

2:13:15 - Leo Laporte
Apparently they're going to have the Madden Cruiser at one of the games.

2:13:18 - Jason Snell
Yeah, and they put his face basically as the logo of the Thanksgiving games. These days, they honor him every Thanksgiving, which is sweet, and then they always have that big spread on the field with turkey. With six turkey legs.

2:13:31 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, six turkey legs, and then the winning team, those look, they're probably cold dry.

2:13:37 - Jason Snell
They're probably awful, I don't know. I mean, they may keep them warm for those guys, but they love them. It's like the Super Bowl. If the Super Bowl trophy was a turkey leg, it's such a great idea.

2:13:52 - Leo Laporte
I've done that. It's a great idea. It is brilliant, mr Alex.

2:13:53 - Alex Lindsay
Lindsay OfficeHours Global. What you talking about these days, I mean, mostly we're answering people's questions, so that's our primary focus right now. We're doing a lot of if you watch it, you're going to see, you know, a lot of changes. Yesterday was nuclear color, as we tested a certain format for if you're watching it in, if you're watching an SDR in HDR, it looks amazing. In SDR it looks a little bright. So and and you're going to see us constantly experimenting with that so we're testing new encoders.

We're testing a bunch of things, but the bottom line is, is what we do every day is we're answering people's questions. We get questions every day about whatever someone's working on today and we're answering those questions for that day, and so we get through about 25 questions a day and it's so it's. It's a wide range of what people are working on in in audio and video. So we're going to. We're doing that every, every morning. We're sticking to that right now because we're making so many changes to the back end at the moment. We're pushing a lot of envelopes. There's a lot of engineering teams watching what we're doing because, you know, for a variety of companies, because we're doing some, we're kind of going at a level 4K, 60 HDR 5.1. How far can we push this and really understand? You know how to make it work, so that's what we're doing every day right now.

2:15:09 - Leo Laporte
OfficeHoursglobal. You can watch every morning or watch on YouTube after the fact, and graymattershow the Michael Krasny program that you produce always that's great conversations.

2:15:18 - Alex Lindsay
If you haven't heard gray matter, there's just so many great conversations that are going on. Just go to the website graymattershow and look at the number of people. I think everybody on this panel has been on Gray Matter, but lots of other folks as well, from a very, very wide range of expertise. So definitely check that out.

2:15:38 - Leo Laporte
Krasny's quite the legend and has a very extensive Rolodex, so you get to see some really interesting people.

2:15:44 - Alex Lindsay
And I think that one of the reasons that so many people come on is they've all been on and he just has a unique way of of uh, interviewing folks that really we get to the end and so many times people walk out and go, wow, that was great interview, Like, that was a great like conversation that we had.

2:15:57 - Leo Laporte
So yeah, Thank you Alex, thank you Andy, thank you Jason, thanks to all of you for joining us. MacBreak Weekly records Tuesdays, 11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern, 1800, 1900 UTC. So you can watch us live, as I mentioned, on those eight different streams, including YouTube. But after the fact, you can always get a copy of the show at our website, twit.tv/mbw, uh, there is a link at that page to our YouTube channel. You can watch there.

But it's even better for, I think, clipping and sharing little bits and pieces. If you, for instance, have a family member who's debating how to cook the turkey on Thursday, you could just clip that little segment and send it off to them. And, of course, the best way to get it subscribe in your favorite podcast client, whether it's Apple Podcasts, overcasts, PocketCasts, just, uh, Spotify, we're everywhere. Subscribe to my MacBreak Weekly and that way you will not miss an episode. Thanks to John Ashley, our producer and editor and technical director, for putting the show together this week. I hope you all have a wonderful if you're celebrating a wonderful thanksgiving, and we and I guess that means Black Friday and Cyber Monday too between now and the next episode. So good luck shopping and hunting, hunting for great deals and we will see you next Tuesday on MacBreak Weekly. Now, and I'm sorry to say it is my sad but solemn duty to tell you, get back to work. Break time is over. Bye-bye.