Archiving Data for AI Context

From Relay, this is Ugrade episode six hundred twenty sixth of june twenty ninth, twenty twenty six. This episode is brought to you by Keper, Centry and Claude My name is Mike Collie and I'm joined byy Jason Snow,i Jason. Hi Mike, did you know I want to ask you a question. A little mic talk to start the show. Okay We are in the summer of betas, as well as the summer of funun and I have found that now that Apple names every OS after the year after they announceced the OS that I have completely lost track of what year it is and I just keep say keep saying and writing that it's twenty twenty seven now because I am in twenty seven modeust I'm in twenty seven mode. now. As far as I'm concerned, the newew Year starts the beginning of June. Apple says it's twenty seven now and I go, yes, it is. It is now twenty seven Maybe we should do that Like we just we just run the calendar from June to June and we just make model year. twenty seven like Kister. My the biggest problem I'm having is not so much that it is trying to remember, I can never remember what the last version of IOS was before twenty six. four twenty six. Yeah, I know. And eighteen I'm going to just say yes because I don't know. And it's also made it significantly more complicated now for me to remember what iPhone model it is as well Oh right I'm struggling with both of those. seventeen. It's all those numbers. What's the and what what the A series processor is inside it? They had the opportunity to syn them up, but they never took it. And I didn. And I wish that they would. And I think we're now too lightate Because they're not going to do it this year. They're not going to do it next year because they're not going to call the iPhone twenty The iPhone twenty eight twenty eight or whatever And So I think twenty nine. I think we're I think we're past it. I think the closest we have is twenty thirty, which actually isn't that far away and that might be close as we have, but an iPhone thirty sounds terrible anyways Yeah, it's all gone But anyway, I have a snll talkal question for you, Jason Yoni wants to know, willill you be lighting your house for the fourth of July and will the Tube man be making an appearance this weekend Pmanent lights, so I just and the people who make the lights have a Yeah. so will you will you light them with with the colors, you know, one? Well, I mean, yes The people who make the lights have a whole patriotic fourth of July set of pre program things that I've put in But I mean, it's lit up most nights, honestly. Oh yeah. I program it with various things. That's fun. We got the Pride rainbow going in June. Very good Um We have we have some USA when the USA soccer team is playing and then in the World Cup and then yeah, we're going to We're going to do third and fourth of July will beatriotic patriotic observance And u, And to answer the second part of the question Why would I buy an American flag themed tube manan if I were not to display himact around Independence Day? Wh Why would I do that? Yeah? So I gota basically he's Why you have him up for the whole W C Well I mean, he makes look, the blower makes a lot of noise. It's kind of annoying. I don't want it up there all the time U So it'll be yeah, I'll put him up on the fourth of July. That'll be good. mister Flagman will be out there. Fag tube, man, Waven. patriotic observance of waving his arms around. I would like feel. That feels about right. What is a more patriotic observance of America right now than a flailing armed tube man. A flailing arm.ere he going? Noody he knows. Unpredict. Does he have a plan? Probably not. Is he goinging anywhere or is he anchored to the spot? He's going to make a big to dance about it and really let you know about it And a lot of noise. so We're going to know generenating some noise, ye If you would like to send in a question to help us open a future episode of the show, go to upgradefeedback. com and you can do that Jason, the final days remain in the designing California Kickstarter campaign. the last time of gradients that we will ask you to go to designed. F. backack our kickstarter campaign desespite all of our saying very nicely that We know that we stuck a bunch of extra free content featuring us in your feed, but we're going to get out of your way now We did get one angry person who was like, whyy are you sticking all this stuff in my feed? I haven't seen that. You know, I meant to mention this. I did the I did the Mic Hurly thing, which is it was a really mean comment in the upgrade feedback and I just deleted it. You just got rid of it? Okay. I just got rid of it because I didn't you didn't need to be burdened with it. I saw it. It wass just a mean person. It's like, well, it'sble. Congratulations U We appreciate everybody's patience, as we said And we look, suffice it to say We planned a bunch of stuff for the last week of a campaign becausecause we thought this is the thing that we're going to need to push us over the top to sixty thousand dollars. We're going to need it. We' going need Jason is going to need to be on the talk show And then we're going to get Daring Fireball to chime in because he likes pushing people over the top. And we're going to put John Syracuseus in a regular episode and get them to talk about that on ATP. And we need everybody pushing so that we can get to our goal whichich when we met our goal like on day one All those plans remain intact. So Here we are, but this is it. Es Wednesday july first at eight AM Pacific. Yeah We wanted to give ourselves again enough time for this episode to get people in right under the under the wire And then if you want to wait longer, actually post campaign, you will be able to buy a membership at full price at full price. So if you want to if you want to get it for ten dollars off, which is what it is on the on the campaign you have until july first. But after that, if you missed it and you're kicking yourself Because we don't have the membership site up at relay yet for the proper once the podcast launches in the interim There's like a post campaign pledge, but it won't be at the at the kickstter campaign price it'll be ten dollars more Now just adding a to do that I need to get the member four pl set up before the campaign ends. We have someone send people. We got a lot of plans. There's a lot of things happening, but ye lots of things. But anyway, thank you for everybody's patience. And the exciting thing is You're going to get me and Mike twice a week in the fall and for a year plus plus U where we're going to talk about what do you like to say, Mike? We're going to talk about what's happen what's happen Mondays. I talk about where we are and where we're going and then on whatever day'sednesday Thursday, Wnesday. We had a bunch of people write in say there's too many podcs on Thursday, Yeah. So we haven't decided y. We'll just say Wednesday for now. We'll say on a Wednesday, we'll talk about how we got here. So that' that's the combo that you get from us now and we'll be getting from us for my design in California of my curly marketing prowess right Yeah. And so since we last spoke to you all, We passed our final stretch goal of two hundred fifty thousand dollars, which is I've run out of words. Just understand that we're incredibly appreciative. I don't have words anymore. We didn't have a two hundred fifty thousand dollars stretch goal. Our final stretch goal was two hundred, but we're two hundred sixty four now. D that happen in a week since? Yeah Okay. I think it happened last Monday. Oh my gosh. Okay. Yeah. So anyway, that means that we're going to do events in San Francisco and London and and We're we we got look, we're we're workingre we're working hard and planning to work hard for the next year plus to make this really good. Yeah. so And we will fulfill our promises and also make a good podcast. And just as one piece of follow up So we ask people to write in with suggestions because we have two feeds that we need to name for members. right? So the podcast is called Design in California. We have the members feed, which will have some kind of name like we have upgrade plus. And then we're also going to have a bonus feed where we will publish additional bonus content Many people wrote in to suggest one more thing as a name for the bonus feed. We're going to use that because it's's that's it. that's the name We still need to work out something for the regular members feed. Chad wrote in a said designing California extended, kind of like the Apple extxtended keyboard, which I thought was fun. but It doesn't work for this show because it won't be extended. There isn't going to be bonus content in the episodes, like in the regular episode plus. they'll be shorter because they won't ads in them. And So we're still We still going to work on that. So if anybody has an idea for an so this will be designing California something, right? it might and it may just be plus or something peoplee should write know that Many people wrote in and said it's a shame for you to I think some almost a dangle made in China or assembled in China in front of us and not give it. I agree with you, but we can't call the pu. It's not the name of the show. It like it would be bit a bit odd. Yeah Zoe said SE, which that is a Pretty good one. I liked that Yeah So that's u That's what I use for incomparable is the members upp version of the Incomparable is the Incomparable spepecial edition. So if you have a suggestion, write in with that upgrade feeedback. com but please If you want to support this show, if you want to get the membership at a year discount or any of our physical rewards, we're adding stickers for free to everybody that gets a physical rewards. So it'll be like a little sticker pack now. that is just as a thank you for helping us get so far. So go to desesigned. Fm, you can back to kickstart the campaign I'm really like, you know At some point, I think it might be fun on the show to talk about like where does this money go? because people have asked these kinds of questions. Because for us, a lot of it is going into making the show better, but it will make more sense for us to talk about that down the line when we can show you the things that we're doing. Yeah. But the fact that we have had such incredible support means that This is a project that can grow past what we had originally hoped it could be. And I think you're going to see that in the effort that we put in. So thank you so much to everybody who has shown their support for us It really means the world This is will not be the last time we talk about design in California. that's for sure, but it's the last time that we'll ask on this show for you to go support it. So thank you Should we do a little details, Jason I think my answer is perfect So twenty seven point two betas dropped during the recording of the show last week. and there's a series of refinements. There isn't any kind of groundbreaking thing in this beta. I would say Overall, the performance of the operating I'm using IOS only is very strong still. L It doesn't feel like I'm using a beta, honestly, except I have this random bug sometimes where the keyboard doesn't appear. Oh the keyboard basicallyro. Are you having that too Okay. On the iPad keyboard O sideways sometimes good sticks. That's the part that kills me. I used to have this as a bug like six month ago and it's back now in the betas where you tap a key And then you let your finger come up and it stays tapped and it just sits there in the entire device is just paused while we find out what is going to happen to that key. And if it's a key a with an accent underneath it, then the accents pop up and that's the big reveal is that it's going to be an accent instead. But it's like, yeah, the keyboard, there's lots of keyboard bugs. That's what I've discovered this time on the iPad, certainly. but generally Um My solution was actually to install couple third party keyboards so that if I get really desperate and I'm in one of those keyboard traps, I will just switch to a third party keyboard for a while and forget that I'm forget my pain the of the actual keyboard. But generally yeah, it works, it works fine. It works it works pretty well. got on my Ive got on all my devices at this point. It's on my phone It's on my iPad and it's on my Mac. So about your Apple Watch Um and it's on my Apple Watch. So you're doing the whole thing. the whole thing. I'm all all the way in No time to wait G do it Writing tools were added in twenty seven point two because they didn't exist in the point one beta or the first beta. So now there is a little Siri icon or write with Siri prompts in the keyboard all the time, which I think might be a little aggressive the amount that it shows. What I haven't gotten yet is any kind of UI for good grammar checking? Now, there is an option to profree text in the write with Siri UI. but I have not seemed to be able to get it to work yet It looks like it does something, but then it doesn't offer me any suggestions. Well Isn't that a beta for you? Yeah. And so It this is what I want. It still isn't doing it, but I still have my fingers crossed that I'm going to get it because I'm just going to wait and see how it goes. And one note that I have about I'm continuing to use Siri AI a lot. likeike I'm using it a lot And I have been nothing but impressed so far It is falling for some of the typical step A lot of LLMs four four Um, like I had to look up Adina wanted me to look something up for her and I just asked Siri AI and it gave me a list of companies that provided a service we needed And she looked into a bit more. and she's like, I can't find anything online about this company, one of the companies except for blog post they wrote giving a list of the top five companies to provide that service would it put themselves at the top. I was like this isn't a serial problem. That is an alEM problem because that article was written to trick the AI, right? Because AIs love a list a list. And so they, you know, and it's like, o, this one's the best. It's like, yes, says the company. you know, But that kind of stuff is like it just is what it is. But overall I've been really impressed and like I asked it a question today that I So simple, but I know old uri would not give me I wanted because you know, the kickstarters counting down, right? And I wanted to confirm the time and it said like fifty six hours left And so I ask What is the time fifty six hours from now? and it gave me the answer. That is the kind of thing that I know Old Siri would just be like, here's the time right now. And so I continuue to be impressed with the simple stuff and also some of the more complex stuff. I think it's really good. I think it's really good Um Similarly,s I mean, it's work in progress But u but I think it's going pretty well. One of the things on the Mac that I've noticed is they are Apple is in a multiyear process that they aren't talking about, but it's very clear about where they're trying to sort of reform the Mac menu bar which is funny because they should have done it when they put the notch in the hardware. And I think it is yet another thing we could put on the list of disconnections between the hardware and software groups at Apple, like the touch bar. being this amazing invention of the hardware group and the software group's like, yeah, we're not interested in that., which is like, you can't do that. You can't manage it that way. It's actually one of those things about John Turner is being put in charge though I think that's not going to happen again. because he's got he got burned by it multiple times where they made hardware and then the software people basically didn't care. Yeah. So when they did the notch in the laptop screens, they should have had proper menu bar management built into the operating system. Now that they've got Clipboard history It's the next one on the list of like why can you not do? Why are there all of these utilities like bartender And there are many others now that allow you to manage your menu bar. especially after Apple people want developers to put more things in the menu bar, right? Yes. And so part of this is that there's a new thing in Crol Center for menu items that can live in Crol center or they can live in the menu bar. And that's That's the way forward, but the problem is so many apps don't use that system and Apple has not supplied as far as I can tell. a simple way for people who have an existing menu bar item to say, can you make that be a thing that also fits the control setentter system Beuse that would solve this because then Apple people don't know this. I wrote about it last year. like you can create multiple icons in your menu bar using base Apple OS, Base Mac OS stuff. and then put different items in it from the control center or you can put them in menu bar. So they built a mini bar manager That letows you put things on the menu bar or allows you put things in a sub menu off of the menu bar Every menu bar item made before last year doesn't work with it But even even with this system, I would still want things in my menu bar and it is a constant frustration to me that they're hiding behind the notch. Yeahes. so so this this goes further So Um One of the nice features of a lot of these menu Bar managers is the ability to create a collapsed area to the left of your key items so that you can either mouse over or do a keyboard shortcut or click on an expander and see all of them, but then otherwise they go away In MacOS twenty seven in Golden Gate, there is at least some management of the menu bar now happening involving thingsings that are going to be hidden under the knot Okay. they have started to make that priority I would say How many years has it been? Five years too late five years that they've been like, you know, the notches there whatever Um So that's good But my other note here is it has broken every menu bar based app Tal degree. And all the menu bar managers are broken I'm using an app called Melt which is a, um It's it melt It's called melt Um And it's it's a it's a fork of ice. Um It's called melt. It's a fork of Iice, which was a menu bar manager that was a free alternative to bartender that seems to have been abandoned, but Mlt has gotten picked up because it's open source and they're working on that. And they arere working on a fix now. They have a beta running that runs on Golden Gate. but like it Um Or is it thaw? Maybe it's thaw. There's melt and there's thaw. Yeah, thaw is the one I'm using. That's the one I'm using.. St THAW and it's good and they're working on a beta that will fix it. So so this is just an example where like you can see like where Apple touches the OS sometimes, those are the things that just totally break for third party apps it's fine. It's a beta Third party apps are going to break Don't get mad about it. I see people getting mad about it and it's like, don't get mad about it. You're going to bet it. Things will break But I think it's interesting that I like that Apple is giving attention to the Mac menu bar. I wrote about this last year and said It's one of the uniqu things about the Mac They should pay attention to it.. They should care about it. They should put some modern OS effort into a thing that's basically been laying there for twenty years. What are they doing then what is the management options Oh you know, you're asking me the thing that I don't actually know the details of because I haven't investigated it. I think it does a little expand collapse thing. Okay where if things are going to collide to the menu bar, but they're making an attempt to make it that the notch doesn't break. E your stuff. because I just it's broken everything in the meantime. I stopped using a menu Bar manager because they all kept breaking and now I just suffer through when I'm using my Mac in laptop mode. because when I've got my studio display, I don't have so many menu bar icons that it's a problem But when I'm using it on my Mac, every time I start a timer in Timerry, Timerry just disappears. It just gone. It's just gone because it's too large for the preview that I have like for the Yeah, my Swift bar is behaving weirdly works, but it's, you know, it lives in the menu bar and it's behaving weirdly Um, but it's a u yeah, it's it's I'm glad they're giving it attention, but but again to say it, like One, it's great that you've got this new system based on control center. At least for this first year, nobody's using that system. Like nobody's using that system And and I wonder if there is either a third party opportunity here or really for Apple to find a way to allow Classic Menu bar items, menu extras, I think they're called to be used in that way because then you've got menu bar management built into the OS. and you can take a lot of your things that you need to look at occasionally but not all the time, and you could stash them in a submenu and then you're not having that huge menu up there. It may not be technically possible, but like that's my frustration is that they're very slowly building this out. I'm glad they are But it's happened way too late given the existence of the notch and is breaking things in the meantime. So that's my number one that's this week's Golden Gate beta observation for you. This episode is brought to you by Keeper Security Between work, banking and shopping, you have so many logins to keep track of. 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That is keepasecurity. com slash upgrade pod A thanks to Keper Scurity for the support of this show and relay So last week. On Monday, we spoke about the possibility of Apple raising their prices and on Thursday, they raised those prices. Yeah, they did You probably don't need us to go into detail on this now. But essentially, prices have been raised on basically all product lines except the iPhone and Apple Watch Anywhere from fifteen to fifty percent. Yeah. Yeah. but like yes, AirPods is another major. Max Max iPads Apple TV Vision Pro OPods Home pods. ye. So it tracks anywhere from fifteen percent to fifty percent for the price increases, depending on the product. A couple of headlining ones. The MacBook No is now six ninety nineents to start M Macs and iPads up by hundreds of dollars, some more. And the Apple TV has been increased in price by up to fifty percent Yeah, H's Apple's full statement The consumer electronics industry is facing an unprecedented challenge. The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage We have never seen a component price increase this much this quickly We have shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today's increases for iPad and Mac We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions There is you're probably seeing this too, but there is now a sentiment in wider media that Apple would being greedy and should cut into their profits to bear the brunt Further, haveave you seen this much? Yeah. Um This is so I'll put a link in the show notes to a Verge piece where they're kind of making the comments on that they're kind of making the argument, that argument And it is an argument that is harder to defend considering the many record quarters that Apple has experienced, right? Like it's hard to suggest that they couldn't cut their profit down a little bit Couldn't, couldn't It's true. They could So yeah, these these price increases stink. Nobody likes them Although you could argue that given inflation, Apple's been holding the line against price increases for five years at least. That is a choice that they decided to make right. They could have been raising prices all along here and they didn't, but they finally are like, okay we got to do it. because they really like having stable prices. And having the the game be they increase their margins, they maintain their margins even with the stable prices as they release products, they have ways of like releasing some more expensive products and changing the SKUs. and there's games they play, but they can't play that game anymore. So they did this. orr they wont play that game anymore. It's reached breaking point. boil down this argument though. this argument is I think is embedded in the idea that this is temporary. This is this is a long term change and it doesn't just have to do with the RAM prices, but it also has to do with inflation and the cost of technology And there may be a time when it's different, but it's not going to be for the next few years I'm not being cynical here. I want to I want to just take a step back and say This is actually just the argument that Apple products should cost less and Apple should make less profit That's the argent. This is not an argument about in this in this economy, right In this economy, you raise prices, but you're so profitable. is This is an extraordinary circumstance. You should eat the margins and keep your products where they are, even though they me your margins And could they yes, could they yes I would argue that the actual argument being made here is Apple products should just be cheaper, than they shouldn't make as much money And That's a valid argument. They could choose to do that But what I would say is and they did for a bit. we think. And they did and they did because they know it's better if the the prices are stable. But All the people in charge at Apple are compensated with stock And This is a this is a Eating into your margins is not a thing that the stock market approves because stock market likes The profile of Apple is, it's very profitable high margins.. If you have tuned in, look, I watch financial television half an hour every quarter, the half an hour before Apple's results drop, I watch CNBC or Bloomberg And Oh those people love the profit margin number Oh I do they love it. And on the call on the earnings call afterward, the analysts. Oh, they love the profit margin number so much. And the CFO loves the profit margin. There was a CFO exchange a year ago, so it was Lucaa Maistri with an analyst who was like, Hey, I think this is a record profit margin for you. And you could hear Lua Myaistrei break open a big grin. He was like, thank you for noticing. Oh my. It was an enormous record profit margin for us. So very hard to get those people to ultimately say and Again, I think this is how I would put it. They've been holding the line because they could do it in their model And it wouldn't kill their margins and it allows them to benefit from prices that they're comfortable with. fact that they did this, this break It's about that It's about the fact that if they, if they continue to eat it, they feel like at this point they're breaking their traditional margin numbers and that it's going to hurt their long term profit margin And they're not willing to do that. So could they? Of course they could. But again, I think it's not a realistic argument because the people in charge, it is the argument to say Apple should just make less money. Apple's a profit seeking business that's publicly owned. It's owned by shareholders. It is You're not going to get it, right? They've never been Affordable. In fact, I don't know how you felt. This last week, I'm like, oh wow I hadn't felt put it this way. I hadn't felt V Apple is Apple products are always way more expensive than you want them to be. vibe. in a while and I didn't realize it I didn't realize it at the time. but there was a time Five years ago even when they would come out with a product and you're like, o, I mean, and I want it, but it's so expensive. Oh And it's been a while that I felt that way. in the era of a nine hundred ninety nine or even ten ninety nine. I think the last time I felt that way was when they came out with the M two MacBook Air maybe. So that was twenty twenty one. Yeah, but even that computer was so impressive. It was like it was so impressive but it was also. But it wass also like twelve pointars nine instead ninears ninety nine And that hurt. But like This last week When I look at those prices, I think I did not think to myself, this is outrageous. I've never seen prices like these on Apple products. Actually, what I felt was, oh, I've got that old feeling back now of everything Apple makes being a little too expensive for me and for my preference. I think they got like sneakily affordable over time in a lot of areas. I think that's exactly it is that by holding the line as long as they did and and like the MacBook N is a great example. Apple loved it benefited proing more affordable. They reached users and they reached customers that they couldn't reach before. I will say I do still think six ninety nine is still a very good starting price. L every every To be clear, the Mac McNeon at six and ninety nine based on A year ago would be a bummer. It wouldn't even be a bummer. It would be okay. I think a lot of people thought it would be do six dollars ninety nine c. Yeah All of its competition is going up in price too Because everything's going up in price period. So it's going to be six doll ninety nine centsars a bummer, but the products it's going up against are all going to go up in price or down in quality. O they already have, Jason. they already have. Apple hasn't hasn't done it until now. Yeah, it's interesting, right?? I have I have had that feeling in the last few days of like, oh, I remember what this used to be like. Like I'm looking at the prices now iPads. And especially the iPad Pro, like I don't I don it. like the iPad prices right now are just way too high. They are way too high and I don't know what's gonna happen there. Like the iPad P what it ss like twelve hundred do now or something. It's like that's too much. when this all over Because I think some of what they're doing here is prioritizing products based on the ones that they think are important. It's also why the iPhone hasn't been dealt with yet, which is interesting. Yeah I think I think the iPad is not super important to Apple right now and that they're okay with people not buying the iPad Pro and they've got them and they're available, but they're not really willing to come down on margin on it I think in the long run, though when this surge of component pricing ends, you are going to have to have that moment if you your're Apple, where you look at something like the iPad and say, o I've had sales are in the tank. IPad pro sales are really bad I've had air sales are off. What happened? And you look at the pricing and you're like Yeah, these are overpriced. We can't do it And then they and then you maybe cut the price That's not going to happen until you're in a place where all of the RAM kind of circulates freely and at a good price. because you that's because that's the that's the pressure the downward pressure on price in part is like If you can't sell it because it's too expensive, and nobody's buying it because it's just a bad deal You got to I mean, two things are going to happen. One is they're going to look at the price, and two is they're going to look at the tech inside it. And it may be that there's like an expensive component that they thought that they were going to use in the next iPad Pro and they're like, we can't do it We just can't do it. Yeah. because I was thinking about that when you were saying about like, you know, the thinking about the earest schools and stuff It's like, yeah, your profit margin is great to keep. But what if you end up losing more money from lost sales? Like then was it good to keep the margin? Like this is the tightrope walk that the people in Apple's finance team have to be dealing with right now. like trying to model out like Will we still make money if we drop If we increase the prices because we will definitely drop well, will we drop themselves, how much will we drop? That must be incredibly complicated to work Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. it's I think The other way they could go with some of the high end products, they just say, lookook High end products exist to be awesome And so we're going to make them awesome and they're going to be expensive And that, you know, And then what you're going to see is the The iPad airs of the world. will be their focus on that Yeah. And that's okay. L I think we all assume that that OLED MacBook Pro is going to be a high end more expensive product anyway. Like That is one strategy is if you want to look cool and cutting edge with the latest tech, you put in your I mean, this has been Apple all along. You put in your very expensive product And everybody else is like, oh I want it, but it's too expensive. And it's like, that's okay That's okay because eventually that stuff will come down. And there are some people who will buy it. And then your focus is more on the mid range because it's more affordable. Now, the iPad Air is also very expensive, but it's not It's forty nine dollars st. I mean it's iPad Pro expensive. Yes old school iPad Pro . So I don't know. it's um It's really interesting as a challenge for them. but I just want to say for people who are like, it's too expensive It's going to slow buying cycles. It's going to Um hurt sales It's not necessarily going to hurt revenue because the Revenue is going to go up But the sales will go down, but they don't even report sales figures anymore. They only report revenue numbers. So maybe it'll look okay on their bottom line, but they will know that sales are down and that the buying cycle has been elongated And in the long term, that's not good for them They know that I wouldn't say like Apple blindly put up the price That's not what they did. They know the they know the ramifications of No, I think you can tell that because they tried to hold it Yeah. And this and this is the breaking point. In fact,, in fact, what we're getting now is the shock. It's like bending, bend, bend, bend, bend until it snaps. That's what happened here. Because also what should be baked into these prices is some element of forecasting So they don't do it again Right? Like I feel like in the last few days, I'm getting I'm seeing different headlines almost every day for how long this situation could last for And it seems to either extend or contract, but the trend line is it's going to take this is going to take longer than you think for the rAM prices to come down But Apple should have built into the price increases, some level of we do this now and we can hold it for X amount of time. L you don't want to do this Again this year, say because They also have no control over it, right? Like if Prices multiply by over five times in a couple of weeks. what are you gonna to do My guess is that what they've done here is try to make their best guess about a price that they can keep fixed. Yeah, right Be they don't like to change prices So it's probably a price they want to keep fixed and they're building in more margin than is necessary because they anticipate more pain Right? And so they're trying to do that. Also, I think it's very hard not to look at the H pod and Apple TV prices and not think that they're pricing those because they know what the next one's going to be priced at that they may be trying to price it towards where it's going I would be shocked if there was an appreciable amount of margin recovery required We'll put it for the Apple TV in the Home pod I just I'm really skeptical about making more Apple TV, right? L surely They have all the ones they're going to need Well, I actually do, I think that that's One of the things that I think is going on here is that They've made all of the ones that they're going to make and they're on to the next one and they're pricing those products because they know what they're going to have to price the next one out. U And I actually think with the iPhone, it's a very similar thing Probably I mean, the iPhone seventeen. They're still going to make because it's probably not going to be replaced until the spring But like They're stop they're not making iPhone seventeen proros anymore, probablyroably, right? They They're moving on to the eighteen pro. U And maybe that gives them a little bit of latitude now. I don't know. that I don't know, But but the Apple TV in the Home pod it sure feels to me like there's a new version of both of those coming. that's Apple Intelligence capable. And they know what and some new products too And they know what those prices are going to have to be now And so these adjustments are almost like That's what Apple TV has to cost now because the next one's going to cost that When you mentioned the iPhone, they didn't touch the iPhone Why do you think they didn't do that Do you think they will I think I think they will I do think they will. You kind of have to, right? I think like maybe The economics are a little bit different and maybe they feel like they can hold off Until the fall Maybe it's just the most important product. Yeah, But do you want to announce the new iPhone And that starting price is two hundred dollars more than the otherers. Like is that the way you want to introduce the iPhone nineteen I don't know And he is that's the argument price It's ye, I don't know It seems interesting to me that it did it in two waves. I feel like now, if you're going to do it, now's the time to do it But maybe they're hoping for some kind of magic between now and then Like I don't know what it might be. Well, actually I don't know if this will help, but My analysis last week spot on. The Financial Times is reporting that Apple is lobbying the Trump administration for an exemption to buy and use RAM from Chinese manufacturers. So Apple specifically want to buy RAM from a company called CXMT. which is a company on the Pentagon's blacklist because of ties to the Chinese military So it's actually not illegal for Apple to buy RAM from these companies. carry significant complications in both procure so getting them into America or elsewhere and also reputational risk if they do without working with the government And apparently according to Advanure Times, Apple started this effort a month ago working with the government to try and say like We want to do this, let us do this And this is this is your I mean, this is your take that the deal with like we're going to we're going to let Intel we're going to work with Intel is they're trying to do a pretty Qid pro quo here of like Look, we're going to do more American stuff, but right now we have a memory challenge and let us work with these guys. I think one of the issues too because so Apple tried this a few years ago, right? twenty twenty two. Yeah And parties in Congress were like, you can't do this. And a lot of the issue, it's not even just the Chinese military. I think a lot of the issues is is a it is viewed as a government company and therefore doesn't One of the big challenges with a lot of international trade stuff is You're not playing fair because your government is making this product is subsidizing the making of this product. It's not a It's not an actual a competitive company. It's a company that you're likeike a great example of this is that for years the U. S. Um yelled a lot about Airbus. the French based. plane manufacturer. Obviously the Boeing, their prime competitor is in the U. S A lot of those arguments I remember seeing about Airbus were Airbus gets subsidies from Europe and from the European governments. and therefore it's not a And so then they would say we are going to have sanctions on Airbus because it's not fairly competing with you're propping it up and that that ruins the competition. I get the sense that that's part of the argument here is that this is this is not just a Chinese company that makes RAM. It's a company funded by the Chinese military and government that makes RAM. But also look, the U S both parties are not immune from saber rattling about the Chinese Communist Party or the Chinese military or China in general And so that's what's going on here. I do wonder if Donald Trump doesn't care Be remember, he has a very weird relationship with China where he's often belligerent toward them, but also talks about how great she is. So go figure And if Tim Cook comes to him and is like let's So much of what Trump does is transactional. If he views this as a deal, which is I'm getting Apple to invest in Intel which we which the government owns a part of now And it's going to be about American manufacturer. We can let them have the Chinese chips and put like I said last week, I think Put some restrictions on it Like only for phones in China or not for phones in the U.S. or however you want to do it. But they they need a solid down because Be in twenty twenty two they wanted to do this and sell these phones only in China and the American government J why start the same thing was like you cannot do. You cannot all becausecause you're going to be giving money to and propping up this company Yeah So it's a it's a real challenge but you did call it. It was it was Cook mentioning it. like it seems so out of character, right for him to just because it felt to me like in reading that article That was something that he brought up Like it wasn't really a question. It just felt to me like Maybe it was like, you know, someone slipped the reporter or a note be like, ask about Chinese RAM. He' like,, great question. Like it seems so strange for him to just be like Well everything's on the table. Like it just it was a very odd exchange to me, just in the way that it read and then with the Yeahah, it just seemed like this was a thing that was going to happen and I reckon they'll get some, it will work. I reckon it will work. I don't know exactly what the shape of it will be. But I think that we're in times where Deals can be made and also we're in this like unprecedented weirdness. It's like You know, I can imagine Cook being like, well We won't sell as many iPhones You know, that's not good for our economy. Like it's going to be weird, but R in a very strange time. So I consider myself one of the lucky ones I bought a MacBook Air day the day before the price increase was announced. I'm going to take some credit this. I feel like I talk me. No, absolutely, you did. For this reason. So this is an upgrade plus last week. I was talking about some issues I'm having with my M two MacBook Air that I felt like it was getting really slow and creaky and was causing me issues and I was getting very frustrated with it, but I was trying to hold out for the Mac MacBook the Touch screen Mapbook Pro. You basically said to me Well one, you don't even know if you're going to like that machine, which is true. It might not be what I want And you also turns out there's there's more truth than that that we'll get to Yeah later. And then you also said If you buy that computer now The value will probably only go up. so if you trade it in, you'll be fine. And I bought a computer that went up four hundred pounds in value the next day. Nothing holds its value better than a device you buy for one price and then they raise it by four hundred pounds. And you know what's so funny too? Like I did a comparison. And like because I had an M two, right? paid essentially pretty much the same amount of money for a vastly better spectra machine Because the starting price of the M two was more expensive than starting price of the M five when I bought it. Yeah. And so like I ended up getting like I think two terabytes SSD, I think thirty six gigabytes of RAM going to have a great time with that computer. Jamie's we bought my daughter who's going to be editing all the video for design in California and loves it I mentioned her last week and said that she loves it when we mention her on the show and she texted me while she was editing the show and said, Yes I do I love it. Al Hi, Jammie There she is again Uh She had a fifteen inch M four reefer sixteen terabyte or sixteen gig ram one terabyte drive for like a thousand and fifteen dollars H G deal deal? my Macbookhe will not arrive with me until August. Oh no, no, it's yeah, it's gonna to take forever. I go it might it might it might get it faster than that, but like it will see Sometimes I order things like the reurb for Jamie, I was like it'll be a couple of weeks and then they're like, nope, it'll be tomorrow for Okay. All right, whatever Also on the evening of the price increase, I got a text from my momum I had promised that I would get her an Apple TV. She just moved and she's using like a This like Chinese set top box thing DVR, it's terrible. It's really bad. And I said to her like 'use she was very frustrated. It wass like, I'm going to buy an Apple TV, I'm going to set you up and you'll just watch everything on demand. like you're gonna have a better time And she sent me a message and she was like, I can't wait for you to sort this ATV out for me because I hate this thing. I was like, oh my God, the price just went up by fifty percent. But I went to Amazon. they hadn't changed the prices yet. Yeah. Got one at the old price. So I feel like the luckiest man alive foran. I wonder how many people like went to Costco the day the announcement happened and picked up a MacBook No or aacBookter before they got to relabel the prices I do not know how I got that price at Amazon about changed it Just as a side note, I've been thinking about this before we move I think the next couple of years are going to be Weird Yeah I You know, like I feel like there is going to be a new kind of like cloud over new hardware. that didn't exist that like it's going to be way more expensive. We're going to be talking about price of stuff more than we have, which is I think is a necessary but somewhat frustrating kind of conversation to have. And I also see a world where A lot of our audience keep their devices for longer than they would have before. And so of course the utility of talking about new stuff maybe diminishes a little bit. we're obviously going to do it because it's interesting and exciting to talk about the new products I can just I kind of see that there will be a need that we will talking more about software Like the balance of hardware and software on the show shift a little bit And I also hope companies in general more effort into their software over the next few years to make their products nicer to use for longer for their customers because this is a thing where customers are not going to be able to upgrade on the same cycles that they would have wanted to before or will not be willing to And so yeah, I can imagine I hope that for the Gamal tech industry that people focus on this, but I just it will be a focus of mine over the next Wh in thinking about the like the production of the show that we try and bring more more software into the conversation than we would have before. That's kind of like a thing I've been thinking about. I think it's going to be a necessary component of coverage 'll be somewhere of fun for the next two years, basically. An I'm trying to say. I the summer of Fament LA.. Oh do we need do we need like a Is Donggleown a place where you go when the prices are high or something like that? Is thereest there? someome kind of software related toown neck like a mount The old Dongle toown upgrade Yeah I feel like there's there's a different place, right? Like Donongletown. Oh, interesting Dongleown is is where you go when you need hardware, right? Like that's the whole point of it because you have less p Oh, did you know Here's a little fun fact about Donongle Towns s asince we werere talking about where it was It's actually built. it's on it's by the sea, obviously. Yeah, but it's it's built It's not very far from a very large military base the install base. I didn't know that.allase base. What installase. So maybe there's like like a PX on the install base where you can get vargen hardware and software. something Yeah you know what? We're working on lore here. It's like's a t shirt there somewhere. That's all I'm saying. There's a t shirt in there somewherewhere instore based military supply Yeah conveniently located near Dongletown. Very super convenient for this. Yeah. So this actually places Dongletown probably closer to San Diego. It's probably more like North San Diego County near Camp Pamton, except it's actually the installed base Dgo This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Century Most AI tools will help you write code, but CEA from Sentur is built for when it breaks. It is their AI debugging agent a is built right into century. Because of this, it has full context of your errors, your traces, your logs, your replays and your code all in one place So when something goes wrong, it finds the root calluse and opens to pull request before you even see the alert It will also review your por requests against real production failures. so bugs don't ship in the first place Other AATOs will guess, but Cia knows why your app is broken I think that I am learning more about people that are using AI in their code, just like AI in general, right The more context an agent has better it is at performing the task, and the fact that Centry has all of this information that it can provide to its agent is super helpful for finding these issues And also from developers that I'm talking to, like I'm understanding the value that many people are seeing in having these tools available to them to be able to make fix this to their apps that they weren't able to understand before. but having This sit alongside your production all the time is only going to make you faster So I think it's a very interesting tool that Centry have built You can join millions of developers at companies like Anthropic and Disney Plus who use Sentry to move faster Try it free at SEnty. io and tell them that we send you. They have a free dev plan and listeners of this show can use the code, Ugrade twenty six to get one hundred dollars hundred in centry credits if you're a new user Our thanks to Centry for their support of this show and relay Room aroundoundup time, Jason Snow On Thursday last week M sadd saddle prices are going up, Mike it's and you know, it costs more to Feed a horse than ever before. Th ever before, Pa Mkeeeve reported last week on Thursday that Apple would be skipping the most powerful M six chips in favor of jumping right to M seven. According to Marks wild. Yeah. accccording to Marks sources M six will only be available in its entry level base chip Right? So the IMac the Mac no M six Mac No M six P, no M six Mac, no M six ultra. just an a base M six and go in the machines that you would expect a MacBook air Everything that has an Mitine there Yeah Yeah Mbe an iPad Maybe And I just say that Yeah maybe. I've had Pro and I've had P for sure These products could start arriving, the M six products could start arriving this year The next pro and max chips would be M seven pro and M seven max that will come in twenty twenty seven at some point Right These chips are said to have a stronger focus on AI capabilities, which is why Apple is looking to fast track M seven and just skip M six On one level, I I'm fascinated by this because of the chaos of it, right? It's like seems like such a break. And if Mark Germman's story is right that they that they planned on doing an M six, and then they scrapped it and said the stuff in M seven is too good. They're reading the room. They're like This is the fallout of all those Mac minis. becoming AI machines, right? Is there realization of like, o We need to press this And they look at the M six generation. they're like, it's it's really not that great. The M seven the M five is great and the M seven is great and the M six is kind of in between. Why do why do we not just skip it. and move and move everything ahead to the next one because the next one because they know several generations out, right? So I think that's interesting if that's what happenensed Also potentially they're like Maybe we're not going to sell that many M six Pro MacBook Pros. It It may take some time. That's true. We got some anonymous feedback from somebody who said that Mark German is full of it, essentially, and that they were never going to do an M six Pro or Mac and that that was never the plan for the MacBook Pro with the touchs screen I mean, I had two reactions. That doesn't make sense to. That doesn't make sense. I have two reactions to me. I would love confirmation of that from people who know, because a random anonymous person could be anything. And then my second thing was I was like, Joint Grouper, is that you Becauseuse I know Grouuber's like down on German and I'm like, John, is that you?? Are you in the playback film? I guess? Is there you could text me. It's okay. you know how to text me But uh But assuming that it is true, which I'm going to assume for now, unless unless told by sources who know otherwise I like I like the idea that Apple and and Johnny Sruji are so dynamic in this moment that they're like, you know, the world has changed. When we made the M six plans, things were different We've got M seven. we're really feeling really good about it. Let's make a break here. Eespecially since We know that Apple within Apple, there's a lot of responsibility between like the chip people and the hardware people. We're like You know, you don't ask for a chip and then not ship it in a product Right?t you don't do that. if you're a hardware person. You don't You don't demand a chip from the chip people and then say never mind because that's you're letting them down They want everybody to be in sync Making this chip decision has impact on other hardware because we've been talking for the last six months or whatever about what Mark Garns been reporting about the OLE touchscreen MacBook Pro being the M six generation MacBook Pro, which can't happen if there's no M six Pro and max processors, which is why Mark Grermman posted this story on Thursday, I think last week and everybody's like, what about the laptop? And then on Friday he had that story, which is they're going to apparently do the touchscreen O LED Macook Pro as an M five And then as an M seven which Again Interesting, right? But I think it shows you how Apple feels like from a chip perspective, they have an advantage that they want to press here And that's what I like about this decision is not that it says, o boy, Apple's in disarray they killed the M five pro and Max. No, no, it's the way it's spun in the way that I would read it is Apple wouldould really rather go straight to M seven because M seven is going to be great And so they're just going to get there. They're going they're going to they're going to pay a little bit of a price now in order to jump straight to M seven. That's interesting Yeah, and I feel like this is part of the thing that I always want to see them exhibiting with the chip design, which is like, well, if you're in complete control of it decisions that you otherwise wouldn't make and one of those decisions could be The world is changing, the industry is changing, demands on some of our products are changing So we should accelerate the chip that will meet the change because why wait? L if you know the M seven chip is going to do a better job of what people want to be doing on these machines right now, especially when these machines are more expensive. so they're potentially could see that would want higher need from some mark experiments Bring these chips We'reking on by Macro Pro Max stududio. And then also keep in mind Well, MacBook Pro would be interesting because you get this new body MacBook Pro with the same chips that it has currently, which is a little weird, but it's not unprecedented and they could do it The OED and the touchscreen make it interesting Regardless, right The Other part of this is the Mac Studio, which is the one that really, I mean Mac Mini and Mac Studio are the ones that people are really interested in So they've got a whole other generation to come for those products where they go to M five includluding, according to Mark German M fiveive Ultra, is going to happen. on theirio. Yeah. So they're going to have an AI story in M five generation. They don't need and then they'll go to and they'll jump to M seven the next year year and a half and that works did say I think this is hilarious really in in a very macab way. The M five Ultra, which they will still bring out they're still planning on bring out for the Mac stududio been tested to be able to support up to seven hundred and sixty eight gigabytes of MM. It's just like, no, they're not gonna do that. That's not happening. Oh my God, it will cost a million dollars per machine. Mark does say, so you know, this is the M seven chips be introduced in quote, relatively quick succession after the M six, basically at some point in the first half of twenty twenty seven My thought is like the weird thing here. So would they bring out M six between now and the end of the year and then M seven like new base chips in the first six months. I mean, they've done stuff like that before. I mean they could They could but they imagine getting aac an M six MacBook air in the fall and then an M seven MacBook air in the spring. Well, unless I think they've done this before where they might just notate the M seven base until later in the year, right? So take the M Well, yeah, you could also take the M six and put it in the MacBook ir and take the M seven and put in Or and then you could do an M seven MacBookir refresh in the fall again. L they don't have to go in order. like sometimes they go in weird order like that Right. And you ultimately end up with an M seven iPad Pro and an M sixPad air. There was one where they did the iPad Pro got a base chip and then they brought out the Pro and Max chips and then he didn't ase chip until something later on. I don't remember what one this was where you know, they do this kind of stuff. They have the ability to do that. So the P and Max versions of the M seven would come later in twenty twenty seven So it's all over the place and then an M seven ultra in twenty twenty eight. It might actually mean that you're going to get that o touchcreen MacBook Pro this fall after all, and that then a year later you would get the M seven year and a half later, either late twenty seven or early twenty eight, you'd get the M seven version.. Be Mark says that the touchcreen MacBook Pro is still on track for the end of this year at the beginning twenty seven. Yeah And if it's using the existing M five chips That would strike me as being more more doable if this is all. if this is all happening. So, you know,re we're taking Mark Germman's word. his track record's been pretty good. Um, Especially about these kind of plans. I think that most of his reports have ended up being accurate. So again, I'm much more confident about Mark Germman as a reporter of a common sense logic to me Yeah. Like I can see the chain of events that result in this. And there is a somewhat hopeful thinking from me of that they would do this kind of thing because I think it's the right thing to do. Yeah. You shouldn't just be kind of like nailed to a march that you continue just because like we have to have an M six pro because we have an M six. Yeah ideda here is It takes years to plan ships.. and the danger is that you get so far ahead that you miss the moment. And I think that's what happened, right? Like Apple lookook at WWBC, you saw it. Apple is happy to show off and boast about this fact that agents are running on Mac Minis and Mac Studios and they had that demo experience where they had the four Mac Studios with a terabyte of collective memory running AI models. that price just went up by ten thousand dollars, right? You can't buy it I mean you can't you can't buy those. Those are ones you actually can't buy, but they had them as a demo. and veryery proud of it Let's be clear. It was an accident It was It was a byroduct of Apple's investment in U It's chip technologies and building these systems with lots of really interesting on board capabilities, but it was an accident If they're looking at their chip future, right? And they're looking at the M five, M six, M seven generations. The M five isn't even out yet and they're like, How do we get on top? Like we got and now they've made adjustments and they're like I M seven is actually going to kill it for all of these uses, but it's it's like Th generations out This is this is how you have to do it. You have to be willing to make calls like this if you're going to be working years out because otherwise you're not you're not able to turn the ship fast enough. And so this is the downside, I suppose. That's why I'm so enthusiastic about this conceptually is like I know you work out years ahead, but if in this case, you're like, no, no, no, no, no, we need to jump to this now. And we can pull it ahead a little bit by just fgoing the the one that was in the middle here Let's do it. And they did it. And you know, if that's the case I think that's encouraging because it shows that they're going to jump on this one because they see an advantage D of moving on from the the Max. There have also been a flurry of reports signaling that the folding iPhone is on track for September after some previous concerns of delay. So there's two reports from the Elect One is that there have been problems with the development of the hinge mechanism, but these have now been resolved. This has allowed the device to go into test production, which is the final step before mass production And that Samsung display have been given the approval by Apple to start the production of the OLA display. Apparently the order that has been made is for three million panels for delivery this year We're looking at still September for this We have some element of estimate for maybe what Apple thinks it could sell or hopes it could sell. but we'll see how that goes Considering it is the summer of fun. I wanted to mention something here. We want to Jump on a bandwagon to free the icons, Jason. Yes. Here at the Ugrade podcast We want to use our time in the summer of fun to fully endorse a movement spearheaded today by Rog Aeiba Three MacOS icons from the Squirrel Jail So this this happened in Tahoe where we lost the sh the like inconsistent shapes. MacOS icons. they all put got if you had an inconsistent shape, you were shoved inside of a gray and In Golden Gate, there have been some tweaks to some icons and some of them have a little bit more detail in them again that they had lost a little bit better But we want them to break free of their boxes again. I'm going to reid from Porkfasis at Rogamiba. Apple's prohibition on shapes is a step backwards for both usability and creativity in app icons. Icons are now harder to distinguish because they're no longer allowed to be distinctive But there's no technical reason for it. Apple could and should once again allow icons to take on a wide variety of shapes. we want to agree and endorse this message Yeah. I also there was a link made by March in witchery at A unsung bllog, G bllog, by the way, Ariz Luna Um And he wrote that he wrote about this and really made the case The max should be able to burst out of the squirrel Like there's actually some delight. Mac icon designers got really good at just having things like pop out the edges. And that's what was frustrating about Tahoe is if you went outside the edges at all, you' Your whole icon, including the box that was already there, got put in another box. So then you got a box in a box, which is the worst of all So like Rogamiba's little microphone in audio hijack pushed out the side Automator robot's head pushed out the top and the little pippey scarying pushed out the sideck. That's cute Very threatening He's going to kill you with a pipe. No's I'm sorry. It's plumbing It's plumbing.. Um Mart Chain says this a this is a thing they should probably allow, which I agree. I think that they should probably allow it. I wonder if there are technical things they did in the IcCon Foundation that make it harder. But yes, forcing those gray boxes is the worst. It was the worst in Tahoe. It remains the worst Um And what Paul Cafasas made the point is like, if you then do like an icon style that like takes away all the color or whatever, You know, what are you left with? Like you can't differentiate on shape. You have to differentiate on the shape of the thing in the box. instead of the shape and The box breaks the silhouette. so you can't look at a silhette anymore. You have to then scan the box and it makes a lot of apps look exactly the same. even if they're full color, but especially if you can't even differentiate based on color, which not everybody can do truly, but some of the time, but like That's a good point. And then his other point that I thought was good And it really should be on somebody at Apple's wish list is right now, we have friends who do this. James Thompson does this with Peakout. lotots of fun apps that you choose different icons, right? You can set custom icons in the app. for that app, which lets you do stuff like color code. likeike I've got my Carrot weather is orange I've got some that are like six colors rainbows and stuff And margins suggestion is There ought to be an API for that from Apple. that lets you like when you're editing your home screen Scroll through all the available custom icons and pick one It's like they' such a good idea is such a good idea whyy am I going into the settings of various apps And out of context picking a custom icon and then going back and looking at it, wouldn't it be better if I could style my lock screen from the lock screen editor Okay A a pretty good idea So there's work to be done onn all fronts, but certainly on the Mac, it would be nice if there was a little more freedom because the system just shaming apps with a gray box. iss just the worst And All the apps look the same, you know, have the same shape icon now and it's just not on the Mac. it is really not necessary. So I'm glad we Bring it up again. everyverybody foile your feedbacks. Maybe we'll get this addressed next year, probablybably not this year, No I think it's worth it happen this. I think it's worth I think it's worth talking about as Apple is bringing because Apple's doing a lot of work on icons and that's great. but I think this is one of those cases where they need to rethink some of the things they're doing This episode is brought to you in part by Claude from Anthropics FlaudD is the AI for minds that don't stop good enough. It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you Whver you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter If you're a developer spending half your day on tasks you wish you could hand off code can run in your terminal and read your code base, and can take on things like writing tests, refactoring or debugging without you handholding it through every step G code is at the frontier of eentic coding. It's not just another coding assistant. It'll handle a project wide refactor for you while preserving your coding style and showing its work and you can stay in full control I actually had a great time last week building a little tool that I needed. I needed to be able to take two screenshots. and make a gift that transitioned between the two of them And then be able to take that image And have it not be a gifF, but have it be a webP? video thing to be able to host on the web and be viewable on the web I tried many ways to make this work and then eventually I worked with Claude and I built a little Mac app. I now have a Mac app that can do this. I have a and it just it was unbelievable how quickly I could put this tool together. It took me an hour and I had the whole thing buuilt it with Xcode and like, you know to run well it did all the work for me. And I was able to build and run it in Xcode. I now have this app on my Mac. I have tons of adjustments. It was making suggestions to me like, wouldould you like to be able to do this?' like to be able to do that? It really was incredible. And now I have this little tool that I can use forever and it's a tool that I need, but I couldn't find anything else and Claude was able to help me do it If you're considering adding a new tool to your setup, you want to know you're in good company Companies like Stripe, Shopify, and Pfizer trust Anthropic with the rollout of AI in their businesses. For problems worth solving, get started with Claude today by going to cllaud. Ai slash upgrade. That is CLau dE. ai slash upgrade and check out Claud Pro, which includes access to the features that I mentioned in today's episode. That is Claud. ai slash upgrade. A thanks to Claude for their support of this show and all It is time for some ask upgrade questions Ashley wrote in and said, I've been thinking of the commentary of the Snow Leopard like twenty seven OS releases Mike said that AI focus could have given them the cover to do it. So that Apple focusing on Sya AI, right was one of the thing. then you know, they can in the background from an organizational perspective can then everybody can go fix their bugs because they have this other big feature that's out there They don't need to work on our ROS features. That's the context, right? that Ashley's getting it actually says, what do you think of the idea that these performance improvements are actually enabled by Apple developers using AI tools? These are exactly the kinds of bite size features that I think a good engineer with good coding and model agents could just churn through I think it' all related I think it's a very good point Yeah, I think it's all related. I think Um The AI focus allowed Apple to take the pressure off of everybody else to focus on performance and bug fixes I think Apple also prioritized bug fixes and performance issues that were going to be required for the AI features to do their job, right? There's a lot of knock on effects where they're fixing spotlight so that SirAI, I can use it, but also we all get to use it But yeah, let's throw it in the mix because I think it's it's reasonable Part of this may be Um that the tools now, the AI based tools that are whatever is allowed by Apple engineers anyway to use Yeah This is a thing they're good at is finding bugs, highlighting bugs and performance issues. And in fact, there was just Our friend Marco Arment just wrote about this that K Um used, I believe previous sponsor Claude current research sponsor like minutes minutes ago. Yeah. And basically said, here are four longstanding bugs that I haven't been able to fix. Look at my code and make some suggestions And he says that in like seventy lines of code, he was able to address those bugs that he said were so subtle that he couldn't see him He wrote the code couldouldn't see the bugs And so it's not a stretch to say that Apple developers might also be using AI tools to analyze and for people who are like frustrated about like Do I want AI writing code and all of that? First off, I think there's an argument to be made. I would make it that the one thing that computers are good at is writing code for computers, like that's actually a real good use of them, but even if you take the writing code part out and say it's the analysis of the code Find my bugs find my potential performance issues and then have a trained sophisticated engineer fix them but that you could Use the AI to find them, to spot them much faster, if not like making something that was impossible for somebody like Marco to see. It's like at a very basic level, how different is that to a spell checker for a writter Yeah, I mean, well, especially if you're know' not using to write sentences, you're using it to find the bugs. So to answer Ashley's point, I wouldn't be surprised if that is also part of what's going on here. I think it all is happening sort of together, but it wouldnt it would not surprise me at all if that is one of the ways that Apple's developers can use AI tools is spot the bugs Um You know, you get a feedback about something and you can't reproduce it and you basically say, hereere's the feedback and here's the code to somebody like Claude and say, can this happen? is what analyze this and have them say, Ah Yes There is a bug in this line that does this. and if you change to this, it will work. And then the developer, the, you know, the programmer looks at and there' like, o, that's what it is. and then they then they're off. That's huge. That's a huge productivity saver Tom writes in and says everyone originally assumed that Apple was going to white label the Gemini models from Google and that they were paying a billion dollars for it Now that we know that instead they've did So foremost distillation of the Gemini models are other Google frrontier models to create the Aple foundoundation model. Are the room and there and the rumors that Anthropic said no to the same ask Is the thinking that Google could have agreed to do this to simply to hurt their competition ure. It does seem like Apple got a very good deal here in what they were able to do. Yeah. that was a competition Obviously, they're also going to be in Google's data centers, so that's a part of the deal that we maybe didn't understand at the time. Um, Google Google wants to Like Apple's a good partner because it gives Google's technology another place to be. It blocks out Google's competitors from potentially working with them Um, I mean, it's all I don't I think it's too simplistic to say, Google agreed to this simply to hurt them Google agreed to this for a lot of reasons, but part of competition is winning the contract and boxing out your competition. And I've been saying here for couple of years now that like If I'm open AI last thing I want is for Google. Control. one hundred percent of smartphone AI And what they're doing with Apple is not control But it's like Google is the partner there. That's why open AI is so grumpy about Apple right now. is that You know It's tough in the smartphone context, you've got Gemini on Android. and yeah, there are others there, but like that's the platform owner. and then you've got Apple stuff that is also powered att least to some degree by Gemini on all Apple stuff. In in terms of the smartphone market, that's it It's probably one of their motivators to hiring all of those hardware people to build their own whatevers that they're building with Johnny Ive and company and all those former Apple designers and Engineers is One way you I mean, this is the problem with the duopoly of Android and iPhone is If you're open AI What do you do? competitor is one of your prime competitors is a platform owner and they've got the other platform owner as a partner And so, you know We all have opinions about Johnny Ivan Johnny Ives, weir Sam Altman video where they had coffee in San Francisco and all of that, But like I understand from a strategy perspective Why you look at that and say If they've got this hold on the smartphone On posossible approach on hardware. is to either do our own smartphone or break the smartphone And so that's why they're doing what they're doing. I don't know if they'll succeed at it. I'm skeptical. Thats what they're doing The situation has gotten worse for Oa since they made that arrangement, right? Be now Google and Applea is so close. It's like Google is just They're in all the platforms now. like you know, in all the smartphones, they're just, that's the one. It's like they have a foothold in all of it. It's like, what are you going to do Rob Wites in and says, will the impasse around introducing Apple intelligence features to the EU affect the sale of rumored homePod devices or other Si dependent hardware in the EU. Okay, so My answer, this is a good question. My answer is To the extent that these new products rely on talking to, for example, an iPhone, then yes because iPhones don't have S AI in the EU Only some Apple devices are gatekeepers that are under the DMA Yeah, thereers aren't These devices aren't. so they could they could use Siri AI out of the box. They are not gatekeeper devices They can use it out of the box if you've got an Apple TV that could be used as a home hub and has more power, but some of these will probably have power too It's not a gatekeeper product I think the iPad is the iPad not a gatekeeper product? I think it's not. I think it is now. I think is it now? I think that was one that they came on Mbe maybe on because the Mac isn't like the Mac will have Siri AI because it's It's not a gatekeeper. So my guess is that the way that this is built is either that it's going to be resident on device and the most it's going to do is look at your iCloud or something Um, or it will have some features that will require a paired Apple device. and those might not work. but that others will and that it would be a lesser but not device because remember, again These devices can have CII However, if they have to talk to your iPhone and get it to search your spotlight and this is all how they're built, right? Like Can there be a personal context at all or is the most that it can do to sink, you know I mean, maybe, maybe There are ways that it could be built to get some good information. Maybe all it's really doing is asking the calendar for data, like it's a smartwatch or something, and then from the iPhone and that might be allowed. Maybe But like that's to me, that's how this product can exist in the EU. is that it's primarily its own product talking to Apple servers and it can do that without using the Gatekeeper product with that feature turned on But it's all about how they've created it, right? Like that's the ultimate thing. It's like ye theory, yes, it can work because TV OS or home OS or whatever it is not a gatekeeper So what I would say about that is if I have a home screen product in my house and it's paired to somebody's phone and that person walks out the door, it's got to still work, right st to still work So I think that there are ways that it would be structured so that it would be functional without an iPhone with Apple intntelligence on And Logan Wites in it says, I've always been somebody that deletes my texts, emails, notes, etceta when I are no longer needed. However, the new search in Si makes me think it might be beneficial to archive emails and keep texts forever Would you recommend keeping these so Siri has better context or am I thinking too much about this I you're thinking the exact right amount about this. Yeah. you shouldn't delete things anymore, basically. iss that Yeah SirI will know more about you, the less information you delete. The more you give it, the more it knows. Well, I think I think the real thing is when no longer needed here. Like if a thing is truly disposable disposing of it is fine. But I'll point out clloud storage is available, our storage on our devices is available Um Yes, if you want to use these new features and have a seri that can search through all of your old stuff and tell you things, you got you got to keep those things around. That That's the bottom line of it. and I have I had a moment My moment, which is similar is that I started using Gmail and I stopped filing my email I used to file my email. I used to auto filter it or then transfer it to various mail allas and stuff. Yeah And I realized that with Gmail If I need to find something, I just searched for it. And I just gave up. I just gave up. It's a little like that. You're going to need to embrace the idea that you need to leave a track record behind if you want to be able to use these features, whether it's Spotlight or SirAI to Um seearch your track record. So my recommendation to you, Logan and to other people, just stop deleting things. Don't create the mental overhead in your life of should I keep that message? Just stop deleting stuff. Just let it build up. and you'll be able to take the benefit. likeike a Is it like The amount of information that an individual message takes up is not that much. Now what I will say there is a problem Babppel's deviceices a message attachments, which I think that they need to get better at like removing the attachments a bit more, like that needs to be a bit smarter because I have a very large iMessage database on my mical l which I don't need the reason I know this is because of how much issue I've been having with storage on my Mac I need a new one because I have hundreds of gigabytes of iMessage attachments that I'm not sure I need access to all the time, but they're there. and I always get so nervous. anyway, we don't need to worry about that for now, but just stop leing stuff. just let it build up just text on a computer it can handle If you would like to send in a question for us to answer in a future episode of the show,lease please go to upgradefeedback. com and you can do that. And please go to designed. fm and check out and back our Kickstarter campaign We hope that you enjoyed all of the preview episodes Please look forward to designing California, launching later on this year and we'll tell you more about that when the time comes If you'd like to send in your feedback or follow up for this show, please go to upgradefeedback. com. Thank you to our members who support us of upgrade plus. You can go to get upgradeplus. com and you can sign up for a longer ad free version of the show each and every week. This week, we're going to talk about Jason saying goodbye to Mac World. Maybe for the last time Who knowss? You can find this show on YouTube by searching for upgrade podcast. I'd like to thank our sponsors of this week's episode. That is Keper, Sentry, and Claude. Until next time Say goodbye Jons now.