Google Play Commission Settlement Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Apple Insider Podcast. I'm your host, Wesley Hilliard spepeaking and I'm joined once again by William Gallgher. Our sponsors this week are Masterclass and Nord Steller. and We got a lot to talk about. Williams off location, so that should be fun for this week We're going to get into these price increases first. We'll talk a little bit more about SiriAI. and then an Apple Insider pllus, which is an ad free show. We're going to be talking about what other accessories Apple should be making. I'm bringing this up because Well, with iPhone folds, I think the elimination of a good camera on the most expensive iPhone might warrant other accessories to be built. So we'll get into that then But William, how are you today? I I'm actually in limbo otherwise known as the Beckensfield Service Station on the M Forton in the UK. I've just spent the afternoon with Apple at their Patterssey headquarters, thought I could make it back to my office, was wrong. and I'm super heated as a result. But than that, I'm on a fly. I have a frappuccino And I'm just crazy enough to use it. How are you Fine here Busy week, weirdly enough, just foocusing on all these things with Apple. I mean, the price increases, I think are interesting. Now this was coming. Tim Cook did announce that They were unable to continue to bear the price changes that were occurring with RAM and memory shortage, so storage shortages So Funny enough, it did not touch the Apple Watch, AirPods, or iPhone I took it for granted the iPhone. but that's safe for the moment. So we could see iPhone price increases at the event in September just because that's where it would make the most sense for that to be announced. But as we've discussed before, the iPhone price is very much a feature of that device and Apple's very rarely touching it in the US anyway Um Every Mac basically got hit, the Apple Vision Pro, the home pods, everythingvery got a price increase. It was mostly ook Neo because Yes. so that's the big one Okay It went up from five do ninety nine cents to six doars ninety nine cents So Not horrible, but it is not that magical low price anymore. Obviously as we're talking and recording prices changes haven't rippled through the everything. So like Other places like Bestuyer or B and H might still have the lower price. Amazon's Prime days still going as we record So like, there's still a chance if you wanted to buy a Mac or one of these devices, it's probably the last time you're going to get that price for a while. Be While the rest of the industry might raise prices and never lower them again, I expect Apple will lower their prices again at some point to Oh is it Mad. cost I ask so. prices are L prrincess. Across the board, there ten to twenty percent increases around two hundred dollars or more for each product. So Mat McNeo got the Lowest price change, but it was still a big percentage wise because of the already low price Um we have MacBook Pro. from sixteen ninety nine to nineteen ninety nine c, right? So three hundred dollars So the iMac jumped from twelve dollars ninety nineents to one fourteen dollars ninety nine cents, so two hundred dollars The Max Studio is the biggest one. The M three Ultra went from four thousand dollars to five thousand three hundred dollars. So a thir thousandteen hundred dollars price increase. But that's because it comes with ninety six gigs of RAM and RAM is insane right now. so If you were in that market Honestly, you probably would still spend that amount of money for that device because the work you're doing with it would pay for it instantly. That's true. But it's still very unfortunate to see that. HomePod Mini went from ninety nine dollars to one hundred twenty nineents. so it's a thirty dollars price increase. We have the Home pod It went back to its original price three hundred and fifty dollars A Vision Pro two hundred dollars higher. So it went from thirty four to thirty six ninety nine It's there's a lot here. We don't have to name every single one, but generally speaking, one hundred dollars to three hundred dollars depending on the device. And it's all iPads Macax. iPad Mi went up to five dollars ninety nine cents Um A lot of this, I'm going Oh the Apple TV went from one twenty nine to one ninety nine That's an impressive jump. Wha Yeah. so So My guess here is the reason why we're seeing these price increases now And not in the falls first off, Apple needs to start offsetting costs immediately. But A lot of these products will be updated throughout the year. And Apple doesn't want to announce a price increase alongside the new product because whatever comes out will have these prices. They're not going to come out with the iPad manyi nine, I guess, eight or nine And And that's a price increase at the same time. They don't want to do that. So these will already be baked in by the fall and they'll just announce the new device at the prices that they are. and that will be Mostly fine until this Ram apocalypse is over. Right, when do we think that might be again When AI has taken over, no when there's no more AI to conquer So The biggest thing here seems to be that It's AI, obviously It's not even that the supply chain can't make enough. it's that companies are pre ordering things for server farms that don't exist. So basically All of the ability, all of the capacity to build not only is building everything it can But the chips have been pre bought for months and making what is available scarce and expensive. Um a lot of these data centers may never get built because They're running out of money. Chat GPT, like open AI. they don't have enough runway to keep this going indefinitely. Andthropic CEO, I believe the other day said once again If people don't use the AI, they will run out of money and cease to exist because These are loss leaders. They don't make money. The U I believe they had an earnings statement the other day that just showed billions in losses. It's madness. So I expect this won't take that long to rectify, especially because the market's reacting, especially because consumers are reacting Um, the good news is You can just keep the stuff you have. It still works Except I want to believe you about The A I think Basically stop him soon. But Appul must have better idea of that then Lothing IJ Apple wouldn't have changed prices if it was next month Well's true And So I wonder what so it would be for them They have to expect I'm going to get on the travel soon enough. Yeah, I'm gonna guess this is at least a year out from stabilizing. from beginning to stabilize and the price change We're probably going to see hold on for quite a bit. So earliest we could see this regulate and go back to old prices is maybe next winter Uh, just because that Apple's not going to suddenly jump on. o RAM prices are decreasing, memory prices are decreasing. we're going to suddenly change because with it flip flops back and then they have to raise prices again. They're going to hold it steady for a minute. But I do believe over the next year, we should see some stability come back to the market. But what do you think about the ye thing? I was afraid when the next one comes out. They would announce a price rise with it, but what you say makes sense Heading in ahead of the Tump Is the iPhone going to complete his life? I think the price increases for the iPhone will be like we discussed before. The base models will stay the same. The higher the memory that you opt for, the higher the price increase U and people willing to get that will pay it anyway. So Apple's just going to bake it in there. They'll get to go on stage and say starting at seven ninety nine c But when you go and open the page to order Every other configuration is two hundred dollars more expensive the iPhone fold If it actually comes out in September will be at least two thousand twenty two hundred dollars starting throw extra terab by in there and you're getting close to three thousand dollars price ranges It's going to be an incredibly expensive device if it launches Before we get to iPonero, I want to talk Now I was genuinely thinking I'd probably upgrade this sh because I'm starting to f I think I'm under a sixteen ye I on a sixteen proax and start to feel a bit old. Now, it is really, but in my head it is. and I thought this year This is the time, but I don't know U If you have a sixteen Pro Max, unless Apple really wows you this year, it's okay to hold off a year and wait for prices to go back down I mean, for me, I'll probably upgrade anyway. It is going to probably increase my monthly payment by ten dollars or something. We'll see how it shakes out once we get to September Um But we are going to see other devices launch this year. Oh yes, of course we are, including, I believe, the constant rumors of an Apple TV Um which I'd forgotten until you mentioned the price. and previously I feelil what can they add that would make me buy something? Again, I've got an old Apple TV I like, but they'll find something Yeah. There' le code showing. Yeah, there's code showing Apple is going to include some AI features in the next Apple TV. That's clear because the next Apple TV should have an A eighteen or A nineteen Pro chip set, which will allow it to run on device AI. which means that A lot more should be happening local to your home. The home kit secure video camera feed, for instance, should be analyzed on your Apple TV now. instead of through Apple's Cloud servers Or maybe it's still be analzed in a cloud sererver because that's where the image recognition system is. So We'll see what Apple does. I think whatever they do though, they're going to use the Apple TV's betteret tip set as the him AI brain And your HomePod requests will then be able to pass information to that Apple TV for processing, and then the Apple TV will bounce it back for the answers And that all should happen very quickly because it's on your home network. So At some point I don't want to ask about Apple Home kit cameras Be I'm just I've got some cameras. I assume they're not home yet they're that old whether it's worth switching. Do I really want my Apple TV to show when someone comes to the front door or I have a camera in my office? What if my wife is flicking channels and there I am basically picking my nose? Do I want her to see these things? It's a minefield. Oh then I don't understand it. And might ask you in an apppple cider class sometime Yeah. so the other products Apple could have a camera at any time I don't think it's going to be this year. It's the doorbell that we've discussed before But the Apple TV, a new Homepod Mi, and possibly a new homepod, but that doesn't seem to be cominget. So mostly most likely going to be an Apple TV and a HomePod mini getting updated. and I think the only reason the Homepod Min's getting an update is because it's on the older, I think S seven chip set from Apple Watch, which 's ancient, it's years old at this point. So W that would just be a chipset update. Nothing material would probably change about how the speaker operates or even what you could request. Maybe your request would go a little faster But We'll see what Apple does here. I wouldn't mind some fancy room sensing and HomePod Mi Maybe something that allows it to do automations if you walk into a room because it can tell by the proximity of your Apple Watch or something. I don't know work Yeah, we'll keep an eye on that area. That's definitely coming in the fall, but What we don't know if it's coming or not is this pesky iPhone fold I thought there was more absolute total proof, maybe. this week. There's always absolute tterproof maybe. This week's one It's already gotone out of my head, but I was mildly convinced. I looked at it and I thought that'll show wherees it's real. The screens are being made, that was it. Samsong is definitely absolutely probably may be making the screens. Is that the thing you are doubting and how d. I think this is the third time we've been told that Their mass production has begun on foldable displays Yeah I think what happens and the reason why these keep appearing is Apple puts in an order for ten thousand displays And that's for testing for because basically they're taking these displays, sticking them in their demo units and then putting them in a machine to fold it eight thousand times a day because they want to get it past a million folds and that takes a couple of weeks I mean, a million is a big number. So even at eight thousand a day, it takes a while. So and they have to do this a lot with a lot of devices to basically stress test it and make it sure. and apparently After about a million opens and closes, it starts squeaking. and that's one of the issues that Apple's been having with this hinge so sometometimes I think these orders for these displays, these testing systems are put in. and I think someone mistakingly thinks, oh This is a foldable display order from Apple. Yeah, maybe it's ten thousand, but this is a ramp up to mass production. And then the leak gets out and it turns out it's just a test device run. I don't think this one necessarily has to be a test device for run. this one could be the ramp up because We are expecting it in September We'll see I am still very surprised. We haven't seen any component, nothing, no photos, nothing. this this is totally Sasquatch territory at this point You remember a few years ago I released the Apple cleaning cloth or something incredibly expensive microfiber whichich I just saw they have in the store in bath soon. a nice butx. For iPhone fold users after a million, maybe there's an Apple oil that they can get. T out to the hingls I'm looking for opportunities here and you're just staring at me like I'm very strange. You could' be quiet and sl my fpportuna Did the folding cloth price go up That's the cleaning cloth. That's the question. Nuts are just in an apple stall. I should have bought everything. I had like ten minutes before the prices went up and I didn't realize. Okay William can buy the whole Apple store and actually William get in your car turn around, go back and maybe they don't know about the price increases haven't got right outside Apple HQ. The word might not have got there yet, you're right. It's a long walk So it's true. I don't know. So this foldableolt So this this this iPhone fold, this is the premise of our bonus section this this week. I don't want to get into it too much here because we're going to talk about it then But I've been thinking about it And I want to like this device because I am a nerd And I like fancy new things. I want to play with the toy. The more I see of these demo units going around, the more I think That could be interesting. I saw someone mapping the exppand iPhone UIs onto the dummy unit displays And it's like, that could be interesting. I want to try that So It's definitely like I've never been against foldables to be clear. likeike as I've said before, they're very nerdy. They're definitely something I want to play with, but the compromises are what I'm worried about. I don't know I can get myself to buy a phone with a worse camera. I'm worried that that main sensor is going to be like like the iPhone fifteen pros main sensor and the ultra wide is going to be fine. And there's going to be no telephoto. And this thing is not going to be for taking pictures, the body shape is going to be odd for taking pictures. One of the leakers Actually, I was watching John Proser's video because I was writing about his lawsuit. And I wanted to see how he was covering recent Apple rumors. And one of the things he mentioned was a rumor we've covered before, I believe Apple's going to change The camera button And it's especially important on the iPhone foold because of how awkward it will be to take pictures with this device. so No way I'm just afraid this isn't going to be a very good camera phone I mean, you're far more of a photographer than I am, but I've thought about the shape because I shoot a lot of videos using my iPhone sixteen P Max and I have it in a really quite strong mound And I don't think there wass a mount big enough for the folded out one And it seems too delicate to put it around folded in. So I thought if I boughtght a fold, I would keep my old iPhone on film With that, so well, I'd be al right with the cameras. But wait a minute, I know you understand the difference in the cameras and every year Apple finds something to do it. But have you ever actually compared your current phone with a fifteen range and seen If there's dramatic a difference for you and what you've heardographed. Every year I get the new phone And I don't have to send the old one back right away. Uually take about a week to compare features and stuff. so One of the main things I do with the review each year is compare the cameras and I try to compare based on what's new in the new phone But the main sensor is definitely where it's at and It's not always totally obvious or appreciable in every photo But there's always going to be a circumstance where that newer sensor, that newer processing It's going to come through in the photo, especially like mid to low range lighting That's where these new cameras, new sensors, new ISPs image signal processors. That's where that shines. And so there's definitely situations you can put the phones in to challenge the sensor and see how it's improved. And so it's definitely better in ways that you can find. Now bright sunshiny day You can take the same photo from the iPhone twelve to the iPhone sixteen if it's a nice day outside. So U with there's some appreciable differences in booCca effect and stuff like that, but generally speaking, it's the same photo. Um But once you start turning that lights down, you start dropping phones off the backke end on how good they can perform all the way up to the current phone which performs best at the dimmest lighting The fold My problem here is I do enjoy photography I enjoy going out and taking photos of things, objects, people Um sometometimes I do that with my big cameras, sometimes I do that with my phone I want to have the best possible camera in my pocket to do that at all times. If I'm at a bar or somewhere at night I want my iPhone to be as performant as possible so I don't miss that moment If I'm using the iPhone fold as my main camera What's that going to do in terms of how well I can capture a photo in a moment. How awkward is it going to be to pull that giant device out even closed to get the camera open and take a picture. It's bigger, heavier, more awkward and has fewer cameras and more sensors. We'll see maybe Apple slaps the the full iPhone Um eighteen device in there, right? Maybe they have the best camera main sensor in there, but no telephoto Apples to do a good job selling this. And I've considered the other option as you've described, having an iPhone that's regular in an iPhone fold, but that seems silly to me. I want to land on one and stick with it P you ever take photographs with your iPad mini? that's getting on for the size of fold life I mean I've ever been in a situation where I'm out in town and I'm taking product photos and for some reason I only have my iPhone as a camera, but I need to capture my iPhone in the photo, then sure I might use my iPad mini, but it's not very good at capturing pictures. We're talking years out, like this The camera in that thing might be iPhone eleven quality, which is fine. Like it's never, this is what's so funny to me. It's not that it's bad. We were perfectly happy with the camera in the iPhone seven. We were happy with the camera on the iPhone six have It's not that those cameras bad, it's that they've gotten better. So It's a conundrum. Apple's going have to just do a good job selling this thing to me. My biggest concern right now with this device is We cover Apple And I kind of don't want to just like with the Apple Vision Pro, I don't want to miss out on the opportunity to discuss the unique different device. because I want to stick with the iPhone Pro for the cameras And then I get theiPhone what number are we on eighteen? So I get the iPhone eighteen pro max in the fall. And it has a slightly better camera and I write my review. and that's basically the end of my coverage because there's nothing to say about this device. It's going to look identical. It might have a new color and a better processor and has some AI stuff on there, all software based. But that's the end of interest in that device. If I got the iPhone fold. for my work, more or less We're going to be talking about that thing for months. everyvery little software update, every little tweak that's made, every design decision. how does it wear over time? How is it used in the day to day? It will be a very interesting device to discuss. And I want to discuss it here on the show. So there's definitely this conundrum to me of like Do I not get the fold just because it might be inconvenient to use as a camera? I mean, I don't know. it' it's compromised. It will be comp there's no world in which Apple does not release an ihone foold that has compromises in it. So I'm going to have to make a tough decision this fall I'd like to encourage you to buy the iPhone phld so I don't have to Okay hope that that seems fair Fair Okay. Also, if it's twenty thousand five hundred dollars, my bill will definitely go up by at least fifteen to twenty dollars a month. So that will be another thing to deal with Well, we'll get more into that discussion in Apple Insider Plus. So subscribe, go listen to us after the show and we'll talk about more because I want Apple to compensate for the Uh compromises in the iphhone foold By introducing some accessories, we'll get to it Okay This episode of the App Insider podcast is brought to you by Masterclass. The online learning, I could wouldn't say online learning experience because yes, it's online lessons in video and with further downloadable content, but with Masterclass It feels more like you or I are having a personal conversation with the very best people in your field or in the fields that you want to get into the fields you're interested in I knew for instance I wanted to learn from some writers. so There you go. Aaron Sulkin is there Shonda Rhymes I thought thought I also wanted to learn about improv. There's Amy Poula. I mean, I admire her, but the truth is I'm never going to do improv comedy. I was just a little bit curious. And yeah, she taught me, listen, isn't that? She taught me. It is so like you are working one to one with these amazing people She teaches us Tf certainly it' improv, but what she's actually teaching is about using improv techniques in real life. And I learned so much from her haaving just started watching for fun O thing is I could do that. you can do this. You can just pop off and watch something else, something new, someone new. you can do it on a whim becausecause once you have a masterclass subscription You have Oh. of masterclass. Every class from every one of these astoundingly people, these people at the top of their field all there Masterclass is a single subscription, starting at ten dollars ten a month and it keeps adding new classes. There's never been a better time get in Plus right now Our listeners get an additional fifteen percent of any annual membership at masterclass. com slash Ale Insider one five. So that's fifteen percent off at masterclass. com slash apppple Insider fifteen one fif. Masterclass You can tell I want you to have this masterclass. com slash Apple Insider one five. And thank you to Masterclass both for supporting the Apple Insider podcast, of course, but also for All the fun I've had learning from it Beta two came out this week Now How Did you install them right away? How was it going Well, I am only supposed to be writing re it on the Mac. so that's the one I didn't install yet because I'm writing. It is on my iPhone, it's not yet on my iPad But magic is off the cost I am seeing an improvement in the iPhone now so I'm encouraged to go to the rest and plainly you slapped on every single thing moving. so I would It's working for you. Yeah. An differences U honestly, I can't say anything notable. Writing tools as a function seems to have just disappeared I believe that's because maybe Apple's moving it to the Si function because What used to happen is you could select your text and the right click menu would show writing tools. And then you could click proofread and it would do the proofread saying that might just be gone Just I don't know. because Apple made it sound like it was sticking around, but it's just it's gone in beta two still Um, but what is there is when you right click is there's a Si button in the right click menu. and then I can say proofread this text and it will pop out it doesn't do the same thing as far as like animation goes, but it pops out a box saying, here's what you can change. And it's generally what I got with Pofread. so I've been able to do that and I've noticed that my writing, this is iPad OS obviously. My writing prompts with the blue jagged line showing grammar errors has been more consistent and more easy to address. So that's definitely showing up more often I'm obviously not using those. I mean, grammar appears But the number of times Gamma checkers are wrong is shocking finally There's time to I have to ignore it Oh yeah. Yeahah. there' Yeah, there's times that I look at it and I'm like, nah, that's not what I want to say. likeike It definitely gets fussy if you don't say an iPhone instead of just iPhone, stuff like that. L it wants articles everywhere Um But yes, u It something to play with, I don't know Not much really changed in this beta. We got some visual changes. The rightite with Siri option now appears every time you open your keyboard, which is interesting U No, I let's say Yeah. I think that's a little too aggressive If I had to pick It should Sh up with the auto correct menu and then on the right side, there' be a little Siri button. and that would be how I would implement that I think I'd prefer it to just go away forever myself, but since I'm plainly blocking it from you and other people like it G But no Apple TVs can now be updated in the homeome app. That's interesting. That's helpful because I've several Apple TV's in my home. So now just like with home pods, I can press one button and update them all at the same time That'll be very useful in the fall I have several Apple TV's, but only because over the years I've bought and replaced them. I used to present from some of the older ones, but there don onlyt be a lot of presenting them not in person anym. So they're stuck in a drawer. I think I've got three Apple TVs, but only one of them actually uses a TV Itself, have you got multiple TV sets all plugged into these things I have an Apple TV in my den, in my living room. Um Funny enough that's it right now. We used to have three. We downsized after the move because we just didn't have a third space for that kind of thing. And I'm not using a TV in my bedroom right now. there's no need. So Um Yes, we only have the two, but It's still nice not having to go to the menu, select software update on you do the thing, like I can just press a button in the whole map. Yeah. I wish more things like worked like that. Honestly, put everything in the whole map. Let me update my Mac from the whole map. Let's go I tend to forget to update my Apple TV and every now and again it'll start asking me to sign in to things like last night as me signed to Netflix in an apparent mason and that always seems to mean it's updated itself Anyway I should check the version numbers, So I also did some more testing with the new Siri AI. Now My understanding is and we had our discussion last week, I picked on you a little too much and then you came back at me and then the audience laughed Um, I think that Many of your errors have happened while you were driving in carplay, am I correct? Like the music thing and the maps thing that's where your errors have been most prone M of my errors, No. Oh my gosh. The errors that you that occurred for you, yes, your error. the errors that you have eriving Yes I think I said earlier, I think there's an improvement in the beating, I think so, but now driving to Apple at the same thing. I asked for the heavier ritation mix so it played me the heavier ration song by some band. I think I must been bumping up that band's earnings. You know? Yeah, so that's good. Yeah. That's that's a See, that's an interesting one. Okay, I got to try that because that one hasn't come to mind. I'll add it to my testing list Um Yeah, I feel like the carplay thing is definitely going to be an issue But I don't know am I it's It's sary and shouldnt be an iss. Yeah, no, I mean, it shouldn't be broken. That's that's my point. So Some of the testing that I did recently is I a friend recommended an album to me in messages So I asked it What was that album my friend recommended? and it pulled it up and then I said, add this to a playlist and then it pulled up a list of playlists and I was able to select which one And when I did, it added it to the playlist correctly Um So that that worked really well. We were planning a trip out of town to visit someone and they live in West Virginia and it's far away and it's, you know a different location entirely doesn't really come up very often. So I asked Uh, get me directions to this place and it open Apple maps immediately and show me the place So I swiped back to the Si and said, okay How long as the trip is that? and it gave me a little modal and said, this is how long it'll take And I said, well, we plan on leaving Saturday. What's the weather look like? And it gave me the weather for the location on that day And then I asked, do I have calendar appointments that day What's it look like? and it showed me a model of my calendar. So that all worked very well Um And then I asked it. So then I went back to our podcast transcript from last week in Apple Podcasts. I selected the text section. from our discussion in ISiri. What issues does William have with Si AI right now And it gave me a bulleted list of everything that you described And that's when I went and tested some of the features that you had problems with to at least sound apologetic about them No Okaykay So you went through and you testered them Would you like some more Of course, so one more. This one I thought was really cool. two more, and then I'll pass it back to you One, I just wanted to test its knowledge. againg, because I've never had a problem with the world knowledge stuff. I've asked it about specific video game plots and for information about actors and people. like all of that stuff has worked pretty well for me. So I tried it again, I asked it because I wanted the music thing because you encountered some music issues. So I said, tellell me about the musician logic, which is one of my favorites. and it gave me information about logic. and then I said My favorite album is the Incredible True Story What's that about? And it told me what it's about. But it didn't mention the voice actor that's included in that album. So I said Who's the prominent voice actor in the skkits for that album And it said Steve Bloom. So I said, what is another album he's appeared in And then it told me the other album is Ultra eighty five, but what it also told me, which I did not know is that Logic had actually written a book about the plotline of the characters he used in the skkits. and mentioned it in this prompt. So I said, showh me the book in Apple Books and it took me to Apple Books to the page where it was. which had an audiob book also narrated by Steve Bloom. So I immediately bought that, of course I thought that was a really good interaction Let's say this scre I've had But finally Yeah, the one that broke for me because I want to share and the one that you definitely had a big issue with, which is very odd me that it gets this so consistently wrong is I showed it at several locations from around the world that I've been to and took photos of and it I couldn't get it. So I showed at a cathedral in Marseille France and it said that it got close. It said it was a cathedral in Paris. I was like And actuallyually, I believe this is what's funny is this might have been a mimic cathedral that looked like that one. So I was like, no, no, this was taken to Marseille. It's like o Well, then this is this cathedral and it told me the correct answer. Um, Funny enough, when I prompt it that it's wrong it goes to, oh, well, the location data says this. And I'm like, well, why didn't you just use that in the first place instead of image recognition? I gave it the rock of Gibraltar And it said, this appears to be an island formation off of the southern Greek coast. I'm like, you're so close. Like, which one is it? And it landed on Rocka Gibraltar finally Okay, but yeah it's so confidently hallucinated Incorrect but things. but have you how have you been testing it I think it's going on the fifth of July So every now and again for various reasons, I will ask it how many days until july fiveth. And it will very, very often when this comes up say Did you say july fiveth or july fourth or july the fifth. And I will say July fiveth. and it will go Did you say july five, july fourth or july the fifth? You just over and over in a circle. you give up and count on your fingers instead, which might loop. Yeah. William, you broke my. A good one If I mentioned on the podcast that I've just signed deal that meant how to compile some text together. St stop me if you've heard this one. Well the book's due next year is a television drama thing. and obviously the publisher wants the final thing in one word document. I'm writing it in pages, easy enough to send it in word, but there were sample chapters, there were negotiations, there's like three edits on one of the samples. I've ended up with sending like eight or nine separate and I wanted to split them into one and carry on writing the rest of the books, ninety thousand word books in the end. I put all this stuff together, but the word count of the individual one was about three thousand words short of all of them the separate chapters. and I couldn't couldn't work it out, so I asked Siri. selected all ofain the chapters and saidred What's the difference between this and then I named? the new one Inantly it told me two sections in a couple of the chapters I missed Although I then copied those into the main thing and the word count is now a thousand words over what it was ly but I'll take that tf Y, sure, sure. I was impressed her that That's the thing. text analysis definitely a good one. Numbers though, AI in general just fails at numbers. the how many days till thing I'm pretty sure is just never going to work because that means it has to do math and subtract a day from a day. It's just never going to get that right. I don't like it's because of its non determinism, like it's just never going to be able to do math. like and that's such a dumb joke, just like how many pes are in Google It'll tell you too confidently I don't know about SiriA. I haven't tried that one with it, but Google Jem and I will tell you there are two pes in Google But did you test anything else Yes, many things, but actually one of them, I wanted to check with you because it's something it's quite hard to reproduce It to do with making phone calls through Siri and things. There are times when it goes wrong and I've suddenly blanked on the mistake for it. this is a mac mistake with the phone as well. the phone up on the Mac is just pointless for it. What else is Donal actually with seri? A little bit. I'm still getting the set an alarm for three PM. Oh, who do you want to call? That comes up quite a bit Okay. I've actually I've had the how many days thing, right sixty percent of the time. I mean, it's weird that I need to know this and it's coming up but over a couple of weeks because I do remember I think it's Chat GPT when I asked it how many days to some other event. It told me, Well, since today it' october twenty six nineteen as should be nineteen hundred or something. It just it thought the year was two digits long Then that date is sixty four million eight hundred and twelve days away and something like that. Okay. So yeah, noon determined maths is wrong and I've found Siri to be better except now I know what it is Making phots stictation prereviously on Siri You're in c play, you can say tellell my wife and it says well, what do you ever say And you dictate it out and then it reads it back to you and you say yes or no, Sendry or don't And most of the time is good or close enough Recently I found what happens is that partway through it will stop and say want for clarification on a word. And it looks like it stops the whole recording But I can't tell. So I need to engineer that some You talk for a bit while I nip out and drive around the block etceta and I'll text you and we'll see what happens. I mean, this is Yeah. How's live. L like I said last week, sounds like the Yeah, the errors that you're running into common to some of these AI programs especially if it makes the wrong decision early on, it gets caught in this decision loop and just keeps making the wrong decision. Um Apple's never going to have Siri completely immune to mistakes made by AI. I mean, they can get it better, they can make it try to logic better Um, but it's never going to G Okay Perfect Like apparently they gave it more prompts. peopleeople search the prompt data and beta two, there are even more like built in do this, don't do that. do this, don't do that promptps in there. Aarently they there is now a new command for never unfurl a URL Never open a website. Yes. So that's okay from like a so This is for a very specific reason. because What if you got an email? withith that basically gave Syria command via the email to open the URL and execute code on your Mac Yeah. So there's a lot of attack vectors with AI, especially one so integrated with the system minimum I wonder if this new system will ever lead to king or viruses? Like are we going to get stories like that at some point would imagine it must happen. Actually, I want to pause this mom because you've given me We would have hoped there. World knowledge in my experience on Si AI is poorer than any other AI. I think it's supposed to worthless number of errors it makes. And I was assuming that couldn't change because it's a pot of knowledge that presumably they got from Google and they're not going to add to it or substantially change it. No. But if they are adjusting how it's examined M it get better without improving the base data This episode is brought to you by Nord Stella Nor Stell is from the makers of NordVPN, and it's made up whole businesses of any size It's an entire exposure management platform companies, all companies. and that means It can detect cyber threats against your company and that means it helps you take control before those threats can escalate For sea level managers, it provides well faster detection and prioritization. it offers real time visibility of risks and So important these days, it also strengthens a firm's compliance posture than for security teams. 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Be it's easy to conflate it with other things. Apple Maps is its own database. Apple Music is its own database. Those are not part of world knowledge necessarily Um the the AI systems that Access Apple Music or Apple Maps could be making mistakes in how it's parsing data from those apps But world knowledge is basically a way of saying the data from the web that Apple has gathered. So Apple bot spent the last decade crawling the web and gathering information. This This is actually not Google's data set. There is no World Knowledge is one hundred percent Apple. Apple did not implement Google seearch. Apple didn't get any data from Google This is all Apple world knowledge. And yes, it is constantly being added to and built out and improved over time. in the backac endnd. This doesn't require software update. This is a server side thing U if if S' accessing world knowledge it's doing through through a server connection and that Server data is constantly being added to and updated all the time, or else you couldn't ask about an event that occurred today and it wouldn't be able to find it because it wouldn't be there. World knownledge is the data gathered from the internet. and Apple did so rather responsibly, irresponsibly by not telling anyone about it first, yes, but Even so, it honored all do not crawl requests from websites for robots. text ignored anything that could be considered copyright or personally owned material and it only stuck to. So that's why a lot of times the results will show a link to Wikipedia or fandom because they're public domains Um But I've even seen it show me results from Facebook. So World knowledge pertains to the information that it gets from the web. and from my experience As long as the data exists SiriAI does an excellent job parsing and sharing world knowledge. I've never run into an issue with that. the One hallucination I shared before was it wasn't able to find the name of a person musical I attended So it hallucinated the musical name. But that's the only time I've run into an issue with it is because it literally could not find a piece of data. But instead of saying I didn't find it It just got it wrong Maybe it just doesn't know much about the UK. I'm having far more problems with that I'm encouraged by the fact that they're saying it's growing. I also realize I have never asked it for anything about something today because it's Wasn't it C GPT? It something you would occasionally get My knowledge is current as of s when it's three or a year ago I'm in the habit of never asking friend them today, but you're saying Siri can do it. Okay I need to test this Yeah, but I don't believe those restrictions exist anymore, even in Cat GPT. I may be wrong. originally OpenAI restricted the datas set to be older so it wouldn't be abused But I don't think. I mean, if you're going to steal all the data in the world, you want to put some controls. I' have the use of it, of course you do Yeah, o I'm not Yeah, well, so this is what's interesting is Your on device index is up to date constantly. The instant something a text message comes in, it is now part of your index and you can ask Siri to act on information that just happened on your device World knowledge? I don't know. I haven't tried this. I don't have access to a good, I don't want to interrupt our podcast trying to talk to Siri or anything But I haven't tried asking it about something that happened an hour ago or even ten minutes ago. Like that's definitely that's that's a good one, William. I w want to check that out. Like where does the knowledge fall off? Is it a week old? Is it a day old? Becauseuse all the testing I've done is on information that's readily available, music artists, video games, things that already exist But The housing bill getting paused so that they could focus on voting rights Um, and Congress Well, happened yesterday How long did it take for Siri to know about that and for us to be able to ask about it? W Is it instantaneous? Is Apple bought Aentic AI, is it going to go out and grab that information live from CNN and hand it back to me? Or is it just going to say, That never happened. I don't know what you're talking about. Definitely you So you said there about you don't want us interrupt the podcast now' say Syria and have all this stuff going on. I think we may have touched on this before, but There's a problem I find with the new serory in how it responds to what you're saying. I watched a little video by somebody who was examining U the sound waveforms, I can't remember the ph, the frequency of it and how cleverly Siri knows that it's not a human in the room, it's a recording on a video playing it and therefore ignores The seri canand except That isn't true I made a video about Sirif AI for writers and in the end I had to clip myself out and put text on it saying Sir because it was firing off every device around the world. probably may because that'ers It's your voice. That's what should 's. think that. It's always easy to forget because we've done it so long ago But when you first set up Siri on a device, the first thing you do is program your voice in So theoretically it doesn't always work. Theoretically when you speak Siri knows it's you talking And that's it. And that's why when I give a command, play my favorites mix It'll play my favorites mix. When my wife says that, it'll play her favorites mix. If my friend visit and says play my favoritite Six. it'll say, Who are you So Like that works or has worked in the past and has probably been broken ten times over. But in my experience that has worked on the current HomePod version of Siri. I haven't tried it with Siri AI yet, but that voice recognition has never gone away and theoretically It's If you're listening to a video, it's looking for telltale signs of it being a video like speaker volume. a like a tenor like there's a pitch that comes from digital speakers. like it's not real life. It's not coming from a person And so maybe it can see that, but also It's hearing that it's not your voice. and that combination of data is just like, oh I'm going to ignore that But because it's your voice coming out of the phone, it's probably getting confused You would make a very good seri sales post there because I was totally sold by that completely convinced and I'm still ninetiney percent convinced except thing is it is nototiceably demonstrably worse now than it was Be CAI came out, so there's something going on, but. take I do find I've been keeping track of a lot of the commentary around the new series because I'm very interested in it. I want to see how it's going, public domain how are people talking about it testing it? Normally humans don't know yet. No one's on the developer betata outside of the nerd spere. fromrom what I can gather The most critical people like Joanna Stern likes it. That on its own is an accomplishment. Go watch Joanna Earns video. it's good Obviously, not everything's perfect. Even she points out where it's broken. just as you point out where it's broken. and I'll admit where it's broken. like it's this it's it's new. They're working on it and it's never going to be perfect. AI cannot be perfect. Just because Apple came out with toool doesn't mean it's undoes everything I've ever said about AI. It's still poor replacement for human thought and creativity. Like it's still going to make mistakes and hallucinate U But I find it interesting that even like John Syracusea and John Gruber, like all these guys are out here just like, man. They fixed Siri. and so Hearing that over and over again, it's very interesting compared to you saying it's incredibly broken because I I agree with you. The ways that you're describing it, that's one hundred percent broken and it should not function that way. And I really hope that they can fix those use cases that you're running into We're early days and I'm hopeful for what's coming because the dramatic shift in what was to what is already it's such a leap and bound What it's good at is remarkably useful. Y. Joonna Sone could change my mind on this G rece your case it all do We'll try to get in the show notes if we remember later. Yeah, But if not Joanah Sttern She has a new thing. She's no longer Wall Street Journal somethingomet things that u the website I believe is like things. com It's not things dot com but it's like It's a cute website name, but anyway Okay I'll look for that. Weve got a couple things to get to before we close up Um, Eddie Q Yeah. Do So I want you to speak on this a little bit as our local historian He just won Our entertainment person of the year Right for at the Canes Lions event Eddie Q he's been at Apple for a million years. L tell us a little bit about Eddie Q and what he's done at Apple over this last, I don't know, what thirty years that he's been forty years that he's been there Hang on a second, Siri What are EddieQgh's. you,'s been there so long. I did once track his job changes over it. and it tends to be that he expands into more and more things and doesn't let go of stuff. That's not always true, but often. to the extent that at one point the most famous thing about him was that hed even fell asleep in meetings. It was so very it works. You feet up on the table and just lean back When you look at thisist of what he does, you can kind of understand that. And now I don't know, is he drinking more coffee or something? We don't hear that anymore and instead we see he's in charge of some of the most successful parts of Apple. Apple TV is an astounding success dramatically and critically in Appleus a suc. that number. We forget Apple Music, but it is Great Yeah. I love upple music. I just I don't know what the figures are for Apple and how much you never do and how many people? No. What we need look it What we do know is recently, EddieQ did say that not only are we at an all time high of listeners, we're at an all time high of new subscribers. It's Not only is it the biggest it's ever been, it's growing the facets it's ever grown. So f I don't like comparing it to Spotify if only because I think Spotify's business model is fundamentally flawed and broken. It's no longer a music streaming service. It's an AI chat bot disguised as a streaming service that wants you to listen to AI generated podcasts and whale noises. So I don't really understand what Spotify is anymore, but Apple Music is a streaming service. and I think more and more people are realizing that. People in my life that are not nerds. that don't they don't listen to our podcast They know I write about Apple and they'll come up to me and say I switched to Apple Music and I did not realize how much better it sounded until I didn't know that the audio quality was that much better. I didnt like I love how the interface does this. Oh wow, that's I've often thought I'm a little unfair as Potifier. I mean, I'm with you on the business model. they don't pay enough to artists. and the only reason they're into audioobooks and podcasts is to stop so unist to a six hour book instead of six hours An other than music because they lose money on every song you listen to. So please don't listen to music on our music streaming service.lease. But when I first tried Shbi Music Spotify was the only thing out and I just didn't like it. There was something unky about it and I didn't even pay So it was totally. That was before they bought their algorithms But and they do have an impressive algorithm that they purchase. but the thing is I think the human curation on Apple music is better than Spotify's algorithm. I can honestly say that. like Yeah, a robot telling me what music I to like is one thing, but a human who has decades in the music industry, putting together a playlist That's just so much better every single time It's not because the essentials lists, you know, for any band. if I'm trying to get into something play me so and so esssentials. It's not like it's a top ten hit, it's not the best selling ones. it's the best of them as chosen by a real human being and they change it over time. So it was just And that's what's impressive. They have a huge team on this, but what's crazy is this is how I compare it because everyone's like, Oh, but Spotifyn' bad. I'm like, no, no, the algorithm's great. But You know, McDonald's isn't bad. I love a big Mac But it isn't a steak dinner It isn't It isn't. And Apple Music is the stake dner of streaming, right That algorithm will keep serving you fast food. Oh, you like this? Here's some more sugar. H's some more fat. Here's some more sugar. Here's some more fat. You're going to love all of the sugar and fat. Yeah, your brains going to kick in, your dopamine iss going to be like, Yeahah, man, more of that And you're just going to like fall down this rabbit hole until you've just got a terrible taste of music because you don't There's no depth to. Yeah, there's no depth to your taste of music at that point. You're just being it's all surface level. It's just like ice cream and sugar But the way human created playlists on Apple Music work it just, it's just like getting this meal Right? L you're getting the you're getting the sugar and fat, but you're getting the healthy stuff. You're getting all these courses and all these things and you're just like, man, I really understand this artist now. I really want to learn more about them. Here's all this information Like, it's just Night and day, I think, But and EddieQ is the driving force behind Apple Music. MeddyQ is the driving force behind Apple TV rewind the decade And he's sitting in like Fox TV studios with his feet on the desk saying, all right, we're Apple. How much money do we have to give you to get your cable channel on our service And they're like, get out of our office and think And honestly, thank goodness because Apple TV is so much better for being an original content producer. For it just saying, you know what? HBO died a long time ago. We're going to become the spirit of HBO and make exclusive goodood content. And in one of his interviews recently, he said, better and more is coming. so. Always growing Do you know about the morning S show and a discussionle had to get that? Do you know the story? I don't know that one specifically. Well, the Mit has been there from the start. It was from of the very first. So they' ob se in discussions. So twenty nineteen, it launched. they were probably in discussions. Jenna Farrison and Ruth Withson were probably pitching it through their company twenty seventeen, probably somewhere like that maybe eighteen. And they were talking to everybody and everybody wanted it. And EddieQ says that Apple had no chance Everybody else would be able to offeroney more money than Apple So he actually asked for a meeting with those two talkaled to them and he asked them do you think this is going to be the best television show possible? And they said yes And they said So do I And that's why we want it. And that's support, I think and creative freedom. I've seen it with other shows as well. we've heard from anyone is the creative freedom that they get. They walk into Apple and they say, I want to do this and Apple's like go for it. Ecept ex from producers Now there's a couple if it goes wrong anyway So Apple watches the dailies, sees the cuts. If Apple thinks this is going off the rails, they are in there. They are micromanaging that show. they take over and there's ch They did step in on the studio. The studio I think got some notes Well I believe so. But Seth Rogan, I think has commented like he loves working with Apple like Seth Rogan tried to get Tim cook no, no, no, Apple wanted Tim Cook as the cameo But instead they got that blue second Mahu Yeah L stuff like that happens. I believe John Stewart was told by Apple to lay off China That's true. I've forgotten that one, yes. And Stewart. It wasn't necessarily so this story gets conluted a lot and we're gonna to close up This story gets convoluted a lot and Stewart has repeated it. I listen to his podcast and it does come up sometimes briefly But he's always repeated the same refrain. It's not that Apple came in and said, you can't talk about China. It's The fact that they were in the room trying to discuss what he can discuss just turned him off And he was just like, I gott to get out of here.. So it wasn't that they were trying to like censor anything. It was just more like, I want a total creative freedom. They promised it. Season one went great And then when I started producing season two or season three or whatever Um They started giving notes. I didn't appreciate the notes. I walked out. And That's basically where it came from. Yeah, I'm sure some of the notes were about China U and like like he probably wanted to do an episode about Apple and they were like, no, don't do that So yeah, that's Otherwise, yeah, I've always heard the creative freedom there is great. So I think EddieQ Well deserved because it has been a blockbuster year for Apple TV. I'm really enjoying a lot of the stuff that's coming out recently And I'm excited to see what they bring out next We got to wrap up. We were going to talk about thenga Yeah, We were going to talk about these Google Play commissions. There's nothing to say here. Epic is celebrating these commissions Um Stupidly so. this is so blatant, it's annoying In January, it was uncovered that Google and Epic came to a secret deal Epic would pay Google like eight hundred million dollars And Google would advertise Fortnite W And that was the settlement they came to to end their lawsuit. over commissions And so I thought I knew that. Well, we did know it. It was a secret deal and then the judge uncovered it in disiscovery and was like Okay. Yeah. So the judge is like, clearly you guys have come up with a plan. Um We're going to end it here. Google was required to change its commissions and it has now. and they're going they're changing as of june thirtieth in the US, UK and EU And it's not that much better It's great for Epic actually. and this is what's so funny. Epic fought for the little guy The little guy' the one that's getting the least out of the deal. No No. Yeah. Sp' actually set to make a lot of money off of this and and every The majority of people the majority of developers earn less than a million dollars a year. So this Apple' small Bus program, Google does a similar annotation here If you make over a million dollars your' Fes drop from thirty percent to twenty percent If you use Google's payment system, add five percent on top. So twenty five percent B If you link out, Epic can now make twenty percent on every pays ten percent less on every purchase as long as people are going to the external store That's great for Epic. They're making they're paying ten percent less Y versus Apple whose external linking was twenty seven percent at that price range, which Epic threw a fit over Right for the same deal for the little guy Inead of fifteen percent If you pay outward, it's ten percent Apples for that same arrangement was twelve percent. onlynly a two percent difference Epic through Voms heenus. Yeah Yeah. For two percent So But because of the secret deal and because Epic stands to win the most, they are happy with the Google arrangement and not Apple's arrangement. It's so dumb. It's so blatant on its face I hope the Supreme Court throws all of this out and Apple gets to look at Epic and say We're out of here because this is so dumb notot for the little guy at all, but we're going we're going to close up here. No new podcast reviews. Please leave a review. We'll read it here. I'd love to hear from our listeners. Even if you've left a review before, you can go back in and add text or change text, you can do the star value, whatever Comment on SAI and how you think these betas are going. Let us know what you think. We will read it here on the show Um Always happy to hear from listeners. We get some good emails. And you guys can also reach out on social media. I'm Wes at appppleinseter. com for email, Hilly tech masodon Hilly. tech on Blueky. You can always find us there and my blog and everything. just reach out, talk to us, let us know what you're doing, what you're testing, what's working great, what surprised you and what's failed William, where can people find you? Well, I'm going to be here for the next couple of hours. If you want to stop by, there's a really good Chinese talkway over here that I might indulge before we're back on the road. But just what you said about people using beers and things, I was just at Apple and there was no formal thing about this, but I did ask people on the way, arere you using the beers? and it was Yeah. So Apple people know not to use this. Why are we doing it? What madness is this You can tell me I' William at Appersided. com And fifty eight keys, of course on YouTube. Oh so Yes. Yeah. If you want to hear more about our thoughts on the iPhone fold and accessories Apple should be making, maybe an Apple Ring We will be discussing that in the post show, mayaybe in Apple camera. That's my vote Um, If you want to listen to that, that is Apple Insider plus the paid bonus section where you get no ads, none And it is the extended content. It's video content on Patreon, currently still audio only on Apple podcast, sadly.'s Apple will have to fix that eventually but go to Apple Podcasts to subscribe or go to our Patreon and subscribe either way. You get that bonus content each week U and Let's stick around for that. Otherwise, I would like to thank our sponsors for this show Masterclass and Nord Steller. And we will be talking to you guys very soon