MacBreak Weekly 943 Transcript

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

0:00:00 - Leo Laporte
It's time for MacBreak Weekly. Andy, Alex and Jason are here and, yes, so is a new iPad Mini. We'll talk about that. Is it a buy or is it a hold? Is it a sell? We'll also talk about what this means for future announcements this month, including an M4 Mac Mini. Then we'll talk about Submerged, the new Vision Pro movie. We've got the review and an amazing feat at SpaceX. All that and more coming up next on MacBreak Weekly.

This is MacBreak Weekly episode 943, recorded Tuesday, october 15th 2024. Over-Egged the Pudding. It's time for MacBreak Weekly, the show where we cover the latest Apple news With Mr Alex Lindsay from officehours.global. Hello, Alex, hello, hello, good to see you. My friend. And Jason Snell from soxcolors.com Hello, hello, it's good to be here. Good to see you, my friend. And Jason Snell from six colors dot com hello, hello, it's good to be here, good to see you. And, of course, Andy Ihnatko from GBHin boston, back in his prison cell. Who are you helping out this week?

0:01:17 - Andy Ihnatko
actually, I'm in a comfy bunker. As we're getting, as we're getting now, within less than a month from the election, I'm making sure that things are stocked. I've got my canned goods. I've got my propane. Yeah, get the flapjacks ready. Yeah, that's smart. It's the people who it's people who run for the shelter at the first sign of danger that are kind of, you know, done for. It's those of us that have been prepared these things every week ever since somebody got the nomination that Jason Snell was an eagle scout, he could help you with that.

0:01:44 - Jason Snell
That's not true. I was barely even a wee below, oh I thought you were and I was never a boy scout no, oh, I was a wee below.

0:01:52 - Leo Laporte
I was a cub scout yeah that's it. That's it. I was not.

0:01:57 - Jason Snell
When I realized it was a Nazi paramilitary organization, I decided to quit, you know, when I was in high school there was a big hill behind the high school and uh and uh, there was a fire that burned all the grass on that hill and that fire was lit by an Eagle Scout. Oh no, that's terrible. Yeah, so don't be an Eagle Scout.

0:02:15 - Leo Laporte
It's a life of crime. Well, somebody who worked with an Eagle Scout, I could have sworn it was you.

0:02:25 - Andy Ihnatko
Well, maybe that was his Eagle Scout project, you know, know, to clear the brush, clear the brush, yes, he just didn't clear it with the fire department or his advisor or anybody else, or the property owner or the owner of that church.

0:02:31 - Leo Laporte
You say that, but Jason Snell and I live in an area where there were controlled burns all week it's true, very smoky little barbecue-y out there yeah so apple, uh, but now it's throwing everything. We're throwing everything into the mix because Apple just released an iPad mini.

0:02:50 - Alex Lindsay
With no fanfare.

0:02:53 - Leo Laporte
Zero fanfare.

0:02:54 - Alex Lindsay
There's not even a little movie on the YouTube channel like on Apple's YouTube channel no pre-produced movie there. So mac rumors did a breakdown of all the things that just was released, maybe an hour hour and a half ago. Um, that that that talks about it and gives us the lowdown of this new ipad mini. But it's a fascinating release strategy of like ah, here you go.

0:03:16 - Leo Laporte
Well it makes one wonder, uh, if and and I think the conclusion was, uh, that there will be no october surprise from apple, that they're just gonna dribble this out I don't know.

0:03:26 - Jason Snell
I mean, yeah, I think that that it makes the chances a little more likely that we're going to see max, but the mac announcements are are more substantial than this so I think there still may be a mac event.

It's possible there'll be a mac event, but I think it makes it a little less possible, a little less likely, because now there won't be an ipad as a part of it. You look at this announcement, though, and you can see why it's a press release. There's almost. I mean really, what did they do? The answer is they they updated the processor so it supports apple intelligence which is a high expected it's a well it's.

It's not, it's the a17 pro it is the the iPhone 15 chip from last year, the 15 Pro chip from last year, which is weird. I wrote about this this morning. It's weird because why would they use? Because they had leftovers. Well, this is it. So they're clearing out of this is on that first generation 3 nanometer process that Taiwan Semiconductor uses and, as we know from the M4, apple is trying to clear out all the M3 generation on that old process because it's inefficient and expensive and there are lots of reasons why TSMC sort of said no, no, no, we got here first with this one, but we can't do this sustainably. We built a second process and they redesigned the M4 to run on that process. So, yeah, it's also these five gpu cores instead of six on the iphone. So it feels like it is a combination of bend chips that didn't get into the iphone leftover chips.

I've got some other. I mean, there's some other things that are probably involved here. Uh, was that line, you know, contractually obligated for a certain size of a run? Was the I? Was the ipad designed a little bit earlier and therefore they weren't going to count on that iPhone 16 chip? Do they want to prioritize making iPhone 16s instead of iPad minis? I think all of these are possibilities and probably several of them are true, but as a result I mean, really, this is an update for Apple intelligence using an old chip from last year that they can you know that it's worth their while to bring over, and otherwise, basically nothing. This is an update for Apple intelligence using an old chip from last year that they can you know, that they, that it's worth their while to bring over, and otherwise, basically nothing. I mean, there's a wifi update in there.

0:05:31 - Alex Lindsay
It supports pencil pro which is actually really interesting. You know and there's people like me that I have two iPad pros. They're a year or two old. I really have a hard time deciding. Why should I buy another iPad. I'm not like pressing these ones against the wall as far as as as performance goes, but I really want one that has the pencil bro. I do not want to spend $2,000 on another iPad right now, and so this one actually looks pretty interesting to me with a paper surface and be kind of a fun little sketch pad.

0:06:00 - Leo Laporte
Every iPad is too small to really, uh or no? No, seven inches is fine. You not too small to really, or no, no, seven inches is fine.

0:06:08 - Alex Lindsay
You just scale up to where you want to. It's like writing on a little pad oh, and you zoom in.

0:06:11 - Leo Laporte
Yeah. It's actually an 8.3-inch display, so it's yeah.

0:06:15 - Jason Snell
And spec-wise it's an iPad Air. Essentially that is what they're going for. I've heard some people who want iPad Pro features in here and I get why people would want that, but clearly apple thinks of it as a small ipad air and so it's got the same. It doesn't need a no promotion and no face id and none of those things, because it really is is just a small ipad air, basically comes in colors I ordered the purple yeah, it looks desaturated from the last time, so they've made them less colorful than it was, but maybe in the right light you can hold them in an angle and squint and say I guess that's purple.

0:06:50 - Leo Laporte
Super light, purple or blue or starlight which is, but still impressive that there's only one shade of gray in this lineup.

0:06:56 - Andy Ihnatko
They didn't decide to make three of them gray, just space gray.

0:06:58 - Jason Snell
Yeah, but having seen some of their quote-unquote purples, some of those other colors are like very lightly tinged gray, very, very lightly tinged gray, including starlight, which is just a kind of slightly goldish gray. They're. They're all silver and gray, that's what they all are really.

0:07:19 - Andy Ihnatko
Maybe if they're using, if they're using bin cpus like as as, as we're guessing, like, maybe they're using bin CPUs, as we're guessing, maybe they're also using paint colors. Damn it, this was supposed to be sort of an aquamarine blue for the MacBooks. Just use that paint on one of the Just water it down a little Paint colors.

0:07:37 - Leo Laporte
Wow, that's a new concept. Capacity 128 is the starting point, 512 is the max, that's a higher starting point. But remember this was 2021 the last time the Mini was updated.

0:07:51 - Alex Lindsay
And this is the first Mini with. Is this the first Mini with the USB-C? No, no, no, okay, I haven't updated the.

0:07:57 - Jason Snell
No, the one three years ago had most of these features Same display. This is the one.

0:08:06 - Leo Laporte
In fact, I'd be very curious if I can use my case for the uh old ipad.

0:08:07 - Jason Snell
Yeah, I mean, no the problem. So they relocated the volume buttons and the reason they did that I believe is so that you can charge the pencil pro on the side yeah, yeah, connector on the side.

0:08:20 - Leo Laporte
Oh well, no, oh, I see that. So the this is the old one the volume buttons on the top. They're putting it now on the side here, I think so.

0:08:28 - Andy Ihnatko
No, the volume button's still on the top. According to the specs page on the Apple Store on the top you got your volume buttons, you got your stereo speakers and then on the right edge you got your top button slash touch ID sensor. Ah, so still volume buttons on the top.

0:08:44 - Leo Laporte
So this is when I'm looking at this picture, which is incomprehensible.

0:08:48 - Jason Snell
I'm looking at it portrait the long land this is facing the screen yeah yeah, and this is the on off.

0:08:54 - Leo Laporte
By the way, I don't mind the lack of face uh ID, because I touch ID on this is quite good. In fact, I prefer it, uh at night especially. Yeah, so they don't say how much RAM, but to use apple intelligence do we?

0:09:09 - Jason Snell
yeah, it's going to be whatever the configuration in the iphone 15 pro last year was, which is was, until they announced the new iphone's the only apple intelligence iphone. So it's basically whatever that that base of you know ios. That's what it's going to be.

0:09:25 - Leo Laporte
That's a little disappointing, I must say, but it's about what we thought it would be. We thought we might have the A18. So that's, I guess, the biggest disappointment.

0:09:37 - Andy Ihnatko
This is a sustenance iPad. I think Jason was right to elicit the ghost of the iPad Air. This is the iPad Air in a much more compact, pocketable form factor, something that is a little bit more discreet, and that's pretty much it. I mean, it doesn't have to be a barn burner. I think we're all happy that there's an option for having enough storage that you can actually put a whole bunch of stuff on it and not care about it, because this is going to be a really nice content consumption device, and we're very, very happy they can use the latest Apple Pencil and it can charge by clicking on the side of it, because I mean, you got to face it that almost everything that Apple has touch on is a way to showcase Apple Notes and they're not going to make sure that the latest iPad they put out doesn't have a showcase for apple news so, uh, they do claim double the neural processor performance, 30 boost in cpu performance.

0:10:34 - Jason Snell
Um, you know they're really emphasizing that this is designed for apple intelligence so I guess this is the apple intelligence update, because they don't want that product. I think they want as few. Only the low end iPad, I think, is left as being one of these core devices that does not support Apple intelligence. With a new version, right Like all the Macs, do all the iPhones other than the SE. Right Like I and I feel like that's probably coming there they want everything to have, uh, apple intelligence support.

0:11:05 - Leo Laporte
so here we are, point do you think the rest of the updated product line for this year will be just slipped?

0:11:13 - Alex Lindsay
out like this by press release. I think that in in some ways, this could also be them clearing the deck apple's done this in the past is the month, a couple weeks or a month before they're doing a major release that they want to talk about, they dump the other things that they were going to release that they don't think have a lot of you know, there's not a lot of reason to spend time during a keynote talking about this.

0:11:35 - Jason Snell
What does the iPad mini have in common with a bunch of new Macs, especially with the new Pro processor? Other than Apple intelligence? Nothing right they may have decided like the last thing we need is a lack of focus on the Mac for our Mac event no-transcript like that.

0:12:04 - Alex Lindsay
that's going to be really interesting for a lot of folks and I think that they're not going to put, they're not going to change the form factor without at least a 10 minute video that talks about why.

0:12:10 - Jason Snell
that's great, you know probably not, and also I. You just did it and I've done it too. When you've got an iPad mini and a Mac mini there's confusion, so like, and the iPad mini is not that interesting, so just kick it out there and then maybe make a nice Mac video and release that with a bunch of new maps.

0:12:29 - Andy Ihnatko
Because we should see.

0:12:30 - Jason Snell
MacBook Pro is like MacBook Pro. That's the other thing about this that leads me to believe that they will do. If not an event, what does an event even mean? Like a warning that a video is coming in a week? I still think they may very well do that, for two reasons. One is MacBook Pro is a very important product to them and this is going to be the MacBook Pro update and they're going to have M4 Pro and M4 Max chips and I think that they're going to want people to. You know, they're going to want to sell those because that's their processor prowess at a new level and M4 on the Mac for the first time. So that would lead me to believe that it'll be a little bit bigger, but they could very easily drop it on the day and put the video out. The video doesn't have to be presaged with an invitation saying please come watch our video.

0:13:14 - Andy Ihnatko
They could just drop the video and say, hey, new Macs and walk away and they often drop a bunch of like meet the new, whatever, whatever, like, even as much as two weeks after the the first one actually drops the. The day the day of release is for the you know, let's license or hit song that we can, we can promote on apple, on on apple music hey, let's get the cgi, hey, let's get the the dancers in there. Sometimes it really is just what they're going to put on to tick tock and put tick tock and instagram and youtube is just the here's meet your brand new mac to put onto TikTok and Instagram and YouTube. It's just the here's meet your brand new iPad mini. And they can do that in a couple of weeks instead of on the day of.

0:13:53 - Alex Lindsay
I do think that there is a tier, which is that we're going to live stream it. We want some version of the press to show up because we think it's enough, some version of the press to show up because we think it's enough and we want to control. I think the live streaming of it controls the, the uh, the narrative just a little bit, because everybody gets it at the same time, including the consumers. Um, the press potentially gets to see it instead of doing, you know they'll still do the the off, you know the, the off date, you know, uh, build up and so on and so forth. But I think that, uh, I think there is an advantage to doing the live stream. And again, I think that if they were just doing another Mac mini and just everything was in the same form factor, I would think that they might just release a video.

I think that the Mac mini, the new Mac mini, I think a lot of us are really excited about. So I think that that's the thing that it feels like they would do something, to talk about what it took, because I bet you, it was pretty hard to take the form factor that they had. They had to make a bunch of decisions about what they took out. They're going to have to explain that. They're going to have to explain, you know, what it took to get it down to the size. I'm sure there's a bunch of engineering lift that Apple likes to brag about and you know, whatever they're doing is probably, that's probably going to be, pound for pound, one of the most powerful computers ever made. You know like it's. You know, regardless of how it, how it, you know it's going to be this tight. If, if it comes out at that, maybe we're all wrong and it's all going to just be another Mac mini with an M4, but if they actually squeeze it down, it's going to be an incredibly powerful machine for the size.

0:15:17 - Andy Ihnatko
Yeah.

0:15:26 - Alex Lindsay
And they're definitely going to want to haul out the 40 ton hydraulic press again. Uh, I mean, they got so much press over that the last time they'd be fools, just do it with the mac mini but say we're doing it with our own product, like we squeezed it down and we didn't squeeze your, your violence we took our own from santa to orphan child, from santa to under underappreciated teacher and just it would actually be a very nice way of retracting that without retracting it.

0:15:45 - Leo Laporte
To take a uh bigger mac mini and squish it down and maybe some pianos come out.

0:15:52 - Andy Ihnatko
I don't know well, a selling point could be that now it will take, it will displace less oxygen, uh, in your office or in your home, more breathable o2 for everybody. Again, everybody's worried about the climate. I think that's very much on the nose. Well, there you go. I don't know why.

0:16:09 - Leo Laporte
It's weird that they're doing all this, giving away these brilliant ideas for nothing. It's weird that they're doing all this without actually having apple intelligence out. But we'll be ready. We'll all, we'll all be ready they're laying the groundwork.

0:16:23 - Alex Lindsay
Oh, is that it? Yeah, that's pushing out first building.

0:16:25 - Andy Ihnatko
The foundation is getting before Apple intelligence. There's the Apple Apple halfwits, and that's 18.1.

0:16:31 - Leo Laporte
There's the functional moron yeah, 18.2 oh well, um, I did notice that if you add, if you do 512 gigs of storage and you add cellular, it comes out to a thousand dollars. I did notice that. I also noticed that now apple pay I do I know maybe this is just me, but they now scan, they put a scan code and you do a picture with your phone of it when you do it on the laptop, which I think is kind of cool. It's a little like pass keys. Maybe that's just me. I've never seen that before. So I you know. The only reason I got it is because lisa wanted a mac, an ipad mini. She sees me using mine all the time and she said she'd take mine if I bought the new one. So I bought the winner winner winner everybody's a winner.

I did have to buy a new folio case because this thing has really taken a beating. I don't should that happen that's disgusting.

0:17:31 - Jason Snell
Whatever it is, you can clean it, you can wash it it actually can I put it in the? In the wash, the dishwasher I would just use some, some soap, some like dish soap and uh, and wash it by hand and then let it dry and might have been a mistake to buy a white I was gonna say I would suggest not buying a light one also.

0:17:47 - Alex Lindsay
Yes, sure, but it has been.

0:17:51 - Leo Laporte
I didn't think it'd be three long years, yeah, so don you know what I love the mini.

0:17:57 - Alex Lindsay
I love the form factor.

0:17:58 - Leo Laporte
It's my, it's the most used ipad, easily, uh, and so, uh, good, I'm glad they've updated, I guess, right, yeah, and I look forward to whatever it is they decide to do with the m. It'll be m4 based, uh, mac minis, right? Possibly anything else. Well, we think that they're going to be all technically the macbooks, macbook pro.

0:18:23 - Andy Ihnatko
By the way, Gurman confirmed that that russian leak was he's?

0:18:24 - Leo Laporte
he think it was he thinks it Anything else?

0:18:24 - Andy Ihnatko
Well, we think that they're going to be all Technically the MacBooks.

0:18:25 - Jason Snell
MacBook Pro, by the way, kermit confirmed that that Russian leak was.

0:18:29 - Leo Laporte
He thinks it was real too.

0:18:31 - Andy Ihnatko
Yeah, In his newsletter this week he said that he talked to his sources inside Apple, who confirmed that yeah, that's a real. That's the thing that's cool. The product numbers are right.

0:18:40 - Jason Snell
Everything else is right, His theory was that they pre-shipped them to various warehouses and that it wasn't a supply chain link from China, but his theory was that it was in a warehouse somewhere in Europe.

0:18:54 - Leo Laporte
Eastern Europe.

0:18:56 - Jason Snell
And waiting and somebody had a pallet fall off a truck and take them to Russia, because we know that there's a market in Russia, because Apple isn't selling new hardware in Russia, and they happen to get a pallet of something that wasn't even out yet. I would imagine there's some leakage. That's happening regularly, but it isn't usually something that isn't released.

0:19:17 - Alex Lindsay
In a lot of the countries where Apple doesn't sell, doesn't have an official presence, especially in russia, the multiplier on the retail is anywhere from two to ten times what it would normally cost. Because it's a real, it's considered a. You know it's, it's a little bit of a um uh you know black market world. I mean, it's not just that it's black market, it's that, it's a, it's, it's a positioning piece like, oh, I got the new mac it's, you know, for the folks that have money to do it, it's a status symbol yeah 100 yeah, we're, I mean we're all.

0:19:46 - Leo Laporte
It's the same thing here in america, by the way, Alex well well, but remember what it was like in the earlier?

0:19:52 - Andy Ihnatko
but up until like what?

0:19:54 - Leo Laporte
the iphone 5, iphone, iphone 4, iphone 5, where it's like people would come from australia and just come back with like steamer trunks full of iphones to bring back, just for the good people of Australia when we went to Czechoslovakia in the 60s, right before the crackdown, they wanted Levi's. That was the hot item. Yeah, blue jeans and Beatles album, wasn't it? Yeah, blue jeans and people we didn't.

0:20:19 - Alex Lindsay
I knew someone who flew into an African country and they would just take 10 iPhones with them every time. They just buy 10 iPhones and it would pay for the flight hotel. It's like like it was like a. It was a free trip, you just sell them out for the. Uh, you gotta be careful.

0:20:32 - Leo Laporte
Paul thorat was talking about this, yeah, last week, because he he goes to mexico and he brings with him I think he said eight or nine laptops, because he's got review units and stuff and uh and he had heard stories about people being stopped and forced to pay tariff because the implication is you're bringing these into cell not only that, waltz, not only that, but there's, there's much.

0:20:53 - Andy Ihnatko
So the the rule at the rule at the border is that you're allowed to bring in. Uh yeah, you brought one one one one laptop and one like non-computing device, like one computer device. It's not a laptop and a lot ofcomputing device. One computing device is not a laptop. And a lot of people have been surprised because for years an iPad did not count as a laptop and apparently, starting last year, they started counting iPads as laptops. So a win for Apple PR. It is a type of computer, it's a legitimate computing productivity device. But a lot of people coming in with a $1,400 iPad with a keyboard and stuff that now they have to come up with $300, $400, $500 in tariffs for.

0:21:32 - Alex Lindsay
And, by the way, for folks who are organized around it. Mexico is a carne country, so if you knew you were bringing that I've brought a lot more than a couple of laptops into Mexico, and what you have to do is there's a bunch of forms you have to fill out before you leave, and it costs a little bit of money, apparently.

Paul never figured that out. But if you and you can get through it I mean there's a lot of things you can move in and out of countries without too much trouble. It's just if you get caught, you know if someone decides they're going to pull you over for it.

0:22:06 - Leo Laporte
You know if, if your backpack looks too heavy, if your cases are a little too nice oftentimes those are the kind or you you know have you know that's when you get pulled off and you just want to know that you have people if you packed your iphone and coffee grounds, that sort of thing, yeah you know, that's a good point, because my wife always likes to bring her own coffee, no matter where we go, and grinds it at a time and then gives it to me to carry, and I always get stopped like uh why do you have an ipad mini in those coffee grounds? I'm smuggling it. So Gurman says I can confirm that these are indeed apple's upcoming macbook pros. Um, it does so. You're saying, jason, that means he's heard from sources inside it sure sounds that way, doesn't?

it? Yeah, I can confirm. Is it like?

0:22:50 - Jason Snell
I'm pretty sure it's like I can confirm the other thing, that's that's huge in this uh announcement is Apple's new smart home strategy.

0:22:58 - Leo Laporte
Um, that's the. That was the biggest thing in the Sunday news. He seems to be dropping these sunday bombs now. Uh, in the power on newsletter. Uh, they. They say that the all those people who are working on the car have been transferred over. Uh to the home products division well, they're now yeah they're all over the place because they're all over because they're in the.

0:23:22 - Jason Snell
He also says that they're in the vision products too. So I think that they a bunch of different parts of the company got the car people the we had on sunday.

0:23:31 - Leo Laporte
Uh, we had jennifer tooey, who is a home uh expert, a home automation expert, for the verge and she said this is a big deal because apple has historically, while a home kit's been a good brand, it's historically not worked very well with anything else. It hasn't played well with others. And so Mark writes now the company's setting out to conquer the smart home with an aggressive new strategy, putting Apple screens and software throughout the house. I expect home hardware to be a top priority for Apple over the next two years. He already mentioned that so-called I don't think robotic is the word to use tabletop device that has an arm that rotates it.

0:24:11 - Jason Snell
Mark Gurman doesn't know what a robot is, but although he has said that-.

0:24:14 - Leo Laporte
Neither does Elon Musk, by the way.

0:24:16 - Jason Snell
The smart display is going to beat the robot to the home, which is If only there were a podcast that could decide this for us.

0:24:23 - Andy Ihnatko
Yes, so that's a good idea.

0:24:29 - Jason Snell
The incomparablecom slash robot, find out if something is a robot or not. This is not a robot. Yeah, this is not a no, but it's. It's good. Right, like their home strategy has desperately needed some attention and it sounds like they're going to get some of it, which is good, at the home and the wearables. That's. That was his other story is that they're also, you know there is a sort of a plan for doing meta Ray-Ban style glasses, as well as the AirPods with cameras on them, and that they're trying to derive some of that technology that they built for the Vision Pro into products that are more likely to be used by a larger group, with the goal of eventually doing AR glasses.

But the home has just been sitting there and the tragedy is that they have all the pieces. They have right, they have the software. They're going to apparently commit to doing something called Home OS, which is based on Apple's TV OS but is broader and will allow them to build that articulated arm on your tabletop or a smart screen or whatever else they're doing, and it's good, because that was there for the taking, like years ago, and Apple's just sort of not spent, you know, any energy taking, yeah, but it has but has a new role though, because now, uh, really, smart home as much as the hype has been, had been about this for 10 years ago, it really it's.

0:25:41 - Andy Ihnatko
It's useful, it's lovely, it's great to be able to automate lights, uh, make sure thermostats, locks and things like that, cameras and things like that all tied in and working together, but it hasn't become this immense new computing platform that, again, people were promising 10 years ago. But the thing is, what they have now that they didn't have 10 years ago is that now they have Apple Intelligence. So now they need to find other platforms to deploy Apple Intelligence on, to build this up as a brand and to build this up as a feature of the Apple ecosystem. So now they don't just say, hey, we've got a speaker, oh, my God, we're going to demo this.

Behind speaker baffles. You will not be able to tell whether you've got the $2, speakers or you've got the 500 smart speaker. They're going to sell it on based on. We have different modules. You have these different smart speakers or smart pods in every single room. They use all kinds of technologies, including uh, including narrowband wi-fi, to determine are people in this room right now? If so, where are they to be able to focus audio, to be able to focus eating, to be able to focus lighting all this sort of stuff that they can propel with Apple intelligence. So it's not just sell these smart speakers and these, these smart robots, but also sell the idea of Apple intelligence as something that you want to buy into as an entire platform.

0:27:02 - Alex Lindsay
I also think I think hopefully Apple realizes that so far the home strategy has been a complete failure and it's just, it barely works. But the good side of that, the silver lining to that cloud, is that I think there's still a huge latent demand for automation in the house that people just haven't. And I look at myself as an example of someone who has fiddled with it a little bit. But I would spend a lot of money automating stuff if I thought it would actually work. But I'm not going to spend any money into the hole that is material right now. Um, you know, because I just don't trust it, like I don't trust that it's going to work. I don't trust it's always going to be reliable. I buy stuff on these platforms and then they work for a little while and they stop working.

And I just think that Apple should continue to support material consent, continue to support the things that it's doing, but just build its own protocol and build its own hardware. Like, just build the core items that are there, not all of the hardware that you would need, but lights, outlets, locks, thermostats, cameras. You put those. If Apple just builds those five, they'll have a nifty little business, adding three to $5 billion a year to their business, and it won't be a big thing, it'll just be like this little number. But what it does is they start showing how much people are buying on their platform.

They may encourage other people to at least support what they're doing, but I think that this waiting for or trying to integrate with the junk that's out there right now is just going to be. It's just going to keep on. Nothing's ever going to happen here. If they try to work that this is not apple's forte is to work with other people's uh protocols, like that's not what they do well and and what they should do is do what they do well or which is. This is our protocol.

0:28:42 - Leo Laporte
Well, this is kind of what I'm saying, though, is that they didn't do well by just making their own HomeKit, and that's why they created Matter, along with Google and Amazon, so that there'd be some unified language, and that's why they're going to, I presume, make HomeOS be multi-lingual, but in general, just working with other hardware manufacturers is not their specialty. No, they're not good at it, but that sounds like they're turning over a new leaf.

0:29:08 - Alex Lindsay
yeah Well, I think hopefully the new leaf is building their own core items that actually work with W1 chips or whatever they want to put in them, so that they easily connect and identify and do what they're supposed to do.

0:29:23 - Leo Laporte
And again, I don't know if I'm an exception, but people like me would buy a lot of Apple devices, but that's why HomeKit failed. There was too high a bar for these cheap.

0:29:28 - Alex Lindsay
Chinese companies. But I'm saying that Apple should. Just there's five things that those five things that I listed are what 95% of the people are buying, like you know, like it is not esoteric whatever. I mean they could just buy those and just own that market and let other people, and then it puts a much higher.

Want to make light switches yeah, see I I just don't if you want to, if you want to be part of everyone's. The thing is, the more you have the light switches, the, the outlet, so and so forth, the lock-in just gets deeper because it's like, oh, I could buy an android device, but like this is all tied in, like yeah, but the thing is, but they're never going to do that.

0:30:03 - Jason Snell
That's the whole. The whole managed strategy is you have partners. You have partners who you trust well I mean it's ironic, because that's I mean that's not right. That's not right, it has not worked because for years and years and years there was an arms race in the smart home world where everybody was making incompatible stuff and and all of the players gave up.

They said look, we can't do this anymore, and that's what the goal is with Matter, and the fact is Apple doesn't even make a Wi-Fi router, which they totally should be making now because of all of the reasons that it would make sense with their brand and privacy and they could put like VPNs in it, like there's so many things they could do.

They're not going to make light switches, so they got to find a partner, just like they do when they go to Belkin and they say here's a thing, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, that we don't want to make, but you can make it to our specifications and find partners and you put those in the Apple store and they cost a little bit more, but you can sell a lot of them in the Apple store and I think that's a good strategy because I mean, Alex, let's state the facts they can't even ship a HomePod with a screen right, a HomePod with a screen right, so like to get down to the level of and they don't need to reinvent Lutron, caseta switches, right, like there are a lot of good rock solid, by the way home products that are out there.

0:31:13 - Leo Laporte
I have Casetas everywhere.

0:31:15 - Jason Snell
I just wish I could you know, and I have the Hub and I have Hunter Douglas PowerView shades that go.

0:31:23 - Leo Laporte
And if it would all tie together and I've tried I have a home assistant server over here, I have home bridge running. If I could get it all to tie together and then maybe I use Apple intelligence to talk to it, I would be very happy. That's the.

0:31:34 - Andy Ihnatko
That's the uninstalled market I just don't see Apple making a good 99 Smart thermostat. I don't see them making a good dollar smart light bulb. I don't see them. I don't see them making a good $12 smart light bulb. I don't see them making the sort of things that people really, really want. I see them doing a good job on the smart speaker, because that's really up their alley. The intersection between a college campus, between engineering and the humanities that's how they roll. I think that they spent way too much time getting away from accepting other hardware and accepting other platforms, and that's why they put so much time and effort into co-developing matter, because that's a solution to the problem that people want.

0:32:21 - Alex Lindsay
People don't-.

0:32:22 - Leo Laporte
They telegraphed.

0:32:22 - Alex Lindsay
They wanna do this, right. I just my prediction is, if they don't start building their own devices, years from now we'll be having the exact same conversation we're having now, which is no movement, like it's not gonna like it's not gonna.

0:32:34 - Leo Laporte
History would agree with you. It's certainly been that way for a couple of decades it's never going to work if they don't build.

0:32:38 - Alex Lindsay
I'm not saying that they will. I think you're right, they probably won't, but I'm going to predict that it will never really work and they'll never really see the possibility of what's here, unless Apple starts building its own hardware to do it. Because it's just not, it's a disaster, like the home automation market is a complete, complete cluster.

0:32:55 - Andy Ihnatko
Just as an aside, though, if there's one skill that Apple has never demonstrated and I really really wish that they would it's the ability to make things good when they don't have total control over everything it's. I mean, it's hard, it might be even an insolvable problem to solve it the way that Apple would like to solve it, but they've never really demonstrated the ability to say look, here's a device that is well documented. It's based on lots of open protocols and open software that we can easily understand, but we didn't build it. We also didn't build our desktops. We didn't build our phones. We didn't build our tablets and the operating systems that run them, specifically to anticipate this device and to make sure that it works well with it. Demonstrate that you can make it work well on your platform. They really never demonstrated that.

I would love to see them do that by saying that you know what. It is impractical to say that the only way to get home automation working well is to do the entire widgets, from soup to nuts, on our own. I would love to see them demonstrate. Okay, it's going to be such a pain in the butt and we're going to hate ourselves for even taking this on for ourselves, but this is the only way to deliver a good platform like that that is going to suit most of our users who again don't have 800 to spend on us on an apple starter kit for again, light switches, but there are there are people that have that money to spend on that starter kit, and that's the thing is that apple, like, I wouldn't know about 800 thermostat but279, which I think is what I paid for the first nest I would buy it.

0:34:27 - Alex Lindsay
Now, you know, like, I don't need it to be $99. $279 would be fine and I would replace my thermostat. Right now, you know, like, and and so the and so the thing is is that there is definitely a market there that Apple has already. I mean, like the it's all the way down to like, the Apple used to make these six foot HDMI cables. They don't make them anymore. That were the best six foot HDMI cables in the world, Like and they, you know, and it was this crazy thing that you, the reason that you want Apple to build these things is because, whatever their mindset is, they built these things that were declared to only be 1080p but actually did 4K, 60.

They, you know, they were perfect as far. I still have some around when you pick them up're like oh, I really and and and so the and the. The thing is is that that's kind of. There's some people who, if I'm going to buy something and leave it in my house for the next 15 years. I'd rather have apple just build the whole thing than buy some cheap chinese.

0:35:20 - Leo Laporte
You know trash so, according to Gurman, apple's uh gonna be making uh, you know, matter be its standard for home os. That's one piece of the foundation. Another is artificial intelligence. They want to use apple intelligence to offer home automation on steroids I'm reading Gurman from his power on newsletter as well as precise control of applications, devices and media a core piece of apple. A new app intense system I-N-T-E-N-T-S not intense, but intense that allows the Siri digital assistant to manipulate features inside apps. Ai will also govern how the products work. The tabletop device will use AI to understand its surroundings environment. By the way, that's something Roomba and other home vacuums did, and people were very upset about Amazon buying Roomba for that very reason. Amazon wanted to understand your home environment.

0:36:16 - Jason Snell
They know where my coffee table is. No.

0:36:19 - Leo Laporte
So it can sense who is looking at the screen, what people are doing and who is speaking. Only Apple could get away with that right. Everybody's afraid of a company like amazon doing that. That capability could make the device compelling and it might actually be the first product built from the ground up for apple intelligence. Interesting, he says that's a misleading claim that apple makes about the iphone 16. I kind of want to dig into that little side bar there. The third component of the smart home strategy is software, the new home OS, which will be based on tvOS. Apple's in an interesting position because they do have hubs in most homes. If you have an iPad, if you have an Apple TV, you have a hub for HomeKit without doing anything, you know to make it hubbish. To jumpstart these efforts, the company's building a new home ecosystem team and move some engineers from the car project Won't be an easy task. You know he agrees with you, Alex. Its first home product, the Apple iPod Hi-Fi Remember that $349 speaker designed to work smoothly with the Apple lineup Discontinued after 18 months.

Still have mine still use, use mine you still use yours, yeah, ours, probably.

0:37:32 - Alex Lindsay
It's a really nice speaker it has a 30 pin dock.

0:37:36 - Andy Ihnatko
Yeah, but you could, there was it also it also has an aux in and you can buy. I don't know if they're still available you could buy like a bluetooth adapter, so you basically, instead of an ip sticking an ipod in the dock, you stick this little Bluetooth chip inside it and now it's just a Bluetooth speaker.

0:37:53 - Leo Laporte
You know there is a risk. I think people are nervous about a company understanding who's in the house, what they're doing in the house. That makes people very nervous. You know, lisa just returned. She bought a Dyson curling iron this they call it the straight and you can't use it without signing up and at installing an app an app on your phone and and there's no manual, there's just a video that you have to give them, you have to get to create an account for she returned it.

0:38:21 - Jason Snell
She said no, I'm not gonna do that this is why being a matter controller is a good business case for Apple, right? Just saying just like. I mean, they're already doing this a little bit with HomeKit secure video, which kind of works. It's got its issues, but I have some cameras that are HomeKit secure video and the fact is I am not only as an Apple one subscriber do I get that, which is great, so I'm not paying extra and I don't have to subscribe to some. You know you buy the camera for $200 and then you have to pay $20 a month to some service for that.

Not only that, but it's using Apple's iCloud encryption and it's end-to-end encrypted and I have a trust in that that I do not have in random cameras cloud infrastructure. So there's a room. There's room here for Apple to say look, the future of your home is smart and it is devices that are going to know where you are so that they can optimize and turn the lights. You know it could do. We can use ultra wide band to do occupancy sensing, even with an occupancy. So this is all great, but we're going to do it all on device in the house

0:39:23 - Leo Laporte
and trust us. There are only two companies that make apple home kit secure video cameras, even logitech, that's it right.

0:39:33 - Jason Snell
So you have I know you have one of these four you've just told us, uh right, I have a, well, I have a eufy, but I don't know if they still make that model and uh and logitech because this is the home kit secure video page at applecom and it only has four.

yeah, that's weird yeah, well, I mean, but this is the. So anyway, my point is apple has an opportunity here, because they have built a level of trust that maybe doesn't exist in other places, to say, well, we're going to do home, smart home control and a matter controller in your apple tv or in your ipad or wherever you want it, and because we trust, trust us, because we are not going to, you know, we're going to do everything end-to-end, encrypted, and it's encrypted on our servers and we're not mining your information. Like there is a case to be made there, but it's probably at the big device level, like your HomePods, partner level and that hub, right, and the idea that, like, yeah, but your data is being processed and these different devices are being communicated with by Apple's hub, that doesn't go anywhere else, and to that point I mean, I never plug my TV into the Internet and there's all kinds of papers that talk about like, hey, you should not do that.

0:40:44 - Alex Lindsay
You know, and you know, my Apple TV is the only thing, the only entertainment device that talks with the rest of the world, because I trust Apple to do it. And I don't trust them because I think Apple's altruistic. I trust them because I think this when we look at this entire rollout, this is their business plan Like it's it is, and I think it's a lot easier to trust someone's business plan than it is to trust their altruism and their entire future is based on the fact that they are not. You know that they want to protect that data, um, and so that's the. So I think that that that's why they have a huge opportunity here. It's just it'll be interesting to see if they're able to capitalize on and again, I don't, I'm not, I don't, I'm not saying that they will build hardware. I just don't think that they'll be successful if they don't.

0:41:26 - Andy Ihnatko
Yeah, and I don't, I don't, I don't want to rain on your, uh, on your, on your HDMI cables. I'm sure their HDMI cables are great, Amazing, but I, but I had, but, but I had to jump in and say that, like, apple's also the company that will give you, like, a power charge cable that like splits apart at the, at the connector, like after about two or three months. It's, it's a the things. There are things that are important to Apple. There are things that are not quite so important to Apple.

0:41:52 - Leo Laporte
I, uh, I hope Apple succeeds. You know, amazon um had that kind of unified plan with the ring cameras and the ring doorbell and all that. In fact, when I I have a ring doorbell, I thought, oh, maybe I should use Amazon's uh security system, which is was at the time, was cheaper than anybody else's, and then that Amazon just doubled the price of it, annoying a lot of people, uh, and do you really want Amazon to know what's going on inside?

0:42:17 - Alex Lindsay
well, I think the first time I I said that I saw that the police were able to acquire the ring camera and that was the end. Like I was not, like I'm afraid of the police, but I was like you mean, somebody else can just subpoena my data.

0:42:31 - Leo Laporte
Um, no, thank you, you know like, and that's a strong, by the way. And, by the way, they could do that with apple too, I hate to tell you right.

0:42:38 - Alex Lindsay
Well, it depends on what apple is constantly doing, though, is knocking off their ability to actually get to the data, so what they're constantly doing is clipping off all of their their own way, so the government can come and ask for it. They're just like.

0:42:51 - Leo Laporte
I don't have any keys, I decided not to have anything that uploads, because I need all the upload bandwidth I can get for these shows, so I use ubiquity protect. It's all local. There is a disadvantage you, because I mean you can log into it remotely but it doesn't save it. In case you know, you want to share it with the police department, you have to do that manually. But I like the idea that I'm not using bandwidth to set to, because if you have cameras that's a lot of bandwidth.

0:43:30 - Andy Ihnatko
Amazon's marketing plan has always been to partner up really tightly with local police and essentially make the sort of co-op the local police into help to promote and to sell these. Bring doorbells as a security feature, while also promising them that, hey, you're going to get access to a whole new pipeline of video and surveillance and intelligence that you didn't have before.

Yes, you're going to need subpoenas, but maybe you won't even need subpoenas, maybe you can use our neighborhood app and just simply ask hey look, we're the friendly police and I'm sure that you want us to help find out who stole that car that was across the street from you two days ago. So could we have access to all of your video from the past?

0:44:09 - Leo Laporte
two or four days. Yeah, earlier this year, ring, realizing that that was a very big negative for most users, changed their policy and they do need to have a subpoena now, but I think anybody who has an internet-based camera system probably is subject to subpoena from law enforcement. That's kind of how it works right Now. If law enforcement wants my camera stuff, they have to break into my house and take my hard drives.

0:44:41 - Jason Snell
Well, get a warrant. Get a warrant, man, take your hard drives.

0:44:45 - Leo Laporte
Get a warrant and take my hard drives. Let's take a break Now that I've announced into the public that they can get the hard drives right here. Um, we are talking about macs, believe it or not, and we have more to talk about with the MacBreak Weekly panel they have assembled. Uh, Alex lindsay from officehours.global, Jason Snell from sixcolors.com, Andy Ihnatko from WGBH Boston.

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Uh, when are we? What is the latest status on apple intelligence 18.1 should be coming out the end of the month see, we thought the whole thing would, because Gurman said november 1st for the availability october 28th.

We thought there'd be event, but maybe there will, maybe there won't.

0:48:28 - Jason Snell
18.1 isn't going to change your life, no, and it's probably better now you can get it, but it's got some stuff in it.

0:48:34 - Leo Laporte
Oh, you have it, that's right.

0:48:35 - Jason Snell
It's visible. It really is like Apple Intelligence 1.0 is essentially what it is and it's not. Or you could argue that maybe it's Apple Intelligence Beta 1, because Apple will ship it in beta, even though the OS will be non beta Apple intelligence. They're going to call it a beta, so it's really beta one of Apple intelligence and then we're going to be getting iterations of that over the course of you know, from now until WWDC next year.

0:49:04 - Leo Laporte
There's actually one thing I really like you can uh, that's in 18, one. Maybe people will be excited about this you can change set your primary email address. It'll make it easier to change the address associated with your Apple account. That's always been kind of hard to do.

0:49:23 - Andy Ihnatko
Needlessly hard yeah.

0:49:24 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, so the primary email address is the one that people see when, uh, when you're sharing documents and in calendar invites, uh, and if you, you know, in the past it was your, you know your icloudcom address, uh, and it was very difficult to change that. So now this is something new in 18.1. I like that. Is that available in the beta? I? Don don't know, I think, so I haven't tried it.

0:49:49 - Jason Snell
Yeah, I like my email address.

0:49:53 - Andy Ihnatko
So it does seem like, if you look at, like Gurman's roadmap and a couple other sites who've like reported his roadmap and added their own, like herbs and spices, like this, 18.1 is going to be fun. Have a lot of basic stuff into it, like text transforms, summaries, summarizing, summarizing your notifications. Yeah, there was a funny story that ours picked up on. So a developer who's got the 18.1 beta, so I guess they were having a problem with his girlfriend and the girlfriend sent him a bunch of texts that, ok, I'm done, I'm breaking up with you. I want like out of my house all that stuff. And because he had the beta installed, apple intelligence summarized it too. Summarized it too. I'm leaving. You wants her? No, not even listen.

0:50:41 - Leo Laporte
Look at what. Was it no longer in a relationship, wants belongings from the apartment.

0:50:48 - Andy Ihnatko
That kind of takes the curse off of it. It's like, okay, I've got the thrust of those messages without the real dagger heartbreak.

0:51:00 - Leo Laporte
Poor Nick, you feel for. Nick, that's a horrible thing to get.

0:51:04 - Alex Lindsay
I don't know. I think many men would just prefer the summary.

0:51:09 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, cut to the chase. If you're going to the chair, you're gonna tell me, like it's not me, it's you, like there's this whole like talking around everything else.

0:51:15 - Alex Lindsay
I mean, I think men just are like okay, what do you need what? What are we doing here?

0:51:18 - Leo Laporte
and then this guy named yorgo, and not just, not just that, but it's like croatia, like I was.

0:51:24 - Andy Ihnatko
When I read this story. I was thinking of of how many times you get one ping off of your phone and then suddenly a flurry of pings and you know that something has happened in your family and you're like, do I have the strength and the courage to pick my way through this? If there was a way to say that, oh, no one's dead, don't worry about it, we're not convening at a hospital like. What happened was that somebody bought a dress for a wedding that was too similar to the bride's gown and a whole bunch of people are having a whole bunch of feelings about it. Maybe you want to stay out of this.

0:52:04 - Leo Laporte
Of course, our technicist said well, how did that make you feel? He said, well, I do feel it added a level of distance to it, that it wasn't a bad thing, maybe a bit like a personal assistant who stays professional and has your back even in the most awful situations. But yeah, more than anything it felt unreal and dystopian, I guess. Apparently they got in a fight, uh, in a in a bar. He got up and left and then she sent a text that was something along the lines of I can't believe you just did that. We're done, I want my stuff. And of course, apple Intelligence said Sir, your girlfriend is no longer in a relationship with you, wants the belongings from the apartment. That's a good Jeeves message.

0:52:44 - Andy Ihnatko
I like it. Imagine connecting that through shortcuts, connecting that through like a generative, like AI, so that it automatically converts that into a country. Song for you.

0:52:55 - Leo Laporte
I got bad news for you. I picked up my phone.

0:53:03 - Andy Ihnatko
My AI told me I was all alone, but I didn't hear it from her.

0:53:11 - Leo Laporte
I think we're going to see a lot more stories like this right, yeah sure, yeah, it's, it's, I will.

0:53:16 - Andy Ihnatko
I will say that again. There are times where, like even when it's bad news, it's kind of I would have appreciated again being able to just gently ease myself into it by saying, okay, okay, prepare yourself, it's bad. There's something you really need to check out and it has to do with the health of your cousin. Well, okay.

0:53:36 - Leo Laporte
In the Ars Technica article, benji points out I'm sorry, kyle Orland points out that no, it was Benji, that's it was. Benji points out that, um, uh, in 20 years ago, people thought getting a breakup text was the lowest of the low. When, when kevin federline broke up with britney spears with a text in 2006, it was like news like oh, how dare he. Now, but if I don't want a phone call, I would prefer a text, and even the text summary might be better. So I think it's yeah, this might be an improvement.

0:54:13 - Andy Ihnatko
Yeah we adapt. Things have things that I mean. That's such a great example. That's like and before that it was oh my God, you put something that serious into an email and not a telephone call. And like nobody wants to hear a phone call.

Like maybe we will take it from text messaging to a phone call, but you don't want to start off that way. Societies have such interesting ways of adapting to technology. It's a way of expressing, like who we are as humans, that we have this new outlet in which to take a social situation that's been 500, 600, a thousand years old and now we can express it in a brand new way that's specific for the 21st century, I mean, we've been breaking up with each other.

0:54:54 - Alex Lindsay
Humans have been breaking up with each other with low EQ, true, I mean finding your clothes on the pavement is usually a pretty Low EQ breakups. It's just like I mean Henry VIII, horrible at it. Yeah, chopping people's heads off very low EQ breakups, you know like it's just like you know I mean Henry VIII, horrible at it.

0:55:10 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, chopping people's heads off. Very low EQ why you.

0:55:13 - Jason Snell
No, let me back in caves.

0:55:16 - Andy Ihnatko
I mean it goes that far back. I'm sorry why my axe outside. I have to apologize Because that came from you. I did not interpret that as emotional IQ. I interpret that as from you. I did not interpret that as emotional IQ. I interpret that as the equalization of an audio.

0:55:34 - Jason Snell
I'm sorry.

0:55:34 - Leo Laporte
Andy. You needed a nudge. It's a little bit too bassy.

0:55:41 - Andy Ihnatko
When you threaten the lives of myself and my dog.

0:55:43 - Jason Snell
It's not you, it's me.

0:55:47 - Andy Ihnatko
I need more air around the clanking of the weaponry.

0:55:51 - Leo Laporte
This week on MacBreakWeekly caveman breakups.

0:55:54 - Jason Snell
Not, you no.

0:55:58 - Leo Laporte
I cry. Jason did do his iPhone 16 Pro review, finally, finally. Took you a little while.

0:56:07 - Jason Snell
Well, you know that everybody else gets an embargo, and then the reviews come out and they've all had them for a week and then I get my phone.

0:56:13 - Leo Laporte
You take your time. I want to hear what it's like after the fourth week.

0:56:16 - Jason Snell
So it's like a series of little thought, little essays about the iphone after using it for a few weeks and uh, so yes, I posted that on six colors. I think one of my biggest takeaways is that I like the impulse to build the camera control hardware and I don't think that the camera control software nails it, I just I feel like it's too complex as a default and that they they, apple has this thing. It's like you know how disney does this thing. Where they do plussing, it's like let's plus that, let's take a thing, that's just a thing and we'll plus it and we'll plus it. And I feel like that's's what Apple did, and they did it too much, that they said, first off, let's do a button, and they're like, ah, but what if it has a haptic at the bottom and it's pressure sensitive and it's?

0:56:53 - Leo Laporte
a touch sensitive surface.

0:56:55 - Jason Snell
And then we we will also plus the software where we will add like, uh, different things and you can double squeeze it to go up a level in the hierarchy. And here's what I think. I think that those are great pro features, those are great power user features. They should exist, but I think that they shouldn't ship with them turned on, and I think it should feel like a camera where it has a shutter and maybe a halfway to focus kind of option, and that you should have the option of making it more complex. And the fact that they shipped it.

And the funny thing is they said, yeah, we're going to do a software update where push to focus is added. The funny thing is they said, yeah, we're going to do a software update where push to focus is added and like, why is that the software update? It's the most basic version of what this thing is trying to ape from the real world. Why would you not have that be in the first version of the product? But I think this is the answer. I think it's emblematic of a certain kind of Apple attitude. It's why it gives me touch bar vibes where they have added a level of complexity. The good news is. I don't think the problem is in the hardware. I think the problem is in the software and that they can make this work better. I don't know if they will, but I hope they will look at it and say maybe we didn't quite nail this this time, because I think ultimately, it's a great idea and I just don't think that they nailed the implementation of it, and the touch bar is the thing that worries me the most.

0:58:10 - Alex Lindsay
I know All I needed was a button that said turn this off, Like it was just, and they just wouldn't turn it off. You know, and because the problem was, the biggest problem with the touch bar is that it didn't add enough value but you hit it all the time by accident.

0:58:25 - Jason Snell
Sure, like that was the number one issue.

They never made any update, like if they could have made it more functional, it might have been worth the pain, right, but they just didn't do it.

And I, just I, just again I come back to the fact that, as a, I am a power user and I find that interface a little too opaque, right, and I, and and I think that the challenge here is that apple look, it's a hard problem to get a product that is used by so many millions and millions, millions of just kind of regular people We've talked about it on the show before right Like how do you get powerful features to register when people are kind of like they are stuck in a rut, they know how to use it. How do you even get them to use that button? But I think you have to make things a little more approachable than this feature is. I think it's so easy to accidentally use this feature and to end up swiping through a hierarchy that's above the one that you're in, and they have a TV ad that they show, that shows it going on, and I'm like it's too much, like the message here really should be so much simpler. It should be hey click, click, click, that, click, that's it.

0:59:30 - Alex Lindsay
And part of me feels like that. Apple really centered around the idea that what they have is a camera that makes phone calls and they've attacked the hardware. They, in my opinion, I still think that they ruin photos. I used to spend so much time in photos and I was looking at it a week ago and I realized I almost never opened photos on my phone anymore.

0:59:52 - Leo Laporte
People say this what's?

0:59:53 - Alex Lindsay
wrong with the new photos? I just can't find what I'm looking for and I can't put my finger on it. It's just like. It's like I can't select the photos the same way I used to. I used there's all this stuff and it's just so uncomfortable for me that I'd stop using it, and so if I need to find something, I go to my, I go to my, my desktop. I'm like, okay, I'll go, I'll go figure this out. But it used to be. I never opened my desktop photos. It was always on my phone. I lived in my phone on photos and now I don't spend any time on it.

I take pictures and I just assume I'm not going to like I just really I have another phone that I opened up and I again I got to sit down and look at it because I can't quite put my finger on what's missing. It's just that it's so uncomfortable to use that I won't use it anymore. Like I just and I'm and again I didn't think about it I just noticed over time, over the last, you know the time that I've had it I just had stopped using it. Like I just like just been frustrated enough. Like, like it selects photos when I don't want it to select photos. It it groups them in weird ways. I'm pretty sure like there are things when I say, show me everything in Petaluma or everything in Washington DC or wherever, it doesn't show me all of them, like cause I find things and I'm like, yeah, took them, you took the pictures you find things and I'm like yeah, took them, you took the pictures, you know, like that metadata is there and now you've decided apple has decided you took the pictures.

You just don't know how to keep the pictures. Yeah, exactly, is that where you were going with that? Well, I just, I I'm just like it's like, it's not that hard, like you, it was that device that took the picture. Like, how can you not find the picture, you know? And yeah, and so and I didn't have that problem with the last the new version seems to be trying to smartly hand me the collection of photos that that I, uh, that I am asking for, instead of just showing me all the photos I took. Like I just, I don't want you to figure this out, you know, and and I and I and I've just I've just kind of like, oh, okay, so I'm hoping you know, I don't know what's going to happen with it. I just, I just noticed that I just barely open it anymore and I mostly am just frustrated when I open it so Jason uh in the in you.

1:01:54 - Leo Laporte
I love this headline happy clickmas.

1:01:56 - Jason Snell
War on buttons buttons is over a little, a little john lennon, john lennon reference there. Right, they used to. They used to take all the buttons off to the point where there was an iphone that had no buttons, and now it's like every year a new button yeah so, but you so.

1:02:10 - Leo Laporte
Are you in favor of the button free?

1:02:13 - Jason Snell
no, no, I really like apple trying to embrace us, using our muscle memory to to do things like take pictures. I I think it's a great. Like I said, I think it's a great impulse. I think the challenge here is that they over egged the pudding right. They, they, they plussed it to the point where it's it does more like. Would anybody have really complained if this thing just was a button?

uh, and didn't have pressure sensitivity and camera rather and, and then and then was the shutter button, like, like the. Uh, the action button was last year uh, like, but they did okay. So I appreciate their prowess, that they added a haptic and they added the pressure sensitivity and they added a touch on the surface so that you can swipe, like. I appreciate that. But, like even then the, they decided to put features that use all of that functionality at the top level for regular people to use, and and again, I just think it's a mistake. I think that it's too much stuff for a regular user and that it leads to regular users being confused, because it's very easy to not understand where you are in the hierarchy and make a gesture accidentally.

And I'm not saying that people are dumb at all, I'm saying people don't intuit some of the things that are built into this thing and I just it feels like it's just a little bit too much and I wish they had made it a little more streamlined and refined so that, out of the box, you would just use it and be delighted instead of being like wait, what is happening now? Why is it doing it this way? And I just again, it's just an interesting place Apple's in where it is a big challenge for them, because this stuff is so broadly used. How do you infuse something with incredible high technology and also make it intuitive for your average person, who does not listen to podcasts about technology but just gets a phone every couple of years? And I think with this one, I appreciate the achievement. It's actually a very impressive bit of software and all of that is impressive, but I think maybe it misses the mark, just because I think it's not as usable as it should be.

1:04:22 - Leo Laporte
Your bottom line is don't buy this phone just because you want apple intelligence.

1:04:29 - Jason Snell
You should never buy anything yeah, bottom line I mean that's a that's one of the other pieces in my review is basically I get why apple again, I get why apple's doing it. Apple intelligence is their thing, that they're promoting. But the bottom line is you should never, ever, ever, ever buy hardware because somebody made you a promise that there would be a software update that enabled something later and we only know that from bitter, bitter experience oh man, so many bad experiences with it.

And I know it's like, oh, this is apple. Okay, yes, it is.

It is a lot less likely that apple is going to not ship apple intelligence ever done that right it's it's new technology and also there's the details, right. Sometimes what you get is in June, in the bright, warm summer sun of Cupertino's WWDC announcement, they're like here's a thing that Apple Intelligence is going to do. And then in April of next year, they're like actually we couldn't get that to work and we're not going to do it and if that was the reason to buy it, why did you buy it?

1:05:27 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, it, and like, if that was the reason to buy it, why did you buy it? Yeah, yeah, I mean you. You know, when you buy a google phone, that half of the features they sold at google io aren't in it and and a quarter of them will never be in it. But you know that because yeah.

1:05:37 - Jason Snell
so I just and you shouldn't I mean, that's the bottom line is never buy. I'm not saying don't buy an iphone 16. I'm saying don't buy an iphone 16 because you saw a thing in the demo of Apple Intelligence. It's a feature that may come out next year and that's the reason you want to buy an iPhone now. Just don't buy it yet. Just wait, because you don't know what's going to be there. And although I understand why Apple has all these ads full of Apple Intelligence and I've got it there's that T-Mobile ad where Snoop Dogg is saying oh, it's got Apple intelligence, which is great it makes me laugh every time that Snoop Dogg is extolling the virtues of Apple intelligence.

1:06:12 - Leo Laporte
Isn't that wild.

1:06:13 - Jason Snell
The fact is, as a person advising consumers about what to do, I have to say don't listen to them. Apple intelligence doesn't exist yet. And when it does exist in part, it will still take months and months, and months for it to add a bunch of features. And if you're going to buy this thing, buy it for the other reasons. Buy it for the processor, buy it for the camera control, buy it for the camera and the upgraded macro. And there are things in here that are good, because one day maybe it will do those things, and that is not a good.

1:06:56 - Alex Lindsay
I just want to say over egged the pudding, yeah, over egg the pudding there you go, baby.

1:07:03 - Leo Laporte
Is that mid-journey did? I mean it's a britishism, right like?

1:07:06 - Jason Snell
you're it's? Yeah, it's a brit, it's a british I love.

1:07:09 - Alex Lindsay
It's a great phrase I said pudding, but as soon as you said it I was like man, we have it we don't have another, you know for word for that.

1:07:15 - Jason Snell
So that's why I I went with the, I went with the. What?

1:07:17 - Leo Laporte
britishism. What is the upshot of over egging the pudding uh?

1:07:21 - Jason Snell
it gets all eggy and it's too much. It's like I at least the way I read it is like you know, you get a really good creme brulee and then it becomes kind of like a really bad one, is almost like a flan. You're like almost doing scrambled eggs instead. That's always how I view it. It's like you took it. You're like too much.

1:07:37 - Andy Ihnatko
You put in a thing that we want and then you kept going and now it is not what we want, the assumption that because a little bit of this is good, a lot of this would be even better.

1:07:46 - Jason Snell
And yeah, for many, for many variables of x, that is true, but for most variables of x, that just push right or all our british listeners are out there going no jason, that's not it at all, because they like pudding, doesn't even mean what putting against us, but it means dessert, right you over, over vanilla, the whipped cream yeah, there you go, that's a good one but it's like if you make a yogurt pudding popcorn.

You got to have a certain number of eggs and you put too much eggs in it again. It's like too much of a good thing, is basically what it is, and that's you just can't. You can't do that anyway, snoop dogg. Snoop dogg says hey, by the way, I don't know, I watch a lot of football, right?

so I that's the only time I ever see commercials is during sports right Football and the baseball playoffs going on right now. I just want to take a moment to admire that, I believe, t-mobile ad that's got Snoop Dogg in it but also has Patrick Mahomes, the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback. You know Patrick Mahomes isn't shooting commercials in season. He probably shot that commercial back in the summer, maybe right before training camp. And so next time you see that ad the iPhone 16 ad with Patrick Mahomes please notice that all the times Patrick Mahomes is holding the iPhone he's holding it like where his hand is cut off, so you can't see it.

And then there's a shot of his hand, of a hand holding the iphone 16, and it is, I would say, I believe he there was no iphone 16 because it wasn't out, yeah, and so they shoot him uh, doing all the gestures that where the phone is out of the shot. And then they can add the uh, the reshoots of uh of the hand and say, yeah, that's totally patrick mahomes's hand.

1:09:27 - Leo Laporte
But if just watch, he's pretty obviously not right out of uh right out of frame. It's amazing because they didn't have the iphone 16 right when they did that.

1:09:35 - Jason Snell
I'm always amazed when they have these ads that promote the new iphone right after the iphone comes out. But if you watch them a lot of them you can see the shenanigans where they're like well, we can only get the celebrity now and we don't have the iPhone yet, so we're going to have them go look over there. And then somebody else is holding an iPhone. It's amazing.

1:09:52 - Alex Lindsay
The only thing I would say is that digitally replacing a 15 pro with a 16 would not be hard, Like, like you know, like, so they did it.

1:10:07 - Jason Snell
I mean, I think I agree with you that they probably did that, but you're like, why would?

1:10:08 - Alex Lindsay
you do that like it would take.

1:10:08 - Jason Snell
It's like millimeters that would be that would be the other way to do it right, right, I could teach 14 year olds to do? I think they probably do that sometime too, right, but this one is just so clearly just like hey, everybody, it's an iphone and it's like I can't see it. Patrick, where is it? He's like it's up here in my hand, look I'll show it to you.

1:10:20 - Alex Lindsay
Maybe he thinks he's shooting an android commercial and he had this thing and they don't know, we'll just have it out of frame, out of frame watching it probably I mean, if he doesn't say iphone, it could literally they could just replace it with a samsung galaxy mobile. Remember, it's not really an iphone exactly that super secrecy is is that he thought he was doing a different idea for a different thing.

1:10:40 - Leo Laporte
The whole and snoop thought he was doing an ad for this new iPhone case from Bic called hold the phone. It's a case with a built-in Snoop, easy reach, lighter in the case, just because what you know for the iPhone 15 when you're getting baked. You don't really want to have to search for the lighter, do you?

1:11:00 - Jason Snell
Snoop.

1:11:00 - Alex Lindsay
he's like America's sweetheart, the thing is I scan ads so quickly during because I have the NFL ticket on YouTube and when you have that, you just kind of. I know that it's 11 taps to get through the commercial break, so usually I don't even see the commercial break.

1:11:16 - Leo Laporte
Oh, I do On the Siri. I say Siri, skip ahead two and a half minutes. In football you start to learn where the five-minute breaks are, the two minute breaks, the two and a half, in fact, in jeopardy.

1:11:31 - Alex Lindsay
I know exactly how long every break is. Yeah, yeah, and the, the, um, uh, and. But if I see, if I'm scanning and I see snoop on a ad, you stop, I immediately stop and rewind oh I gotta see what he's doing now.

1:11:41 - Jason Snell
Everybody loves snoop so good he is. What happens? He's america's sweetheart. I'm telling you how did he?

1:11:44 - Andy Ihnatko
how did he become? He's like a deputy dolly, like we have a. We have a dolly parton. We're satisfied with the dolly. Yeah, we know, at some point in the future we're going to need a new dolly. I think that he's definitely dolly. He's being like stepped into the role gradually, like how we love him.

1:12:00 - Jason Snell
We think he does good stuff I think he stuff, I think he's just got that positive attitude. I think that in the end, the reason everybody warms to Snoop- is that he? Seems cool and friendly and just kind of happy to be there. He makes funny noises.

1:12:15 - Leo Laporte
He's really not challenging in any way.

1:12:17 - Jason Snell
He's just, yeah, it's just fun to see him and, in fact, the fact that he's got a little bit of a naughty outlaw history and image the fact that he then is put in places like the Olympics or just a random phone ad and it's like, hey, everybody, it's Snoop. It's almost like, oh, look at what they made him do.

1:12:38 - Alex Lindsay
I think that some of it was his interaction with Martha Stewart, because that show anything with him and Martha Stewart is his goal.

1:12:48 - Leo Laporte
The convicted felon Martha Stewart, because that sure anything with him and martha stewart is. You mean his goal, comedy gold. Convicted felon martha stewart. Yeah, yeah, but anything with with she's the one who would have built him 30 years ago. Who's more likely to go to jail, snoop dogg or martha stewart?

1:12:54 - Alex Lindsay
yeah, you wouldn't guess that one, but uh, but, but there's something about that interaction that's. That's always like oh okay, this is gonna be fun, you know so well also also.

1:13:03 - Andy Ihnatko
He always like oh okay, this is gonna be fun. You know so well. Also also he worked with the uh both dray and he's.

1:13:13 - Leo Laporte
He's worked with a lot of good people. Yeah, and gin and juice. That's all you have to say. Gin and juice. Let's uh stop so you can have some gin and juice. You're watching MacBreak Weekly. I don't recommend it, but you could uh. You're watching MacBreak Weekly with Andy Anotko from GBH. When are you going to be on GBH next Week? From Thursday 1230. Nice. Do you know yet what you're going to talk about or do you kind of wait and see what the news of the week is I have to wait until like three days before I put my roster together, like three days before.

1:13:39 - Andy Ihnatko
then I decide like early the day before.

1:13:45 - Leo Laporte
Just a tip if you're buying or ordering the ipad mini to show off for some reason, I guess, because I made it 512 and uh and uh, uh, cell cell signal it, uh, it's not going to come till like a week later, not till wednesday. So I'm bummed man, I won't. I won't have it for next MacBreak Weekly, let's come the day after that's it I'll.

1:14:05 - Andy Ihnatko
I'll make the usual gingerbread version of it. There you go. It's radio they won't notice it.

1:14:09 - Leo Laporte
Put a little face on it. I think that's exactly Jason Snell also here. Six colors dot com. And of course, if you uh, if you want to know about robots, he's got the robot or not. For you, it's a robot or not infuriatingly short podcast about robots and other.

1:14:25 - Jason Snell
Have you done the another? Have you done the home? Pod yet yes we talked about mark Gurmans. We did a timely, a very rare for us timely episode where we talked about mark Gurmans reports, about uh what about the?

1:14:36 - Alex Lindsay
elon that's september 2nd. That's episode 295.

1:14:38 - Jason Snell
You can check that one out. We have not talked about elon musk tesla robots because so far as far as we can tell, they're absolutely not robots.

1:14:46 - Leo Laporte
Yes, but they are machines, they're animatronic. Yeah, sure, they're puppets.

1:14:52 - Jason Snell
Sure, so are the pirates in Pirates of the Caribbean, but they're not robots.

1:14:57 - Andy Ihnatko
They're also not as lifelike as the Pirates of the Caribbean.

1:14:59 - Leo Laporte
This is why I have to listen to the show? Because I need to understand the distinction. Listen to the show because I need to understand the distinction. Uh, also here, Alex lindsay from office hours dot global. Malcolm gladwell, was he on the gray matter?

1:15:13 - Alex Lindsay
he was, he was so great, like he was, we actually got to go. Uh, he was in town and so, uh, we ended up going to his hotel in in san francisco and do the recording so so we set up with Michael Krasny and uh did a.

he just such a pleasure to listen to talk. Like just listening to him Talk was just really great and he's funny and, uh, you know, really disarming, and so anyway it was. It was a really fun interview and so that that's out today. So it should be. You should be able to go to gray mattershow and see it there, graymattershow and see it there. Also, I'm going to South Carolina unexpectedly this week. Toad the Wet Sprocket, a band we all love, is doing a benefit with. They're doing a benefit for.

Helene and Milton Victims. Yeah, so they're doing it with Bare Naked Ladies. So Toad the.

1:16:02 - Leo Laporte
Wet.

1:16:02 - Alex Lindsay
Sprocket and the Bare Naked Ladies and then a bunch of other bands and stuff are sending stuff in and being part of it.

1:16:08 - Jason Snell
I'd like to see that. I wish I could go to South Carolina.

1:16:12 - Alex Lindsay
The Sonic Sunshine Benefitcom. If you go there you'll see the YouTube, and so I'm going to help a little bit just to make sure that some of the pieces work better.

1:16:25 - Leo Laporte
So I'm going to be down there to help with that process.

1:16:26 - Alex Lindsay
You can watch that live on October 18th, which is three days hence, 8 pm Eastern Standard Time, 5 pm Pacific.

1:16:34 - Leo Laporte
Is contribution required.

1:16:36 - Alex Lindsay
It's not required. You can watch it for free, but definitely suggested On their website. There's a couple different organizations that you can donate to and it's really a very worthwhile cause and, uh, really done for all the best intentions. I mean, the one thing that's great about toad, and about glenn phillips specifically, is that he just feels like it's something they're from that region, right or no?

yeah they were. So they're playing that the night before in in uh columbia, south carolina, and they were going to play in north carolina the next night, and so it's a night that they could. They could do it in, so so it should be a lot of fun.

1:17:10 - Jason Snell
Later you're canadians but canadians are nice to toads not from south carolina, they're from. They're from uh, santa barbara santa barbara?

1:17:17 - Alex Lindsay
no, they're not, they're, they're playing.

1:17:18 - Leo Laporte
Santa barbara is kind of the south carolina of california, if you ask me, okay, I don't know how that would be compared, but but uh, anyway, it should be.

1:17:27 - Alex Lindsay
It should be a um, it should be a fun fundraiser. I would highly recommend it.

1:17:31 - Leo Laporte
I love bare naked ladies and I don't know how I somehow missed the toad era. I don't know any of them probably having kids then time, something like that, yeah it was busy having children. That will do it to you.

1:17:44 - Alex Lindsay
It does wipe your mind of all pop culture there's a gap of when my kids were born to when they're about 13 or 14 years old. That is just all the music I already knew, and then they start getting into stuff and they, ah, yeah, you know. So now they're exposing me. So now I'm listening to all this new music, but I'm getting them into the old music.

1:18:03 - Leo Laporte
So, uh, so henry taught me how to enjoy rap music because I he compelled me to listen to it every morning on the way to school.

1:18:10 - Alex Lindsay
Fortunately, my kids are really into, uh, alternative rock and, and, like my daughter asked for a mix for xtc, excited um. But but she also gets me into bands like wilt and and uh, uh, you know, also gets me into bands like wilt and and uh, uh, you know uh is there is there good new music?

so much, so much good music. Oh my gosh, like it is. Like it was funny. There was a rick beato thing about why there isn't any good music anymore and I really respect rick, by the way, and he does. It has a great channel, but my. I asked my daughter that she's like no, that's crazy. She goes it's never been better, it's never been better. Oh, all these individual artists have all this. They're able to do it in their bedroom.

1:18:48 - Leo Laporte
They're able to build things that sound very good, we went through a bad period, uh, for a while, yeah I mean where?

1:18:53 - Alex Lindsay
music was all kind of uh cookie cutter, but I think maybe now we're getting a little bit more creative I, I don't know like, I I discover all of these artists and and I think that the thing is, I take an artist that's a little left of center, right of center, like just a little outside of the center, and I say and just let the algorithm run and I just go next song, next song, next song, next song and I just start going through those songs and it starts playing songs that what we call little text songs. So it'll get to what is the little text. So when, when you're, when you're in Apple music, the big text is it's going with the music. You know, like the lyrics are going with the music. The really obscure stuff is what we call the little text music, which is that it just has the block of text in there. It's not trying to follow along with the song.

1:19:36 - Jason Snell
They don't even know what words.

1:19:37 - Alex Lindsay
They haven't put any effort into it. So so when you see little text, you're like, oh. When you see little text, you're like, oh, that's obscure, you know like it's. It's uh, I mean like deep tracks on bare naked ladies. Gordon has big text, so so it's it's like. So when you see little text, you're like nobody listens to that song. And um so much good music, whether it's spotify or apple music. But if you let the algorithm run a little bit, based on the song that you put in, don't put a, don't go into their, the artist, whatever, just play ace, ask for a song that you like and then just start going. Next song, next song, next song. I, as a I used to be a music director, so I'll listen to the first, typically 45 seconds. 45 seconds gets you to the first chorus, typically on most songs, and so 45 seconds to a minute I'll listen into it and then I'll go no, I don't like this song all right, here's what we're going to do.

1:20:20 - Leo Laporte
We're going to take a break at the end of the show. I want each of you to tell me a new artist that you think I should be listening to okay okay, yeah, I thought you might like that. Love that challenge accepted.

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We talk a lot on this show about AI and I have to say I was really intrigued by this white paper that Apple put out about LLMs and the problem they pose. I first found out about it from Gary Marcus, who's been, by the way, saying this forever. That llms, don't? You know? The large language models don't do formal reasoning, but the study from uh, from apple, was very clear and it and it said a lot. Um, the author, uh, merdad faraj tabar, said we found no evidence of formal reasoning. I mean, let me say that again because because open ai and others are starting, you know, saying oh no, we got, we got reasoning ais, we found no evidence of formal reasoning and language models. Their behavior is better explained by sophisticated pattern matching, so fragile, in fact, that changing names can alter results by about 10%. So here's an example, and I think a human can solve this in their head. So this isn't one of those word problems where you have to take out a notepad.

Oliver picks 44 kiwis on Friday, 58 kiwis on Saturday. On Sunday, he picks double the number of kiwis he did on Friday. So 44, 58 plus 44 times two. Right, but they throw this in, but five of them were a bit smaller than average. Five of them were a bit smaller than average. How many kiwis does oliver have? Now, humans not gonna say well, it doesn't matter if they're big or small, it's 44 plus 58 plus 88, but both oh one mini and llama three, which 8b, which is the open um meta model, got the number wrong because of the five of them were smaller than average. Yeah, it subtracted those five in both cases. Let me. Let me continue reading here on this sub stack. In both cases it was fooled by this little bit of completely unimportant trivia and there are more examples of this. They have one uh with for you super bowl fans, with peyton manning. But anyway, I think it's very, very interesting. It's worth going to the. Uh the paper um from apple um I don't know.

1:25:38 - Alex Lindsay
I think that anybody who uh uses ai a lot kind of knows what they're talking about here.

1:25:44 - Leo Laporte
I mean mean, like I don't think yeah, yeah, you do, because you see it happen all the time, right I?

1:25:48 - Alex Lindsay
mean, I use mid journey a lot. So, um, you know it's kind of running old all day or most of the day on some idea that I have and um, and I very much know what affects its calculation, and so you know there's lots of things that you have to do to to make sure that it stays sane when it, you know, responds to something. Same thing with chat, gpt or clod or other things that I use. Um, you know you have to be very careful about how you define it, but you're not. You know you're working with a very effective machine, but you're definitely not working with a a reasoning being um, you know at all, you know it at all.

You know it's simply I always try to explain it to everyone it's, it's when you're texting and you see the next words that it thinks you might want. It's just doing that at scale, you know, and it's it's not. You know it's completing those things, but it's not actually thinking up anything. And I think that, um, this idea that we're going to end up with something that's actually reasoning, I think that reason is much more complicated than programmers think it is. I think that they they think of us as, as adding machines. I think programmers uh, oftentimes or people who are developing this, think of us as adding machines, and there's just a lot more to what's actually happening there than that. You know you're gonna say something, andy.

1:27:02 - Andy Ihnatko
Yeah, absolutely, there was a. Well, it's the's. The thing is we keep getting caught in this sort of trap, because it turns out that people who research like human communication have discovered some really interesting things about how our own software works, and one of them is that, as I'm talking to you, as I'm being introduced to you, as our conversation is flowing, my social software, my conversational software, my listening software, is programmed to find intelligence in you, to try to find a soul, basically to find intelligence in you and try to build a model in my mind of what makes you tick. Who are you? What are you saying? What has influenced you? Can I trust you or not? And that's basically part of what makes communication the essential tool that it is.

But it blows back in our faces when we're looking at something like this, because we keep, without even knowing it, we are trying to find intelligence in these responses. We are programmed to do that. Then, because this is such an adequate simulation of how a text conversation would happen with another human being. It's a, it's a hack. It gets in through our, through the back door, and so it's very, very easy for us to convince ourselves that we're seeing actual rational thought, that we're seeing creative ideas, that we're seeing like self-consciousness, when we're actually just again, large language model. It is a large language model and although it's Goshen oversimplification to say it's basically a hyper version of autocomplete, but it's a big, big, big, big, big, big leap between what these things can do, even at the state of the art, and actually coming up with an idea that it's never seen before and this hasn't been provoked into coming up with. It's just we have to, we have to get over that.

1:28:59 - Leo Laporte
We have to understand our own limitations before we can get past the limitations of an ai and it doesn't mean that it's not extremely useful or extremely dangerous yes, we're just getting a more nuanced understanding of it and said unfortunately, have people like Sam Altman writing manifestos, as he did a couple of weeks ago, saying prosperity, universal Prosperity, is just around the corner as AIs solve all problems oh yeah.

1:29:23 - Andy Ihnatko
Or, sad to say, companies like Google and Microsoft, which are putting nuclear power plants online because their net zero goals are being destroyed by their need to do generative AI, oh yeah, like and Eric Schmidt saying that well, you know now it doesn't even matter that we don't meet our ecological goals, because if we just continue to dirty up the atmosphere and program a much better AI as a result, the AI will help us to figure out a solution for the ecological disaster.

Bill Gates said the same thing, by the way. This is why in my bookmarks, in my bookmark organizer, I've got a hashtag for for for moron billionaire, because every time I come across one of these pronouncements of no, no, we're, what we're going to do is we're going to, we're not going to, we're not going to do anything about earth, we'll go to mars and we'll terraform it with, through the magic of terraformation that we'll build, and we can, we can deplete the resources of earth. And it's like, oh god, you're, you're, you're an idiot billionaire and you've power and you've got money and you've got influence and people are listening to you.

1:30:32 - Alex Lindsay
It's like, oh my god you know, it's just to get caught up in this. It's easy to get caught up in the technology that you created and think about all the things that are possible with it and you, you know, you and you can see that vision out there and I think that it's it's hard to not realize that there's. You know, number one is it probably won't turn out that way. Number two is that there's a human factor that I think a lot of folks, you know, I think a lot of folks that are really successful in technology businesses, oftentimes are not as successful in human connection, because that that's why they got into the technology. So so I think that. So I think sometimes they they don't, they don't see that human factor as clearly, just because it's not part of the what got them there yeah.

1:31:14 - Leo Laporte
So just to say it again, this is from the apple um researchers who wrote this paper. We found no evidence of formal reasoning in language models. It's sophisticated pattern matching and maybe even not that sophisticated. So anyway, good on apple for uh releasing that article.

1:31:36 - Andy Ihnatko
I think that that's uh it's such a simple test too. It's like the modifications they were making were not that complicated yeah, yeah, read the paper because they have more examples.

1:31:46 - Leo Laporte
I won't go through them all that's very accessible yeah, it's very accessible. Yeah, um and uh, you know they have. They bring the receipts. So they also talk about mathematics. And why? Uh, llms aren't really able to do mathematics either.

1:32:02 - Alex Lindsay
We've seen that again and again, humans aren't very good at mathematics either.

1:32:06 - Leo Laporte
Well, and I often say look, humans get things wrong all the time. I mean, if you gave that word problem to a lot of people, they wouldn't even listen, they go no, no, I don't do those. No, that's why I gave you the warning ahead of time. The introduction of this exploit exposes a critical flaw. They write in LLM's ability to genuinely understand mathematical concepts and discern relevant information for problem solving. Adding seemingly relevant but ultimately inconsequential information to the logical reasoning of the problem led to substantial poor performance drops of up to 65% across all state-of-the-art models including 01, by the way.

1:32:49 - Andy Ihnatko
So yeah, there was. There was some conversation on social media. I saw this like, oh clearly they haven't seen the 01 model because no, they did no again. Yeah, they, there's references to all that sort of thing. They included it in the tables of all the comparisons they did.

1:33:01 - Alex Lindsay
I mean most. Most people who work on the ground and then work with people that tell them how to do stuff will tell you that, the same as anybody who's book smart like you know, llms have read a lot of things. I know a lot of what they wrote, but you, you know, like they're book smart, they read all those things and you're like well, a lot of people have opinions about how to cook something that have never cooked it, because they read all this stuff on the internet and they think that it's correct, but it's only read what's on the internet, so it has the same.

1:33:24 - Leo Laporte
If you read this, fine book from a guy named saul hank well, hank a five napkin situation available in bookstores everywhere, you would know how to make a few of these incredible dishes. By the way, okay, completely gratuitous plug for my son's cookbook, number seven on the new york times bestseller list, and he told me. His publisher told him that last week it was the best-selling cookbook in the world. Nice, so he's doing. Okay, my boy, it's great and it's a very good cookbook.

1:33:55 - Alex Lindsay
It looks like a lot of pictures, which is important to me yeah, well, it's really food porn.

1:34:00 - Leo Laporte
That's what he does. Is food porn? Right, the writing is good too, though I gotta say he does a good job of writing, but that's. But look at those images. I mean incredible, right. Oh man, does that make you want queso? That makes you want queso? Uh, all right, spacex. I think, while Elon has in many ways proven himself an ass, he did catch the rocket with the chopsticks I mean, this is the problem with simple views of people.

1:34:30 - Jason Snell
It's so easy to say, hey, he did that tesla event with fake robots and, uh, a commitment to full self-driving basically about yeah that he always promises that full self-driving is coming in a year and it never materializes, and like and and obviously what he's done to twitter and his particular political endorsements, and like, it's very easy to say, well, let's write that guy off. But the truth is that if you pay attention to space and in fact, I saw this as somebody who's paid attention to space I used to have a podcast about I used to write about it um, when the, the starship test happened and it blew up, everybody's like well, that's elon musk. In a nutshell, it's like you don't understand.

Spacex is one of the most successful companies in the world, has completely changed access to space and the latest starship test where they they landed the, the second stage in the ocean, uh, because it a test flight, but they stopped it above the ocean and then it dropped into the ocean and exploded because the test was can we land it?

And then they caught the first stage in the chopsticks, which the idea there is rapid reuse you catch it and it's at the landing site and then you refurb it really quickly and then you launch it again.

It and it's at the landing site and then you, you refurb it really quickly and then you launch it again and that by reusing rockets, which is pioneered by spacex, it changes your uh cost structure a lot. Yeah, uh, they're able to do that. Also, this week, they launched europa clipper, which is probably the biggest. It's the biggest outer solar system mission ever, and they launched that on falcon heavy and and that's their first outer solar system launch and that's going to be a huge science mission that reaches jupiter in 2030. So, like it's, it was a banner week for for spacex and again, I know, I know, I I think elon musk I mean this is what I said all covering spacex a little bit for the last 10 years, covering SpaceX a little bit for the last 10 years he says stuff that's just not true. I mean, that's it, but the company does amazing things.

1:36:29 - Alex Lindsay
And if he would?

1:36:30 - Andy Ihnatko
only shut up about it and be more realistic, but he can't help himself.

1:36:34 - Jason Snell
Yeah, gwynne Shotwell is the CEO and she is running the show there and I think it's telling that Tesla doesn't have a Gwynne Shotwell and Twitter doesn't have a Gwynne Shotwell, but have a gwyn shotwell and twitter doesn't have a gwyn shotwell but spacex does and she is.

1:36:48 - Leo Laporte
You know, sometimes she is the person who sweeps up behind the elephant in the parade, but whatever she's doing, she has helped make spacex a functional and successful company one person did say, and I yeah, I haven't had confirmation, but one of the things gwyn shot well, did well, is she created a team to surround Elon when he comes over and to intercept his uh suggestions. Well, you know.

1:37:13 - Andy Ihnatko
I don't. I don't understand why we have this component. We should get rid of this component, therefore, like yeah, okay.

1:37:20 - Alex Lindsay
I talked to someone at Pixar one time and he I talked to someone at Pixar one time and he and he said I've been fired by Steve Jobs three times. And I was like how did you get fired? And he was still working at Pixar and he said oh, there's a person that follows Steve around and Steve will yell at you and say that you're fired and walk off. And the guy goes just go back to work what that's called.

1:37:41 - Leo Laporte
Managing up.

1:37:42 - Jason Snell
It's super important. But SpaceX, I mean, they're really honestly, if it weren't Elon, people would be talking about how remarkable, like access to space is a fraction of what it used to be, and the fact is so. Europa Clipper. Here's the thing Europa Clipper was supposed to launch legally. Congress said it had to launch on something called the Space Launch System, which is launched one time and cost several billion dollars per launch. It's not reusable.

1:38:11 - Leo Laporte
It's what they want. It's a Frankenstein. It's made in 18 different locations it's made.

1:38:16 - Jason Snell
It's all a government pork project and that is like traditionally how NASA stuff has been done. It ended up they realized it wasn't going to work and they didn't have the money for it. So they got Congress to say, okay, you don't have to launch it on SLS. And they said we'll do Falcon Heavy. And so instead of spending three or $4 billion on the launcher, they spent I don't know what it was 180 million. Like it's not even close. Like it's not even close.

1:38:47 - Leo Laporte
So that close, like it's not even close. So that's what spacex has done in terms of reducing the cost that I have a redundant system here. I have comcast and, as any reasonable comcast customer will do, uh, not rely on them. 100 gotta have a backup gotta have a backup and I have a very nice starlink satellite dish. Right above me Works perfectly and with my Ubiquiti gear, if the Comcast dies, I'll be back within 10 seconds because Starlink will take over and the handover is amazing.

1:39:16 - Jason Snell
There's a story out how, speaking of all of this Starship, so Starlink is building, which is SpaceX. They are building new Starlink satellites that are much, much larger than the existing ones and they won't fit in the Falcon 9. They will only fit because that's how Starlink got built. Is that once you build reusable rockets and your.

SpaceX you have so much launch capacity and more than the world can provide, honestly. So they're like well, what can we do? We could do internet satellites, but the new ones that they're building for Starship, they say we'll do gigabit. Oh, boy From space to the world.

1:39:55 - Alex Lindsay
And, by the way, this is also, and it's not just about, Americans.

1:39:57 - Jason Snell
It's about people in places that can't get the internet. That will be able to get the internet, or the merger between Dish Network and DirecTV. One of the arguments there is that it's going to create a monopoly for people in rural areas who rely on it for internet. But the answer is it won't, because Starlink is also there for people in rural areas who rely on the internet as a competitor.

1:40:16 - Leo Laporte
Well then, this is why the Elon giveth and the Elon taketh away. It is.

1:40:27 - Alex Lindsay
Because he did offer free Starlink to affected areas from Hurricane Helene, but it turned out they had to buy the.

1:40:30 - Leo Laporte
They had to buy the equipment, which is 500.

1:40:32 - Jason Snell
Yeah, and it was only for the first month first month and and I believe that's the offer anybody can get from Starlink yeah, I got that too.

1:40:39 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, so shameless, pretty shameless, and yet I keep buying his stuff.

1:40:49 - Jason Snell
Yeah, I mean, and I understand if people are like that guy is so toxic that I don't ever want to work with his companies. Like I get it. The U? S government can't afford to do that because it is their access to space at this point. That's the.

1:41:02 - Leo Laporte
that's how you, the us astronauts, get to the international that's problematic because it gives this kind of uh unpredictable billionaire a lot of power right, we yeah, exactly.

1:41:12 - Jason Snell
There's a lot of unpredictable billionaires with a lot of power more or less these days anyway, but they do good stuff. I mean that's. I just want to say, like spacex for me, just forget about the guy for a moment. The stuff that they do is amazing, and the fact that they caught that rocket on the first try in some metal arms and they sold it.

1:41:30 - Alex Lindsay
They sold it as like it's going to blow up, like I mean.

1:41:33 - Jason Snell
Everybody thought it's like everyone talked about it. It's going to blow up, but we're going to try. We're going to drop it.

1:41:39 - Andy Ihnatko
I mean they were I do have to say that I love that. That's part of their like company philosophy that the faster we get, the faster we blow these things up, the faster we get to figure out why they blew up and that'll make us get to the get to the non-blow up version so much faster.

1:41:56 - Jason Snell
That's actually the story of rockets and actually I will use this as a this is not my pick of the week, but I'll throw it out as a bonus which is Eric Berger is the space writer for Ars Technica and he is a great writer and he has two books, the latest of which came out last month. It's called Reentry and it's the story of the creation of the SpaceX Falcon 9. And his first book is about the original SpaceX launch and it very much tells the story of they're about to go bankrupt but they're still firing off rockets, but they're still firing off rockets and they're still blowing up and they're trying to get it together. And it is an amazing story because you go from this is never going to work to they have completely dominated the space industry and changed it forever.

1:42:35 - Alex Lindsay
And you look at, like Boeing, they can't get the astronauts down because Boeing can't figure out how to make this work. You know, and it's super figure out how to make this work. You know, and it's yeah super. This is the. I mean spacex was was the crazy one, and nasa contracted boeing because, oh well, boeing will sort it out like it'll reliable hedge yeah, that was their hedge. Again, spacex doing whatever they're doing. That did not turn out the way.

1:42:58 - Leo Laporte
Anybody expected it's true. Yeah, if you're grading on the curve, having boeing in the classroom, I mean that always helps your overall average.

1:43:11 - Alex Lindsay
But boeing is lucky that spacex hasn't decided to start building airplanes like they started building 737, like planes and boeing's in all kinds of trouble.

1:43:20 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, yeah uh, dan riccio is moving on and this might be interesting. Dan was at apple for 26 years. He uh both in the jobs and the cook era. He's leaving apple this month. He is the leader of the vision products group. Thousands of engineers report to him. They were told they would become the responsibility of john turnus, who is, of course, uh, mark Gurman's pick for the next ceo and is the guy in charge of hardware. I sounded like a knowing laugh, jason.

1:43:57 - Jason Snell
Oh, I mean, yeah, I mean, that's what Gurman said his pick, like he has.

1:44:01 - Alex Lindsay
He doesn't have a vote, but he thinks that they're grooming.

1:44:03 - Jason Snell
This is look, this is all interesting because apple has a retention problem and it's a good kind of problem to have, which is you have senior executives who've been there a long time and had a lot of stock options best, and they don't need your money anymore, right, they don't need to work anymore. And so how do you keep them? And some of them are going to stay because they're lifers, like Phil Schiller they're going to. They're going to have to drag him out of there, right, like I think Phil Schiller is just never going to go. He's like a fellow now or whatever, it doesn't matter. He's still running things and doing stuff and that's fine. But I think a lot of these people, they have important knowledge, they're trusted.

Apple, as we talked about on this show before, basically can't recruit from the outside at a high level because there's no company that does it like Apple. It's very hard for them to get anybody they have, like John G and Andrea might be seen ahead of ML stuff because he came from Google as a, I would say, exception to the rule, and even then it seems to have taken him years to kind of get up to speed with Apple stuff. So what do you do when you've got these people who've been there 20 years and they know everything about everything and they have more money than they will ever be able to spend? It's a real problem, like how do you not lose them and then lose your way because that knowledge has disappeared, has left the building, and it seems like Dan Riccio is a good example of you put them in a position that's not the SVP high pressure position, but you keep them around and you pay them and you give them some stuff to work on and you let them sort of like you know, share what they know with other people and you let them sort of slowly go out the door. And he apparently was at MIT talking about this thing that he's funding at MIT and he said, yes, by the way, I'm, I'm retiring Friday's, my last day. It was just like a boom, just kind of thing.

But, like, this is a real ongoing problem for Apple, which is, how do you, one, not lose all of your incredibly talented people who are up against the ceiling, of all these people who've been there for 20 years? And two, how do you not have a brain drain of all of these incredibly talented people who have so much money that they don't need to be there anymore. They have that kind of money, and so I think this, like Johnny Ive and like Big Bob Mansfield, I think this is another kind of data point of Apple trying to thread that needle. Huge HR challenge, right, how do you thread the needle to keep people engaged who don't need to be engaged anymore? For as long as it takes until they walk away and and and. With riccio, it seems like that's what they did here.

1:46:34 - Leo Laporte
Yeah he said he'd been trying to retire for five years. Yeah right right.

1:46:38 - Jason Snell
They feel like we can pay you a lot of money so you can fund that thing at mit and we and we'll take a lot of the pressure off of you and you can have one more run at this and one more fun thing to do, and like I think that's, I think it's super smart. They got all the money Apple does, plus Apple's people do right, but Apple has all the money and these people have institutional knowledge that it can be very hard when you lose it, so so what does this mean for Vision Pro?

1:47:02 - Leo Laporte
Is this bad news for Vision Pro?

1:47:04 - Jason Snell
So so what does this mean for Vision Pro? Is this bad news for Vision Pro? I don't think. I mean I don't think so because I think that his job was probably to get it going and he was on the retirement path. I mean you could argue that it's interesting that the guy who had one foot out the door was put in charge of Vision Pro, but I think it was more like one one last job, right? That kind of thing. I wouldn't read too much into it. This feels to me like it's a guy who put him on the glide path.

And again, if every company had that kind of money that Apple has, they would do this too, right? You take your vice president who has decided to retire. This happened to my uncle was an HR VP at a Fortune 500 company and he got basically told you have to retire now by his financial planner because all of your pensions are going to vest and every year you stay you're actually going to make less money than if you left. And they had to come knock on his door six months later and say can we please hire you as a consultant? Because they had their union negotiations and nobody knew how to negotiate with the union, because that was his job. I was like that was a brain drain, so it's good for him. He got paid twice but like, if you've got the money in your apple, why not keep them around for as long as they're willing to hang?

1:48:13 - Alex Lindsay
around so much institutional knowledge. You know that's there. You know that it totally makes sense to try to hang on to a lot of these folks. I mean especially once with apple and they're all similar ages.

1:48:23 - Jason Snell
Right, because they all come from that Steve Jobs return era.

1:48:25 - Alex Lindsay
And they all have. They all have that. I think that that is one thing about how Apple stays so focused is they all still have the scar tissue of? I mean Apple still worries about Going out of business, like going out of business.

I mean that, that that was so traumatic because they were really down to it. I mean they were down to six weeks, you know, like, of not being there and I think that that left, um, an indelible print on everybody that's been there, and I think it's hard to get the same, uh, fear out of people. Maybe Apple does a whole bunch of different things when they stop having that, you know, when that generation moves to the, you know, moves on and retires. But I think that while they're, it's done pretty well for them so far and I think that anytime you let people go that have a bunch of knowledge, you have some issues, you know, and so having, you know, keeping people around, and it is really hard.

I know that I have friends that have worked in a lot of these companies and they realize, you know, someone gets a promotion and they realize, with that person above me or to the place that I was trying to get to, that person's going to keep going that direction and I'm never going to get there, and then they leave, you know, and that's a you know like. They're like okay, it's time for me to retire, it's time for me to find another job, take some time off Because, again, as as Jason said, nobody needs the money anymore, like I mean, if they, if you've been to Apple for 20 years, you don't need the money.

1:49:34 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, you're doing this because you love lieutenant will continue to lead the Vision Products Group Gurman says Are we in the Vision Products?

1:49:48 - Alex Lindsay
Are we in the section? Have we reached the section? The Apple Vision Pro?

1:49:51 - Leo Laporte
It's time for the Vision Pro. Well, it will be time for the Vision Pro section, after a word from our sponsor Hold the big news. Am in Bacaba, belgian Congo, from our sponsor, hold the big news am in bakaba, belgian congo.

1:50:12 - Andy Ihnatko
Oh no, that wasn't the button I meant he loses by the novelty soundboard shall die by this novelty soundboard.

1:50:18 - Leo Laporte
That's a really good way to put it. That's a very good way to.

1:50:20 - Jason Snell
When you gaze into the morning Zoo, the morning Zoo gaze is also into you all right, you're watching. Mac break weekly. Uh, it's time for the Vision Pro segment submerged is out, did you like? It. Alex, tell me you saw Submerged. Tell me about it. I saw it. I have opinions, but I really am curious what you think of it.

1:50:50 - Alex Lindsay
Seen it a couple times and so I think overall it is the finest 180-degree footage ever released and I worked on a lot of those, a lot of that footage, of that type of footage, um, three, 60, one, 80, that type of thing. It is amazing. There are things that story is okay, like I you know, not very compelling story, um, but I think that it was fine for what they were doing. Um, as a technology, uh, briefing, I do think that you could make a story for in five minutes or seven.

I think that sometimes a feature film director will think of this as like a toy and not really treat it like I really want a true act one, act two, act three. They had those, but it was pretty loose. I think that the close-ups don't really work for me. Like, I just think that they're uncomfortable and they're weird, but everybody does them once. Like when we do this we you know a lot of us have done this for a while and you're kind of like oh, they, they, they, they went down that path. The wide shots don't necessarily work that well. The in-between shots are amazing, like it's just, it is the 3d works, the, the sparks and the water. I mean, there's some things. As someone who's done this going from above the water to below the water that is hard, like really hard, you know does that mean?

1:52:08 - Leo Laporte
there's a problem, though, in filmmaking, because if you can't do a close-up and you can't do a wide shot, that everything has to be a medium shot?

1:52:15 - Alex Lindsay
it doesn't. It doesn't mean, I think, the close-up. So number one is that I think that you can do close-ups. I don't really like them. There's a lot of things about filmmaking I don't like when I see a movie, so it's not like it's you know. So I don't think that the film, I don't think the closeups work. Or if you do, I think one of the things was they kind of followed the rule of you know don't cut too fast.

1:52:38 - Jason Snell
And then you're right. I don't know if I liked it as much as I liked the idea that I was watching the director think how do I direct a viewer's attention when I have 180 degree screen?

And the answer was I'm going to be pushed really close in on this actor and I'm going to have an incredibly shallow depth of field so that behind him is just kind of fuzzed out so that you have to look at him. But I thought that was interesting. I really kind of liked the wider shots but they don't feel like film to me. They feel like theater well, but I still think live theater is good and it felt like that and I thought that was wider shots.

1:53:14 - Alex Lindsay
I really only mean the at the very end you know, oh yeah, the very end, sure the, the wide, the medium wide shots or the wide shots like the bunks of the submarine. No, no, that on in the torpedo, the torpedo area oh yeah, that too yeah unbelievable, like I mean as someone who's worked on this for 15 years. There was shots in there that were just like that just is so gorgeous, you know, and it's just a gourd.

1:53:38 - Leo Laporte
You know it's, and you were concerned last week that it was a conventional director. It is there's so there's there.

1:53:43 - Alex Lindsay
Concerned last week that it was a conventional director there's, so there's. There are moments like that, those closeups that are conventional director. There are things that they did. They did this thing in the cafeteria where they're talking back and forth, and the way he used the camera. I think that someone would have really loved to just sit at the end of that table and watch them talk. And let that let you, just because you can look back and forth.

1:54:01 - Leo Laporte
He tried to do some.

1:54:02 - Jason Snell
I think you can see him experimenting right, because one of the things he tried to do it to give you a sense of the space, but not to the quick cuts is he would do the reverse shot, so you you end up with one, there's a wide shot and then there's the reverse of the same shot, so you don't leave the space, which, like I, get it from a geography standpoint and I think it functioned that way. But I think you're right, Alex, that maybe that wasn't like. I love the experiment, but I think that your, your point of maybe you should just be sitting at the table is maybe the right one there.

1:54:29 - Alex Lindsay
And I think I think that there's, there are, there are things that they did that I would never do, that I thought so this is what's great about having a director and them experimenting and probably having something that's probably close to a million dollars a minute to do this is they did things. That's my guess. Like if someone asked me to bid on what I just saw, I'd say a million dollars a minute, like it's. It is super the money there's so much money, so expensive.

1:54:49 - Leo Laporte
Is it the shooting? Is it the editing it builds?

1:54:50 - Alex Lindsay
an entire set that has to work, and so building a set that has to work in 360 degrees is not trivial. Like that is an especially one with that much detail at that resolution. So the resolution, I don't know exactly what it is per eye, but it was eye like, it was super sharp, I mean, you know, and and so the thing is, every detail has to be there. They have got a couple multiple parts of that set then then they have this you know you have to being able to cover that set at 180 degrees and then all the bits and pieces of it and the, the thing that he did, that that I, that I would have said no, no, no, don't do that.

But when I saw it at work cause he moved the camera really fast, so there's, there's two or three shots where he goes and he pushes it and you feel it in your stomach Like, you feel like and and and that you don't feel in a film. Like. And I was like those two or three shots, I was like we're in a whole different world of filmmaking because you can now like, like. I was like, whoa, like, like and it's again, I am traditional enough in the 180 degree world. I mean there's a few of us that have been doing this for a long time that that's kind of breaking the rules, like don't do that and and he broke the rule and it created an effect on the viewer at least for me that I've never had before watching a regular film. I've had it in 180 before, because if someone screws up with the camera you get really uncomfortable. But he did just fast enough to give you that feeling without. Now, some people I've talked to, it was too much, that move was too much for them.

He was pushing it for sure, there was a weird shot where the torpedo goes through you and I was kind of like I don't know if I need that shot, like you know, like I thought it was kind of cool, but I was kind of, and but other people mentioned it too the torpedo shot I thought was a little off and I would have just been happy sitting between the tubes and having it. Just, I think that I think that there's an opportunity, as you do, filmmaking is to. One of the things with 180 is I really like being at head height watching the scene occur and and experiencing that scene, and not necessarily having you have to drive my viewer. Like there was a point where he's trying to close the tube and and you're looking ahead and you're caught over here, and then suddenly you realize you look over to one side and he's trying to close this thing up that, and you're like, oh, I missed that, that part. Um, you, you know when you watch and it gives you an opportunity, even though it's short, you want to watch it a couple of times because you knew that you were missing things. And I also thought that you you may end up with stories that are not two hours long, but you may watch them for two hours, because there's there's other things to see in that. In that area, um, the 3d, again, the resolution, amazing. There is no uh shadowing that we see Like a lot of times. There's all kinds of problems with 180. And they solve them with hardware or software, I'm not sure which.

I think some of those close-ups might not have been those 180 cameras. I think they might have been a more traditional production pipeline to do that. I don't think they. I think that would be very hard to do with the 180 cameras, the there. So there's a bunch of things that they did there, but I think that, um, it, it. It's really an entirely different medium and you know, and I think that it's I, it took it way further than I expected, like. So there's again I have quibbles about it, but it is like the. If they start releasing a lot of footage at that level, it's pretty. And someone asked me, like is that going to get more people to buy more headsets?

1:58:04 - Jason Snell
And I was like no, but the current owners will get a lot cockier.

Yeah, and I think, I think I suspect there are a bunch of filmmakers out there who were watching this and thinking, oh, I want to try that sometime. Maybe Apple should give me a lot of money because of what I? What I got? The sense is that, uh, what is it? Edward burgers, I think the name of the director. He's a, he's a pro and he's a good director. And he, he was.

It's very clear he was very thoughtful about what he wanted to try here and and some of the things are a little experimental and and to Alex's point, yeah, some of the, when he pushed, there's some push in and pull back shots that are slower and I thought I like that. I like that there's camera movement, it's that. And there's one where it pushes in and actually tracks to the right, I think, and like, I like that. And then he does the fast one and I'm like, oh, I don't know what I think about that one, but I love that he was trying all of that stuff. I love that he did not do the espn, you know, quick cut thing there there's no shaky cam because you can't do that. But instead what I got out of it is, yeah, the, the, the sets are amazing and it reminded me of an experience like the Star Wars thing at Disneyland where you know you have to build an intricate set because you don't know where the people are looking, because they're just walking through it and it's like that you can look anywhere, and so the set was amazing. And then, like I said, I really like the live theater vibe I got.

There was a shot where you are in the bunks with the, with the crewman, and the one crewman wakes up and like it was like watching a theater presentation, because in that moment it's all on the actor. All you can do is watch the actor, his whole body. He's flinging his legs over the side, he's he, you know he's acting and it's. It's so much like he's on the stage and I'm watching him. Where I have to do the watching right, he has to perform with his whole body. The camera is not going to zoom in. He's going to have to perform and then I as the viewer get to decide, sort of like how I observe this scene. And that's not film, it's theater. But I dug it. I thought it was pretty cool.

2:00:00 - Alex Lindsay
And I think that the hard part is if you watch it a couple times not the first time I saw it, but you watch it a couple times. Not all the actors are hitting it on all cylinders for every take, and the thing is is that that's something that's harder in 180? Because even in film you're doing this one little clip and there's only one person that has to really, or a handful of people that really have to nail it. You know the but the this. In this case you have to, everybody has to nail it, and because it's close up, it's showing there, and so I think that again like theater.

I think that and I do agree with Jason that this is a calling card Like this is what you now is public. I'm sure that there's other things that they've shown that's private to filmmakers, but this is the thing that lets those filmmakers know like hey, we're in for business. Like this is a new format, this is a new platform, and I can see people like steven soderbergh, people like you know like that, are gonna, um, be really interested in these kinds of formats and to play with them it does seem like it's still people experimenting with the medium totally.

Totally. Totally, I would say, with film in general, people are experimenting with the medium. I mean, if you look at, I mean I think Tenet's an experiment in the medium. I think that the Matrix was an experiment in the medium. I mean I think that we are always changing the Matrix, like there's a lot of things about the Matrix, about, like the bullet time and the other things like that that you was a. I think that I read this interview. I think that Will Smith looked at the. He would, they wanted Will Smith to be neo, yeah, and they looked at the script and didn't think they could pull the bullet time off in a way that would work and just was like no, I don't want to do it, it's gonna look stupid and and so the. So I think that there's.

2:01:36 - Leo Laporte
I think that we exist difference, though, between novelty attempting to introduce new ideas and novelty into an existing medium. It doesn't sound like what's going on this is a novel. This is a brand new everything's novel.

2:01:49 - Jason Snell
There's like film grammar and some of the film grammar will work and some of it won't. And what's the new grammar? And if it is, is it more like theater in some ways? Is it more like an amusement park ride in some ways? The answer is yes also. It's a like film a little bit. Is it more like an amusement park ride in some ways? And the answer is yes Also. It's like film a little bit, and it's also like other things, and that's why I liked having this director do it, because he seemed to really get what he was trying to do, which is explore what the rules might be and how to tell this story. And yeah, they might not all have come off to everybody's satisfaction, but I really did feel like a very intelligent person, and a team of people around him were saying you know what? What does this afford us? And it didn't feel novel as much as it felt like we want to make a a good thing in this format, but we don't know what a good thing in this format is.

2:02:40 - Leo Laporte
So let's try is a German director who did All Quiet on their Western front in a bunch of German language films and is somewhat experimental director. All Quiet was a little bit experimental in some of its, so he was willing to try something. I think All Quiet or 1917 probably could have been done in Apple Vision.

2:02:56 - Alex Lindsay
Pro.

2:02:57 - Leo Laporte
Might've been an interesting thing.

2:02:59 - Alex Lindsay
One thing we were talking about is there's a new new film coming out, um, called here. You know it's with hank, with tom hanks, and uh, it's all happening in one room and a lot of us think that had the headset been three years earlier, there would have been a version of that film that was shot when hitchcock did 12 angry men, which is all in one room, or lifeboat, which is all in one boat.

2:03:21 - Leo Laporte
Right, that was a very uh, progressive, experimental thing to do and a director like hitchcock but I think relished the challenge I think you could build movies that largely occur in a room that you're sitting there might have been interesting experiencing those things and you know and at that point it's theater, right, I mean that's the interesting thing is at that point it's also a lot.

2:03:42 - Jason Snell
I mean, that's the interesting thing is, at that point it's also a lot like theater, which is one of the things that I got out of this was I really want to see a more theatrical experience in vision pro. I think that would be. I would love to see that. Whether it is a.

2:03:53 - Leo Laporte
You're sitting in the front row watching the stage we built a set or the other thing, which is, you build a set and shoot Right.

2:04:02 - Alex Lindsay
If they did that, I would buy a vision pro because I would, because I love theater and I would love to see theater would be amazing, and we've done little bits of that, like we did a.

We did a five minute test years ago. That where we basically put the camera in the perfect place on stage for that scene in the for a for a stage play. So they're talking at a table, they were talking at a kitchen table, um, and we put the camera right there. So now you're just sitting there at the table with them and then you're sitting there the next time they're in the living room and we found just the perfect place to put the camera and you get to watch that scene. We don't move the camera, we just let you just watch the scene and it, uh, it's funny, we, we did it and then we watched the.

We, it's funny, we did it and then we watched it on the headset and then we watched it in the audience and after you watch it on the headset, it's really hard to come back to the audience because you were so close, like you were right there, and they're used to being always on, because that's how that works, that's how live theater works, and I think you will see theater companies doing some of these things for the headset.

And, again, one of the big things that's happening at the same time as this is the is the Blackmagic camera. If the Blackmagic camera is anywhere near what the specs are that Apple talked about at WWDC, suddenly you have a lot of people with you know, you're promoting it, you're putting this, and I think that Apple's had a lot of. It feels like they have a lot of powder that's dry, that they can, they can start to roll this stuff out, but I think they needed to have some a camera available to do it. That wasn't an art project, and I think that that's where the black magic camera comes in. So I think it's gonna be really interesting to see what happens there.

Um, I think that, uh, the press release or something that someone showed on one of the websites when I was looking at it, was talking about the fact that, that they were talking there about 3d movies. Like you have to understand, there's 3d and then there's spatial and then there's 180 degrees and those are all three different things. Like there's, the 3d films are the, you know, are the? Um, uh, you know, or I would say the 3d films are converted to 3d. They already existed, you already have those. The spatial stuff shot with the camp, with the like, for instance the phone, is a different thing. It's closer to the 3d. And then the 180 spatial is the is what we saw in this one film and I think that I think we're going to see a lot more. I don't think we're going to see 150 titles in the next three months. I think we're going to see maybe something every month. Every couple weeks we'll get something new to look at.

2:06:17 - Leo Laporte
But I think I have a lot of pressure there is a list I will give you the list, but first I want to correct myself. Thank you, steven montagna. In the youtube chat, 12 angry men with sydney lumet although interestingly it was a stage play and a teleplay uh, so there was, you know, made sense to turn that into a, and lifeboat was hitchcock and all on a boat coming up.

2:06:38 - Jason Snell
Yeah, and I just wanted to say about live theater like I love, live theater, live theater. I don't think this is going to replace live theater or anything.

2:06:43 - Leo Laporte
Sometimes people get really upset about it.

2:06:45 - Jason Snell
There's the live thing, but one of the beauty, but, but in terms of access, sometimes you can't get to a theatrical presentation. Sometimes, right, there are complications there and also for a lot of struggling theaters. If you had the ability eventually and this happened during the pandemic a lot to have, in addition to your theatrical run, have a, you know, period of a month or whenever where you could watch their, their presentation, and then maybe it goes in the vault or whatever like there's access to things that you might otherwise not have access that's why they shot hamilton, but didn't really.

2:07:17 - Leo Laporte
They shot it with the original cast but didn't release it for years. Yeah, can you do a vision pro? That's just a proscenium, a 180, or does it? It doesn't have to be right these are all 180s oh, this is 180 okay people are asking uh, is there any way to watch this without a vision pro?

2:07:36 - Jason Snell
no, not at the moment, although I think in the long run it will be an interesting question. Right Like would you make a movie like this and do a different version of it for a different format?

2:07:47 - Leo Laporte
But there was a Steven Seagal movie in 2005 called Submerged. You could watch instead.

2:07:52 - Alex Lindsay
Great, you know. The interesting thing is that the other side of this, though, is to show. I think that what we might see and I don't know this for any fact, but I think that what could be compelling also is one of the most expensive parts of these are the sets. The sets, having the actors there, everything else. It's not very expensive to put that camera in the system, the way that it's set up. I could definitely see Apple doing something with Silo or doing something with something else, where here's a scene, a scene that you already saw, but this is the scene, and you get to experience that one scene.

2:08:23 - Jason Snell
The rumor was that they were doing that with monarch legacy of monsters and it turned out that that if they did it, it didn't work out and they didn't release it. But exactly, and I think that that, I think that that makes a lot of sense of just that.

2:08:34 - Alex Lindsay
You get to go and watch and you can imagine like that scene and you really want to feel like you're there and you go finish silo and then you run over and watch the.

2:08:45 - Jason Snell
It's like a webisode. I mean again we're talking about experimental, but really interesting.

2:08:49 - Alex Lindsay
And I think people would watch behind the scenes with this, like, imagine just this just shooting, like what it was like to be at the set and it's like you're sitting there while they're doing the acting that we see behind the scenes all the time. Seeing that would be also compelling. So I think there's a lot of a lot of opportunity there. One of the big problems again has been the camera. The camera has been a art project from you know, for as long as I've done this. It's always complicated and it's always weird, or it's resol, or it's resolution constrained, and so on and so forth. I think that when we start seeing cameras coming out, um, I think that you're going to end up in it, we're going to end up in a different place and a place to process it. So, like resolve, being able to be tied into a camera makes a big difference, and so that that interface is going to change. How much content is getting created for the headset?

2:09:32 - Leo Laporte
and, by the way, uh, variety says uh, there is a season two for monarch and there's a season two for silo silo is just about out. Silo season two it feels like silo would be. Could easily have been an immersive set.

2:09:48 - Alex Lindsay
Yeah, it feels like it is it would have been great, yeah, would have been great, a great that you could do silo in immersive. Uh, you know, there was part of me that was worried, that like I was like, well, not worried, but thinking about like they'll do season two and then what if season three is all in the heads. Oh, that would be bad yeah, we'll see.

2:10:06 - Leo Laporte
Well, not for you. You've got a vision pro still to come. There's going to be a little later this week, on friday, nba all-star weekend 2024, a short film featuring highlights from the all-star weekend.

2:10:18 - Alex Lindsay
I'm, I'm a little late for that. The new season's about to begin but okay, once again, once they say highlights, I'm like, oh, it's gonna hurt, like it's just not it's the highlight stuff they've done. The highlight reels that apple's done so far have been so bad that they do well and they're gonna do more of, is this, uh, one-on-one with artists.

2:10:35 - Leo Laporte
They've got a. Uh, the weekend has an immersive music video um, for a brand new song sometime in November. Concert for One similar to the Alicia Keys video. An official Concert for One series comes later this year. First one features British singer-songwriter Ray. Two new episodes in Apple's Adventure series, which follows pioneering athletes as they take on awe-inspiring, terrifying challenges. The first follows a free diver attempting to beat his record with the longest distance under ice with a single breath. Yes, that's awful. It'll arrive in December. And then there's another episode that takes place in Mallorca and features free solo climbing. That's early next year. The first episode of Elevated arrived in September. Expands to global viewers today. Second episode coming in early 2025 will transport viewers. This is more my speed. Yes to a crisp and serene autumn in new england. Yeah, I can handle that.

2:11:35 - Jason Snell
I think it says something that they're basically trying to line up one a month here um the all-star weekend. I'll say it again I think it's really interesting that it takes so long, like it's all-star weekend. I'll say it again I think it's really interesting that it takes so long, like it's all-star weekend. It's not even the final, it's all-star weekend.

2:11:48 - Alex Lindsay
So you're talking about like eight months ago, six months, it's a long time ago.

2:11:53 - Jason Snell
So what's the issue with the pipeline? Or is it about rights or what's going on there?

2:11:58 - Leo Laporte
I don't even know it we talked about the cameras being there.

2:12:01 - Jason Snell
We right yeah, but did they learn anything from the MLS highlights? Is this going to be to Alex's point? Are we going to be more sort of positioned to watch Steph Curry and Sabrina Ionescu do their three-point challenge from the court, instead of it being just like a really short thing, like we get to stand there and watch them knock down three-pointers? That would be fun, but is it going to be that or is it going to be a five minute highlight package with quick cuts? That's really disconcerting and weird. I hope not, but probably we'll see.

And that's your vision pro segment. We're done talking the vision pro.

2:12:44 - Leo Laporte
Just like movie directors who are experimenting with new formats, we're experimenting with new jingles break weekly. Uh real quickly. Andy and ako put this a story and I think it probably bears uh repeating that uh apple has officially canceled its autonomous vehicle program, terminating their California DMV permit to test on public streets. So that's dead all right reportscom.

Rip the Apple self-driving car. Yeah, uh, let us break. And then you're gonna have pics of the week and remember, I want from you, very important, your musical pics of the week. You're watching MacBreak Weekly, Andy Ihnatko, Alex lindsey and Jason snell. Let's kick off the pics of the week with you, mr Snell oh, my, uh.

2:13:38 - Jason Snell
My software pick of the week is a new app that I just heard about today, actually so relatively new. It's in the Mac App Store. It is $4 in-app purchase. You can try it for free. It's called PolyCapture, and PolyCapture is a. It does what it says on the tin.

If you're a screen I'm a podcaster, yes, but also a screencaster or somebody who's trying to build videos it will record from multiple cameras and multiple microphones, as many as you want, and it records them all and then you can use them later. So it's very simple. Also, I'd say, and also Windows on your screen, if you want to do screen recordings, puts them all in the same place, gives you access to all those files. It's rudimentary in the sense that you don't get a lot. There are not a lot of settings you can't say you know, save this out as an MP3. It all saves it, as you know, a single. It's like a stereo CAF file or whatever for audio. But the fact that you can make a utility that does capturing and put it in the Mac App Store and it actually works, it actually is in there and you give it permission to do all the things and it does all the things and the price is pretty nice. So it's not necessarily a replacement for an all-purpose audio tool like Audio Hijack or for a screencasting production and editing workflow like ScreenFlow, but I think it has a place as a relatively low cost tool if you want to capture, for example, multiple video streams and multiple audio streams on your mac and then edit it together yourself later.

Uh and and uh, you know cheap four buck iap, not bad, from uh appahead studio. It's poly, polycapture, polycapture. That's my pick of the week. Now for artist pick of the week, leo. I think the question is is it Okay? My favorite band that currently exists is the 1975. Have you ever heard them?

2:15:36 - Leo Laporte
Never heard them.

2:15:37 - Jason Snell
Okay, well, that's going to be my number one pick, then, and I would also say, to balance this with a female artist, because that's a bunch of guys, I will go with Holly Humberstone, who is a British singer, and she is awesome too and has worked with the guys in the 1975. So I got a whole list here. I didn't even get to Sam Fender, who's like a young Bruce Springsteen. I didn't get to Boy Genius genius, which is the, the women indie super group. Uh, bibba doobie, the japanese house soccer mommy and maggie rogers.

2:16:08 - Leo Laporte
Oh my god, there's so many but you're so hip, start with the 1975 and holly humberstone, please you know, I follow you on itunes and that's the key is you just follow Jason Snell on itunes and listen to what he's listening to, right.

2:16:21 - Jason Snell
Middle-aged dad all rock, You're welcome.

2:16:27 - Leo Laporte
Alex Lindsay pick of the week.

2:16:29 - Alex Lindsay
So my my pick of the week. I I already done it before. We talked about it, but the is the Sonic sunshine that's going to be happening on Friday.

Awesome, that's very exciting Live stream benefit. I'll be down there and it's with uh toad what's brock, and bare naked ladies are going to be playing live. We're playing a lot of uh tributes from other other artists and so on, so forth as well, and so uh five o'clock on um on friday pacific standard support of, in support of jose andres world central kitchen, which is doing feeding people there, uh, direct relief, brother wolf animal rescue and feeding the carolinas.

2:17:02 - Leo Laporte
So a very good cause yeah, really, really worth it.

2:17:05 - Alex Lindsay
Um, yeah and uh, so definitely check that out, um and uh, and let me know what you think of it next, next week. Um, as far as music goes, first of all, if you haven't listened to toad, the west brock at leo I mean, I guess you should, I guess I ought to I'll send you a.

2:17:18 - Leo Laporte
I'll send you a playlist of some yeah, would you don't make it a spotify playlist?

2:17:24 - Alex Lindsay
no, no, you have apple music right I have apple music.

2:17:26 - Leo Laporte
Can you send me an apple music?

2:17:27 - Alex Lindsay
I don't have spotify anymore. I let that go so so anyway. Um so I'll send you an apple music list of of, by the way, for the kids today. When they send a playlist, it's always spotify um, not my kids, okay, so, anyways, we only share, share playlists. We share playlists all the time, and so so, as far as newer stuff, one that I feel is obvious because my kids listen to him so much, but it may not be for everyone is Noah Khan.

2:17:54 - Jason Snell
So I almost listed him, Alex. That's hilarious, great.

2:17:58 - Alex Lindsay
Noah Khan is so good and he's just great. Noah khan is so good and he's just so. Stick season is the most known song. But northern uh, uh, is it? Northern attitude is another great song to start with. But just so many great songs from noah khan. Um, you know uh also. Uh, if we're, if we're, um also getting a couple in hayley henricks, uh, the probably her best known. She just played in sacramento her one of her best known uh songs is bug collector. Um, which is all she had a she was. She remarkably didn't play that song when she was on the little tiny desk on npr, but, um, she's amazing. Ella jane, uh, sellout is a really good song to start. The sellout is a good is a good one to start with. And of course, you know to go back a little bit if you haven't listened to elliot smith he's no longer with us. I have listened to him. I mean every time, every time I listen to that.

Some of his two albums are just so good he's so good and angelus I would start with angelus, because it's just such a, a, um, a, not a, not a happy john ashley, you're writing this all down. You're gonna put it in the show notes for me yeah, and then uh and finally put a bunch of links in the discord too.

2:19:02 - Jason Snell
So there are, yeah, my my final one.

2:19:03 - Alex Lindsay
We just weren't ready for one one pick matt the electrician so good you've mentioned him before.

2:19:10 - Leo Laporte
I love matt. I mean I'm gonna pick like gotta check it out the bear and start with the bear.

2:19:14 - Alex Lindsay
If you're, if you grew up in the country and you live in the city, you got to listen to the bear. It is a bear love letter to live in that growing up in the country, and then not necessarily a love letter to the city, but anyway, so, so, anyway, so, um, uh, but he's we should do this every week, but we don't have to.

2:19:29 - Leo Laporte
You've got enough to listen to for the next six years but no, we can keep, we can keep going good, and that is one of the features I really like about apple music. You can follow your friends and see what they're listening to and and, honestly, that's a great way to discover new.

2:19:44 - Alex Lindsay
But then you'll be like why does Alex listen to the same song over and over? And I I'm very repetitive, so I'm not a very good person to follow, because I just I'll get into a song and I'll literally listen to it until I know all the words you know, like we know that andy's going to recommend, uh, diana damero, but we'll, we'll give him a chance anyway.

2:20:01 - Leo Laporte
Andy Anako, your pick of the week.

2:20:04 - Andy Ihnatko
Mine's kind of a light pick. Erica Moen is one of my favorite graphic novelist artists. She's just terrific. But apart from that, she created a new account on Blue Sky of just sources of free art as a way to combat the use of artificial intelligence-based art. So if you go to the profile, publicdomainblueskylocal, she just started last week so it's not hugely populated yet, but she founded it based on the Library of Congress's image collections.

They have a whole bunch of huge collections too Exactly, and a lot of them are like organized by category, and all of them in these categories are free to use. If you go to locgov, libraryofcongressgov, free hyphen, two hyphen use and just hey, look, it's a free picture of Cab Calloway. Like, hey, look, it's a free picture of cab calloway. Like, hey, look, it's free pic. It's free pictures of like, uh, like early autumn, early automobiles, and there's kind of freedom of like knowing that like this is this is creative work and of course you're gonna, you're gonna use the attribution but like you know that it's free to use, it's actual human hand work. Uh, tourism posters, it's like you know what it's kind of like a bummer to try to use. Like mid, it's actual human hand work. I love that. Tourism posters. It's like you know what it's kind of like a bummer to try to use, like Midjourney, when you have like, oh, wow, this is actually like really cool, amazing art that I actually want to write something based. So I can use this as an illustration of that thing that I want to write and I'm sure that she's going to keep it updated with all kinds of new stuff.

So many national museums now just have entire collections of. Here is stuff that we have in our holdings that we are going to certify is copyright free. You can use it however you'd like, and here are super, super high resolution versions of it I actually have on my wall right now. Now the Boston Public Library has digitized all of its collections now, and so they they made these huge, like poster size scans of like travel posters for Boston, one of which features the Boston Public Library, and so I actually had that sent it out to have it printed out. Uh, and it's just gorgeous and it cost me a few bucks to, like you know, have have something big printed. But the idea of like browsing through and saying I would like to have that on my wall and not have to go to ebay and hope that it actually comes through, but actually say, great, it's free, it's for it's part of our heritage.

2:22:34 - Leo Laporte
Now it belongs to everybody and I'm going to take advantage of that and I want this poster when attending the world's fair visit beautiful Seacliff, 250 foot altitude, no mosquitoes, yes. Sponsored by the village of Seacliff. This is great. What a great collection of interesting and unusual. And, by the way, nasa's picture of the week is in there as well. I mean there's great, it's. It's all kinds of stuff, so, uh, really nice, good pick. Thank you, uh andy.

2:23:06 - Andy Ihnatko
Art in the public domain publicdomainbskysocial and did you want to pick an artist, one of the new hip young artists you're listening to well. Well, you're asking for a new artist and usually like I'm on, like at least like a 10-year delay, uh, so, uh, chappelle rowan is not necessarily brand new, she's like, and not necessarily, a hidden feature.

2:23:27 - Leo Laporte
She's pretty new. That's pretty new. I think that's just my solidity.

2:23:30 - Andy Ihnatko
But man like I I forget who how she got on my radar a few months ago. But as soon as I listened to like the rise and fall of a midwest princess, it started off as like kind of the way that, like Alex mentioned, of okay, it's gonna 45 seconds click, 45 seconds click. But it turned out to be like 45 seconds add to favorites, but keep listening and then like stopping what I'm doing and like listen to the next track and the next track and the next track. It's really something.

2:24:00 - Leo Laporte
It's an experience track and the next track. It's really something. It's an experience, uh right it's pretty pretty super the rise and fall of a midwest princess from our new englander andy, and not co gb boston and I will, and it will slide down if I'm expected to have an, have an operatic pick.

2:24:16 - Andy Ihnatko
Uh, one of my favorite albums from the past five years kate lindsay mezzo soprano. It's called tirano t. From the past five years, kate Lindsay mezzo-soprano. It's called Tirano T-O-R-A-N-O. It's mostly handel, mostly like Baroque, but it's just simply her voice in an instrument and it's like another one of those things where, if you're in the mood of, I just want something in the background that will make me calm, and something be beautiful, it'll work for that. Don't be surprised if, like, beautiful, it'll work for that. Don't be surprised if, like, if you're actually sitting down and relaxing, you don't fall asleep because you're just like swimming in this beautiful, like warm pool of music.

2:24:47 - Leo Laporte
Nice, uh, absolutely lovely I don't normally do a pick of the week but uh, this and this isn't really for the apple uh show, but I finally got and I will be showing off on windows weekly the snapdragon dev kit for windows that was promised in July and uh they thought I thought I wouldn't get it till next year has finally arrived. So I will have uh some of things and I bet you, uh Richard Campbell will have something to show tomorrow on Windows Weekly, so I'll leave that unboxing for tomorrow.

I don't think any of you care about any of that. Thank you, andrew GBH. This a week from Thursday. Thank you, andrew gbh. This a week from thursday. Look forward to that GBHnewsorg.

Listen to it live or later Alex lindsay graymattershow want to hear that. Malcolm gladwell uh, his new book is a kind of a return to the tipping point and I think it'll be very interesting to hear him talk about that. Really good, really good interview. And, of course, office hours. Dot global go, go, go every day. And Jason Snell six colors dot com. October 31st, the apple results will come out spooky. I think you're going to use more than orange and black for your probably.

2:25:58 - Alex Lindsay
Yeah, yeah, maybe I'll try to slide some uh some halloween themes in there, but yeah, there is usually an orange, some bats, so the orange will be there.

2:26:07 - Leo Laporte
Thank you Jason, thank you Andy, thank you Alex, thanks to all of you, especially a special thanks to our Club Twit members who make this show possible. Your $7 a month is incredibly valuable to us Don't think it's not, and you could give us more if you wish. But we do want to give you some benefits. So you get ad free versions of this show and all the shows we do. You get video plus audio for a lot of the shows we only put out as audio in the public. You get to watch behind the scenes content Coming up. On Friday we're going to do another coffee clutch with Mark Prince from Coffee Geek and we're going to talk with a coffee connoisseur, the woman who picks my beans. It should be a lot of fun, and I spell beans with a zed not a euphemism not a euphemism.

And actually she doesn't pick them, she selects them. So let's get that straight. Uh, that will be fun, and we do other things like Mikah's crafting corner, Stacey's book club's coming up a week from Friday on the 25th. That's going to be really good.

2:27:06 - Jason Snell
Uh, it's Adrian Tchaikovsky's service model, which is quite great best book best book I've read in the last year yeah, I really enjoyed it.

2:27:14 - Leo Laporte
I listened to him read it on audible and he has quite a posh english accent which is perfect for on charles. Uh, it about AI, it's about robots and it's about the end of the world, but we'll be talking about that on Club Twit. All of that for seven bucks a month. Join the club, go to twit.tv/clubtwit or scan the QR code in the upper left of your screen. We would love to have you in the club. I didn't even mention the discord, which is where the club members gather, and there's always a lot of good stuff going on. I am going to revive my call-in radio show, but this time it won't just be tech. Uh, sometime soon, and that will be a club-only experience, I will fill you in on that. I've been looking for a way to do call-in via the internet and I think I've found it, so that will be fun. We're calling it leo up late. I should call it leo. Uh, too many drinks in, or something like that. I don't know it'll be. It'll be leo unfiltered. How about that? That's pretty good, uh.

Thanks to all of you for being here. We do this show MacBreak Weekly every Tuesday, 11 am. Pacific, 2 pm eastern, 1800 UT. You can watch us on seven different streams. Of course, club members get the discord, but there's also YouTube, Twitch, Kick, Facebook, LinkedIn and x.com. Watch wherever you like. We love having you live, but if you do watch live, I hope you will also subscribe so you get the final, polished, edited, perfected version of the show. You can get that. Well, best thing to do go to twit.tv/mbw. There's links there to the RSS feeds. You can even click one of the podcast players we have there and it'll automatically subscribe for you. There's also a link to the YouTube channel twit.tv/mbw. Thanks for joining us everybody. Security Now coming up next. It is now, however, my sad duty to tell you get back to work, because break time is over. Bye.