MacBreak Weekly 1045 Transcript

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

Leo Laporte [00:00:00]:
It's time for MacBreak Weekly. Andy Ihnatko here, Christina Warren, and yes, he's back, Jason Snell. What a big month October is going to be. We'll talk about not one but two big product announcements. Apple's got a new smart home strategy with a bunch of new products, and it looks like maybe— crossing my fingers— this month is the month for brand new extra light, extra thin MacBooks with a touchscreen, and maybe even that giant Mac Studio. We'll talk about it, what to expect, What to look for next on MacBreak Weekly.

Leo Laporte [00:00:42]:
This is MacBreak Weekly, episode 1045, recorded Tuesday, October 6th, 2026: The iCup Specialist. It's time for MacBreak Weekly, the show we cover the latest news from Apple. Hello, Christina Warren from The Hub.

Christina Warren [00:01:00]:
Hello, hello.

Leo Laporte [00:01:01]:
Good to see you. Developer Relations at GitHub, Film Girl on the socials, and Tay Tay fan.

Christina Warren [00:01:12]:
Well, sort of, yes, but, but we're not going to talk about the—

Leo Laporte [00:01:15]:
not for the latest. No, no, no. Sorry, folks. You know, nobody's successful forever. I'm living proof. It just, you have, you know, you, you go as long as you can and then it just falls off the end.

Christina Warren [00:01:30]:
Look, you, you have good albums, you have bad albums. She had a really good album in 2024, a really mid album in 2025. We're not gonna talk about the 4 songs that were just released and, and that's, that's fine. We'll, we will, we will check in at a future date and I'm sure that she'll be revindicated. But yeah, no one needs to listen to, to Cleveland. Do not. So.

Leo Laporte [00:01:48]:
John Ashley will be relieved, I think, that he doesn't have to. Also with us, Mr. Andrew Ihnatko, in his own home with his superheterodyne receiver.

Andy Ihnatko [00:02:00]:
Indeed. I decided that, you know, I've had it with the library's like no open containers policy. Ah, no lid, baby, no lid.

Leo Laporte [00:02:09]:
Oh, you're living, you're living large now.

Andy Ihnatko [00:02:11]:
Freedom.

Leo Laporte [00:02:12]:
Taking the chances. Yeah, Burke prevented— forbade me from ever doing that again in the studio.

Andy Ihnatko [00:02:18]:
Yeah, nonetheless, I've got it like on a different desk where if it falls, it falls downriver from everything that I've got.

Leo Laporte [00:02:25]:
I do believe you were the one who had to emergency buy a MacBook at one point due to falling Coca-Cola.

Andy Ihnatko [00:02:32]:
That did happen the morning I have to deliver a keynote. Uh, fortunately, I fell asleep with a Dr Pepper in my hand and tipped over onto the keyboard that I was finishing my keynote on. And then after after waking up and discovering that no, there is no way to rescue this, there was an Apple Store across the parking lot from the hotel. I said, okay, okay, okay, Senator, this is where the rubber meets the road. You're gonna need to upgrade in 2 years anyway.

Christina Warren [00:03:03]:
Oh well.

Leo Laporte [00:03:03]:
You got a good one.

Andy Ihnatko [00:03:04]:
You were happy. Also, suddenly I had a really killer opening for my talk. That was great.

Leo Laporte [00:03:09]:
And actually, you've given me a lead into the story of the week, but let me first say hello to Jason Snell. Hello, I've come back.

Jason Snell [00:03:17]:
Sorry, I missed you all. I was on the airplane.

Leo Laporte [00:03:19]:
How much did you raise for the, uh, the good folks at the holiday?

Jason Snell [00:03:24]:
Um, 7— we're over $750,000 for, um, this fundraising period, which started in September. And, uh, we went over $700,000, which was our goal during our 12-hour-long podcast thing that we did last Friday. Uh, good. Always a good time. Um, as you know very well, Leo, when you're on something live for 12 hours, It just gets weird. We had a, we had an Apple II with about an hour left to go. We had an Apple II power supply give, give it up and the magic smoke emerged. Oh, and let me tell you, the, the, um, the 40-year-old magic smoke does not smell good.

Leo Laporte [00:03:59]:
No, I know that smell.

Jason Snell [00:04:00]:
It smells like fish.

Andy Ihnatko [00:04:01]:
It's terrible.

Leo Laporte [00:04:02]:
For some reason. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Snell [00:04:03]:
We had to walk it outside to the loading dock cuz we're all gonna die. Uh, but it was, you know, weird stuff happens.

Andy Ihnatko [00:04:09]:
It only adds legitimacy to your athon cuz that's usually the time that Jerry Lewis would have his meltdown.

Leo Laporte [00:04:14]:
Yeah, it's perfect.

Jason Snell [00:04:15]:
It is. It is. All the fond memories that you can imagine are there. And yeah, it was— yeah, we had a good time and we raised a lot of money. And St. Jude is an amazing place and people can still go. I mean, go to stjude.org/relay and you might be able to get in under the wire. But it's just incredible.

Jason Snell [00:04:34]:
We saw, we saw a microbiology lab which was like— they took like Some off-the-shelf parts, but they also like hand-built stuff and they have like a machine shop and they also have like 3D printers and they were able to do— they're like doing these kind of— it's like literally we were sworn to secrecy on like what exactly they're doing because they're going to be publishing papers about it. But then when that's all done, they also say they're going to open source all the tech they built so that other people can do this. It's like cell biology analysis in order to understand more about how the workings of cells work so that they can apply drugs to fight cancer. It's just— yeah, it's just an incredible place. So something will all be, by the way, Yeah, that's, that's a thing that people don't know about St. Jude is that it's not just a hospital. They, they, it is a hospital and they treat kids for free who have cancer. But there's an enormous research component where they are, they are inventing cures and advancing the science and, and improving the outcomes for all sorts of people with cancer.

Jason Snell [00:05:33]:
It's not just kids because that science kind of expands to reach everyone around the world. So it's pretty incredible.

Leo Laporte [00:05:39]:
Yeah.

Jason Snell [00:05:39]:
place. So it was fun, always fun to go visit Memphis. And yeah, it was hot and steamy too. As a California person, always fun to go to the South and be like, oh yeah, right.

Leo Laporte [00:05:48]:
There's good barbecue down there.

Jason Snell [00:05:49]:
And there is great barbecue. There's no doubt about it, for sure.

Leo Laporte [00:05:52]:
Keep going all night long. The button is still live. If you go to the Relay for St. Jude, look at that, $751,000. This time, $5.5 million since 2019. We know who on this panel is going to heaven, Mr. Snell. Congratulations.

Christina Warren [00:06:08]:
Who is it?

Jason Snell [00:06:08]:
Probably Andy, right?

Leo Laporte [00:06:10]:
It might be you. I'm just saying, that's a, that's a pretty, uh, I think that's a, that's a little ticket, that golden ticket to the pearly gates.

Jason Snell [00:06:17]:
It's, uh, it's, it's a good, it's good vibes, let me tell you, to go there and, and help out.

Leo Laporte [00:06:22]:
That's really neat. It's so neat. So there, this would probably be a bad day to spill Diet Dr Pepper or sugary Dr Pepper into your Mac lap because there are rumors afoot. Bloomberg says Apple's gonna have an event October 13th, a week from tomorrow. No, a week from today.

Jason Snell [00:06:44]:
Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, but they're gonna have 2 events or 2 product launches, let's say, in October is what they're saying. So it sounds like this 13th event, next week's event, is home stuff. It's gonna be the home storytelling of, you know, new HomePods and that new Home Hub, And maybe what else Apple wants to do, whatever ambitions they might have in the home. And then—

Leo Laporte [00:07:08]:
So I picked a bad day to buy a pair of Sonos Five speakers.

Jason Snell [00:07:12]:
I mean, or a really great day. Think of it that way. We don't know yet. You're— we're like Schrödinger's cat here, which like, are my speakers a good idea or a bad idea? We don't know.

Leo Laporte [00:07:20]:
The one of the things that put me over the top is Sonos now allows you to talk to Siri and get it to play to the Sonos speakers. And that was really the thing that was holding me back, as Lisa likes to say, Hey, Shlomo, play something. And we couldn't do it with our, uh, with our Sonoses. So now we can. So thank you so much.

Jason Snell [00:07:36]:
No, it's good. It's good. And then, so according to Mark Gurman, there's a, there's a second product launch and we don't know what form these are gonna take. Uh, a second product launch at the end of the month, which is in that slot that they often will launch new MacBooks and iPads in that right around Halloween. And that sounds like when we're gonna get this new MacBook Pro. that we've been talking about for ages as being touchscreen and OLED, still just the M5 Pro and Max processors. But one new tidbit that Mark Gurman came out with is that he also says it's going to be a lot lighter. So that's fine.

Leo Laporte [00:08:12]:
He kind of implied it was like a— it was redesigned again.

Jason Snell [00:08:16]:
Yeah, well, I mean, this is— you only redesign—

Christina Warren [00:08:17]:
It would have to be.

Jason Snell [00:08:19]:
You only redesign a laptop every few years, right? Apple redesigns the laptop and then they iterate on it for 4 or 5 years. So if you're going to do this, and put in all these components. I think this is also the time where you look and say, can we streamline? Can we get it to be smaller? Has, you know, our battery process and the battery tech and the power usage of the chip, you know, and how it's going to project over the next whatever, 4 years, what shape can we make this product and how thin and light? Because thin and light is still important, right? It's not not important. It's just not as important on a pro laptop as performance because we've heard, you know, over the years. We can all remember, people who need pro laptops remember when Apple prioritized, um, small, light laptops over performance. It's like, that's not why— that's what the MacBook Air is for. It's not what the MacBook Pro is for. But still, it's nice to have that thing in your backpack be less of a load.

Jason Snell [00:09:11]:
And so this is, this is going to be setting the stage for what the MacBook Pro is for the next, you know, like I said, 4 or 5 years.

Leo Laporte [00:09:16]:
My mom, Lisa, who really desperately wants a new laptop, she didn't spill Dr Pepper into it, but practically I said, if you can just hold on for a few more weeks, because this may be the one you want. I think this sounds like the one you will want. Lighter, thinner, better screen. She doesn't need the M5 Pro or anything.

Andy Ihnatko [00:09:36]:
Also, maybe the first Mac with touchscreen?

Leo Laporte [00:09:38]:
Mm-hmm.

Andy Ihnatko [00:09:39]:
Yeah. With a touchscreen.

Leo Laporte [00:09:40]:
She's, you know, it's so funny. She comes in and she's touching my, she always touches my screen. She's like, I say, okay, well, what do you think?

Jason Snell [00:09:50]:
Quit it.

Leo Laporte [00:09:51]:
She says, and then she touches it. I said, don't touch it.

Christina Warren [00:09:52]:
She always touches it.

Leo Laporte [00:09:52]:
Finally, Something will happen when she touches it.

Jason Snell [00:09:54]:
That'd be worse.

Christina Warren [00:09:55]:
Yeah.

Jason Snell [00:09:56]:
Something will happen.

Christina Warren [00:09:57]:
I was gonna say, I mean, I think this is gonna be an interesting test for Mac users because, um, you know, for a long time Apple has— assuming this is what happens and this is what the rumor has been for a while, and, and there are leaks in the source code and things like that. So I think we can confidently say that we are almost positively getting touchscreen Macs finally. But this is gonna be an interesting test, I think, for all of us as Mac users is will people actually use the touchscreen or not? Because I can tell you I've had any number of, you know, Windows laptops that have a touchscreen over the last decade, and I've almost never used it because it just isn't part of my workflow. Maybe I used to scroll through a page on a web browser, maybe to hit a certain touch target, but I might use pen mode, you know, in a convertible laptop, but it's just never really been a big part of my workflow. But it's gonna be interesting to see now on macOS Is this going to be a thing that users are going to actually gravitate towards, or is this going to be a thing, especially since, you know, I think this is going to be, I assume, you know, limited to the highest-end machines at first, you know, like the Mac Pro— MacBook Pro, rather. I'm not expecting to see this necessarily make it to the MacBook Air, although who's to say? Will this be a thing that actual users actually are comfortable interacting with? And I know that we've gotten kind of closer there with the way that you can do Sidecar and use an iPad as a secondary display and things like that. But it It's never really, I don't know, the story's never really felt coherent to me. And so that's gonna be, I think, an interesting thing both to see how they roll it out and then also like how are users actually going to interact with this? Because it is a, it's a big change.

Christina Warren [00:11:33]:
And this is something that Windows and Linux and Chrome OS and things have had for a really long time, but that, you know, at least on an official level, macOS has not. So that's gonna be interesting.

Leo Laporte [00:11:45]:
Well, all right.

Jason Snell [00:11:46]:
So I should say in Golden Gate, um, you can do Touch now on, uh, in Sidecar on an iPad.

Andy Ihnatko [00:11:52]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:11:53]:
That's kind of cool.

Jason Snell [00:11:53]:
Finally.

Leo Laporte [00:11:54]:
Yeah.

Jason Snell [00:11:54]:
And so that's the sign that this was coming, but like, right. It's fine. It's normal. It's not a big deal. And anybody who's used an iPad in laptop config or has used, I had a, a touch Chromebook for a long time that my daughter used a lot, but I would use it some too. Um, Chromebook Pixel, it was like a good one. The, the really fancy one that then, you know, You never saw it again. Um, and you just reach out.

Jason Snell [00:12:14]:
I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't zombie arms. It was like, I was mostly using the keyboard and the trackpad, but occasionally you just—

Leo Laporte [00:12:21]:
Occasionally.

Jason Snell [00:12:22]:
You just reach out and scroll a page because your brain knows that you can probably do that. And on the iPad the same way, when I've got the iPad in the keyboard case, I mostly am not touching the screen, but I can. And if all I was doing was sticking the zombie arms out, Yeah, that would be not great, but like, that's not what it is. It's just not how you use these things. It's much more multimodal than that. And so, and just trying it out in GoldenGate with Sidecar, it just, it isn't weird. It's normal. It doesn't feel weird in any way.

Jason Snell [00:12:55]:
The Mac interface can handle it and it works just fine. And I honestly, I've been remote controlling Macs from iPads using Screens and other kind of virtual desktop apps for ages.

Andy Ihnatko [00:13:06]:
Sure.

Jason Snell [00:13:07]:
And even on that, It was fine. Like, it's just not that. So there's a lot of, it's one of those things that I think over the decade plus that this has been a debate that a lot of Mac users have, have, have tried to erect all of these like reasons why it's just not a solvable problem and Apple can't solve it. And there's no, you know, it's, it's a typical argument, which is like, Apple's so brilliant and they can do anything, but they can't do that. It's the meatloaf argument. And like, come on. It just, it's just not that, it's not a big deal. It's not going to—

Christina Warren [00:13:35]:
No, you're right.

Jason Snell [00:13:35]:
It's not going to be transformative. But it's going to be a little nicer and it'll be fine. And the Mac won't break. It'll be fine.

Christina Warren [00:13:43]:
Oh no, I don't think anything will break. I think I just, I'm more interested honestly in seeing, are people actually going to use this or not? Right. Like I wonder about that. Like, and I think that'll be the interesting thing to observe is, is especially for developers as they're building apps, like, okay, how much am I having to think about this? How much are people actually going to be using this feature? Because muscle memory is, is a hell of a drug. And you're right. Like I, you know, also have controlled Macs remotely using screens from an iPad for years. And people have been putting touchscreens and using Wacom and Cintiqs and all kinds of stuff to, to do touch controls on macOS going back 2 decades. So it's not like this is an unsolved thing.

Christina Warren [00:14:17]:
I think it's just more, my, my question is more gonna be, okay, how much are people actually going to be intuitively using this versus just the, the trackpad and, and, and the, and the keyboard? And that I just don't know.

Andy Ihnatko [00:14:28]:
Yeah. I, I just think that we've had, uh, like 8 years worth of guinea pigs testing this out on the Windows side. And the fact that every major laptop maker makes a version that has a touchscreen means that there are people out there who want it, who like it, and who use it. I myself, I don't necessarily miss it when I don't have it, but when it's there, you know what, I do find myself just like sitting there in the coffee shop and scrolling with my thumb or reaching out and making it using a touch tablet, a touch target on the screen because it's a multi-touch. Most of my, 2/3 of my devices are multi-touch and sometimes my brain is just wired up for doing multi-touch. So if nothing else, I hope people accept that if it's, if you don't like it, don't worry, it won't ruin the experience for you as Jason suggested. And also this could lead, this could be the ground floor of a future Mac that is more like a convertible tablet. And if Apple ever came out with a convertible, a laptop with a 360-degree hinge so that you could use it like an art pad, uh, or hold it like a, like a content, uh, consumption device.

Andy Ihnatko [00:15:42]:
Oh boy, would that be a huge leap forward? I've, I've always said that that's one of the few times that Apple truly missed the bus is by having this dogmatic wall between the idea of there are touch devices and there are desktop devices, and you can't have them— it doesn't make sense for a desktop device to have a touchscreen on it, even if that desktop device is a mobile device as well.

Leo Laporte [00:16:06]:
Well, I— we will all find out, I guess, at the end of the month. And I presume at the same time as they have that event, or maybe just— I don't know, it might not be an event, right? If they're having an event, well, the 13th, they might just do Videos.

Jason Snell [00:16:19]:
If there are events, right? So there's a bunch of different ways they can do it. They can do events, they can do videos. And events often don't mean— right? Like, it's not like the public is invited to events. It's just like events are videos, right? Well, I mean, what will—

Leo Laporte [00:16:31]:
John Ternus sits on the edge of a sofa, says, you remember that time? And they roll the tape.

Jason Snell [00:16:36]:
They may invite people, right? Like what a lot of these media events are is, yeah, you get invited to their, their place in Tribeca in New York, or you get invited to come down to the Steve Jobs Theater for a briefing, not like a theater presentation, but for a briefing. And I've done both of those. And sometimes they just put you on a Zoom if you're in the press, and sometimes they just send you an email saying, hey, we announced this thing. Like, it's all what they want to make of it. And I— my guess is that they're going to want— also because they have spent so much time with like creators, with like video creators and influencers, I imagine that They will have events for these product launches, but who gets invited? You know, we'll see because it's a much bigger deal to have the people who are shooting video to get their hands on the actual products than it maybe is for the people who write words like me. And so, you know, some people may get invited to a hands-on. Also, like, I'm a Mac guy, so maybe I'll be told to report to Tribeca in New York for the Mac event at the end of the month, but I'll just get an email or a press release or something next week. Like it.

Jason Snell [00:17:49]:
It— there's not one Apple event anymore. It's not like it used to be where they'd say, come to Town Hall in Cupertino on Tuesday at 10 a.m. It just— they don't do it that way. But I do think that we can say that it sounds like there will be 2 distinct product launches happening this month, which makes sense to me because the Home announcements are not the same as an OLED MacBook Pro and an OLED iPad Mini. Like, I mean, they're just not the same. They're very different markets with very different stories. So why would you mix them up?

Leo Laporte [00:18:17]:
Well, and as we've just illustrated by glancingly mentioning the home products and going right to the laptops, uh, they're just a little less interesting overall. But we'll, we'll get to the home products. Will Apple at this laptop clip show, uh, also they'll probably announce, oh, now you can order this 512GB M5 Ultra Mac Studio?

Jason Snell [00:18:44]:
Maybe.

Leo Laporte [00:18:44]:
Maybe late October, right?

Christina Warren [00:18:46]:
I mean, that would be a good time to put it in a press release. I don't know if they would make a point to call it out.

Leo Laporte [00:18:51]:
You don't think they need to publicize it in any way?

Jason Snell [00:18:53]:
It'll just—

Christina Warren [00:18:54]:
No, I mean, I don't think so. I think, I think plenty of people who are going— I think that they are going to sell every single one of those that they can make. And so, so, so I, I don't know if, if it even makes sense.

Leo Laporte [00:19:04]:
I'm gonna be in Singapore and I'm gonna be ordering one, I can promise you.

Christina Warren [00:19:07]:
Yeah, right.

Jason Snell [00:19:08]:
And don't, don't forget too We've— we're talking about next week and then at the end of the month. In between them, the iPhone Duo ships. So it's rolling thunder is happening this month, right? It's going to be one week after another. There's more and more and it just doesn't stop. Make it stop, please make it stop.

Leo Laporte [00:19:24]:
Turnus October.

Jason Snell [00:19:25]:
They do this. They did this in 2020. They did this, right? They did like every time you turned around, there was another Apple product announcement and you're like, ah, what's happening? But if you want to get everything in stores for the holiday quarter, which is their biggest quarter of the year, October is the time to do that, to prime the pump and then start loading that stuff into Apple retail. So, um, it's going to be a busy month for all of us, I think.

Leo Laporte [00:19:48]:
So, uh, there's 2 stages to the Duo. You, you can— so I got an email from somebody saying, how come I can't, uh, reserve it or preorder it? It's weird that Apple didn't turn that feature on. They usually do. You can, you can reserve, say, You don't even reserve it. You put it in your bag saying, well, when I can, I will order this. You can't even do that. That starts October 12th. So they actually have a date for the preorder launch.

Leo Laporte [00:20:17]:
And then the orders themselves open 4 days later on the 16th.

Jason Snell [00:20:21]:
Right. And then it's available on the 23rd, the following day.

Leo Laporte [00:20:24]:
It's not like you have a lot of choices either. There's 2 colors. There's a few different storage levels and that's about it. That's about it.

Christina Warren [00:20:31]:
It's the storage levels and then your carrier, of course. And then I think, I think the thing that, you know, people will need to kind of keep in mind will be what sort of financing thing, which obviously Apple is going to be pushing their new upgrade program and they're going to be pushing their new financing program. If you get it with an Apple Card and then if you're on a major carrier and you activate it that way, then you can finance over 12 months on an Apple Card or 24 months. I think you have a couple of different interest-free, right? Yeah. Yeah, interest-free on an Apple Card. So, you know, but, but, but I— and then the carriers themselves are going to have trade-in deals, which is going to be— I think that will be where a lot of people will be given very, very good trade-in rates. Like if you have like a 3-year-old iPhone, like if you have an iPhone 15 and they're going to give you $1,000 towards an iPhone Duo, that's compelling, right? And then, and then if you're, you know, paying for that iPhone Duo over you know, a 3-year period of time as part of your carrier bill, for a lot of people, that's going to be much easier to amortize than, than just, you know, plonking down even the extra $1,000. That, of course, will require you to stay in a contract with your carrier.

Christina Warren [00:21:40]:
But I think at this point, for a lot of people anyway, that's no longer as big of a deal in terms of, you know, can I switch carriers or not? I I will say that the— just for anybody who's looking out for this sort of thing, the laws have changed in terms of what carriers are automatically unlocked and which aren't. If you buy it directly from Apple, they are always unlocked. However, if you were getting it directly from AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile, they are locked depending on various terms. Verizon used to have to let you buy an unlocked phone even directly from Verizon. That changed. An FCC settlement thing, I think, ended in January of last year. And so— or this year. rather.

Christina Warren [00:22:24]:
And so at this point, the only way to get an unlocked device is if you buy it directly from apple.com. Otherwise, it's going to be dependent on whatever the terms are that you get through your carrier.

Leo Laporte [00:22:35]:
So, uh, as usual, the big tech scoop comes to us from, uh, a TikToker. Um, uh, her name is, uh, Angie Tech Tutorials.

Jason Snell [00:22:50]:
Oh, of the Boston Tech tutorial.

Leo Laporte [00:22:53]:
What's hysterical about this is this is the way— this is Apple's new way of being, which is they don't give— I mean, I guess they're giving Jason Snell interviews, but, but they're also really focused on influencers, as they should be. So this is an interview with the—

Christina Warren [00:23:10]:
And I was wondering if that was purely a design choice or if it plays a hardware Actually, person for the duo. Your question and sort of probing at what's going on there. So you mentioned reflection, the matte display.

Leo Laporte [00:23:21]:
And I love it. They got the jazzy music behind it.

Christina Warren [00:23:24]:
I'll say minimizing the crease, but there's a cover layer on top.

Leo Laporte [00:23:26]:
Oh, wait a minute. There was a little scoop. There's a cover layer on top to minimize the crease.

Christina Warren [00:23:32]:
Significant amount of engineering work to help that wear in as long of a manner as we can and to make sure that you get the most out of that layers performance.

Leo Laporte [00:23:41]:
And it's replaceable. So I don't think we knew this until Angie— thank God there's Angie's Tech Tutorials— uh, I got, got this revelation. Uh, actually, I have a feeling— I don't know, I've ne— I've had many folding phones, never had a replaceable thing on top. I have had— in fact, I peeled one off by accident— plastic layers, uh, almost like a screen. I thought it was a screen protector. It wasn't, and I ruined the phone by peeling it off. But, uh, I guess that's what Apple's doing. I'm not sure this is different from something Samsung's done before, or if this is a new thing Apple is doing.

Leo Laporte [00:24:22]:
But the word replaceable is very interesting. Like, that might be something— certainly I'm gonna buy AppleCare. I know you will too for the Duo. That might be something AppleCare would cover. You think?

Andy Ihnatko [00:24:35]:
That's probably gonna get scratched, so that's a really good idea.

Leo Laporte [00:24:38]:
It's like a screen protector. It's a, it's a rubbery thing on the old Samsungs. I think Apple's doing a more matte finish, so I would guess that's where the matte lies, right? There's flexible glass somewhere there, and it sounds like there's an additional matte layer on top.

Andy Ihnatko [00:24:58]:
And they talked a lot about how they have multiple layers separated by lubricants so that they can slide over each other when the phone opens and closes.

Leo Laporte [00:25:06]:
So I wish Angie Tech Tutorials had asked the harder questions.

Andy Ihnatko [00:25:10]:
Uh, well, I know that the rubber meets the road when iFixit does its teardown.

Jason Snell [00:25:14]:
That's right.

Andy Ihnatko [00:25:15]:
Learn a lot about what makes an Apple foldable an Apple foldable. It's gonna be epic. Yeah.

Christina Warren [00:25:21]:
Yeah. The fact that they're charging $19 for the service cost, I guess, under AppleCare to get it replaced. I mean, that means it's repairable in some way, I guess. But I don't know.

Leo Laporte [00:25:33]:
$19.19.

Christina Warren [00:25:33]:
Yeah. So yeah, so estimated service cost. I'm assuming that this is with AppleCare is $0 for battery, $19 for the COVID layer, $29 for the front display damage, $29 for the back display damage, $99 for display damage, inner display damage, other display damage is $99, then theft or loss is $150. Those are actually better prices than I was expecting, to be totally honest with you, because I think that it's usually $100 right now for a Pro phone. Like if you break the front and the back glass, it's usually like $100.

Leo Laporte [00:26:05]:
Yeah, it's cheap.

Christina Warren [00:26:06]:
So $150 for theft and loss, which that to me, that's what that screams is That's the most you're going to be paying if your phone gets broken. And so for a $2,000 phone, I think that that's, that's a fair enough trade-off, to be honest. But yeah, but it is interesting that cover layer, is that going to be something that is clearly not designed to be user replaceable? But is that something I guess that they can service in the store? How are they dealing with that? I don't know. That'll be interesting.

Leo Laporte [00:26:33]:
They could repurpose that screen protector machine. That they have.

Christina Warren [00:26:37]:
Yeah, exactly.

Jason Snell [00:26:37]:
I mean, it wouldn't, it wouldn't surprise me, but it's going to depend on volume, but it wouldn't surprise me if, if they do try to do these in the stores, right? Where they've got a little machine and it would be exactly that. They would have a little device where you would peel that off and put, pop another one on and go zip, zip, zip. And here it is. And it's actually pretty, pretty great, right? Like if you've got some fundamental, like issue with the screen and that it's fairly easily addressable at the Apple Store. And $19, if You buy AppleCare, which, which, as in the post that went in our Discord from Quinn Nelson, good old friend of the show, pointed out, kind of non-negotiable to get AppleCare on this thing. You got it. You got to do it.

Leo Laporte [00:27:16]:
Just—

Jason Snell [00:27:16]:
No, you got to do it.

Christina Warren [00:27:18]:
We've said that on the, on this show too. Like, this is, this is the one item where it is. Yeah, it is a non-negotiable. You're spending $2,000 on a phone that no matter how well it's being engineered, just by virtue of its mere existence, it's a folding phone. Um, this is, this is not the sort of thing that unless you just really are fine taking a complete bath on, you know, like buy the AppleCare.

Leo Laporte [00:27:41]:
Another well-known Mac journalist. I'm sorry, I'm being really snarky today. I apologize. Thank you, Snazzy. And, uh, in response to Snazzy Labs—

Jason Snell [00:27:50]:
That's Quinn. Yeah, he's great. That's a great YouTube channel people should check out.

Leo Laporte [00:27:55]:
Snazzy Labs.

Jason Snell [00:27:56]:
Really smart.

Leo Laporte [00:27:57]:
In response to Snazzy Labs, Nicolas Lelouch from Télématin tous les mardis writes, Apple told me during the event— he probably said it— Apple told me during the event you would be able to replace the nano-texture cover anytime to reduce the crease or remove the damage. Hmm. He says technically speaking you can remove it by yourself and have a brilliant display. I do not recommend that, Nicolas. What the hell? I have done that. It is not good.

Christina Warren [00:28:26]:
Yeah. I was going to say, I mean, that, that is interesting though, right? Is it part of the matte display is in fact just basically a fancy screen protector and you could do it yourself or third parties. That's interesting. Again, I still likely, like Jason was saying, I think this is one of those non-negotiable items that if you're buying this phone, you should probably get the AppleCare. That said, it's always good to have other options. And I'll say this too, like I've installed a lot. I don't buy screen protectors for my own phones. I just don't.

Christina Warren [00:28:52]:
That's what AppleCare is for. And the Apple screens, notwithstanding the Duo, the glass is so good at this point that I don't see scratches. And so I think in many cases you're much more likely— well, what'll happen with people who go, oh, well, my screen protector cracked, I'm glad I had it, and you're going, well, actually, the glass on the screen protector is much worse quality than the glass on your device. So that's not really indicative of anything.

Leo Laporte [00:29:15]:
Your device might not have suffered anything.

Christina Warren [00:29:18]:
Precisely. And I've definitely broken phones before, to be clear. And, you know, I broke 2, I think the iPhone 16, I think I broke 2 of them that year, which was really ridiculous.

Leo Laporte [00:29:29]:
Wow.

Christina Warren [00:29:30]:
But one of them, I think within like the first month and a half and the other one, it wasn't— it was towards the middle of the year. But so I've definitely broken the glass on phones, fronts and backs before. But I think what's nice about this is that if this is something that they're saying, okay, you can do yourself, I would still say most people, if you've ever installed even with those, you know, when you can buy them from the various manufacturers that come up with the ways of putting on the screen protectors, because like I said, I've installed a lot of them for my parents. It's a pain. It's not one of those processes that I would necessarily recommend. So if you can go into the store and have them do it, great. But at the same time, if they're also going to make it possible for other people to do it too, that's good. And if If the part of the purpose of this is to maybe help with scratches from the Apple Pencil, and maybe some of it is again aesthetic, just to have that matte covering so that you don't see the crease as much, great.

Christina Warren [00:30:26]:
Like, I mean, let's, let's do everything we can to make, make these types of devices more durable. And hopefully the rest of the industry can, can take lessons from this too.

Leo Laporte [00:30:35]:
Right. All right, let's take a little break. We will talk about the HomePods and And the, the new cameras that don't take any pictures, and a lot more. You're watching MacBreak Weekly with Christina Warren of GitHub, Andy Inaco— I can't say of the library anymore— of inaco.com. Maybe that's why he moved home. And Jason Snell of sixcolors.com. So I probably should have waited on the Sonos speakers. My experience with the HomePods is that they Maybe they're getting old.

Leo Laporte [00:31:10]:
They certainly are old. We haven't seen a new one in a while. They're a little muddy compared to the sound of the Sonos. And so Lisa wanted something a little crisper, so I said, well, no problem, we'll just get the Sonos 5s. They're big speakers in the bedroom, and, and you could still talk to Siri and have Siri play through the Sonos. That's a new feature that Sonos just added. Was I— maybe I made a mistake because apparently one week from today, J490 will emerge, the smart home Hub thing doohickey.

Jason Snell [00:31:41]:
Probably not called that.

Leo Laporte [00:31:43]:
It's not going to be a doohickey. Uh, this is the thing. The hub, it's got— well, it's going to look like an iMac, but a small iMac, 6-inch square display. It will be able to— this is from Mark Gurman— will be able to recognize who's speaking to it or approaching it. Hey, Leo. And then display personalized content Your fly's down. And provide answers based on that person's data and accounts. But Gurman says don't expect a new big HomePod.

Leo Laporte [00:32:17]:
This is, this is just a thing with a screen. There'll be new HomePod Minis, there'll be new Apple TVs, but don't hold your breath. So maybe I should— I'm glad I bought the Sonos.

Christina Warren [00:32:31]:
I was going to say, I've used— I'm a Sonos person. I prefer their ecosystem, to be honest. And I like it because you can use it with a number of different services and devices, but it integrates well within Apple Home's ecosystem. Like you said, they've added the Siri feature. Even before that, it had AirPlay support, which was absolutely every bit as good as you could get from a HomePod. And I know, I don't think— I think that a new HomePod Mini, I think if priced appropriately, is not a bad thing to have.

Leo Laporte [00:32:56]:
Speakers on those are great.

Christina Warren [00:32:57]:
Because they're not exactly. So, so I think, I think that for your purpose, for what you bought it for, I think you probably were fine. And I don't think that whether or not you would want or, or would be even interested in getting a hub like this, if that would be, you know, I don't think that would complicate your existing setup is what I'm trying to say. I feel like that would still work well within the, the existing ecosystem of speakers that you have.

Leo Laporte [00:33:20]:
Have you installed that, uh, that Sonos update that lets lets it work with Siri. Have you put that on there yet?

Christina Warren [00:33:25]:
Yeah, I have. Um, but, but again, like most of the time, like the Sonos Assistant has been fine, or, you know, using Amazon's or, or whatever else I'm just wanting to use it to, to play something, has been fine.

Leo Laporte [00:33:36]:
Well, um, but yeah, but the Sonos Assistant has Giancarlo Esposito as its voice. So if you have, you know, Gus Fring saying, I don't know what you're talking about, I can't play that, which is mostly is what says it to me, it's still, it's nice. 'Cause I like hearing Gus.

Christina Warren [00:33:53]:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I, I have put the latest update and I know the Sonos, you know, they've had software issues and that's been well covered, but I still prefer their ecosystem over everyone else.

Leo Laporte [00:34:01]:
And I think their speakers sound better.

Christina Warren [00:34:02]:
Am I wrong? I think they sound great. No, I think that they sound fantastic. And, and for me, the primary thing has been like, okay, what can I get that is going to work interchangeably throughout the various ecosystems? I know that they've had various tit for tats with Google, but there was a period of time when like you could have Google Assistant, you could have, you know, control it through AirPlay, you could control it through Amazon.

Leo Laporte [00:34:24]:
It never really worked great though. And you had to choose one.

Christina Warren [00:34:27]:
You have to choose one. But, but the fact that you could still do it that way and like, I know my parents, I made them Sonos people because first they were Alexa people. And so, you know, they had Echos and then, you know, I was like, okay, well, we're going to upgrade you from that and get you, you know, the Sonos Home Series. And then my dad, I bought him the Roam. twice, actually, because that's the Bluetooth one that can also be wireless.

Leo Laporte [00:34:51]:
Yeah, I like that. And take it out.

Christina Warren [00:34:52]:
I like that. Exactly. And that's what he does it for as well. It could be used as Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. I don't know. I personally, I'm a fan of the Sonos ecosystem. I also don't just listen to music through Apple Music. And I know that they've made improvements in terms of how you can play through other services on those devices.

Christina Warren [00:35:10]:
But it took such a long time that I was like, I'm not going to forego how I listen to my music just so I can use the HomePod. Um, I have a HomePod and I have a HomePod Mini. I don't really use them, but I, I, I am excited about this, um, hub type of device. The fact that it can at least recognize different profiles because, and I, I will admit here, I could be like, my, my priors could be wrong cuz it's been a really long time since I used a HomePod, but using it with multiple accounts has been an issue. So I think that I— that's one of those things where I'm glad to see, like, okay, if they're going to be using user recognition, supporting multiple profiles so that you can have not just customized content, but also play the content that you would want from others, then I think— not others. You could, you know, my music is different from my husband's music, which could be different from, you know, a kid's music. That I think is It'd be very nice.

Leo Laporte [00:36:08]:
So I guess I could keep a little home— want to get one of the new HomePods, the little ones, or keep— I have plenty of old ones lying around— and talk to that and it would play on the Sonos. Or I could talk to my phone and it would play on the Sonos. Yeah, okay, that seems good. That's probably good enough. I just want— it's more for convenience. It's not for me because I use— I know how to do it and I can even have my AI do it. But, uh, it's for Lisa who just wants to walk into a room and say, hey, Shlomo, you know, play Night Ranger, and, and it does. So that's— she never says that, but if she, she did, it would play.

Jason Snell [00:36:44]:
Motorin'!

Leo Laporte [00:36:46]:
I was gonna say, yeah, actually, she does like What's Love Got to Do with It, but that's another, another story for another day. Uh, all right, and then, so, but why not a— why not a big one? I guess if they decided Apple doesn't want to be in the You know, high-quality audio market.

Jason Snell [00:37:03]:
It's expensive. And they don't sell. Yeah.

Leo Laporte [00:37:07]:
Maybe they know that they— yeah, there wasn't a big seller.

Jason Snell [00:37:10]:
Or maybe that— maybe it's just not a priority, right? Like if they don't sell that well, they may, may yet do a HomePod 3, but that may come later. Also, I don't know what's going to happen. It's anybody's guess, but I have, uh, I do wonder if since we had the HomePod mini, but they're not revving the HomePod, if the new Home Hub might be called HomePod or HomePod something.

Leo Laporte [00:37:30]:
That's the HomePod, right?

Jason Snell [00:37:31]:
Like the one, especially if you've got the one with the base, that's a, it's a good name. It's a, it's about the home and it echoes the iPod. Like, I like it as a name and it would be better suited for something like this Home Hub product than the big speaker. And it would still allow them to call, you know, treat it as a product line and say that HomePod is a, you know, we got HomePod Mini over here and this is HomePod. just HomePod or HomePod Hub or something like that. Like maybe that's part of what, what's going on too is I don't know, but yeah, the big speakers just haven't sold very well for them and it— why I could get why that might not be their priority right now.

Leo Laporte [00:38:07]:
So I gotta say this, they're gonna feel like Johnny-come-lately in this market. I mean, this Amazon's had this forever. In fact, they even have a bigger screen that rotates to follow you around and all that stuff.

Jason Snell [00:38:22]:
Yeah, but yeah, but it's, I mean, I have had Google's and Amazon's versions of these products in my house for years and they're not good.

Leo Laporte [00:38:30]:
No.

Jason Snell [00:38:31]:
And I also, I mean, and it's not just that I'm in the Apple ecosystem, they're also bad. They're slow.

Leo Laporte [00:38:36]:
They're not good.

Jason Snell [00:38:37]:
They're just, they're not good.

Leo Laporte [00:38:39]:
Siri wasn't good either.

Jason Snell [00:38:40]:
Exactly. But now, now things are looking up and that these products might actually be usable in a way that they weren't before. So that's what I'm really intrigued by here is like having, having still, I've got the Google one in my kitchen, but I don't use it very often.

Leo Laporte [00:38:57]:
Right.

Jason Snell [00:38:57]:
And it would be awfully nice. And because I'm in their ecosystem, like not having with the Google one, if I want new pictures on my Google thing, I got to like do a whole migration of photos and put them in Google Photos in the right place so that it sees it and all that. And obviously I'm in Apple iCloud Photos, so I could just pick an album or have it pick favorites and then I'm done. So there's, there's ecosystem benefits, but also I feel like We're at the point now where the, the AI technology, the voice assistant technology has also improved where these things can be way more useful. And, you know, that's Apple's game is not being first in a lot of these areas. It's coming in at the right moment where they've got the product that will actually appeal to some people. Also, I mean, the idea of it knowing who you are and which person is standing by it and which person's giving, giving orders, like not only is that good, if there's a bunch of data coming from your phone as a part of this, which I think it is. But also like this has been one of those blind spots for Apple for years now, which is this idea that more than one person uses a product like they just don't.

Jason Snell [00:40:02]:
In the iPhone era, they just have not thought that way. And there's a little bit of that in the HomePod now, but like it's so limited and they added a little bit to the Apple TV, but like there's a lot of potential. If you can seamlessly have, let's say, 2 people who live in a house and they each have their own iPhones, or maybe even more than 2 people in the house, they've each got their own iPhones and that you don't have to sweat it because it knows that when you ask for something, it knows who you are, it knows what your phone is, it sees your phone and it does the right thing. If they can pull that off, that's also really good because that's an area that they have just completely, you know, just not focused on.

Leo Laporte [00:40:38]:
It will apparently, according to Gurman, have a virtual ring light on it so it can see you in the dark and have face recognition so that it does know when you walk up to it without you saying a word. Oh, that's Christina. I think this is aimed at a family, right? We have many users in the house.

Christina Warren [00:40:57]:
Yeah, I mean, I would hope so, right? And, and to Jason's point, this is an area that Apple has just kind of abdicated in the iPhone era, right? I mean, like the fact that, you know, the, the iPad I think even the most egregious example.

Leo Laporte [00:41:09]:
Yeah.

Christina Warren [00:41:09]:
Because that is a device that multiple people use, that you don't buy each person an iPad, and yet you cannot unless you set it up with MDM and set it up like a school. There's no way to really have multiple user accounts on it. A phone I can kind of get. But the other stuff, like Jason said, they've made some modifications to the TV and they've made some changes to the other stuff. But I like this and I don't think that you need the full power of Face ID or biometrics. But if you can do some sort of recognition and know, yeah, when I walk up to this, this is who I am and it's going to immediately know to use my profile. I like that. I think that that's a great solution for, for a family or, you know, multi-person dwelling or whatever the case may be.

Leo Laporte [00:41:49]:
Siri does that sort of now, right? If you talk to a HomePod, it kind of knows.

Christina Warren [00:41:54]:
Yeah, it does. Kind of. But, but, but, but I don't know. I've run into the— again, like my priors are I don't use the HomePod.

Andy Ihnatko [00:42:01]:
Right.

Christina Warren [00:42:02]:
I just don't. So I'm not running into this sort of situation because when I tried for many, many years, it was such a problem. I know they've added it, but also all those devices are many years old. So how well it works, I don't know. I'm glad that they've— they're going in the right direction. What I would really hope, and this is obviously me being greedy, is that there would be some sort of guest mode because that's the sort of thing I think that on all of these devices, and it's not just Apple here I'm going to criticize, Sonos, I'm going to criticize Google, I'm going to criticize Amazon, everybody. The guest mode stuff is not great. And you're better, I think, like within the Amazon ecosystem just by using, you know, the buzzword and activating and it'll usually play off of whatever streaming service it's connected to.

Christina Warren [00:42:47]:
But in a lot of other cases, like even with like Sonos, like I'm going to have to, you know, download an app and do something else if I don't have the voice, you know, the voice assistant turned on. So I think having some sort of guest mode, that would be really nice.

Jason Snell [00:43:02]:
Just putting that out there. So yeah, it may be necessary if it— a lot of widgets and things are pushed from phones, it kind of needs a fallback when the phones aren't there, when it doesn't know who you are to function. So that, I think that needs to happen. Yeah, for sure.

Leo Laporte [00:43:16]:
In my mind, the real gamble here is this home automation gamble. And if Apple could nail it, I think there'd be a lot of people would be very interested. Gurman says Apple envisions customers placing several of the displays throughout their homes. They could be used to control thermostats, door locks, and other connected products, as well as for video calls, intercom-style communication, music playback, and viewing slideshows of photos stored in Apple's iCloud service. And one of the things they would do better than Amazon's Echo devices is First of all, Amazon wants you to pay for the slideshow. There's a monthly fee if you want a slideshow, and if you don't, then you get ads and other crap inserted into your pictures. Uh, so Apple could do very well, uh, with this, especially if it works. But I guess people would have to have HomeKit-enabled devices everywhere.

Jason Snell [00:44:10]:
Yeah, although, I mean, the compatibility is Better than it used to be, and also I think that this is going to be part of a push where they are going to have in Apple stores and on Apple's website and all of that. Like here are the things, various things you can buy to integrate, but it's way better than it used to be. I mean, there's not a lot of stuff. There's legacy stuff that's out there that is incompatible, but like the whole Matter Alliance has has ended up leading leading to a a détente where there are not a lot of products out there that are like it only works with Amazon or it only works with Google Home.

Leo Laporte [00:44:43]:
It pretty much I have a Ring doorbell and it's supposed to show up on my Amazon device, but half the time it doesn't. Sometimes the Amazon devices shout throughout the whole house, there's someone at the front door. And then lately it hasn't done that. So it's all very kind of hit and miss. If Apple could nail this and really make it a smart home and you talk to it and— Now, how much are these gonna be? I mean, where are people gonna, buy multiple $500 devices?

Christina Warren [00:45:13]:
No, they're not. No, they're not.

Leo Laporte [00:45:16]:
I mean, that's a fantasy.

Christina Warren [00:45:17]:
Let's be honest about that. That's a complete fantasy. They're not going to buy multiple. I don't think you're going to buy multiple, period, unless they were priced really, really aggressively. And with the screen and with the memory that's required, there's no way they could do these things. There's no way they can do that. So, yeah, no, I don't think there's any way that— look, that's a beautiful fantasy from all of these companies that we will just have these in every room of our house. But like, come on, like the people who want that sort of setup already have them, and they have them from companies like Crestron, right? And they pay many, many, many times—

Leo Laporte [00:45:45]:
Very expensive.

Christina Warren [00:45:46]:
Yes, they do. But, but those people already have this sort of thing set up. So if you're wanting this for like regular consumers, I don't know. I don't think that—

Leo Laporte [00:45:53]:
That's how you know you're in the home of a millionaire, if they have Crestron and they—

Christina Warren [00:45:56]:
Exactly.

Leo Laporte [00:45:57]:
They go shades open and stuff.

Christina Warren [00:45:59]:
1,000%. And, and those, you know, are oftentimes, you know, kind of obsoleted, you know, relatively quickly too. But, but they, but they work the way that they need to work. But I don't know. I'm still ambivalent on this, on this whole category just because I've been burned so many times by various home things. I like Home Assistant, which is an open source project. Yes, that requires manual setup. You can either buy a device from them, but it's not a lot of work.

Christina Warren [00:46:25]:
I think with AI agents especially, it's actually fairly, fairly easy. But you do have to put in a little bit of, you know, elbow grease or at least buy a dedicated, you know, device, whether Raspberry Pi or something else from them, um, from the, the, um, Home Assistant crew. But to me, that's been the thing that's worked for me the most consistently.

Leo Laporte [00:46:45]:
Yeah, I haven't used it.

Christina Warren [00:46:46]:
I don't have to think about anything.

Leo Laporte [00:46:47]:
And I had my agent make a dashboard for every device it could talk to and all of that. But this will be even better, and it will be much more automatic, right? You'll get this Apple thing You put it in the kitchen where everybody's normally gonna put it, and then it will just know. It'll say— the problem is people have already bought, and we're kind of in this Tower of Babel situation where I have Schlage locks. Are they HomeKit enabled? Yeah, but do they know when I walk up with my phone? No, not in that one. And it goes on and on and on. And it makes sense if you're building a house from scratch and you're putting everything in, it kind of makes sense. Uh, it's a little harder to retrofit this. I— you're right.

Leo Laporte [00:47:32]:
It's because I've been burned so many times, Christina.

Jason Snell [00:47:35]:
And that's right. I mean, we all have. Anybody who's used this category has been burned many times. And I mean, like I said, I, I have had multiple devices in this category. I don't like any of them. I— and so I think it is a— I think it is fair to simultaneously be excited, like maybe This one, but also think that's what Charlie Brown thinks when he's trying to kick the football. So we'll have to, we'll have to see. I, now this is, it's funny.

Jason Snell [00:48:03]:
Um, there's a story that maybe we'll talk about, about how, or maybe you talked about last week. I don't know when it came out about how John Ternus is trying to get Apple to be more responsive and work faster. And I was thinking about—

Leo Laporte [00:48:14]:
We did. We talked about that last week.

Jason Snell [00:48:15]:
When you're talking about Home Assistant and Homebridge is a simpler app that does that. I, I know I mentioned the détente about home stuff earlier. It's like, I don't know, it kind of feels to me like if you really wanted to be fast and clever and aggressive in your home strategy, maybe you'd consider bridging some of that stuff yourself.

Leo Laporte [00:48:38]:
Well, didn't they own— they, they were in the Matter Alliance. They participated in that.

Christina Warren [00:48:43]:
Yeah.

Jason Snell [00:48:43]:
Oh yeah, absolutely. But I'm just thinking, like, could there be a clever thing that runs on an Apple TV or on one of these hubs that actually adds some back—

Leo Laporte [00:48:51]:
like a smart thing.

Jason Snell [00:48:53]:
That was the most common things that are bridged by something like Homebridge, so that even though they're not HomeKit compatible, maybe Apple takes the top 100 of those and—

Christina Warren [00:49:04]:
Right.

Jason Snell [00:49:05]:
And even just works with Home Assistant. Well, I was, I was gonna say picks up Homebridge or Home Assistant and just kind of like does that. I'm not saying they will do that now, but like that's the kind of outside the box for Apple thinking that like, if this matters to you, why would you not set a little project? And this is, I think, what that story was implying is that Apple just doesn't do this kind of thing, which is like, take a few people, do a little project, give them a goal of the 200 best-selling, 100 best-selling smart home devices over the last 5 years that are likely or that are likely to be in service still that are not HomeKit compatible and say, could we add a compatibility layer where they just show up, right? Like you could say, oh, well, we're Apple, we wouldn't do that. But if I'm John Ternus, maybe I say, why not? Doesn't it make our product better?

Christina Warren [00:49:53]:
Exactly. I mean, and I would go one step further. I would say, A, I don't think it would take that much with thanks to AI and, you know, open source work. I don't know how much engineering effort you would even have to require to do that. Although I agree with you, I would love to have that built in. But B, I mean, I think you could go one step further and you could say, okay, we'll dedicate engineering resources to this, but we will also donate to the open source communities, whether it's Homebridge or Home Assistant or something else, which would be a great PR win. Because again, these are the people who are like the Home Assistant people are the ones who keep these things going. A new device comes out and it's, you know, one person needs to scratch an itch and they will stay up all night and they will scratch that itch.

Christina Warren [00:50:31]:
And that's actually the origin story between, behind one of the maintainers of Home Assistant was that when his son, I believe, was was, you know, had just been born. He was, you know, up all night and needed to get compatibility with like kind of an esoteric item. And then that became, you know, led to him becoming a major prolific contributor to the project. But I mean, these are the sorts of things I'm with you, Jason, like to have it built in on whatever we're going to call this hub, whether it's an Apple TV or it's a, you know, HomePod or whatever, having that sort of thing built in at the software level by Apple, or even just dedicating money to some of these projects and saying, we know that you are thinking about this for us and we're going to make it easy for you to work with it. Like, why not? I think that would be a great way of moving ahead and, and honestly improving your entire ecosystem.

Leo Laporte [00:51:23]:
Well, we'll see if you guys are Charlie Browns and John Ternus is Lucy. Oh, I, you know, there is a Huge opportunity for Apple. This would be a giant victory for Apple if they could take this category that has been just a failing category for so many years and make people live in the home of the future. I think this would be huge.

Jason Snell [00:51:48]:
I think that's why Ternus thinks there's an opportunity here. Apple's not paid attention to this. It was easy for— I don't know, the story keeps changing. For the longest time, it was like Apple's just missed the boat here and it's It's too late and Google and Amazon have gone off and it's like, forget about it. And now you look and you're like, but they didn't really go off. They got in the boat, but their boats are just there and all the boats are just sitting there. And like, there is opportunity. And the places where you've seen growth are things like a Ring doorbell, which is not really an ecosystem.

Jason Snell [00:52:18]:
I mean, Amazon wants it to be, but it's just like a product that people like. And, and I think there's totally opportunity for Apple to do Apple at its best, to do its thing. I'm not saying it will do this, but the opportunity is still there for this stuff to be way better than it is if Apple cares about it.

Leo Laporte [00:52:36]:
But that's the question. It could be like the iPod. It could be a groundbreaking product.

Jason Snell [00:52:42]:
It could be. I would also say we don't— it doesn't need to go that far. Like we talked about the price earlier. I think, I think if this starts out as something that makes being in the Apple ecosystem better, but it's a little too expensive, like I think that probably is where it will start.

Leo Laporte [00:52:59]:
Yeah.

Jason Snell [00:52:59]:
But like there's opportunity for them to adjust that strategy if it works over time. Because again, this is a category that everybody thought would be big 10 years ago and it's around, it's kicking around. But like I said, other than the occasional security camera or door smart doorbell or something like that, it really hasn't resonated with the vast majority of people. Obviously in our sphere, I mean, I got my lights are smart, my, I mean, oh my God, there's so much, a smart lock and all of that. But like, For regular people, it's only now— like smart locks is a great example. I think now that there is ultra-wideband in smart locks, smart locks actually make sense for the first time.

Leo Laporte [00:53:35]:
Where you walk up to the door and it opens.

Jason Snell [00:53:37]:
And it just opens because it sees you there and it doesn't have to do a Bluetooth hack. It doesn't need— you don't need to hold it and do an NFC read. It just knows you're there. Like maybe now is the moment. I'm not saying they're going to succeed here. I think it's still a heavy lift, but I think they— what they haven't done Even— I mean, they fumbled it away, right? Except that everybody else also failed. So it's still kind of theirs to, to, to get if they want to, if they, if they manage to execute. So we'll just— I'm fascinated by it because it's like a whole new direction for them.

Leo Laporte [00:54:09]:
And totally.

Jason Snell [00:54:09]:
And, and by all accounts, Ternus thinks this is an interesting area, which is— you could tell because let me tell you, 5 years ago they didn't seem to care. So maybe this time. Maybe.

Leo Laporte [00:54:22]:
Uh, they also, uh, reportedly are working on a smart home camera that doesn't record video. This is also from, um, Mark Gurman and his Power On podcast. Oh, damn it, we used to be the Power On podcast. Oh well. Um, so that's really interesting, a sensor that can't pull in video footage, but It analyzes what's going on. And I mean, that's very interesting. I have, you know, my cameras are cameras, but most of what I see is just text, you know, unless I want to look at a camera. I guess that's kind of an interesting thing.

Leo Laporte [00:55:01]:
It could say there's a package or there's somebody coming up the walk without actually shooting video of it.

Christina Warren [00:55:07]:
To me, that also makes it sound similar to what the rumors have been about what types of cameras might be in AirPods.

Leo Laporte [00:55:15]:
Right.

Christina Warren [00:55:16]:
So, so from a sensor perspective. So that's interesting. I don't know. I don't like the IP camera space at all, to be honest with you. It's not— I don't really want Apple to make a security camera. I don't really like— I don't like Ring. I don't like a lot of those things. I feel it's just—

Jason Snell [00:55:32]:
it's—

Christina Warren [00:55:33]:
I know people—

Leo Laporte [00:55:34]:
Do you live in an apartment or a home?

Christina Warren [00:55:36]:
I live in an apartment, but it's First, why? Well, but even in the house, my parents, like, they have some of these things and it's fine, I think, if you're running it locally. I don't, I don't like these things. I don't like the fact that, like, the, the cops can get access to your doorbell data. Oh yeah, I agree with you.

Leo Laporte [00:55:50]:
I don't upload anything. Yeah, all my cameras are local.

Christina Warren [00:55:53]:
Yeah, yeah, for me this is like a complete privacy issue.

Leo Laporte [00:55:55]:
But Lisa won't let us have cameras in the house because she says, I don't want pictures of me walking around in my jammies. And I understand that, and that's— I think that's a normal reaction. So if it's a camera that can tell you, well, there are people in your house, or there's a package on your front stoop, without actually sending an image to the police.

Jason Snell [00:56:15]:
That's interesting.

Leo Laporte [00:56:16]:
I think there might be interest in that. I think that's a very interesting idea. It's a privacy-forward— and it might be something that not just for the AirPods, but also for Apple Glasses, because that's what people don't like about the glasses. They don't want their picture taken, right? But I want, I want Glasses with the cameras in them.

Christina Warren [00:56:34]:
I was gonna— I think the glasses are a harder thing to kind of get over because in that case, especially if there is an indicator light and something else, I think you can make an argument that says, I know that this is, this is being recorded and this is the potential that's happening. I think it's a little bit different when, okay, whatever my neighbors are choosing to do, and, and because, you know, they're basically—

Leo Laporte [00:56:53]:
Well, I intentionally point my Ring doorbell in a way that it can't see anything but our— just our front entryway. It doesn't see the street and stuff. I don't want to spy on our neighbors. But you're right, my neighbors, I'm sure, wonder.

Christina Warren [00:57:08]:
Well, and the thing is, is that if, you know, something happens and then the police can come out and they can say, oh, well, whether you're— doesn't matter where your camera was pointed.

Leo Laporte [00:57:15]:
We're taking the video.

Christina Warren [00:57:16]:
We're going to take the video. And I'm like, okay.

Leo Laporte [00:57:18]:
As in every CSI episode for the last 10 years. So yeah, I have 8, it turns out. When we bought this house, they had wired it up for 8 cameras. So, I have cameras all around the house. Nothing ever happens. It's kind of fun. And it does descriptions. For a while, I had the AI do descriptions as limericks, which it can perfectly well do.

Leo Laporte [00:57:45]:
And then I had it do it in Shakespearean dialect, but that was too much. So, now it's just back to prose. But it's handy, like, you know, when a package got there or, you know, there is a package there.

Jason Snell [00:57:55]:
Oh, yeah.

Christina Warren [00:57:55]:
Yeah, for sure. Or, and I know people like, I know people do who are not opposed to having them in their house, like to be able to watch, you know, their pets and—

Leo Laporte [00:58:03]:
Yeah, Lisa does want that. She wants a way to talk to the cat.

Christina Warren [00:58:05]:
Right. Like, I'm not discounting that. I'm just personally not a fan of the IP camera space in general. But that's just me.

Jason Snell [00:58:12]:
I get it. And we'll see. I mean, Apple's walking a line here where they're like, well, what if we have a camera That is, first off, it's HomeKit Secure Video, so it's end-to-end encrypted and nobody else can get to it, not even Apple, only you. And then they've got some stuff that runs on device that does some basic summation of what's in there, but it's not, you know, so what you're really getting is kind of a text log and that you may be able to do some stuff based on that, but it's not retaining that video necessarily in a way that it can act on what it sees, but it doesn't necessarily hold onto it. I think Apple is trying to explore ways. This is just like the Apple Watch stuff, right? Which is like, okay, we have the capability to do so much. What would be the right way to do it? And even that our society may decide no, that not even if it's the right way, we just don't do it. But I think that they're exploring that kind of idea of like, is there utility? So they've got that AI summary thing now that shipped in 27 where it will do an AI summary of what the camera sees.

Jason Snell [00:59:13]:
by doing that kind of processing of the HomeKit Secure Video. It's interesting. Maybe there are ways that would make people less comfortable. I'm, I'm with Lisa. Like, I don't really want a camera in my house at all, um, but I do have one in, in at the front of my house looking out. And, you know, is it— is that actually useful? I mean, I had a water main break out there a few weeks ago during MacBreak Weekly, and I wondered what the noises were that I was hearing.

Christina Warren [00:59:39]:
Yeah, I saw that picture.

Jason Snell [00:59:40]:
And I looked and my, my whole street was flooded. That was useful. But like, I don't know, I like that they're trying because I think they're aware that their competition is not going to necessarily care about these issues as much as Apple and Apple's brand require it to. And so there's that. I think it's a good exercise for them that maybe it's going to also be good for all of us to find out like, okay, if a tech giant did do this right, how would we feel? And the answer may be still don't like it. But at least we'd know.

Leo Laporte [01:00:10]:
Well, get ready because Apple is getting prepared for the iCup, and we're gonna talk— not E-Y-E, just i— we're going to talk about that. Andy Ihnatko made a big discovery. It makes sense because he's the iColumnist here on the show. We're going to have more with Andy, Christina, and Jason in just a little bit. What is the iCup service team? Andy Ihnatko says there's a job waiting for you at Apple.

Andy Ihnatko [01:00:42]:
Apparently, uh, this is, this isn't something I found. Aaron Paris, who contributes to MacRumors, found—

Leo Laporte [01:00:48]:
It feels like an April Fool's joke. Apparently it's October 5th.

Andy Ihnatko [01:00:53]:
So it's a, it's a, it's a new job posted on September 26th on Apple's jobs page for an iCup supply specialist. It's amazing because the first paragraph is all about Apple's global real estate portfolio and workplace services. We are seeking a detail-oriented, organized, independent worker to join our team as an iCup supply specialist to manage a large portfolio of bean-to-cup coffee machines distributed throughout Santa Clara Valley. You are not going to get this job for less than $200,000 a year.

Leo Laporte [01:01:30]:
It's your responsibility to ensure all Apple employees have access to freshly brewed coffee in their break room.

Andy Ihnatko [01:01:38]:
What a title though. iCup Supply Specialist on your LinkedIn. The world is your oyster.

Leo Laporte [01:01:44]:
Oh, think of all the fun you'd have doing that. And you know what? It only requires a high school diploma. So everybody, that's all I've got. I could be an iCup Specialist. You could be an i— and you and you and you. You think there's just one job though?

Andy Ihnatko [01:02:01]:
Well, you are reporting to the iCup service supervisor.

Leo Laporte [01:02:05]:
Oh, whoa, all right.

Andy Ihnatko [01:02:07]:
There's room for advancement.

Leo Laporte [01:02:08]:
There's a management— a management job. Wow, fantastic. So those of us on the public beta got 27.2 this week. Uh, and what did you get? Big pile of nothing. No, there's a new messages feature. That is actually suggestions are back. They were pulled from the beta. But they're back.

Leo Laporte [01:02:38]:
So I actually use those all the time because I'm lazy. And I don't, you know, if you text me, you're gonna get a suggestion back. That's your— my watch does it. I don't know why the phone wouldn't. So, and I don't know, they're pretty good.

Christina Warren [01:02:56]:
Right? They're okay.

Leo Laporte [01:02:58]:
They're a little generic. Okay. And you can add it to your reminders or add it to your notes. I think that's good. I don't know. This is all just part of making Apple's devices just a little bit smarter. Are you excited about your Duo, Christina?

Christina Warren [01:03:14]:
I am. I'm excited about the Duo. I mean, I'm definitely like, there are a lot of unknowns that we have about like the the device itself and whatnot. But no, I'm, I'm excited about it. I'm excited to, to live my best 3-phone life.

Andy Ihnatko [01:03:28]:
Oh, wait a minute.

Leo Laporte [01:03:28]:
3?

Christina Warren [01:03:29]:
Well, okay, I'm going to have to do the handoff. It'll be one of those things where the Duo will be my main phone.

Leo Laporte [01:03:34]:
Yeah.

Christina Warren [01:03:35]:
Except in circumstances where I actually want a quality camera and then I'll have my work phone. But I will have 3 devices. Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:03:42]:
You're going to need a little pouch to carry those.

Christina Warren [01:03:44]:
Well, I'm not going to carry all 3 with me all the time. Like at any given time, I'll only have, you know, 2 unless I'm traveling, in which case, yeah. Now, and this is not unfamiliar for me, I'm going to, you know, TSA knows, like, I'm like, yes, I have multiple laptops. Yes, I have multiple phones. Yes, I have multiple iPads.

Leo Laporte [01:04:01]:
Are you smuggling? What are you up to, young lady?

Christina Warren [01:04:04]:
No, it's just how I travel. And so it's just one of those things. And the annoying thing is they'll give you different things at different airports. Like some airports, they'll be like, oh no, put all the gadgets it's in one thing. And then sometimes I'm like, okay, but I've done this at this airport before, and you yell at me and you say, no, you need to separate them into different, you know, bins. And, and I have TSA PreCheck. And then sometimes they'll be like, no, no, no, no, our scanners are good enough, we can differentiate. And then they'll come back and they'll be like, no, no, no, no, you actually needed to separate this.

Christina Warren [01:04:31]:
I'm like, right, that's what I told you 5 minutes ago. We could have saved us all a lot of time.

Leo Laporte [01:04:35]:
But yeah, you never, never know. Uh, yeah, I'm actually so excited, I'm already looking When I get like a new app, if it supports the iPad and, you know, I want— I'm looking for apps that are gonna look good on that screen, you know? And I'm already thinking that.

Christina Warren [01:04:57]:
Yeah, no, this is an interesting thing I've been kind of working through on some of my own personal projects has been like using the simulator and using like just other kind of viewport stuff to be like, okay, how is this going to look on the Duo screen.

Leo Laporte [01:05:08]:
Right.

Christina Warren [01:05:09]:
And there are some edge cases for some things that you just don't think about. And that's going to be interesting. I think there will be probably a little more than maybe we've been used to in a while, which is totally okay. You know, kind of like teething time, right? Where there are going to be apps that come out that are not going to necessarily be as beautiful and as perfect as we want. But I think that people will figure that out relatively quickly and I'm glad to see that developers are already starting to update those things. I think submissions started officially yesterday, so you can now start submitting your App Store updates with support based on the simulator. And obviously we'll need real hardware for people to, again, really be able to get those edge cases. But no, I'm excited and I think that this is great.

Christina Warren [01:05:53]:
And hopefully, you know, all the LLMs will get the details ASAP so that what they're building will be like just in terms of guidance overall. And I don't just mean apps here. I mean websites too, because websites are actually the area where I've run into more issues than I would expect because we've expected like this, you know, 9 by 16 kind of viewport for so long for a mobile device that now having it be slightly squatter, first of all, you know, if it's not open and then in open mode, that's also an interesting kind of profile, um, and aspect ratio. And so, um, it's, it's gonna, you know, require some finagling, but, um, I'm excited.

Leo Laporte [01:06:34]:
Yeah, I'm very excited. Uh, and it's interesting you mentioned AI because more and more and more my phone is not for calling, it's not for texting, it's not for taking pictures, it's for interacting with my AI. And so I want an app that's gonna take advantage of that, that form factor. And I might have to write my own, although I think— well, it'd be my pick of the week. I think I found something that actually is gonna be great. Let's see, what else?

Christina Warren [01:07:06]:
We should talk about the—

Leo Laporte [01:07:07]:
The camera on the 18. Have you played with that at all yet?

Christina Warren [01:07:11]:
That'd be Jason.

Leo Laporte [01:07:13]:
Okay, I have played with my wife's.

Jason Snell [01:07:15]:
Only a little.

Leo Laporte [01:07:18]:
I will agree it is the best camera yet. We took a— Lisa and I took a— I have my 17, she has her 18, both Pro Maxes. Took a same picture of a beautiful little dog, a lot of detail in the fur and stuff. And if you really look at it, the 18 is better, but you have to really look at it.

Jason Snell [01:07:39]:
Of course. I mean, I think that's— it's incremental. This is, this is the thing, it is incremental. It's going to impress people who are coming from 3, 4 generations back. If you're, you know, I would think at this point, if you're buying a new phone every year, you're used to this being incremental most of the time. And it is that again. I mean, it's just not a— this is a great year for the iPhone Duo to come out because the 18 is a very solid phone, the 18 Pro, but it's not that much better than the 17 Pro, which was also a very, very solid phone. And so it's, I mean, it's boring, which is fine.

Jason Snell [01:08:17]:
I mean, it's fine. Not everything needs to be super pulse-pounding, change your life. And Apple generally doesn't work that way. They will do an iPhone Duo from time to time. But meanwhile, in the background, that iPhone Pro just gets better every year. And 3 years later, you buy a new one. You're like, wow, it's so much better. And that's because it's gotten incrementally better every year.

Jason Snell [01:08:36]:
And you weren't paying attention because you didn't need to. You had your phone. Yeah. And that's just— I mean, that's just how it is. This is the danger of those of us who obsess over every change every year is that it's imperceptible change or nearly imperceptible change so often.

Christina Warren [01:08:51]:
Yeah, I think— I think last year was an interesting year because we did get across the board like 3 really great phones. You know, you had like the iPhone Air, which was a compromise but was really thin and really beautiful. You had the iPhone, you know, 17, Pro and Pro Max, which really did kind of, you know, had a new design and added new thermal capabilities. And then you had the base iPhone, which added the 120Hz display and you had the, you know, better front-facing camera and all that stuff. And that, that's hard, I think, for anybody to kind of match. But you're exactly right. Most people are buying a phone every few years and most people are not going to be getting an iPhone Duo. And so if you're getting like an iPhone right now, like the iPhone 18 Pro is a fantastic, um, device.

Leo Laporte [01:09:34]:
But you won't get 6-pointed stars on the lights. That's not gonna happen unless you have an 18.

Christina Warren [01:09:40]:
Nope.

Jason Snell [01:09:40]:
Sure.

Christina Warren [01:09:41]:
But you know, that's okay. I think, I think, I think though, but if you— again, I think most people who are buying the 18 are people not who had a 17, but people who had a 15 or a 14. And what a great upgrade for you.

Leo Laporte [01:09:51]:
Wesley Hilliard, uh, writing, uh, for Apple Insider actually makes a very good point. Probably others have made it too, but that's where I saw it first, which is the new sensor on the 18 Pro Max is, uh, is actually brighter. It's f/1.48, which, uh, which is more than f/1.78 in the 17. And because of that, when you shoot fully open, as the earlier models have, it's not going to be fully crisp. So the aperture— he says the mechanical aperture was kind of likely one of necessity, which is, I think, a very interesting way to put it. You don't— my friend Gary said, I'm thinking about getting a new one, what do you think? And I said, you know, if you don't care about 6-pointed stars, I don't think the aperture is gonna make much of a difference. The camera's a little bit better if you really pixel peep. The biggest thing is battery life, if you ask me.

Leo Laporte [01:10:49]:
Jason, you agree? You've been playing with it.

Jason Snell [01:10:50]:
Yeah, it— I mean, battery life's impressive. The Pro has what the Pro Max had last year. The Pro Max has even more. That's a combination of the chip and the battery. And again, it's iterative because most people are coming from a 3-year-old phone with a 3-year-old battery, and they're going to be blown away by that battery improvement. Whereas people coming from a 1-year-old phone with a 1-year-old battery will notice, right? Because it's not just better, but it's better than your year-old battery. But, you know, again, it's all— Yeah. In the end, for most people, unless you've got a plan where it just makes sense to do it every year, right? Like, you know, an update every year will get you a better phone, but is it worth it? And that's fine.

Jason Snell [01:11:36]:
Like, Apple knows that. Apple, that's part of Apple's game too. But like, as somebody with a 17 Pro that I love, the 18 Pro is fine. But like, I don't know, you got to work really hard to see what's different about it. You got to work hard.

Christina Warren [01:11:51]:
Yeah, it has a worse color. Is, is that—

Jason Snell [01:11:53]:
it does.

Christina Warren [01:11:54]:
It doesn't have the orange.

Jason Snell [01:11:56]:
It does. That is a problem.

Leo Laporte [01:11:59]:
Uh, one thing I did notice a number of people, uh, posting about, which I thought was kind of interesting, is that Apple is going to change the way full disk access works.

Andy Ihnatko [01:12:11]:
And they say—

Christina Warren [01:12:11]:
We're talking about this.

Leo Laporte [01:12:12]:
They say they're going to change it because of agentic AI, including Muse. So what is the story here, Christina?

Christina Warren [01:12:23]:
So from what I understand, basically someone used Muse and gave it full disk access, which it asked for, and it can't just do automatically. Like, you had to actually open up settings yourself and grant it full disk access. Did not necessarily understand that it was giving it full disk access and what that entailed. And then because Muse was able to read its text messages from iMessage from the database on the Mac, and that was not what this user wanted, a huge outcry happened. I think that's a little bit like oversensationalizing like what the problem is. But I think the broader problem that Apple's probably dealing with is the fact that you have apps like Muse, like ChatGPT, like Muse, by the way, we should mention comes from Meta.

Leo Laporte [01:13:07]:
And I think if it didn't come from Meta, people wouldn't be quite so concerned.

Christina Warren [01:13:11]:
Well, I think that they maybe Maybe. I think that it probably wouldn't have gone viral the way that it went viral. Ironically, it went viral on Threads, which is the funniest part of all of this.

Leo Laporte [01:13:20]:
So it went viral on a platform—

Christina Warren [01:13:20]:
Well, that's the thing.

Leo Laporte [01:13:21]:
People who hate Meta are using Instagram, WhatsApp.

Christina Warren [01:13:24]:
I know.

Leo Laporte [01:13:25]:
They say, well, I'll never use Facebook, but they— or Threads. They're using Meta products.

Christina Warren [01:13:29]:
Right. So, so, I mean, and to be clear, I'm not defending the way that Muse accessed things that it claimed it couldn't access. But if you're going to provide an agent or any sort of application, frankly, with full disk access, you should understand what that means.

Leo Laporte [01:13:43]:
Well, and Siri gets it by default, right?

Christina Warren [01:13:45]:
So, uh, yeah, and, and, and, and that's, that's because Apple's always going to be favored nations with themselves, right? I think the, the problem is, and, and, and Jason can speak more about this because I know Dan wrote something about this for, uh, for Six Colors, but the, the problem is for me there are 2 things. One, I have a feeling it was not just this Muse incident. I think that might have been an inciting thing, but this has been a thing that's been coming on for a while because Because what's happened is that the ChatGPT desktop app, you know, whether you're coding or not, these things get full access. You can provide them full access to your computer and they can do amazing things for you. They can run everything for you if you give it the right access permissions. That's really dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. And I think Apple has to fight like the balance between, okay, how much are we letting people know what these third-party apps are capable of doing and that, hey, this is not our fault. if, you know, your OpenClaw or your Hermes or whatever the case may be deletes all of your mail or messages or sends, you know, a bunch of spam to everyone in your address book, right? Like the Apple Store does not want to deal with those support cases.

Christina Warren [01:14:47]:
And I understand that. But on the flip side, I also worry where I'm going, okay, but what additional, like, I guess, complications are we now going to be adding into this process for legitimate developers who need full disk access just for their application to work correctly? Because Apple has not created a granular way in which you can access certain things or where other apps can even tell who has full disk access and who doesn't, which, you know, just creates more and more complications. And so I think that the— my fear is that this will wind up leading to more locked-down Macs, which we don't want, and not even solving the core issue, which is that, look, if people are going to be dumb and give, you know, an agentic, you know, thing access to their entire disk, you can't expect the agents to not read your messages database. To me, that's just one of those trade-offs that you need to take on if you're going to be putting any of those assistants on your main device, period.

Jason Snell [01:15:47]:
Yeah, and people are going to be dumb.

Christina Warren [01:15:49]:
Yeah, they are.

Jason Snell [01:15:50]:
And the challenge for Apple is it's a lot like running unsigned apps on the Mac, right? You can do it, but Apple has put layers in the way, and the reason they did that is because people would get on the phone, you know, and they would socially engineer people through— all you have to do is Control-click on that app and choose Open, and then when the dialog box comes up, say OK, and then that unsigned app runs. And you can't do that anymore. Now you have to go into System Settings and you have to find the right privacy setting and you have to click, and there's like many hoops and it's annoying. for users who wanna run an app that is unsigned. But I talked to Apple's Mac security people and they said it closed that off. Like those phishing attempts fail now because it's too many steps and people say, wait a second. Or the phishing people are like, this is too many steps. There's no way they're gonna work.

Jason Snell [01:16:43]:
We're gonna move on to some other thing. And now it's like pasting things into Terminal and they've moved there, but they've solved it. So like Apple has to figure out what to do with those of us who wanna do this stuff, While also protecting people who don't understand what it is that they're doing. And this is Apple's role as the platform owner. They are trying to protect people, but they also have this open platform where there are— where they are benefiting greatly in their sales of Mac Studios and Mac Minis by making these things capable of doing this. And I— my personal opinion is Apple let As focused as it's been on privacy and security, Apple lets some of its fundamental Mac security kind of fester or kind of, kind of like drift away. And full disk access is it. Where full disk access, they've added a bunch of granular permissions, but they've always had like, or just full disk access and then forget it.

Jason Snell [01:17:40]:
It can see everything. And like, there are apps, they said like backup apps, there are probably others, but that's the, that was how it came in.

Leo Laporte [01:17:46]:
Mm-hmm.

Jason Snell [01:17:47]:
is that backup apps need to see your whole disk so they could back it up. Makes sense, right? But then other apps are like, I could use full disk access too. And Apple, it's kind of gotten away from them. And that's what you do if you want to just give some app everything is you give them accessibility and full disk access and it's over, right? And so I think what this is signaling, Apple is warning everybody that they are going to get more granular. What I really want, and there are some rumors that this might happen, is that app permissions need to get rolled up. Because I mean, look, I wrote a piece that went viral a few years ago where I took a screenshot of what happened when I installed a new OS version or migrated to a new Mac.

Andy Ihnatko [01:18:27]:
Yeah.

Jason Snell [01:18:27]:
And I had literally like 25 dialogues open asking for various permissions all at once. Like the thing they've been missing all along is a security roll-up. pop-up that says, this app, Claude, ChatGPT, Muse, would like access to things on your system. Here's what it's asking for. We'll tell you what those things mean. And you can choose what you want to give it access to and what you don't want to give it access to. In the end, as a user, you should be able to say, yeah, I know, I do want Muse to look at everything on my system. But In a way that will give the user the power to say no, to understand what's going on, and also make apps that are asking for too much permission to realize they can't do that anymore, that they need to back off.

Jason Snell [01:19:18]:
And I think that's where they're going here. I don't know what the details are going to be, but I do think that that's what they're trying to do is basically say— And people are like, they'll roll their eyes and say, oh no, no, Apple's just going to lock it all down. I heard that when they introduced Gatekeeper and code signing and stuff like that on macOS. And at the time they said, and they've reinforced it since, look, you can run stuff if you want. We're not going to, we're not going to stop you. And all those Mac mini sales show they're not going to stop you. They want to sell those Mac minis, but they are going to get in your way. They're going to get in your face and you're going to say, do you know what this app is going to try to do? And hopefully they'll do it in a way that is good for users.

Jason Snell [01:20:01]:
That's also for good— Ben Thompson made this point this week— good for users who use agents, because one of the problems is if it throws up a dialog and you've got to be in front of the computer to use the UI, that's actually really annoying if your computer is just in a closet somewhere. So they need to find— it's hard. It's a hard problem. But I think they're super motivated to solve it because they don't want this to be a privacy disaster for people who don't understand what they're doing, and they do want to sell a lot of Mac Minis to people who want to build little agents.

Leo Laporte [01:20:32]:
It's tricky, isn't it? So Christina points us to Michael Tsai's article, which I thought was really, uh, good on this. He says really the problem in the Muse case wasn't Muse doing a bad thing. By the way, I gave Muse full disk access, and I remember giving it full disk access. The problem was the guy who complains about it probably forgot that he did it.

Jason Snell [01:20:53]:
Yeah, exactly.

Leo Laporte [01:20:54]:
But, but Michael points out it's also a problem because Apple isn't giving developers a way to ask for granular access, to explain why they want access, what the access is for.

Jason Snell [01:21:05]:
Exactly.

Leo Laporte [01:21:06]:
He says most of my programs do require full disk access because that makes them better for the user, but you don't get to say, well, this is what I want to do, whether this is— and Apple could use intents as they do in many other places, to say, okay, you have access to messages but not the files.

Jason Snell [01:21:24]:
That's what they have to do.

Leo Laporte [01:21:26]:
They should be doing that. They're not. And he says they're just papering over their lack of attention. Apple seems to think, he writes, that by making a scarier warning, they can convince more users not to grant full disk access, or at least perhaps deflect blame from Apple. Maybe that solves Apple's problem, but it doesn't really solve the user's problem. I think people are going— I think people are installing Muse because it's more capable than Siri. They probably do want it to access protected data. I did.

Leo Laporte [01:21:52]:
That's why I turned on full disk access.

Jason Snell [01:21:54]:
Yeah, I think, I think, I think we don't know what Apple's going to do here right now. I, I totally hear Michael's point.

Leo Laporte [01:22:00]:
They just said they're going to do it, but they didn't say how, right?

Jason Snell [01:22:02]:
But, but I mean, he's not wrong. If all they do is make full disk access more annoying They have swept it under the rug again, but I, I don't know. My vibe that I'm getting is that they're going to make a bunch of changes and they're going to— what is full disk access is going to be different, but they've shown a lot of interest in adding granular permissions to other aspects of macOS in the last few years. And I assume that they're going to do some more of that, but we'll see, right? Like, but I think that's what they have to do is they can't just clamp down on full disk access. They need to— right, for, for the, for the people who use these assistants and for the people who don't understand what's going on, they need to be able to communicate this and show what you're saying yes and no to at a high level. I mean, I have that too. Like, there are those moments where Claude is like, I want to do this. And I'm like, great.

Jason Snell [01:22:57]:
But it's like you put it in auto mode and you granted accessibility power and then like, it's over, right? Like the agent can, can do anything now on your system. And when I crossed that threshold, I said to myself, didn't really feel like a threshold, right? Like, and it should, it should. I should have more between what Claude is doing and what the system is doing. We should have a better conversation about what I'm willing to let the app do and what I'm not willing to let the app do without my explicit permission. And right now, You don't have that.

Andy Ihnatko [01:23:36]:
Yeah, but there's one thing I don't trust Apple to do, and that is to give us all of the power and control over this $2,000 device that we own. Uh, because I think that Apple is always at a risk of wrecking the Mac and turning it into the iPad where you can't do the most obvious thing in the world because you don't have an open file system. Or you can't do something that would really help you out because the bootloader is locked down. And once the, once they stop updating your iPad, then it's just simply e-waste and not something you can install an alternative operating system on. So I'm saying that I, I do acknowledge that in this AI agentic world, it's more important for Apple to make sure that there is enough friction. to the process of allowing these agents permissions that people won't do that just simply blindly clicking through approval, click okay, click okay, click okay. $2,000 for a computer and Apple says, oh, we know you want to have full access, but we're giving you something that is so much better than full control over your computer. You're gonna love it.

Andy Ihnatko [01:24:54]:
You're welcome.

Leo Laporte [01:24:54]:
Yeah, they'll just chase people to Linux if they keep doing that.

Andy Ihnatko [01:24:59]:
Yes.

Christina Warren [01:24:59]:
And the snarky people, they want to have control of their system.

Leo Laporte [01:25:03]:
Say why I left Windows, to be honest with you.

Jason Snell [01:25:05]:
This is why I keep saying they're not going to just lock it down because they want to sell those Mac Minis and Mac Studios. They, they like, trust me, they want to sell hardware to people. And Ben Thompson, who I mentioned earlier at Stratechery, he mentioned that like he replaced his Mac that he's using for this stuff with a Linux box for this very reason that he got kind of annoyed by it. Like Apple knows that's a threat. So I think, like I said, I think this is two-sided. I think Apple wants to protect people, but they don't want to shut out the people who want to use the Mac for this stuff because they see the value in it. And I mean, this is like that moment in 2000, 2001 when, and Ben Thompson made a reference to this, this, this week. where all the kind of like Unixy hacker people were like, oh, I should just get a Mac because OS X is Unix underneath it.

Christina Warren [01:25:55]:
Yes.

Jason Snell [01:25:55]:
This is a little like that. And if Apple misplays this, they're missing this opportunity to say, oh, if you really want to take control of your computing life in terms of agents and stuff while having a nice operating system, you got to use the Mac because it'll let you do it. If they blow it, that is bad for their business. So I think they know that. But we'll see how they tackle this, because they also are worried about not just the bad publicity, but all those security issues that come with convincing people to give permissions that they don't understand that lead to bad outcomes.

Leo Laporte [01:26:27]:
Yeah, David Hanemeyer— Ben Thompson's not alone. David Hanemeyer Hansen, who created Ruby on Rails from 43signals, he— I'm sorry, that's not their name anymore. They changed the name. I can't remember.

Christina Warren [01:26:38]:
No, it went back to 37signals. It went basically back 37. It's 37 cycles a second. Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:26:43]:
Thank you.

Christina Warren [01:26:43]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:26:44]:
Uh, I saw him just the other day. He said, uh, you know, I wrote, uh, Ruby on Rails on a Mac. I was a TextMate, like, devotee for many, many years. Uh, he says, I haven't touched a Mac in, in a year since I've gotten into AI. In fact, he's written his own distribution of Linux for agentic use. Uh, I think that may happen. I just asked Muse, do you have full disk access? And it said, oh yeah, I just tested it on your Mac Mini. I can read your mail messages and Safari data, so effectively full disk access over my SSH connection.

Leo Laporte [01:27:16]:
Oh yeah, I gave it SSH as well. Good. How about on the phone? No, not like on the Mac. On your phone, I could see your calendar, contacts, health data, reminders, and photos, but not your messages or location. iOS sandboxes apps anyway. There's no full disk equivalent on the iPhone. But see, I live in YOLO mode. My agents Right, right.

Leo Laporte [01:27:35]:
And that's just everything.

Christina Warren [01:27:36]:
And you understand that.

Jason Snell [01:27:38]:
And I—

Leo Laporte [01:27:38]:
Yeah, but that's right. I know what I'm doing. Yeah.

Christina Warren [01:27:40]:
Right. And this is like, I think Jason pointed out beautifully, like this is like a very like fine line that Apple has to walk because on the one hand, you do not want to lose the enthusiasts who all went to Macs because they were basically, you know, Unix underneath, you know, 25 years ago. You don't want to lose that contingent of new enthusiasts because those will be the people who will be your audience 25 years from now, right? So you don't want to lose that, that audience. But at the same time, you don't want to create security pratfalls and, and, and bad situations and also have people who are not understanding exactly what they've been giving up access to. And so I think—

Leo Laporte [01:28:18]:
They've been walking that tightrope for years though. I mean, this is really the, uh, ever since they went to OS X and, and had Terminal, they've been walking that tightrope. And developers do love the Mac. And maybe, I don't know, maybe they will lose them. I mean, I have to say, I'm really teetering on the edge of— what I'm thinking right now is I'm not gonna get a new car in the fall. I'm gonna get an e-bike and a 512GB Mac Studio, which is about the same, you know, trades off equally. I'll ride the bike more, I'll be healthier, and I'll have them. But one of the issues with the Mac Studio that really is bugging me is, you know, about 30 to 60 gigs of its RAM is used up with the Mac operating system, which I will never ever see or use.

Leo Laporte [01:29:07]:
I'd be much happier with Linux on it because I don't— it's going to sit in a closet. I'm never going to, I'm never going to put a keyboard on it. And, uh, in fact, it's one of the first things I'd probably do is figure out how to strip out every inch of that OS X that I can. Not that I don't like the Mac, but it's That's not the purpose of why you'd be—

Christina Warren [01:29:25]:
right. You're buying a server. You're buying something that they can— yeah, you're buying the hardware. And I think that that's a much bigger, I think, kind of existential problem that Apple's going to have to kind of come to terms with as these things, if these things do become more mainstream. But I think in the present term, the bigger fear is— and look, Microsoft is going to have to deal with this too— is that, you know, the fact that these apps do get so much access to things, And people don't necessarily understand what they can do. And I think even more to the point, they don't understand how quickly they can do what they need to do, right?

Leo Laporte [01:29:59]:
Oh, yeah.

Christina Warren [01:29:59]:
Because I think that there are people like, okay, well, it would take me a really long time to run all of these commands, not recognizing, oh, no, this is just running the shell script. And if this has accessibility access, yeah, this is going to be able to go through and point everything for you and do everything at once. And it'll happen lightning fast. Because the machines are fast enough now. Like, people, I think their priors are probably based on, oh, well, you know, 10 years ago, I would definitely notice if the AI agent was controlling my computer. Now you're not, you're not going to. And I think that that's where people become not comfortable. And then, of course, the agents themselves and the companies behind them need to take some responsibility here too, which is you should not be shipping products, Meta, that you claim don't have access to things that then do have access.

Christina Warren [01:30:43]:
to things, right? Like, if you're going to actually ship a product to a consumer that you're going to charge money for, that you're going to, you know, position as everyone's everyday assistant, you should make it explicitly clear, this is what I have access to. This is all the damage I can do to your life. And you now need to make that decision. And if you're not willing to make those declarations of this is all the damage I can do to your life, then you need to have some sort of sandboxing built into your own system so that it's not accessing those things. Like, to me, that's, you know, some of this is not Apple's fault. This is Meta's fault because they're releasing products so quickly that are not fulfilling the expectations that they themselves set. But I just hope that the final version of this is not that we all wind up with more neutered Macs, because I think to Ben's point and to Jason's point, if that is to happen, then, then people will move off the Mac. Um, the enthusiasts will, and that will be bad long term.

Leo Laporte [01:31:40]:
Yeah. Uh, oh good, I have now a pick of the week because, uh, Anthony's just sent me a GitHub project to strip the Mac Studio down to its bare bones. I'll share that with you, uh, in a little bit later. Uh, let's, uh, pause for a moment. You're watching MacBreak Weekly. Andy Inaco from inaco.com Jason Snell from sixcolors.com, Christina Warren from github.com, and you, you, our dear friends from wherever you are dot com. Um, on we go with the show. Uh, let's see, we've talked about the events, maybe one, maybe two coming up.

Leo Laporte [01:32:24]:
Um, we've talked about the iPhone 18s. Uh, we didn't talk about the AirPod 5s. I mean, there's not much to say except that iFixit has now torn it down.

Christina Warren [01:32:36]:
Oh, there's 2 now, right?

Leo Laporte [01:32:39]:
There's 2 of them?

Christina Warren [01:32:40]:
No, no, I know. I think it got a repairability score of 2 instead of 0.

Leo Laporte [01:32:43]:
So 2 instead of 0.

Andy Ihnatko [01:32:46]:
Well, they, they at least said that it's— you can replace the battery now without totally destroying it.

Leo Laporte [01:32:51]:
That's actually huge.

Christina Warren [01:32:52]:
That is actually—

Andy Ihnatko [01:32:53]:
which, which they acknowledge that a third third-party service that is sufficiently adept might be able to actually give you a new battery for this if you ship them in, which is a huge, huge thing. Baby steps. We'll, we'll take what we get.

Leo Laporte [01:33:07]:
Yeah.

Christina Warren [01:33:07]:
Yeah. So yeah, and I think the more likely thing is that this is still not going to be a thing where you're going to take this to a shop and get, you know, like turn in my pair of AirPods and get that exact same pair back with the battery replaced. I think what's more likely to happen is that, you know, I would the same way you kind of would with the Apple Store now or with some other provider. I would trade in my broken AirPods. They would give me another pair back that used to belong to someone else, but now they can be refurbished much more efficiently, which is a good thing.

Leo Laporte [01:33:35]:
Do you think Apple actually took them apart and put a new battery in when they refurbished it or they just threw it in the trash?

Christina Warren [01:33:41]:
In the past, I don't think that they did. I would not know definitively. I wouldn't, I wouldn't feel confident saying that definitively. But based on the takedown stuff, I would—

Leo Laporte [01:33:48]:
pretty hard to do it.

Christina Warren [01:33:49]:
Yeah, I mean, I, I've had replacement AirPods before. In fact, one time it was like a brand new pair. They had just come out and I dropped mine and they were being finicky and I took them back 2 weeks later and they gave me— they wouldn't give me a new one off the shelf. They gave me— I guess they did have some quote unquote refurbished ones, but they were functionally identical. So I— to my— but what this could change for them is that in the future, this could mean that if Apple's refurbishment process is such that they could swap out the batteries. I imagine though this will be more third parties who are doing mass refurbishments rather than Apple, who's probably still, for their own, you know, standards of quality, going to just, you know, replace the whole things. But you might be able to salvage working batteries that might not otherwise be salvageable and recycle them in a more efficient way, which is good.

Andy Ihnatko [01:34:36]:
Yeah, it's, it's always been a little bit galling to me that this thing becomes e-waste after 3 years of regular use. That's no good. And that's something that I hope, I hope this was a deliberate thing from Apple saying maybe we can do something about this without announcing that we're making this more eco-friendly.

Leo Laporte [01:34:57]:
Well, good on them. I mean, uh, yeah, this is always, this is one of those things where you hate yourself, but you still buy them.

Christina Warren [01:35:07]:
Oh yeah, no, because they're great. I mean, and, and we should, we should also probably, I, I don't know definitively, but I feel like we probably should, as much as I personally like to criticize the EU, we probably need to give them a little bit of credit here because I have a feeling that it's been some of their regulations that probably were making it, the redesign necessary so that at least like, is this easily repairable? No. But is this something that could conceivably be done to pass a regulatory standard? Yes. And that's anything that we can do to limit, to Andy's point, you know, after 3 years, you have no option but to toss them in the landfill. I think that's great.

Leo Laporte [01:35:45]:
Apple has updated, as they promised, their parental controls. Dan Moran says it is a messy rollout. For instance, Jennifer Pattison-Tui writing on The Verge, I can't use Apple's new Screen Time on my daughter's iPhone because my son won't update his MacBook.

Jason Snell [01:36:04]:
Yeah, there's this rule. You've got to have all your Apple IDs on the, on the latest version. And some versions— some people are using obviously older devices with their kids, they're handing them down. And so this is one of those features, it's like Apple talked a good game, but a lot of this may actually need to wait for, you know, for a couple of years until everybody's devices are capable of it, which is kind of— I don't, I don't know. I don't know. I'm sure there's a really good reason why, but I don't have to like it.

Leo Laporte [01:36:36]:
Jennifer says, uh, her son is away at college and well beyond her parental controls, so he can't— he won't update. She can't protect her daughter. Um, however, I mean, they're trying. Look, they're trying. In fact, they're, they're working with the American Academy of Pediatrics and, and trying to find defaults that are good. And yeah, I mean, I understand if it's hard to get it working, that's another issue, but at least They're putting some stuff in there. Uh, and I, and I also understand why, uh, you need to all be on the same version. I— it's the same thing for the, uh, that trusted Apple, you know, super security setup.

Leo Laporte [01:37:17]:
You had everybody had to be on the same version. I, I can understand there's a technical reason for that, I presume, and I can understand that. So I'm sure Apple's doing what they— the best they can. Uh, what else do we have? Any, please, I beg of you, at all Vision Pro news, anything to keep this the premiere Vision Pro?

Jason Snell [01:37:40]:
Don't have to do it every week, Leo. You don't have to do it every week.

Christina Warren [01:37:42]:
I look, I—

Andy Ihnatko [01:37:44]:
nothing. Nothing.

Leo Laporte [01:37:46]:
There's literally—

Andy Ihnatko [01:37:47]:
people, people are still just as delighted with their purchase as they've ever been.

Leo Laporte [01:37:54]:
Okay, we tried, we tried, everybody. Elton John's gonna be the first concert at that new music hall. Uh, was, was the first guy. Oh yeah, you can watch it on video now.

Andy Ihnatko [01:38:07]:
Yep, they've got, uh, they've got the whole event on Apple Music and Apple TV. On YouTube, they have a couple of different, uh, a couple of different numbers, uh, and also Zane Lowe has an interview with, uh, with him that's pretty cool.

Leo Laporte [01:38:21]:
So I'm just gonna say this could be a Vision Pro story if they—

Christina Warren [01:38:26]:
I was gonna say—

Leo Laporte [01:38:27]:
Shot it in surround.

Christina Warren [01:38:28]:
I was gonna say, can you view this in the Vision Pro and in spatial? No.

Jason Snell [01:38:33]:
No, there is— I will say there was a big wave surfing video that dropped last week.

Leo Laporte [01:38:38]:
Oh, there you go.

Jason Snell [01:38:39]:
So there you go.

Leo Laporte [01:38:39]:
Quick, play the theme.

Jason Snell [01:38:40]:
Now you see, now you know. We're done talking the Vision Pro.

Leo Laporte [01:38:43]:
Okay, don't play the theme. Fine. We did it. That's all that matters. Uh, uh, let's see. Uh, I could— I guess I could talk about lawsuits. $634 million Apple Watch patent loss to Masimo is getting even bigger. The judge said, oh, you also need to pay $184 million in interest.

Leo Laporte [01:39:10]:
This is like, like a loan shark.

Christina Warren [01:39:12]:
Well, I mean, they've— this is— how many years has this gone on? So I mean, look, you lost.

Leo Laporte [01:39:18]:
You lost. Pay up, right?

Christina Warren [01:39:21]:
I mean, like, I, I have a million— I hate patent trolls too, but you lost. So yeah.

Jason Snell [01:39:26]:
Yeah.

Andy Ihnatko [01:39:27]:
And they're not trolls.

Leo Laporte [01:39:29]:
No, I mean, Masimo really did have an oxygen— blood oxygen functionality.

Jason Snell [01:39:34]:
They did. And it's gonna— it's gonna expire pretty soon, and Apple's got all the money in the world So, I mean, I feel a little boo-hoo about it. Like, they could have paid and they decided they were going to pay as little as possible, which is still what they're paying now. And then that patent's going to expire and they're going to bring a feature back.

Leo Laporte [01:39:49]:
Actually, it did expire in June of 2022.

Jason Snell [01:39:52]:
No, there's another one that I think is expiring this year, early next year. And then, you know, we'll all move on with our lives. But Masimo is going to get some money.

Christina Warren [01:40:01]:
Good. As they should. I mean, my position from the beginning has been they should have settled years ago. Right? Like, yep.

Andy Ihnatko [01:40:06]:
Yeah.

Christina Warren [01:40:06]:
Just, just, just, just, you literally, like you said, Jason, you have more money than God. Just pay them.

Jason Snell [01:40:11]:
And you've more money than God. The patent is valid. You hired some of their people. What do you, what are we even doing here? Like, just pay, pay the people. And because it's not a, they're not patent trolls. They did, the patent is valid. And every court agreed that it was valid. And Apple just, for whatever reason, had this attitude like, No, we just don't ever have to negotiate or anything with anybody.

Jason Snell [01:40:36]:
And, and so they, you know, in the end, what it means is that the Apple Watch is a little less useful in the United States until that patent expires, at which point they'll turn that feature back on and everybody will shrug and go about their business. And yeah, it's not great.

Leo Laporte [01:40:51]:
Apple and OpenAI still in court. The case hasn't gone to trial yet.

Christina Warren [01:40:56]:
No, it won't for years.

Leo Laporte [01:41:00]:
OpenAI has— this is William Gallagher writing at Apple Insider— pivoted from pleading innocence to saying it's Apple's fault. It can't keep trade secrets, that's your fault, okay? Not, not our fault.

Jason Snell [01:41:17]:
Interesting.

Leo Laporte [01:41:17]:
Okay. 9to5Mac saw Apple's filing noting that OpenAI was entitled to object to what it saw as new evidence But legally, the company may not include further argument on the motion. Apple says OpenAI used their filing to relitigate. This is just more bickering back and forth between the lawyers as they prepare for a trial sometime in the next century.

Christina Warren [01:41:44]:
And this is just the first step, right? There will be a lot of steps. Like, this is just, I think, over the first aspect, which is right now OpenAI is seeking to dismiss the lawsuit. If the lawsuit is able to go forward, then a date will be set and then you will have discovery and all all that other stuff. But like, we're not even at that point. Like, they haven't put anything on the docket then, and there won't be anything. This will literally be a years-long process unless, you know, there's some sort of settlement that they're able to come to terms with.

Leo Laporte [01:42:11]:
Yeah. Okay, I think we've covered the waterfront. Anything that I left out, Andy? I'm looking through your notes as well. I let the AI do our notes today, and it It's fired. It's just a big blob of stuff.

Andy Ihnatko [01:42:30]:
Yeah. Not less that they— one thing I thought was kind of cool, Apple Music got a new logo only because anything Apple does with design makes me wonder if that's the first of a new change of like design that might apply elsewhere.

Leo Laporte [01:42:45]:
So, I mean, if I had showed you this and said, What do you think? Would you have said, oh, new logo?

Christina Warren [01:42:53]:
Yeah.

Jason Snell [01:42:54]:
Yep.

Christina Warren [01:42:55]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:42:56]:
Yeah, you would have said that? Sure.

Christina Warren [01:42:57]:
Yes.

Jason Snell [01:42:57]:
I wouldn't have known.

Christina Warren [01:42:58]:
The font's different.

Leo Laporte [01:42:59]:
You could tell? The font is different.

Andy Ihnatko [01:43:01]:
It's the same logo they're using for the Apple Music, uh, uh, the venue. The Apple— exactly, the theater.

Leo Laporte [01:43:08]:
Music Hall.

Jason Snell [01:43:08]:
Yeah.

Christina Warren [01:43:09]:
Yeah, this is a different font. I'm not sure what font this is, but this is, this is a different font.

Jason Snell [01:43:12]:
Oh, I think it's, I think it's still A— my guess is it's still a San Francisco, but it's not the one that they were using, and it's all lower and it's fatter. And it's squashed.

Christina Warren [01:43:24]:
I was gonna say it's, it's, it's a different— I mean, it's for all intents and purposes, it's a different typeface than what they've used before. It might be part of the same family, but this is, this is not the same, like, family that they were—

Jason Snell [01:43:33]:
It's wider and heavier. And, and yeah, it probably is still San Francisco of some kind.

Christina Warren [01:43:39]:
I'm sure it is.

Jason Snell [01:43:40]:
Probably, probably.

Christina Warren [01:43:41]:
Totally different.

Leo Laporte [01:43:41]:
Do you think John Turnus designed it? Because This is the story, is like he's Mr. Design now. All of a sudden he's like all into the design.

Jason Snell [01:43:49]:
Yeah, you know, um, no, he didn't design the font. He didn't pick the font. But I do think this is— look, this is, this is the difference between John Ternus and Tim Cook, is that every CEO has to lean into the stuff they're comfortable with and delegate the other stuff. That's just how it is. And Tim Cook leaned in exactly as Mark Gurman described it, leaned into operations and efficiency and stuff like that. And John Ternus has been working on hardware, which means he's working with hardware and design for his whole career at Apple. And having the designers report to him is— I think it's totally reasonable because it fits with his skill set. And I think it's great.

Jason Snell [01:44:27]:
I think that— I think you want leadership at Apple who cares about design, right? Because I think you could argue that although Tim Cook, I mean, I know he cared about design, but he also knew that it was just not a thing. It was just not a move, a muscle that he had. And I think things can get out of hand when you don't have that. So I think it's good that John Ternus is on. Like, John Ternus is not sitting there saying, I'm going to design the next laptop, right? He's not doing that. But he is working with the designers. And, you know, is this a little Steve Jobs-like? A little bit?

Christina Warren [01:45:02]:
Yeah.

Jason Snell [01:45:02]:
I think a good collaboration between somebody who's got a product vision and the team of designers building the products is a healthy thing that has in the past worked really well for Apple. So I am on board for this.

Leo Laporte [01:45:15]:
Ah, full. You know, I, I did mean to warn you, Jason, there's somebody, uh, using your name to write for the Wall Street Journal. I think you should, uh, I think you should probably—

Jason Snell [01:45:25]:
It turns out it's not the bluegrass musician from the Midwest. It is actually me writing.

Leo Laporte [01:45:29]:
Oh, okay.

Jason Snell [01:45:30]:
So yay. Wow, that's cool. Their book editor apparently decided my last review wasn't bad and that they could have me write more reviews for them. So I reviewed Ron Johnson's new book that just came out.

Leo Laporte [01:45:41]:
Should I start referring to you as a book reviewer, Wall Street Journal?

Jason Snell [01:45:45]:
No, no, they don't pay me enough. They don't give me enough assignments for that. But, but yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah, it's a good book. I mean, if you like, I would argue that retail is one of the most important things that Apple did. 25 years ago, and that without— all the products matter. This is what the review says, but like, all the products mattered, but like, the being in stores or being in malls, having stores where people were who were— who never even considered the Apple brand relevant to them in any way, which is what it was like 25 years ago.

Christina Warren [01:46:18]:
Yep.

Jason Snell [01:46:18]:
You had to have that. That was— the products were necessary but not sufficient for the comeback. You had to have the brand be present in people's lives. You had to have that moment where people hear about the iPod or hear about the iMac and they can go and see it like that. You had to have that. And so Steve Jobs knew that, but he didn't know how he was going to get there. And he calls up and ultimately hires Ron Johnson, who was working at Target. By the way, great tidbit in the book that didn't get into the review in the end.

Jason Snell [01:46:45]:
That was the last cut of the review is If you've ever been in Target with kids and, and there's that aisle that's full of Lego and you leave Target several pounds lighter because they've taken all your money because you bought Lego, that was Ron Johnson who did that. Ron Johnson was like, what if we just made the whole aisle Lego? And it was very successful.

Leo Laporte [01:47:06]:
They left that in. No, that didn't get cut.

Jason Snell [01:47:08]:
Look at that. Oh, it's on the print version, I guess. Oh, well, no, I— there was a parenthetical that said, now I know who to blame. that they cut out for all the money that I spent on Lego at Target.

Leo Laporte [01:47:18]:
So he invented the Lego aisle.

Jason Snell [01:47:20]:
Well, so Jobs calls him, and keep in mind, like, Ron Johnson is this Midwesterner. He is as far away from the Apple mindset in some ways as you would— as you could be.

Leo Laporte [01:47:33]:
And he worked at Mervyn's. Let's put it this way. He ran Mervyn's.

Jason Snell [01:47:37]:
He worked— he didn't run it. He just worked at Mervyn's, which was Dayton-Hudson. It's like, so he grew up in Minnesota. Dayton-Hudson was the big department store. And then they had Mervyn's in California they were trying to define. So he came out here and then he went back and did Target and, and did, you know, toys and did a bunch of other, other stuff at Target, not running the store, but being a senior executive. And Jobs calls him. He doesn't, he doesn't have a computer, Ron Johnson.

Jason Snell [01:48:04]:
Wow. Jobs sent him an email.

Leo Laporte [01:48:05]:
This was 1999. So there were a lot of other people doing that.

Jason Snell [01:48:08]:
But Jobs was like, I want to do this. And then Ron Johnson, I think they were just a really great pair because Ron Johnson knew stuff that Steve didn't know. And so Steve would be like, how big do the stores need to be? And he says, well, what's a bigger brand, Apple or The Gap? Steve says, well, Apple. He says, then your stores need to be bigger than The Gap. And Steve's like, what? He's like, no, you do.

Christina Warren [01:48:28]:
Good answer.

Jason Snell [01:48:29]:
And, and he said— and Steve's like, oh, our products represent the brand. And Ron Johnson says, no, your stores represent the brand.

Leo Laporte [01:48:36]:
Oh, yeah.

Jason Snell [01:48:36]:
To people. And it's like a real education that he gives Jobs about how retail works and how consumer mindset is in a way that Jobs, you know, Jobs always thought about the consumer side of it, of the product. Who's the product for? How will they use it? But I think he didn't internalize the how do people find it and see it aspect of that. He didn't, he didn't go— if we think of it as like a sales funnel, he was not all the way down the funnel. And Ron Johnson was, and he could speak to that. And so they were actually a really great team where they were learning from each other. And Ron Johnson and Steve Jobs, like literally first year he worked at Apple, first couple of years, he was still living part-time in Minnesota. That's where his wife and kids stayed for a while.

Jason Snell [01:49:22]:
And Jobs was like, can I call you? And Ron's like, sure. And Jobs is like, no, seriously, every day. I'm going to call you. And the first, I think, year that they worked together, every day in the evening, the phone would ring at Ron Johnson's house in Minnesota and it would be Steve Jobs to the point where, like, literally Ron Johnson's wife would be, it's your boyfriend calling again. And but what Steve said to him was, we spent enough time talking about stuff. And I think he did this with a lot of the people he collaborated with. you're going to know what I think of something without even asking me, because you will understand why I think the way I do and I'll understand you. And that's— and Jobs is like, because, you know, I can't remote control this.

Jason Snell [01:50:10]:
You need to be able to do this. But that's how he would— he would— it was— it was like once you've internalized your little virtual machine of Steve Jobs, it's a lot easier to process because you know how Steve's going to react. But that said, there are some amazing moments in that book where like, like they come up with a digital hub strategy, which was the idea that the Mac sits at the center of a bunch of different products, digital cameras, eventually the iPod, MP3 players before the iPod. And they had largely built out what the first Apple Stores were going to be in this secret warehouse down the street from Apple that they would go to and figure out what it was going to look like and how it was going to be organized. And Ron Johnson, like, wakes up in the middle of the night. He's like, oh no, Because he had been at this meeting about the Digital Hub strategy they were going to roll out. And he goes to Steve the next day and they're going to drive over to that warehouse. And as they start to drive over, he says to Steve, we got to redesign it.

Jason Snell [01:51:01]:
We can't— we can't use the design we built for the last few months because this Digital Hub thing changes everything. And Steve Jobs just is furious and he's like yelling at him. He's like, what are you talking about? We've done so much work. And then he's silent and they do the rest of the drive in silence.

Leo Laporte [01:51:15]:
Oh, man.

Jason Snell [01:51:16]:
And then they get there. and they walk in and it's all the retail people. And Ron and Steve walk in and Steve Jobs says, Ron here has decided that we have to throw out what we were doing because the digital hub strategy completely changes the entire approach we need to take with Apple retail. And you know what? He's right. So Ron's going to tell you all about it. And Steve Jobs walks out the door. Wow.

Christina Warren [01:51:40]:
Amazing.

Jason Snell [01:51:41]:
And it's like, that is, that is the legend of Steve Jobs, right? Which is like, he's got to process it. He's going to be really grumpy about it. And then if you're right, he's just going to turn 180 degrees and say, this is what the strategy is. And then it's literally like, good luck, everybody. You're the ones who have to throw out your strategy and change it now.

Christina Warren [01:51:56]:
Bye.

Jason Snell [01:51:57]:
And then he— and he's gone. And there are a bunch of stories like that. Like he didn't want the Genius Bar to be called the Genius Bar, and that was a Ron Johnson idea. And like he pushed back and pushed back and pushed back. And then one day Apple's corporate counsel is outside Ron Johnson's door when he gets there in the morning. He's like, what? What happened? Like, you never want to see the lawyer, right? And she says, what the heck is a Genius? And it turns out that at some point Steve had decided that was the name and said, I guess we need to clear it for, you know, trademark and everything. And that's why the corporate counsel was there. Never told Ron Johnson this, but, but he just needed to think about it for a while.

Jason Snell [01:52:35]:
Anyway, there's a bunch of great stories like that. There's a really touching moment, like when he's about to leave to go to JCPenney, which he owns, He's like, I mean, I think he just loved retail so much he wanted to take a shot at running a retail.

Andy Ihnatko [01:52:46]:
Yeah.

Jason Snell [01:52:47]:
And it just, it wasn't, it was ill-fated from the start. It wasn't going to work. But he tells Steve Jobs that he's going to do this. And Steve literally says to him, I only have 6 months to live. Can you stay until I'm gone? And there's— and that's in the book. And an emotional goodbye the day before Steve Jobs died, where he goes over to his house to say goodbye to him. And it's in the book. So there's a lot of really interesting stuff.

Jason Snell [01:53:11]:
And I think Apple Retail is as important to the, like I said, to the history of Apple as the iPod and the iPhone and the iMac were. And so, Yeah. So yeah, like it's, he's the guy. I mean, like it is, Ron Johnson's the one with Steve Jobs who built the Apple Store to what it is. Yeah. Everything the Apple Stores are to this day is owed to those 2 guys. So it's a fun, if you care about that kind of stuff and the stories like I've been retelling right here, I think it's I think it's, I think it's worth, worth a read because I do think it's a super important part. And I'm honestly really impressed that somebody at that high level at Apple is actually writing a whole book about their experience.

Jason Snell [01:53:50]:
I hope we get more of these now that they're slowly kind of draining out of Apple. I hope we get more of this kind of thing because it's really fun.

Leo Laporte [01:53:58]:
Do you remember, I think this might've been part of Steve Jobs' decision in the days before there was an Apple Store.

Jason Snell [01:54:04]:
They were in CompUSA.

Leo Laporte [01:54:06]:
You'd go to CompUSA?

Jason Snell [01:54:07]:
Oh, yeah.

Leo Laporte [01:54:08]:
That's in the book.

Jason Snell [01:54:08]:
There was a whole section in CompUSA. That's in the book. And it's like Ron Johnson goes into a CompUSA and he's like— He's like, it's not—

Leo Laporte [01:54:17]:
It was a ghost town.

Jason Snell [01:54:18]:
It's in the back.

Christina Warren [01:54:21]:
It wasn't staffed well.

Jason Snell [01:54:22]:
It's not staffed.

Leo Laporte [01:54:23]:
There was Apple employees who staffed it, but—

Jason Snell [01:54:26]:
Yeah, well, I mean, originally it wasn't, and then they had to do that.

Christina Warren [01:54:29]:
I was gonna say, they had to bring that in. Yeah, because originally it wasn't— it was just whatever employees they could get because I worked at— I worked at Best Buy when I was in high school and in college, and this was after the Apple Store came out and we had to compete against the Apple Store to a certain extent. And I remember what CompUSA had been like beforehand and it was— yeah, I mean, it was a very different experience.

Jason Snell [01:54:51]:
The Apple brand wasn't, you know, that interesting in this era, especially before the iMac. This was the beige era. And computer— by the way, computer stores weren't interesting. Computer stores were not in malls generally. They were off in some, you know, strip mall somewhere or wherever. And there are these unfriendly places that you'd go into every so— every few years if you need to buy a computer. Ron Johnson went into some of those. He talks about the resellers because after they launched the Apple Stores, the resellers all sued them and hated them.

Jason Snell [01:55:22]:
But he says you know, he would go into the resellers and like there'd be people there who were working, but they wouldn't look up. They wouldn't engage the person who walked in the door.

Andy Ihnatko [01:55:30]:
Yes.

Jason Snell [01:55:30]:
They were just those grumpy— it's like the record store in High Fidelity, right? Like, who are you? Prove that you even know anything about computers. And yeah, it's dire. And then like Gateway is trying to do a chain of stores, but that's a failure. So like when they did this, everybody knew, didn't even think, knew that Apple, it was a folly and that it was going to fail.

Leo Laporte [01:55:52]:
I was one of those people. Microsoft had just started closing all their stores. Gateway had just closed all their stores. It was— everybody knew this is a crazy idea and it worked.

Jason Snell [01:56:01]:
And I think, I think the secret sauce and, you know, Johnson's book gets to this, like part of the secret sauce is that uniting of his really different approach of being a Midwesterner, being a lifer in retail, caring about retail, caring about customer service and touching the customer in a way that computer people never really thought of it. And then having a CEO who thought so highly of his brand that he was willing to spend enormous amounts of money on good real estate locations and high-profile venues. And then as, as they picked up speed, custom builds of things like a giant glass cube on Fifth Avenue in New York City. That, that, that combination is what made it work. And it couldn't be done by half measure. And it needed to be somebody who really got retail combined with somebody like Steve Jobs who really got what Apple's brand was all about and what its products were all about. And it was— I mean, I don't want to say it was a long shot because I think in hindsight you can see that they were perfectly set up to succeed. But like, it came into an era where like, why would you even bother? Computer stores don't go in the mall.

Jason Snell [01:57:14]:
They don't go in high-traffic areas. Nobody cares about this. But that was not the vision. The vision was we want to get the Apple brand in front of people. And boy, did it pay off for them.

Christina Warren [01:57:24]:
Yeah, I was going to say, hearing you talk about this thing, and it just makes me remember my, my own, like, you know, like youth working in retail and in malls and around that time and, you know, adjacent to malls. And it was such a smart and prescient move to not do what Gateway and others had done, which was basically just be mail order but in person. And so it wasn't really like a great experience, but to instead like be like The Gap, you know, basically be brand first kind of play. Because I remember when the first Apple Store opened in Atlanta and it opened at Lenox and then they later opened one, I think, Perimeter after that and then, then Alfreda and then so on. But I remember like that was the correct even real estate move, like where you would go. Like if you were to research like where in Atlanta, where would you go to open, you know, a high-end like flagship store? It would be either in Lenox or Phipps Plaza. And Lenox is the more mainstream one. Phipps Plaza is where like Gucci and, and Bulgari and things like that are.

Christina Warren [01:58:23]:
And it was from the beginning just a completely different experience where people were— Sony had stores too. So Sony was also trying to do this.

Andy Ihnatko [01:58:32]:
Right.

Christina Warren [01:58:33]:
And, and, and they, and they did okay. But I think that they weren't as committed to it as Apple was. And the fact that, like, it's more to Sony than computers. Right, right, right. And they had a lot of other stuff there too. And I think Sony probably lost direction a little bit, but it became one of those things where I remember, you know, again, I was like a high schooler, like at that era, which was you get the iPod, you're— the iMacs are finally becoming good. You know, the iBook is a thing like people are starting to, to care about Apple in an interesting way. You're at the mall, you're going to go check out the Apple Store even if you're not necessarily going to buy anything.

Christina Warren [01:59:07]:
And that's the sort of brand thing that I think is really difficult to undersell how important that was, because then it becomes aspirational because it is like, okay, we're going to go to Abercrombie& Fitch, we're going to go to the Gap, we're going to go to, you know, like, you know, maybe like the movie store or whatever. And we're going to go to the Apple Store even if it's not to do anything but play on the devices. Exactly. this is the thing that I'm going to now aspire, that I can't wait until I make enough money that I can buy one of these things myself.

Jason Snell [01:59:34]:
That is exactly right. And that Steve Jobs recognized it. They got resistance. Like, there are a small number of people who control a large amount of retail real estate in the United States especially. And like, one of those people was like, no, not interested. And they had to prove it and they had to work hard to finally make that guy crack and have him be like, okay, okay, okay, I'll give you some spaces. And the one other real big revelation I got out of the book is we think of how we all know how weird, but they try to be nice. But it's also a little weird.

Jason Snell [02:00:07]:
The service in the Apple Store works, but like the Apple Store success in part came from a realization that they didn't want to run it like a retail store. And Ron Johnson would take people to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in San Francisco. and say, see how they treat their customers. And he would actually have people work. He had a deal with Ritz-Carlton where some of his Apple retail people would come and like work a shift at the Ritz-Carlton.

Christina Warren [02:00:32]:
Wow.

Jason Snell [02:00:33]:
And the whole idea was we want our stores to treat customers like the Ritz-Carlton treats guests. We want to be really customer forward. And again, you know, I think that that is a cultural disconnect Ron Johnson had from Apple that he brought from His love of, of, of retail and also his, you know, just Midwestern sensibility. I'm just going to say it. I feel like he just brought a different way of approaching other people and it worked for them. Like it— again, we could argue like there's weird stuff about the Apple Store. We all know where's the line. I just want to take that like I get it.

Jason Snell [02:01:10]:
But like the Genius Bar, a bunch of the stuff in the Apple Store was about like, we don't want it to end up like CompUSA. We don't want it to feel like that. And it didn't. And that was part of their success. So it's, yeah, it's a fascinating subject. Obviously, I've always been fascinated by this subject. So to get a book from one of the 2 people who made it happen, where he tells the story and he's got so much, there's a lot of interesting stuff in it. So I'm, boy, I'm really selling Ron Johnson's book here.

Jason Snell [02:01:37]:
I don't get a piece of it, but I think it's a really interesting part of Apple history that is overlooked.

Leo Laporte [02:01:44]:
That's a great review. And that's great writing for the Wall Street Journal. That's pretty cool.

Jason Snell [02:01:49]:
I like it. It's, it's cool. They're, uh, every now and then they, I mean, they email me and say, hey, I got it. Ron Johnson's got a book coming out. You want to review that?

Leo Laporte [02:01:57]:
I'm like, yes, sure. Nice.

Christina Warren [02:02:00]:
All right.

Leo Laporte [02:02:01]:
Let's, uh, now that we've, uh, talked about everything under the sun, take a little break and talk about your picks of the week. That's coming up next on Mac Now, pick of the week time. Let's start with Christina Warren.

Christina Warren [02:02:17]:
Okay, so this was one that actually just came out, I think, today. I haven't had a chance to play with it in depth a lot, but I did give it a shot before the show, and so far it seems really cool, and I love the idea. So this is called VMpal, and it's from the people who make TablePlus, which is, in my opinion, the best GUI relational database, like, interface for the Mac. It's a program that I've used for years. And their idea behind this app was basically to basically build like a VM, you know, a client built for Apple Silicon and for AI agents. And so you can very quickly spin up, you know, macOS, Windows, Linux. And then you, it has an MCP server that you can give your agents so that it knows, use this to do all of your work. Don't use my system, use this VM instead.

Christina Warren [02:03:00]:
And so, you know, it can, it also automatically does Uh, uh, uh, snapshotting before, you know, I guess each run so that if you need, if something goes wrong, you can go back to where it was before. Um, it's, uh, you know, supporting, um, all the, the GPU acceleration stuff that you would want. You can even import things in from Parallels. So when we talk about things like full disk access mode, which I, I fully agree, like Apple needs to rethink how they're going to do that. I think one of the solutions we're going to kind of see in the interim for people who do want to experiment with AI agents but don't necessarily want to give them full access to everything is to use VMs. And Apple has made that a little bit easier with some of their container updates, but not super seamless. And so I saw this today. Like I said, I haven't had a chance to play with it in depth, but I have— I did, you know, spin it up before the show.

Christina Warren [02:03:51]:
I'm impressed. I like the company's track record. Like I said, Table Plus is an app I've been using for probably 8 or 9 years now. And really enjoy. And I think that this is great. So VMpal is my pick.

Leo Laporte [02:04:06]:
Well, there you have it. Friends don't let friends use AI bareback. They don't give the AI full disk access. They get in there and they put them in a VPS. And I think actually, or VPN, or whatever that is, a virtual machine. VM. But keep putting letters in the middle. I think actually this is, this is probably a very good idea.

Leo Laporte [02:04:28]:
And I imagine it's using Apple's own underlying technology, which means it's going to run very well.

Christina Warren [02:04:36]:
Yeah, that's what I mean. That's what I assume. And it was very quick, I will say, from like my, my, you know, limited time using it before the show was very quick. And that was great. And so the fact that it can even do the nested virtualization, you know, for Ubuntu and stuff, so they say, is really great. And so, and I like the fact that they have, you know, port forwarding so that if you're trying to reach a web server or something else in your, you know, whatever client, you're not going to have to mess with that stuff. The fact that, you know, it's going to go ahead and install what needs to be installed for you, even the process. And there are a number of third-party apps out there that do this, but even the process of getting like a macOS VM setup is more complicated than it should be.

Christina Warren [02:05:19]:
So, um, I, I like this. There are some limitations and some things you can't do in a macOS VM, just so people have that expectation set. But I think if you're doing— you're wanting to play around with software development especially, this is one of those areas where sandboxing is really important, and a lot of the agents will do that for you. But honestly, using a VM, especially if you can use the, the native Apple stuff, is is even better. And so I think this is a good solution.

Leo Laporte [02:05:45]:
Very nice. Uh, we were talking earlier about the idea of running a Mac headless if you're running a VM on it. Uh, I still, by the way, have not decided whether I'm going to buy a new Mac Studio or not. It's a ridiculously large amount of money, and I would have to not buy a car. Andy, how's that feel? It's okay, right? You can live without a car.

Andy Ihnatko [02:06:05]:
I, I have an e-bike. I love it.

Leo Laporte [02:06:07]:
You see it parked right over I just figured I'll just ride my e-bike everywhere. It's got a big basket on the front, a big basket on the back. I can do my shopping and it'll be healthy and good for me. And then I get a big-ass Mac Studio server. But big-ass is the right— is the right word because OS X takes up a lot of memory. Uh, this is a project on GitHub from Anurmatov, Mac Studio server. I actually pointed Claude at it and said, what do you think? And it said, well, not for you because you're not using Ollama. But if you're using Ollama, you can really strip down a lot of what the Apple's doing.

Leo Laporte [02:06:45]:
Uh, and I will be probably using Claude to do it myself to make it as simple as possible, get as much of that memory back as possible. So, uh, but if you are using Ollama on a Mac and you're using it headless and you just want it to run in the closet without a GUI, Anurmatov. on GitHub. The other thing I wanted to tell you about is a program I found actually this morning, and I have been loving. It is called Hermes Conduit. Now, this is a very narrow audience. This is for people who use the Hermes agent. Mine is running on Linux, but there's no good— the folks who do Hermes, Noose Research, have never done a good iOS app for it.

Leo Laporte [02:07:28]:
They have great desktop apps on Mac and Linux and Windows, but not For iOS. But this is the beauty of vibe coding. This developer has made a very nice way to use Hermes on your, uh, on your iPhone. It— and, and yes, I'm happy to say it's going to go great on the Duo because it uses— it works great on an iPad. It gives you full access to the Hermes desktop. But the thing I love the most, the thing I was using this morning is it ties in with ChatGPT Live. So I can do two-way— I can't do it now because I, you know, I'm on the, you know, iPhone mirroring, but it's two-way conversation, real-time conversation. The weird thing is you're talking to ChatGPT, which then hands it off to Hermes.

Jason Snell [02:08:15]:
How funny.

Leo Laporte [02:08:16]:
So you can have a, a conversation. And then, so I was doing all this work while I was working out and can't, you know, type or anything. And it was a great conversation. It was very effective. It works with CarPlay. I've been wanting to use my Hermes. I don't, you know, you can use ChatGPT or Claude in CarPlay, which is cool, but I want to talk to my little guy with all the memory it has about me, all the tools it has, all the stuff that I've been setting up for the last year. And this is a great way to do it.

Leo Laporte [02:08:45]:
It's free. It's open source. It's called Hermes Conduit. And I'm actually, blown away by it. I, it's, uh, I've been trying so many different ways to use, uh, Hermes Agent on an iOS device. Just in time for the iPhone Duo, this, this one comes along, and now I can have a phone call with my, uh, with my Hermes. And by the way, you just pick it up any, anywhere else that you use Hermes, so it's not like it's, you know, exclusive. All of the stuff that you were talking about lives on.

Leo Laporte [02:09:15]:
Uh, Andy Inaco, your pick of the week.

Andy Ihnatko [02:09:18]:
Very quick, very cheap, and very non-tech. I discovered these True Lemon packets like a couple months ago.

Leo Laporte [02:09:26]:
What is it?

Andy Ihnatko [02:09:27]:
It is crystallized lemon, not fake lemon flavoring. It is crystallized lemon. So anything you pour it into will— it's— if you, if you put into a cup of tea, it really does taste like a lemon.

Leo Laporte [02:09:42]:
Like you squeezed a piece of lemon in? Oh my God.

Andy Ihnatko [02:09:45]:
Because the ingredients on the box are just crystallized lemon, nothing else.

Leo Laporte [02:09:50]:
Nice.

Andy Ihnatko [02:09:51]:
Because that's what it is. The other thing, however, is that if you take something that is fake lemon flavored, like this powdered lemonade drink mix, and you simply add one of these to that pouch, oh my god, it tastes like very real lemonade.

Leo Laporte [02:10:08]:
Oh, that's nice.

Andy Ihnatko [02:10:09]:
And it's like $6 for a box of 100.

Leo Laporte [02:10:12]:
I mean, put it They also have lime and orange and grapefruit. I might have to get those later.

Andy Ihnatko [02:10:18]:
I haven't bought the citrus beverages, but I can say the lemon is quite worth recommending.

Leo Laporte [02:10:22]:
Let's see, lime's great for margaritas. Lime is good in everything. Lime makes everything better. Orange. Oh yeah, I'm gonna buy a few of these. Very nice. Very good pick. Weird, but good.

Leo Laporte [02:10:37]:
And speaking of weird, it's time for Jason's pick of the week.

Jason Snell [02:10:41]:
But good, but good. Really, anybody who's watched to this point, my pick is probably Shop Different by Ron Johnson. But I will give you another pick beyond that. My friend Lex Fridman, again, he didn't just remake and then ultimately buy and rerelease Strategery, one of the great iPhone, early iPhone era apps. And somebody, when he announced that, somebody replied, now do Flight Control. Well, he was already working on it. It's called The Universe Controlled. It is a modern take on Flight Control.

Jason Snell [02:11:15]:
that lets you land spaceships on planets by drawing flight paths. And it's a lot of fun. And if you have fondness for Flight Control, you remember it well. It got— Flight Control got bought by EA and it was sunset, as they say. It flew off into the sunset, never to be seen again. Well, Lex has made something inspired by that. It's got lots of cool, like, spaceships and planet art, and you can pay him a little to support it and unlock some stuff, but you can also just You can just play it for free. And it's obviously, again, a thing made out of love.

Jason Snell [02:11:52]:
And he wrote a really nice blog post about, you know, how he, you know, he's been building these apps with Claude, but he's also using, you know, his decades of coding experience and his vision of what he wants. And anybody will tell you that you can't just type in a couple of sentences and say, hey, do flight control and get a good game out of it. And he put a lot of effort in. He does a lot of testing. Um, and, uh, and it's a, it's a very well, uh, implemented game. So if you miss Flight Control, check out The Universe Controlled from Lex Fridman.

Leo Laporte [02:12:24]:
I love it. And this would go very nicely on my new Duo as well.

Jason Snell [02:12:29]:
Uh, probably so.

Leo Laporte [02:12:30]:
I'm looking at the iPad version. I think, I hope all developers pay attention to that and we get a whole wealth of—

Jason Snell [02:12:38]:
I'm sure they will. I have heard like iPad version is not sufficient. You have to do some work to make it Come over to the Duo with a screen open. You can't just say, well, my, I've got an iPad version, so it'll work. It won't. It'll be in what they, I think, are referring to as, um, you know, rectangle jail or whatever, where you're like, it's not great because it's just an iPhone app in the, in the screen and the unfolded screen. It's just kind of in jail. Um, you gotta do some work.

Jason Snell [02:13:06]:
So hopefully they will do the work, uh, to make all those things work.

Leo Laporte [02:13:10]:
Well, from the universe to lemons to a video game. Yep.

Jason Snell [02:13:14]:
Lemons are in the universe. I mean, technically the universe contains everything else.

Leo Laporte [02:13:18]:
It's everything.

Jason Snell [02:13:19]:
Yeah.

Leo Laporte [02:13:21]:
And Ron Johnson's book, Shop Different. Thank you, Jason.

Jason Snell [02:13:23]:
Also in the universe. Yes, you're welcome.

Leo Laporte [02:13:25]:
sixcolors.com.

Jason Snell [02:13:26]:
sixcolors.com.

Leo Laporte [02:13:26]:
Also in the universe, although it is out of this world. And you'll also find his podcasts, including The Incomparable and Upgrade from relay.fm at 6colors.com/jason.

Jason Snell [02:13:38]:
And I guess I'll plug this next week too, but I'll just say our Design in California series about Apple's OS crisis is finishing this week. And next week we are starting a new 5-part series celebrating the 25th— can you believe it— anniversary of the iPod. We're gonna tell the story of how the iPod came to be. That starts next week.

Leo Laporte [02:13:55]:
And where do we find that fabulous—

Jason Snell [02:13:57]:
Designed.fm will get you there.

Leo Laporte [02:14:00]:
There you go. Designed.fm. Yeah, I should just really plug that one. one every week.

Jason Snell [02:14:04]:
Yeah, every time.

Leo Laporte [02:14:05]:
That's such a good idea. It's so cool. Christina Warren is at GitHub where she's doing God's work, I'll tell you. Uh, developer relations at GitHub, thank you for everything GitHub does and everything you do. Uh, Martin's gonna be on Intelligent Machines pretty soon.

Christina Warren [02:14:18]:
Oh, hey, that's awesome.

Leo Laporte [02:14:20]:
I'm really excited about that.

Christina Warren [02:14:21]:
Yeah, you're gonna have a great conversation with him.

Leo Laporte [02:14:23]:
He's one of the founders, right?

Christina Warren [02:14:25]:
No, no, he is VP. He's VP of developer relations, but he's been Yeah, but he's been at GitHub for a really long time and he's a great all-around guy and he's going to be a great person for you to talk to.

Leo Laporte [02:14:36]:
I owe him because I have many GitHub Universe badges because of Martin, I think, right?

Christina Warren [02:14:41]:
Yeah, that's right. That's right. Absolutely.

Leo Laporte [02:14:43]:
Yeah. Uh, thank you, Christina. Also Andy Ihnatko from his home, but his home on the web is Ihnatko.com. There's his beautiful e-bike right behind him, right there. What kind is that? That's a nice looking one. That's fancy.

Andy Ihnatko [02:14:59]:
Uh, it's a Specialized Vado.

Leo Laporte [02:15:02]:
Uh, oh yeah, those are really good.

Andy Ihnatko [02:15:05]:
Yeah. They, they, they sent it to me for review a number of years ago, and then I said, um, how much would it cost for me to keep it? Because I was enjoying it so much. So yes.

Leo Laporte [02:15:16]:
E-bikes are a revelation, and I just put down a Yes. A reservation. I said, if I don't buy a new car, I'm gonna buy a good e-bike for one that has solid-state batteries and 100-mile range. I think it's called the Limo or something. It's out of Berlin. So I'll give you a review of the Limo from Berlin sometime next year, 'cause it's gonna be a while. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you, Christina.

Leo Laporte [02:15:44]:
Thank you, Jason. And of course, a big thanks to our Club Twit members and all of you for listening. We do MacBooks MacBreak Weekly every Tuesday, 11 AM Pacific, 2 PM Eastern, 1800 UTC. You'll find it, uh, on, uh, well, you can actually watch it on online. You'll find it, uh, in our club, Twitter, Discord, but also during the show when we're live, YouTube, Twitch, x.com, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Kick. Of course, we then put the edited version on YouTube. There's a dedicated YouTube channel for MacBreak Weekly. You can also go to our website.

Leo Laporte [02:16:14]:
We've got audio and video there. That's twit.tv/mbw. Best way to get it, as with all of our shows, get a podcast client, you know, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, the wonderful Marco Arment's Overcast, and you can get, you know, subscribe to it for free and get it automatically as soon as we're done of a Tuesday afternoon. I hate to say it, but not only are we done, but you're done too. It's time to get back to work because break time is over. See you next time. Bye-bye.