Unionization Efforts at Apple Stores

Hello. Welcome to the Aiside of Podcast. I'm Wiam Gallgh. Our sponsor this week are Claude by Anthropic and Nord Stella. more about them. Later and I'm joined on this most significant week. It's not quite the night before Christmas, but it's so close. WWDC seconds away I mean quite a few seconds, but you know, I'm joined by Wes Hilliard, who is as thrilled as I am Aren't you Oh yeah. I mean, everything is seconds away if you do the math. so it's just depends on how many seconds you want to talk about Right, that got suddenly deep and profound. Yeah, mortality came to mind. Anyway, I want to go straight in on something that we got wrong. Well we think we've got wrong because last week, I think I think it was last week, might have a week before, we were discussing all the possible names for MacOS twenty seven. You suggested it shouldn't be MacOS Death valet and I thought you were right. Since we spoke, someone has suggested the odds are it'll be MacOS Trump That was distressing enough. but then But is it a leak? Is it a clue? I don't know. The news came out that it would be possibly be B MacOS There. I know Apple gave money to social media platform called X to have a hashmoji They do this every year. And their hashmoji appears when you type in hashtag WWDC twenty six And the hashmoji is basically an image file And that image file, someone dug out of the interface and the name inside of it had the name Big Bear and Big Bear is a lake in California. The thing is There's no way this is the name of MacOS, no way I mean I want you to be right. because I mean I mean I mean in England, we don't have this, but still Big Bear sounds to me like Tent four good buddy. weve got a convoy coming into all this kind of stuff. And it just o there's also there's kind of reference to the prisoner as well. Big Ben, Big Bill, all of this there's so much connotation and to go around It's also an animal. Yeah I don't that apple wants to have an animal name if only because It's meant to be a place name in California and what if This confuses people and they arere like, oh, next year we're gonna to get tiny wolf or you know, small cat Large elephant I don't know Um its just it's too it's cod namey. It's it's very very code nameamy. This is what a code nameame sounds like. You're correct. You know, you're talking about convoy. they have codenames in convoy and when they say all of their phrases, that's what they're saying is codenames. So This is a code nameame. There's Amaz four percent chance that this is actually the name of MacOS and I'd be very surprised if it is You see, you had me reassured to is said code name. becausen't. Oh, that's a new word. I just because yeah, important m to a word there, becausen't, I'm having that wasn't one of the very first Names of MacOS ten C name. it might have been Jagua I get somewhere around there. It was an internal code name and yet somehow we reallyready got to know it And so it became the product name. Are we contributing to the odds of this becoming the real name by talking about it In which case, we shut up right now. Absolutely no, that's done And instead, go to the far far less concerning news somethinghing that actually I heard about this week and I'm afraid I thought about You. It was I don't want to say the death of the Apple Vision Pro because that's just insightful, isn't it? I don't know whether that means as an insighting to anger or insightful as in perceptive or something But it's one of the two You are off the two of us, the Apple Vision Pro user, you like it very much. you have clear criticisms of it. but this news this week It's not about doubling down on things going away, but it sounds like it's halfing down on things going away Do you want to reassure me on this as well? So the reporting around this is confusing because everyone wants to fit their narrative to whatever is happening All we know is a few weeks back. There were some internal changes to Apple's Vision projects team, which led to the story that suggested Apple Vision Pro was dead But now we're back to this again because I think the way this ended up turning out is this is the actual news. And what's happened is John Turnis, one of his first provisions that he's made as upcoming CEO has re emphasize the priority of having glasses front of mind rightight now Classes are due at the end of twenty twenty seven. We'll talk about that here in a minute. And then the AR glasses aren't due until twenty twenty nine or so, twenty twenty eight at the earliest, but I doubt it Um Now that means though, that Apple Vision Pro has been completely deprioritized. That doesn't mean it's been abandoned. That doesn't mean Vision OS is no longer being developed. That doesn't mean Apple isn't going to make another Apple Vision Pro All this means is as far as the supply chain is concerned because that's where these leaks are coming from, being ChQo. As far as the supply chain is concerned, there will not be another hardware iteration of Apple Vision Pro. in the foreseeable future. could change as soon as This year or next year, Apple could just go in with an order and say, hey, those components you're building, those would be great for a thinner lighter Apple Vision Pro. We would like one hundred thousand of them buy blah, blah, blah, twenty twenty seven already knew before this announcement even happened We already knew that Apple Vision Pro production had scaled back because they had made as many as they need in their inventory. We already knew that Apple can't make a thinner, lighter version that is also less expensive because the technology isn't available yet So What Apple is doing right now is they're in a holding pattern. And their designers on the Vision productroducts group for Vision Pro can't really do anything until the technology catches up with their vision. So They can't develop next generation Apple Vision Pro until the world lets them, the technology lets them. Things have to minergize further. thingsings have to become mass producible and cheaper. So It's just not time yet. So why not rep prioritize and focus on glasses while maintaining the life of the current Apple Vision Pro? The most I could see happening between now and twenty twenty nine for Apple Vision Pro is we jump up to the M seven, whatever M eight, whatever modern chip set it is in twenty twenty eight. Patience It's not as if the category is dead. Apple could have been it at any time, but we'll get to that here in a moment too I'd like I mean, this could just be for me and I know I do this every weekash question, it's just for me. I had this opportunity and I steal it. I am unclear I get Apple Vision Pbe I get that there was an expected vision air. so basically not a pro version, therefore cheap in some way. But then there's the talk of glasses and there a talk about AR glasses and that's where I get Fuzz Um There are glasses that aren't AR Why would I want them pressing actually knee glasses Yeah, there's three sets of glasses. One have already been canned That was actually reported last year, I think in July. Apple had planned on releasing some kind of connected to display. So there's what are they called Xreal Mic is reviewed to set. I briefly played around with some, but it's a set of glasses you put on. There's a USB cable that comes out the back and it connects to your Mac and becomes your Macs monitor and a virtual space, All it is a screenwere on your face Apple was working on this that would tightly integrate with MacOS. they abandoned it because it's honestly very silly Mac Virtual display and Apple Vision Pro is the superior option Y seell the much, much worse, less useful option That's gone The second set of glasses is one we've talked about many, many times, Ma is working with Ray Ban and a couple new partners, actually, they're releasing a lot of glasses this year that are just speakers, microphones and cameras. There's no display, there's no interface. You talk to an AI, it hears you, it records data, it captures photos, and it goes to your smartphone. Um that is Apple's first iteration in their glasses. And that will be coming at the end of twenty seven. the end of twenty six, if rumors are to be believed I'm skeptical. And then twenty twenty eight At the earliest, we should see AR glasses more like twenty nine thirty. but AR glasses meaning same idea microphones speakers, cameras The glasses, the lenses will have a display Um There's been various rumors about what kind of display. Meta uses projections, I think. I think Apple would be more hopeful in getting transparent glass that can just create pixels on the screen that you can see through, but That's much further out in technology. might end up being with a projection of some kind Just as an aside because you mentioned matter there and Raybands. Just in the last week or so, here in the UK, I've been seeing a lot of ads for it If some re than the ads are in frrench. which I think is just trying to make it sound. Exotic somehow I don't read French well enough to know if it just says color or something. But I have noticed that there are always two people in it a and a woman. and the man wearing the glasses, it doesn't seem as awful as it looked before And you start thinking, well, maybe I'm wrong. And then the woman appears and I think they've hired somebody with too small a face for the glasses because they just stick out everywhere and they look Very silly. So more in a weird way relieved by that. I would recognize those I might not recognize that So Med has partnered with Luke's what is that company? It's the one that owns everyone The reasons why if you go to sunglass hut or lenscrafters in the United States. I'm sure you guys have lenscrafterters as well If you go into one of those places It's the entire display and lenscrafterters And the doctors who work there that give you prescriptions all work for the same company. It's Luxotica or something. Oakley's owned by them. Ray Band's owned by them. They're, you know, so Meta has partnered with that company looks I'll never get it. Ls Autica or whatever And that's why we have meta Ray bands and we're getting other meta style glasses out. Apparently they've also partnered with Warby Parker, which is outside of that branding. So that shows that They're trying to get different styles. likeike these are wararby Parker glasses. You could imagine very easily fitting some cameras in the arms here But the problem with the metaglasses is there's very little in terms of privacy protections and thoughtfulness and how they captuure data and permissions and The light can be defeated very easily and there's entire companies built around. Send us your metaglasses and we'll remove the indicator so you can record privately. L lot of gross disgusting stuff happening in that space, but Meta really wants everyone to think that Meta's glasses. are going to be similar to Apple Watching the fact that everyone's going to wear them, everyone's going to want one and they are useful to your lives The thing is They're very niche few people buy them for the novelty a lot of creeps buy them and they have become the creep glasses because of what they're doing with them. So I don't know what Apple's going to do in this space to try and make it Better totally, but I'm sure they'll have some kind of plan It's funny it ten years ago we had glass holes. now we just have creepy and while we'll have apples person need we'll have to have on stand byy a new word in case there They're same. But I'm sorry, I let you have toine because I'm interested in terbent metaglasses, but I am in how they're trying to sell them the hard sell that we're suddenly seeing here in the UK One more thing about Apple Vision Pro. Are you not expecting anything to happen with Vision OS, for example, until the next I mean, like I said It it's in full development We'll see exactly how much attention is being given to that platform on Monday because ye VisionS twenty seven. Now this is where it's going to get interesting. It is the first All right, so Vision OS two came out only a few months after Appalisition Pro launched to the public like four months. So it wasn't a real update. It was more of a to get the features that weren't ready out the door Vision OS twenty six a year later now, that was a full update. and that gave us the spatial widgets, that gave us some new features I'm fully expecting Vision OS twenty seven to be similar in scope. It's going be heavily focused on getting us new spatial features, improvements to the widgets, but also I strongly believe Apple intntelligence and these upgrades that are expected at WWC at least expected this year 're going to have a huge influence on what is possible in Apple Vision Pro. This should be a very interesting keynote to see how much attention was given. Are there actually going to be a lot of new features? If they just roll up and say, hey, you're going to get this new AI features that's coming out in IOS and then they walk off stage U That would be a cause for concern. But I'm more of the mind that Apple is actively developing Vision OS and that's not going to change anytime soon I liked to vision US when I used it for the whole forty minute demo and things. I just I don't know whether I'd use them more. And there's still the issue, we talk about this quite a lot, the fact that apps that I would use like pages are still iPad apps and things. and you've said that There's not enough content on them. That's still the case H It's improving every day Okay. Let's take that as a positive. All right. ye. I mean, I'll be real again. peopleeople really want to be negative on this platform and I mean, I remember when iPad first launched and half of the apps were iPhone apps blown up to two . The difference being developers were hungry to develop for Apple platforms versus today they're a little more jaded and avoiding platforms that won't make them money. And Vision Pro will not make developer money and that's Apple's biggest problem right now. It's not that it's hard to develop for the platform. It's not that it's a waste of time in terms of functionality. You can make some really cool stuff for Apple Vision Pro. You're just not going to make any money. And until Apple fixes that problem, we're going to continue being in this limbo. but that still doesn't mean the platform has been abandoned in any way. It just means that we're in this very early stage and until we get more vision properties for developers to target and potentially make money on, There's not going to be a whole lot coming into the platform that's native One thing I should say I genuinely am excited by I can say that here because we get it. my family go. what but you know we get it. It is exciting and we're going to come back to it. off course. One way we are going to come back to it is in Appider plus the ad free extended version of the show, which you get by subscribing via either Apple podcasts or Patreon Once again, we're in the run up to WWDC. so the topic is obviously going to be WWDC and our crossed fingers hopes for it. But we've been through the iPhone, we've been through the Mac What were you saying this week's extended Aensider Pus should be about I just wanted to cover our bases. It's going to be a little bit more of a how do we feel going in, but we're also going to discuss AirPods, Home pods, Apple Home, Apple Health, just cover the bases that we haven't touched upon services and apps that could be touched during the. key notes that we didn't necessarily cover when we went over specific OS updates. I wouldn't mind discussing things like Apple Music, Apple TV, things like that. I was going to ask you about Apple Card because of Chase Manhattan having taken over, but then I looked on Chase Manhattan's website And there was a post in January saying they expect to finish completion of taking over from Goldman Sachs, I blanked on them and God when they're gone, you forget them so quickly in two years time. So twenty twenty eight is presumably the first chance I'll ever get to roll out means Apple card in the UK eararliest would be nine years after the US. I'm starting to take this personally And you're not gonna h it. It' going to take a w for sure. Yeah. it's gonna.ee over here, there's not a lot of difference in the Apple Card and the Apple C They all just went away. But anyway, That's WWDC and Apple Insider pllus. There's obviously also, I mean would I can't get it off my mind, so it's going to come up again. But how about we just try to ignore WWDC for a bit? That's gone nearly and instead it's practically time. tos look forward to The other big apppple thing of the year, the September launch of Do that think with the iPhone retrie mentioned from time to time. We can we can talk about the iPhone fold here if you like because this is it it's still just not even a photo. It's a screenshot Is the thing I saw seemed to be slightly shrink wrapped I was trying to look through it to the colour. for it. I'm obsessed with color today. It looked iPhone fold like, it looked exactly like every drawing we've seen of every Design The problem is is the rear casing and the camera bump are all wrong. It's lacking an Apple logo and the camera bump is plasticy and it's also missing the flash cut out for some reason Um If you Apart from that. Yeah. Yeah. it also doesn't have a cutout for the selfie camera on the front display. This is actually a still image from a video someone shot on social media And then someone captured someone captured a screenshot of that video and put it on their Instagram claiming it to be theirs. and then Ice Universe took a screenshot of that screenshot it further and that's what we ended up covering was level three of Now the original video is very clear that this is a dummy mockup of the iPhone fold. So this continues to be just Junk people can buy from Chinese marketplaces U I've seen videos taken in like malls in China where there's just kiosks setups that say like see the next iPhone and it's just a bunch of plastic models. of the iPhone you can go play with. So I Yeah, like this it's just this this is the time this is silly season. this is the time of year But I do want to point out We have the full rear chassis of the iPhone eighteen Pro. here in June. We had the full chassis of the iPhone seventeen Pro in February of last year We saw the entire iPhone air by of last year We have not seen From a screw Port A lens cover, what have you? We have seen nothing of the iPhone fold And it's still very odd to me that we are Two months out from this thing launch being in full mass production before launch Um Because mass production, if it doesn't start by July, They're not going to have any to sell in September basically. And I don't know what they're doing here. I don't know if it's coming, but people are very adamant that it is Okay, so it sounds like the situation could be Fantastic, extraordinary unusual secrecy even for Apple, but I mean successful Sacrecy for it. It isn't coming this year. it might come early next year or it's not coming at all What do you figure the odds are on each of those So the thing about secrecy is the this is this gets back to conspiracy theories, right? Like faking the moon landing In order for us to have faked the mooon landing, It's one thing to say, oh, all we need is the astronauts to not. say anything, right? because they didn't actually go Did't you have a film crew, a lighting crew, someone who did you know, Armstrong's makeup before he went on camera Um, and then then you have Um Everyone at NASA, everyone who built the shuttle, everyone who launched the shuttle, everyone who was in the space center, communicating with the shuttle Hundreds, if not thousands of people involved in the moon landing and What sixty years, No one not even on their desk bed has said it was fay likeike It's Once you get past a certain number of people It is inevitable that someone's going to squeal. And that's what's been happening with these iPhone leaks, these iOS leaks. That's why German basically has a full running operating system of IOS twenty seven in his office right now because Once you get to intermittent testing development of a product, it's going to leak. Kosu Tami, a recent leaker that we covered. I forget their name Um had another leak this week but they're all, you can tell where they're getting their stuff. They're getting it from the DVT testing, the validation testing productrods. We saw an Apple Vision Pro that was black. That was a clear CVT model with because you could see a lot of the stickers and things on it that were still clinging to it. likeike it wasn't a finished model and That's where this stuff comes from. is these guys have either friends in the plant or heck they work there Um, and this stuff gets out. So I'm going to say secrecy wise, it's impossible. They could have kept it completely underwraps till now absolutely because five people got to play with the model inside. But once you get to functional testing because there's two levels. I forget the exact names DVT and EVT, I think once you get to the evaluation for ion Now you're making hundreds of units to verify that your process works and getting those models sent back to Kuperino for testing. They're giving out models to to take out in town and test cellular strengths. That's why we saw an iPhone seventeen Pro last year in the middle of California's like very populous center a town center area, right N Easy to hide this stuff, especially a foldablel. Right? How do you how do you test a device that looks so unique? So It's going to leak I don't know what level unless Apple's literally Gun to people's heads, handcuffed to suitcase type stuff going on here Because I do know when Apple sends out an iPhone seventeen P in the wild last year to test cellular signals and photography They have A guy Basically he is carrying a hammer threateningly behind them the whole time to make sure that they're not out there showing it to people. They have a security guy that accompanies them everywhere with this prototype device So yeah, it is hard to leak butook. In China there mass production in factories from some random bob who doesn't care and it wants to just share a leak, get paid some money And then that goes on Weibo, right? It just hasn't happened yet. and that that is Fascinating to me. there's no way it's a secrecy thing So the other two options are it's not coming. I think Apple really okay We can get conspiratorial too. There are really three options It's not coming at all It's coming, but it's delayed O this is a plant to catch leakers Okaykay. I mean, I'm flashing back to Capricorn one over the secrecy and the fakes moon. Yeah, but okay. Apple has actually done that before or now you've said it But this seems On a huge scale. Yeah. be it would be pretty ridiculous if the entire the whole iPhone fold was just a giant conspiracy to catch leakers because it doesn't actually exist. I want that book I want that book to be written I want that to be true now. Okay, okay, but I asked you to pick one and you've added another one instead. So we're on four secrets Aimal hunt Never coming delay. I will say that right now It's anyone's guess. I'm still on the side of There's no way. this thing because it hasn't even entered mass production yet. The minute this thing enters mass production, you bet we're going to hear about it Oh. hasn't ent mass production y There's been no product leaks They haven't made it out of validation testing. They're having issues with the hinge, they're having issues with materials and the display And yeet, we still have At least one of our leakers saying it's coming in September No one else is saying this. Ming Chhi Ko has been silent about the iPhone fold, which is uncharacteristically weird. Which tells me that the supply chain knows nothing because they're being told nothing So we'll see. I'm on the side of it's not coming. There is always a chance Apple surprises this It's a new device in the lineup. They could announce it in September and release it in December. Who knows We'll have to just wait and see I was looking to you for a definitive answer And that's as cl as I'm going to get. How about this? I look to you also to explain something to me Um because there was a story about the iPhone fold that the software would be adapted in some way so that when you open the screen up It wasn't like an iPad mini or whatever this equal size is that it would instead be some kind of split green And an argument I saw was This is good because IOS doesn't really work on an iPad and I don't know what the strongest word I can say on a family show is, but I always thought PadOS IOS W works brilliantly. on the iPad and it's on Android where things are stretched to look rubbish for it I presume it was an Android fan saying this, but what is the split screen stuff? what are the odds of that? and actually What is it I should work I believe that you could probably say bullocks. The thing here If that was bleeped out in the recording, then you know we were wrong. Okay we'll have to go check, I guess, practices The thing here is This is stupid. This is incredibly stupid. This is fixed focused digital. This is the same person who has adamant that Well, maybe I'm wrong. There's two focuses and it messes me up. There's instant focus and fixed focus digital. Yes. One is saying September, one is saying delayed. I think this is the September guy. Forgive me if I'm wrong Anyway IOS and iPad OS If you peek at their code base are nearly identical, iPadOS has some stuff built on top Um for multitasking and various things that are required of iPad of us. It's just a feature flag. You can Apple already has adaptive UI for all of its interfaces. Someone's like, oh, but what if they have special iPhone sizes? they already do that You don't need to program that into your apps anymore. That hasn't been the case in very long time. U SplitView is, like I said, a feature flag away in IOS. They just brring it over from iPad OS, turn it on and there it is. I'm sure they have to debug it. I'm sure they need very special sizing because this is a four by three display. It's not quite iPhone screen side by side. It's a little bit more squat. It'll be fine, guys It'll be interesting to see if developers try to specifically target this screen size and half screen size because Four by three already exists. It's the iPads. iPad many, I believe still uses four by three. Some of the iPads are a little bit wider the Isisle eleven inch, I believe, is a little wider But Yeah, four by three is a thing and an Apple already. This isn't It's whatever people are speculating though is if IOS could get split view on pro models, like where the iPhone P Max is so big, you could have a vertical split And I don't believe that's going to come even with this affordance in the operating system I'm trying to think what I would use that Isn't that weird? when I read this that it would be split for you, I was picturing a horizontal split on the IiPM fold, and I was wondering would I be able to drag things from one side to the other U but you can on the iPad already Would I drag top to bottom You can drag things between apps on iPhone already Yeah You can just swipe between the apps, have one finger holding the files and then the other finger navigating the interface. That's totally possible. Oh may' how long it took me to realise that, but now I know Yeah Okay. there's' I use a lot. I can see they've just the Magaziani group added multiple windows on the Mac version and I found that remarkably handy that you can leave the top of your document open. work through the rest of it and drag between thingsings o at you. yeah, I just I don't see you doing it on the phone even if It's an iPhone eighteen Pro there max literally I don't don I don't understand it because people They say, Oh, I want to watch a video. okay, use picture and picture I mean, that's already of just watched the video or just watch the video U Text input. If you're texting though, your keyboard's taking up half the display. So where's the rest of the stuff going to go there's no s didn't think of that There's nothing that you can do. Apple pencil for iPhone with split screen And then you can watch videos while not watching them totally waste your time Yeah this is castrophge territory Yeah. Yes, quite possibly. there. although you know, that's not completely ignore that one. Okay. I was going to pause there for a second to say we've talked about colours, we've talked about split screen stuff, we've talked about what is and isn't coming. I was going to ask you, are you likely to upgrade this year? but that's a silly question because you're on the upgrade program. you will presresume the iPhone eighteen P Max, is that what you're looking at Oh yeah. I'll get the ProMax. unless for some ungodly reason the fold arrives and Apple convinces me to get one. It's definitely going to be the Pro Max. I just can't see the fold being a viable option when the cameras aren't going to be as good What would it take to stop you to the The new iPhone eighteen ProMax, is there anything? If Apple said the cameras were identical, Which is never going to be the case. No. Yeah, never know Okay. so I need the new camera. Whatever the camera is, whatever the improvements are, I will always take it. unless It is so Inane stupid or like niche I could honestly say, okay, I don't need that. But even then outside the cameras, there's the processing power, their new AI chips, the A whatever is always going to be better than last year by a significant margin. Apple really does a good job with their chip sets It would be It would take a really disappointingly weird iPhone for me to not upgrade and Apple just isn't gonna do that L global market conditions would have to affect the iPhone for that to happen. off course the pricing be different. as well, couldn't it? I'd actually briefly forgot that I might have to save a bit more Just because we're on the topic and it's on my mind. you can tell I'm thinking about it. You're certain about the max, you wouldn't consider P. I've used the smaller phone before, it's fine. I just prefer having the larger screen, the larger viewfinder better for videos, better for battery. It just It doesn't affect me enough in my life to bother I slip it into my pocket when I'm riding my bike and it's fine. I mean I have a zipper on my pocket so it's not going to fly out. but Um Yeah, like it's notot so large that it's unwieldy, but it's big enough that it's doing everything I needed to do I vacillate a little bit more, but because when the first large one I went to would have been what the iPhone X S, I can't remember a ten S sorry or ten R one of those. It was too big So I went to the pros and I stuck with the pros for years and then last year, for some reason year before or rather, I went to the Max and it very much. I like it much heavy. They're not that huge. No I was surprised how light it was actually, but also the screen is gorgeous and I do watch quite a lot This episode is brought to you by Claude from Anthropic. and this is new, at least it was new to me. If you already use Claude for this, well, you could have told me. I'm in the middle of producing a book,? I'm producing a book for a group of young writers. mostly they're teenagers, but a couple of them are a little younger and some of those younger ones and wrote their stories in the session we did together and I photographed the pages fine while I I got one thin clue. whyy I even thought to try this. Elier today I dragged one of those JpeEG photos into Claue and said go on then Extract the text And it did. it just did. text that I was struggling to read. it read and converted to type for me. Okay, evenven it was defeated by the odd word, but it marked out those parts. It included like a best guess suggestion and I think overall I changed maybe five words in what must have been a total of three or four hundred words next. I'm never going to use AI to write a book in nor of these young writers. of course not, but Claude gave me what I needed. Produce it Flort is the AI for Minds that don't stop it good enough It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and it thinks with you. it doesn't think for you. Lord extxtend your thinking to tackle the problems that matter The problems worth solving s started with Claed at cllaed. Ai slash apple inssider. So that's claed. Ai slash apppple inssider and check out Claed Pro, which access gives you access to all of the features that I've mentioned in today's episode Claorde. Ai slash Apple Insider And thank you to Claude from Anthropic, Fwell for supporting me up inside the podcast, but also for helping me with my young writer's book on there. But actually that brings me something else. I think this brings me something else because you made mention of prehistoric planet That's a TV show, isn't it But yes is the story just there's more of it or is there somethingomething else that I'm You can tell I read the headline only. We got a couple things here because I want to get to that privacy as well. Oh yes, yes. I like that ad. Yeah. So you're going to have to click through to this story from variety. U It's just a little fluff piece about the music from Priestwork Planet, but the company behind it built special instruments to make the music an audio for prehistoric planet, including using actual fossils and three D printed skulls of animals We're going have to We're going to have to make this to show art for the chapter because it is It is such an I want to put it in here so you can see it. It is such a wild wild image. I love it. That is crazy Okay, the things Ale music can do, although I actually fin you mion that there's something else to say about Apple music. Here I'm in the UK, we have you've got a place called like London It'll catch on. London has Wigmore Hall, which I've often heard about but never been. It's a particularly famous music venue and I didn't realize that this year is its hundred twenty fifth anniversary. and it's part of its celebrations. It's partnering with Apple Music. Apple Music Classical, rather. going to release, I don't know, it's not very clear how long this is running. They say it's an annual thing There will be four recordings a year, but they don't say how many years of performances Done. with more haul I'm An important thing is that Apple Music gets exclusive right for three months to it and then it spreads to whatever other classical music service streaming services there are, but then also Wigmore Hall is absorbing all of the production costs And Wiggmore Hall is not taking any of the money. The money from Apple streaming and whoever afterwards is going straight to the performing artists and I think that's I mean, it's great. I mean, I'd love to know what the costs are, but Good on them bit of apple bit of consistently Yeah, Apple consistently proves that it's the one service that cares about artists as dumb as that sounds. I know they're still paying pennies per stream and all that and proportionally, some might make more money on another whatever. But like in the nitty gritty, the contractual work beats or Apple Music onene radio, like Musicians clearly favor Apple and Apple favors musicians in ways that other companies do not. Spotify's entire business model of the last five years has been to get people to listen to less music because it costs them too much money. Every stream you do on Spotify costs them more money than than you give them as a customer. So They want you to listen to less music. They want you to AI generate music or listen to podcasts or listen to elephant mood sounds or something Audio books, I believe Yeah audiob books Yeah, Apple music is Music and if it's whether it's a DJ artist on Apple Music and radio or an interview with Zane Low or U Lately, I've noticed I've been logging on going to the actual app instead of just telling Siri to play a song Um in my home page have been increasingly seeing these What you were just talking about for classical, but for other music, Apple's been inviting artists just to do live sessions. Yeah. and they're not just recording the audio for these, they're recording video as well and doing these mini concerts and sharing the videos of them and they're spectacular. And again, this is getting artists paid it's getting them content and attention promotion on Apple Music and Like I just don't see anyone else doing that. and every person that I ever meet in real life that switches taple music from another service is always just like, wow, this is Night and day. notot on just audio quality, but in what's available. And I just find that interesting Oh actually you've shed something I should have said because this terribly intrigues me. This Wigmore Hall L project the first one out on june fifth. So actually at the day this goes out, the first one recording, piano concerto is coming out, but it's going to feature an audio commentary from the pianist and I just can't wait to see how that quite works in an audio only, but yes, they're trying. new things. It's going to be so interesting. If they haven't launched by the time you're listening to this, this is actually a pre orered thing that has the first track available by preview on it. I was listening to that this morning and wishing my piano playing will ever be. That good, but that's another Iss there. Did you see this Chrome ad interestnteresting you should call it a chromad. I was going to say Apple does this thing. We've just praised Apple about music. We should praise it as well about privacy. I still think playing it up as a marketing thing But I do also believe that they mean it. and this is a lace example of both of those coming together with, I don't believe they use the word Chrome So they did, come on So. What was the way they did years No someone someone so to be clear, the ad features Now lastast year you would have remembered the Hitchcock style ad of cameras that were birds following people around and someone opens up saafari Yeah and all the cameras explode and confonfetti that came out in July of last year This one is similar, but less sinister It's people wearing these silver sweatsuits sitting on people's shoulders, following them around, getting in personal space, close proximity, being very annoying lookingoo over their shoulder looking at their phone until someone opens Safari and they poof Well, yeah A one point in the video, a woman on a bench looks at the people in the costume, grabs one of their sweatpants and says Chrome and then mo and it moves on very quickly. So I just I thought it was it's very on the nose already that they're wearing chrome suits, but then someone says the word chrome and they ad It's the closest Apple has ever come to mentioning a competitor in a decade in an ad, which I just found fascinating. They did it very tastefully But it was very clearly calling out Chrome, which I found amusing how much attention I paid. I mean I did not catch her saying Chrome, but I also didn't make the connection. I thought they were in like metal suits which I should have seen It wasn't subtle, that bit. Tasteful, you're right, but not necessarily subtle. That bit Okay. I'm I take it you agree with the message I I'm increasingly confused when I see someone using Chrome on an iPhone. I don't know. There are just other better browsers. likeike if you're not going to use Safari at least use like Vivaldi or something. Chrome is just awful. Google is worse than ever and it's all just full of AI scam garbage. So I don't really understand that and even on iPad, somehow on iPad Chrome is still a resource hog, whichich doesn't make sense because Apple doesn't let apps be resource hogs Chrome just chugs on an iPad. and I just don't understand why someone would want to purposefully go out of their way to have a worse experience other than name recognition. your battery life as well. So you know, that's a feature you don't get in Safari. But know isn't it still the case All browsers have to use Webkit, the same thing Yeah, but the skin they put on top is awful. like because yeah, it is webkit underneath But that's the thing. somehow they still make it worse. The experience the UI is ugly. I saw it the other day running on an iPad and it just it was abrasive to me. It hurt me physically And I was just like, I don't understand how you're using this whatever, go for it like they were trying to Navigate to a website and enter a password and the amount of just frictionion that there was between them and the interface was baffling to me. And I'm just like, this is it's's it's an iPad running web kit. Like how hard could this be? and yet they still mess it up. I don't understand They're doing it bat on purpose, Willi I think they are. And you know Congratulations achieved, I. I'm very anti Google designs think Google Docs is ugly and Google Maps is unfathomable sometimes over the simplest things. But I only use Chrome when forced at gunpoint you' be surprised how often that happens. Yeah, like right now. we have two We record our podcast in a web interface that is only available through Chrome, sadly. We have two topics that we need an hour each for, but we only have ten minutes. So let's see what we got here, William. 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Don't wait until your company's data is alady for sale. on the Dot web Protect your business today with Nord Stella Nostar has flexible plans that scale with your business size, but right now You can unlock a ten percent discount. Nordstella. com slash Apple Insider. You can get this exclusive offer unliock your ten percent discount on Nord Steller with the coupon code Nord Apple Insider dash one and zero ash Nordstellar. just mentioned it to Nordstellar And thank you to Nord Stella for supporting the Apple Insider podcast Okay, well how about this? We have just praised Ales's privacy. We have praised Apples's Everything, really? let's do some bad stuff. This is I don't think this is bad enough to be the return of controversy cororner This is to do with Apple and its abhorrent union bashing, which we know happens, we just don't know for certain is going on here. It's to do with Apple Touseson Town Centre, one of three stores that are being closed on june the twentieth. There didn't seem to be much of a fuss about two of them, but the Tome one in Maryland, there have been I want to be your foil here because okay Okay first first off, I'm pro union. All right. So let's get that out of the way. I think unions are important and useful But I also think the water is muddy here because and I don't know how much you agree with this. portion of this William But Unions are useful and important and having a negotiating layer between you and the company can be useful, especially for legal protection and being making sure that you have the rights that you deserve as an employee and that you're not being mistreated and all that stuff like that's all great But then Apple is that is pretty well known for being a very tolerant very nice company to work for and I'm not saying that means automatically, oh, no unions. It's a Nirvana over here. But And I understand that Apple also might be operating some very strong like anti union push internally of like, you don't want to do that. because even Deidra O'Brien was like, if you get a union between us and you It's going to be harder for us to give you the things that you deserve. and that's a subtle threat of you will lose your benefits if you get a union So It's very can start. Yeah. Yeah. it's a difficult thing to parse because on one hand, I can see where Apple is being a little bit too aggressive with their people call it union busting. I sure Um yeah But at the other end of it, it's yeah, from what I understand from Apple employees, most of them are confused by the unions because they're like Apple just talks to us, the managers are easy to access. The rights and benefits that we get are all . In fact, they're highly competitive and better than what most people in our industry get, including Apple store employees. That's why we've heard of so few unions U happening at Apple stores? Okay, no, I can't No no, no. Okay, wait wit wait will Now because again, I under I understand that this is this is where it gets complicated I don't know what's going on in the backrooms. I don't know what union busting techniques are going on. But again, from the anecdotal evidence that I have from my very small bits of poking around this It seems like that isn't necessarily the case. Now the other side of this is Also, mall Apple stores cross the United States have been getting closed constantly. I've seen a few that I used to go to get closed because the malls are all empty. The only stores left in them are FYE. and Apple stores at this point And Apple's like, yeah, we're the only one carrying the rent of this entire building. We got to get out of here And so the three stores that are closing this month are m Apple stores including Apple Towson, which happens to be their first unionized store one of two So I'm with the employees here that are frustrated and Part of this is that the union did not negotiate a severance deal. They get severred pay. alleged. they. But they it's in their contract, but they do not get in their contract the ability to be rehired automatically. They have to apply for positions at new places. If Apple buildt a new store within fifty miles of Tausson, they get rights of first refusal for hire But Apple isn't going to build a new store within fifty miles of Taouse and it seems. So they're all being told, if you want to continue working for Apple stores, you have to reapply. in this case, This is where it could get shady, Apple could be like, well, we're not going hire you because you're the one who started a union. So it's all very gray area crazy nonsense. so I wanted to bring my perspective here as someone who is very pro union, but also From my perspective, it seems like Apple's not a horrible place to work for and they may not be as necessary P se, but what is your perspective on all this from the outside I think Fine says have youve got a drink there, because this could take a while. But I will try to quickly. One key thing is I do actually agree with you about the closing of the mall stores. I'm not surprised these are going But you mentioned the benefits that Apple does peopleople the benefits actually improved Only when the union stuff started happening. It was the threat of unions coming in, Apple improved things in significantly So there is a response to that. Apple is also doing some very shady things about Checking people's bags On the way out to the Apple store, which you can unign for security reasons, but it's clocking their time for it. so they're not getting paid, they're not being letid out.' Now was that happening at every Apple store or select stores? It appeared to be the kind of pattern for it, but you never know unless you survey all of them. But if you don't survey all of them, you only hear from certain stores and here's one You talked about that relationship between Apple and Staff What was that word you said we could use Because everything you said there is what Didre O'Brien says is going on that another company can't understand relationship between us and the. That's silly. That's silly. That would have been true. Before they brought in the guy from was it Dixon's or Curry's. There was I've forgot his name, but at the moment he was hired to take over retail, everyone in Britain had heard about it kind of winced because this place was not known good in any way. There' been multiple people since him and DyBrian is the latest. she is vehemently anti union and I think It's summed up best by the fact that I said there's a public rally about the Tisan one. The main speaker, I mean, there were people from unions there. there were local politicians who are saying a lot, Congress is now Im sry, but on that rally, the main speaker was an employee there. and it turns out that it's the same man who two or three years ago summariz the whole relationship between Apple store stff and Apple by saying trying to find out something, trying to ask for anything. The quote was it's like writing a letter to Santa. Nothing ever happens. It goes on and the stories you heard around that time of the conditions for it. I mean, I hope they've improved as much as they sound. But the old way Apple stores had I mean, I've been to an Apple store. I wanted to buy a tripod in one and they said no Yeah, they asked why and I said, Well, there's a photography shop down the road. better for what you need And I went after that shop, I told them that they, you know It happens quite a bit. now Not so much And all the sales tars, all the pressures that you associated with retail before. I mean retail is this incredible, incredible high pressure thing. and Apple seemed to manage to leapfrog that and produce this idyllic thing where people got paid anyway Gone So the working environment is not what it was. The relationship between Apple According to Staff is non existent. The business of people being paid better than most retail stores is seemingly true, but at least a lot of it because there was union pressure. for it. So all in all, is in the wrong here and they're doing bad things in a bad way. I mean they're in the wrong in certain relations. They're allowed to close the doore Yeah, they're a lot. I no question on that. It's everything else about how they took I wouldn't like to work for an Apple store I wouldn't want to either. retail's awful Yes, Okaykay, that's fair enough But it's a useful thing to have and I like Apple Stores. A actually not quite true. I' only had a story there. That's another thing. And I think want to keep your drink going. I'm clearly very definitely on Nichide and I should explain, I'm deputy chair of the Witerss Guild of Great Britain, atast for a few months to my term comes to an end. so yes, unions' good. I actually think in this one case Unions shouldn't be necessary But I know that they absarre on this I think it's complicated It is complic, but you're saying about the severance thing Well, like, I agree with you Yeah. Yeah, I agree with you. Yeah, the one store that unionized and negotiated a contract failed negotiate A key I don't for the workers. But we don't know if it's not true. That's the problem with this. What I'm hear what we're all hearing from the staff is that there's nothing, nothing in the contract that would stop Apple doing this. And Apple is just saying we disagree. Could one of them just show us the contract so we'd know Neither of them will I think to the other issue is that we've seen is some of the negotiating terms that they've asked for are highly unreasonable Like they when they were negotiating their contract, they were putting in some wild requests, which apparently is supposed to happen, I guess, too because you'd start with wild and then negotiate your way down. but some of the stuff they were asking for was just incredible. I don't know what any of it was though. I'd have to go back and pull it up Like there was some silly like time off type stuff, but Anyway, it was an interesting thing Apple used to have of the shifts could change at any moment Um, which you would expect to be demand related and that makes sense Eact donon't give everybody is the iPhone launch day there was more Like I agree with unions and I agree that they're necessary I think that maybe in this case the representatives of this union maybe didn't have the best ability to negotiate with Apple and Apple walked all over them and they ended up with worse like conditions than what the employees from other stores got because the negotiated contract, agreed with it, signed it and now it's not what they want and they're unhappy about it. And it's a little but we do not know that that is true. we don't see that's what's Well, this is that what's so frustrating about reporting on this And I I was going off on a diet tribe the other day in sllack because I hate reporting on this because I want to side with the union becausecause clearly Apple is this giant corporation, they're not our friends. they don't have our best interests at heart. They want to make money, right? Like that is always going to be true. We can like the company and what they make, but they're still a giant trillionaire company. with money first. We don't know A lot about what Apple is saying in doing these things because they're never going to tell us. We only ever hear from the unionized members. we only ever hear from the most angry loud protests are not quite going on Yes, you're right, but then it goes to court and the courts agree with the union stuff. So Well, it depends on the court and the judge. Again, this is also Weirdly like secretive. We don't get to know all the details. We have to. So this is me on the podcast saying like, I'm not going to pick a side. I think it's unfortunate that this happened. It's unfortunate that the employees won't get to relocate I say prepare your resumes. There's no world where this is going to get overturned or changed. Apple's just going to pay a fine and move on It's unfortunate that this happened at all. I think that It would be great if Apple just allowed for eas like had a union basically liaison that would basically make streamline unionization if you want it but make Nine un know is that un nine unit non unionization a thing that you would prefer because of how good the benefits are, right? compompete that way Like that's all true. Apple could definitely be doing better in this field. I just think this specific story is so frustrating because It's a lot of he said she said. it's a lot of We don't know. We don't live in Maryland. I haven't been to that store personally. I don't know its conditions. I don't know if the employees are all just mean and greedy. We don't know. Like That's what makes us so frustrating. Like I'm with you one thousand percent. Don't get take anything I'm saying as I don't I wish unions would die or whatever. And in this case, like I think Apple having all of the money in the world should just Be nicer to this situation instead of being so lawyer by the book. We're gonna to follow the rules. We use this is your contract. like it's all so stupid And like with all legal things with Apple, I get so exhausted by it because a lot of the times the solution could just be Apple loses zero zero zero zero zero one percent of its income and someone's happy. And nothing would have to be discussed, but instead they're fighting tooth and nail over something that over a hundred employees that they could just make their lives so much easier if they just made a different decision and they're choosing not to. So yeah, I'm with you. It is all very frustrating It doesn't have to be this way. It wasn't this way Puls makers and bad choices Weve veered so close to the controversy cornerough. I'm going to say this is the end of the non controversy corner. There was one more thing that I think you were particularly keen to talk about On device AI versus not on device AI. And the thing interests me about this is we learnnt as we record this that Apple's going to be using or we believe' going to be using Nvidia processors in a server somewhere, but they'll still be servers presumably. I don't quite know how private cloud compute works because I do remember Craig Federici saying something about it was essential for Apple intntelligence. private card computers and everything run on Apple servers in Apple establishments. Maybe this is them renting space elsewhere I'm going off on one that I don't understand yet again Fix me fill me in. What's the sits So we'll find out soon enough or we won't because Apple's really not going to give us any detail. But the good thing is a lot of this stuff can be reverse engineered. after it's out in public. So We're never going to get told too much specific details by Apple, but I do believe information will come out U First There's so much confusion because it seems like there's six different people reporting different things U I'm going to do a blog post on this today just because I just want to round up everything everyone said about Apple Intelligence before we have WWDC because there's one group that's like, o, Gemini is Being white labeled, and Apple's going to replace all of its models with a white labeled Gemini, which believe is true. istilling Gemini to train Apple models, which I believe is the right answer. They're using Google Gemini as the backkend of clloud Siri, which is not the case. but instead, it seems that Apple's going to be renting server space to have tensor units helping with server side calculations in a private cloud compute server style organization. I believe that's the case Nvidia is being brought into this because The problem right now with AI is there's just not enough of anything It's a short of shortage of all components, memory, RAM, whatever. Apple just needs more of it because they're going they're expecting a heavier load after WWDC. Everyone's going to be interacting with these more intensive models. There's going to be more stuff going through the cloud, especially in September after it launches, it's going to be magnitude higher Apple can only make so many of its own server chips, it's going to be relying on so much of Google's Tensor chips But NvIidia also has a very good industry leading chip that can run in a server. sameame deal. It's going to be an Apple controlled server. private cloud compute, but it's going to be NVidia technology powering it. I don't understand why there's any real confusion here Um, because It's the same thing as a Mac Pro getting third party GPUs or you building a computer from scratch and having a memory card from one thing and a video card from one thing, right? Like It doesn't mean that it's no longer a Dell computer. when you add in a third party graphics card, right It's an Apple system with the technology from these other companies. and that's really that's all it is. It's still Apple Foundation models. It's still running Private Cloud compute, it's still fully encrypted and secure It's just Apple is using hardware from other companies because nobody can make enough. That's the problem we're facing today. Yeah, the problem with that is it seems all reasonable and Dullum Frankly, we want excitement Um, Yeah, is there any way you can pick that up and click bait it a bit more than you have? I mean, give us something here. If somebody should want to disagree because they've discovered I don't know, in a major conspiracy in Vidia to take over Syri and whatever. How should they reach you to convince you So you can get me, my email is Wesetpplenetter. com. I get some good emails and questions there I can answer directly Hilly dot tech on Pue sky, Hilly Tech on Macidon And you can also reach us on Apple podcasts where you can leave a review, any amount of stars, doesnn't matter. We'll read it here live and share what you think. We love a good critique, we love a good compliment. And this week we have Lemo knows three stars. They're asking for a host change. It's not the first time because there's too much Wesley, notot enough William. William greatreat. And I'm not sure why it focuses on what I think so much Well this episode this twelve episode No this episode, I think I was a little more balanced, thankfully.. Yes, I tend to run my mouth a bit. That's just me. William tends to sit back and listen. That's just William We do try to provide a balance show as possible, Williams trying to get me to stop talking, but I'm just say actually that seems ironic at the moment, given what we're talking about. But again, this word you said we can use, let's have that. I know this is a very selfish thing of me asking you questions every week, but the thing is you know more than I do and I want to find out and there you are. It is irresistible So yeah I'll try to find something It's a podcast. We talk. The whole the whole show is talking and Naturally A lot of shows that I listen to, I don't know how many podcasts y'all are listening to, but a lot of shows that I listen to, it doesn't matter if it's two people, three people, whatever, but there's almost always going to be a dynamic of One person's going to talk more than another because that is just how the conversation naturally flows. And for whatever reason our show landed in this rhythm. Ag, we are conscious of that. I try to give it back to William as much as I can. but sometimes there are topics that I've heavily researched that William's just like, please keep going. Yes, I can't teleport the information into his brain so he can speak instead. You talk, I'll just look good Okay, we'll do it that way. That seems like this fair Thank you for the review And who knows. Thank you very much, Tim and. that was really nice. Well for me. Anway,ree stars. Yeah, because I think they like the show. That's why they give us three stars But that matters. We are actively conscious of the fact that I do end up speaking at length on certain topics. And at the very least, if my personal goal would be for William to break in more often to interrupt my well lengthy speaking. spepeaking up. But yes, William, where can people find you on the internet Well just as a brief sight, I realized actually one of the big benefits of a going to video is that if you were watching that but you could see me giving you a look there. I gave you a hard Paddington stare Okay Don't stop talking but if anybody wants to reach me directly to say nice things like Lemo No said, you know that's great or An. William at Appanider. com is usually best. I am on YouTube fifty eight Keys and this week talking a lot about word switching off Word twenty nineteen switching off and what Microsoft is doing for writers. in that line. I interviewed somebody from Microsoft in the nineteen nineties and they told me that at that point They had spent over a billion dollars developing word And they were so proud of things like the way it had of recovering lost documents And the last thing I said to them before the security people checked me out was, could you not have spent a little less? I'm recovering and a more on not losing them in the first place The world continues. anyway that's on fifty As on YouTube, but here We have insither plus coming up with more about WWDC and I yeah, well I feel guilty now I have questions for you. I'll tell you I'll just make some stuff up. How about we do that In the meantime I was going to say before we close, I want to throw in some inside baseball at the last minute here. pitch our move to video has been seemingly smooth so far. There's a couple of notes people have been pointing out Chapters are missing from third party RSS feeds. We're not entirely sure what's going on there. That seems to be our distribution issues. All of the things are being worked out slowly. as long as youre look, our goal as podcastasters is for you to get the audio So We apologize if the chapters aren't there, but at least you're getting to hear us. That is the point of the show. Videos there if you're in Apple podcasts. If you're getting us through Patreon and an RSS feed, you should be still getting that. So hopefully you're hearing me talk right now U video has been fun. I want to point out just as a fun little bit. If I'm looking here, I'm looking at the camera If I'm looking here, I'm looking at William. if I'm looking camera. don't I'm looking at my iPad. so hopefully yeah, so hopefully my voice isn't being lost too much as I look around a bit shifty actually. just in that example going between them so quickly, but okay Yeah, but I'm personally trying to work on being more emotive, likeike I said, because I don't want to look like a puppet with a stick on my butt. but otherwise hopeully well Yeah Yeah, and I see him William isn't dying in his office today, so that's great. I just wanted to throw that out there. William. how do you feel about this video? Well, actually it made me tidy in my office and it's been years since my bookhelves collapsed, so you know, it's good Well now go New ones are there and hopefully not collapsing as we speakly. So anyyway, this is becoming the kind of thing we talk about in App Insider Plus. So if you like this, then you know where to get it. and if you don't, I've just blown any chance of you ever subscribing. but should you wish to? Patreon wrapper podcast cononnect of course, But in the meantime, where' good talking to you. Good listening to you as well. I'm not letting you off that one But thank you too to our sponsors, Claude B Athropic and Nord Stiller Thank you to you for listening and we will be back Next week, slightly importantport WWDC Tlyx genuinely cannot wait you that 't wa