Tariffs and Future Manufacturing Outlook

From relay, this is Upgrade Episode 5 6 2 for May 5th, twenty twenty five. Today's show is brought to you by Oracle, Squarespace and Delete Me. My name is Mike Hurley. I am joined by Jason Snow. Hi Jason. Hi Mike. It's good to be back. Good be good to be back with you and uh happy happy May. Oh thank you May it's gonna be May. Uh I'm very excited for today's episode. I've been looking forward to it uh for reasons that I assume most listeners will understand. Mm-hmm we'll get to it a little later on in the show, but we don't have time for that right now because we have a snail talk question comes in from Adam who has to say, Jason, as an e ink connoisseur, would you ever consider an e ink monitor? And I have a link here, Jason , to the books , your your friends over at Books, the Books. Books, yeah. Mirror Pro Color Eink Desktop Monitor. Mm-hmm . What do you think of this? Or do you what do you think of the idea of an yank monitor in general? Okay, so let's back up . Sorry to Adam , but I'm not an e ink connoisseur. I'm just thinking you are. I have to I'm not this is how the world labels you. Sometimes when the connoisseurship is hoisted upon you, you must take it. I'm not I I just want to be clear. I just like to read books on e readers. I I have have people people all the time send me notes saying, Hey Jason, I know you review e readers. What are you gonna re read review this giant thing that you use a pen to take notes with? And it's like I don't care. I I when I get uh a an e-reader that has a pen option, I don't get it. When I get sent a review unit that includes the pen, I don't use the pen. I'm not interested. I'm not I'm only interested in basically reading books on e Ink uh readers. That's it. That's where it goes. Well Jason, with great love of e readers comes great responsibility to listen to people talk about e Ink everything. That's I think that's what's going on. Yep. Not interested. Not interested. So would I consider an eating monitor? No. Um uh no, not only are they expensive and are their frame rates not great, and not only are their color reproductions not great and their contrasts not great, but uh this this very credulous, overly credulous uh verge article that you put in our show notes that says, Oh, it's got lighting like on a on a Kindle, so it'll be fine. It's like, you know, okay, they don't have backlight, so what lighting is going on here across twenty five inches can that even reach? That's a very bright front light. I don't really want to have to sit in a room where the where I'm brightly lit from behind in a way that allows me to see my screen because it's a reflective screen. I don't really know what this is for. Like I I don't know. I'll tell you what it's for. I'll tell you what it's for. E Inc. made a a a panel this big. And it's that it's that typical thing. I've seen it my entire career, which is some manufacturer makes a thing and then there are companies who will step up and just put it in a product. Right. And nobody asked the question why. The only reason is because we made it. So now we'll see if anyone wants to buy it. Maybe in the long run, this technology could be used in certain products, right? The idea that you could have a smartphone that that was uh as good as today's smartphones in terms of refresh rate and things and resolution and things like that, but it used much less power and it it didn't have reflection issues because it was actually most of the time being lit by the lighting around you instead of needing a backlight. Like, okay. But also and also like this panel could be used in a bunch of places, but I don't know if it's a consumer product. Like you could use it for signage. Like in in London now, all of the bus stops, uh a lot of the bus stops uh that I've seen recently, the newer ones, they have an e ink display showing you the bus times. It's like that's perfect. Right? Cool. Great. That's that's ex that's do it. And also you can tap through like I have like physical buttons that you can tap through to see the schedules. It's like that is a perfect use of an e ink display. It's just sitting there, it's not drawing any power until somebody needs it. I have a I have that terminal that's on my, you know, on my microwave right now. And then before that I had the other e ink kind of experiment. But again, the point there was more it's an ambient device that has uh that is an interesting application. Yeah. Um and and that's a personal and not commercial and it's a hobbyist kind of thing. But like in the end, it's not about the screen. It's a thing that's enabled by the screen. This just seems like nonsense to me. But There are I'm sure there are very specific niches, probably not personal, as you said, it's probably more commercial, where these could be used, you know. People always talk about like signs in supermarkets and stuff like that. There are lots of uses for this kind of technology that make it interesting, but I just don't't I just don see it. I I just I mentioned I I need to mention again the um the overly credulous verge story just because the other part of it that made me chuckle is the conclusion, which is I feel like it's okay, I'm not trying to be mean here, but this it's so cliched. It's like if you're a gamer, photo or video editor, or someone uses their desktop monitor for watching TV and movies, the Miro Pro color isn't for you. Well, that's true. That is objectively tru e. But if you spend your days editing text, writing or crunching numbers in spreadsheets in a space with plenty of light, wow, okay, an e ink monitor might be worth considering, particularly if you find yourself frequently dealing with eye strain. This is s this is too much. It's like this is this is not the kind of product that is for everybody except this little narrow area for whom it is inappropriate. It really is inappropriate for almost everybody, unless you have a very specific need and the in a space with plenty of light and dealing with eye strain and like yeah yeah the I'm sure that the you know four hundred people who actually want this product we'll find it but I I also want to read an interest quote from this now. Um this is just I just find this funny the statistics and then the price. So the Mirror Pro Color uses a 3200 by 1800 e ink Kaleido 3 panel that can only display a limited palette of four thousand and ninety-six colors. Its refresh capabilities can't match the best L C D or OLED screens, but Books offers four customizable display modes balancing image quality and performance is fast enough to watch videos. Uh this monitor is twenty five inches and it costs one thousand hundred dollars. So you know follow your bliss, I guess. You know? Yeah. Anyway Adam, sorry, we've we've beaten your question to death. But this is good because what Adam has provided us and the upgradians with today is the knowledge that Jason likes e-readers. He does not like e ink. That is important. That is important. Yeah. It's true. I like I like and I like ambient displays, which is why I've got like the limetric time, which is not not an e ink display. It's like uh I don't even know what it is. It's little teeny tiny LEDs, I think, in a yeah in a matrix. But like yeah, it it it um I'm more into kind of e readers and ambient uh information than I am like e ink as a tech it's an interesting technology, but like no, I I've never dreamed of having an e ink monitor and I don't think anybody should. Should yeah. No. Don't if you would like to send in a question for us to answer in a future episode of the show, please go to upgradefeedback.com and you can send in your Snelltalk question. Jason, it's also where lots of people lots of people sent in their recommendations for me for a thermostat to replace my nest. I was very happy. I got lots of great advice. It seemed pretty split between the two companies that I was expecting, Hive and Tad ot. Tad ot edged ahe ad. Um so that is the product that I will be upgrading to. But what I did come to realize in doing a little bit more research is I have a third gen nest thermostat, which is not one of the ones that is being kind of like shut off by the the app so we have a little bit more time to make this decision, so we'll still be able to use our nest um as we were. But this is aga the the point kind of still stands to me that we do need to upgrade because Google is it there is only a a set amount of time and Google's gonna kill off our nest too because they have no desire to support products in Europe. And a bunch of upgradians wrote him uh saying that like what's good about Teto is they actually have like a whole system and so they also make smart uh radiator valves like I have here at the studio. Uh-huh. And so what I will do so our we we have downstairs we actually have underfloor heating and then upstairs it's all controlled by the boiler. So we have radiators. So the downstairs heating that's on its own system, it's not gonna be connected to this at all . Um fortunately, the system that we have, this is all installed by the previous owners, they went with a system that doesn't really tie into any smart home stuff. So it's like, whatever, it's fine. It has an app though, and so like we can program it and whatever. Yeah. I mean my my system. I can't I can't replace it. Comes with its own controller and it's it's very barely smart and I'm using home bridge to connect it and yeah. But the upstairs, you know, it's like it's two bedrooms, an office and a bathroom, and we now have very different temperature needs for those rooms from now going into the future. The nursery would need to be warmer than our bedroom, for example. And they also make these the radiator valves and it ties into the whole system together. I thought, ah, okay, that's actually something I can do to make things better, because at the moment, when we have to turn the the r heating on to heat up one room, we heat up all the rooms, which is like not ideal. Um and so we'd be able to kind of balance them out a little bit across each other and do what we need. So I'm that this that's what I'm going to do at some point and uh Tedo, they're a German company and this is what they do. So this was actually as well the the um I found out in Europe, people that have a first and second gen nest, uh Google worked to Tedo to give them fifty percent off one of the systems to to replace it. That was who they they did a thing with. So you give a European option, I think, if you're using European heating. Absolutely. Absolutely. Uh 'cause Google can't be bothered anymore. Nope. They don't have enough money. They're not big enough. They're just powerful or big enough. It is sad really. I feel bad. Hard times. Hard times over there. So obviously we have a huge lawyer up segment to do later on today, uh which means we don't really have enough time for a full roundup, but I wanted to mention one story which is also kind of like yeah, just half, just a yeah uh there's no ha. Uh I wanted to bring up the fact that the information is reporting that Apple is consider ing splitting their iPhone lineup into two separate releases, one in the fall, one in the spring. Mike, I t I literally texted you immediately when I saw this story and I was like, Mike, it's coming true. Your prediction, your your your prediction is finally coming true, two separate rollouts. This was a prediction that I made in the draft of the ages in episode three hundred for episode four hundred. So it was I was very ahead of my time on this one. Ahead of your time. Uh but they're considering this for twenty twenty six. If they do this, they would do fall twenty six and spring twenty-seven. And then in fall twenty twenty six you would get the iPhone would it be nineteen pro? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Pro nine nine right? What are we on now? Sixteen? So it'd be eight. Sixteen. Eighteen. Eighteen. So you'd get the eighteen pro, the eighteen pro max , the eighteen air, and say the eighteen fold, right? Whatever they would call that. In the fall of twenty twenty six, if that's what they have. And then the iPhone eighteen and the iPhone let's just call it the eighteen E would be in spring of twenty twenty seven. Um Apple want to do this for the obvious reason of the logistical work becomes much easier uh if you're not releasing six phones at once, like six distinct phone models at once. Um but I've I think they should do this for the reason I've been saying they should do it for a long time. Uh I think you get it's it's cleaner to spread it out, you get two distinct kind of like uh uh marketing beats at different points of the year. Why have one iPhone event when you could have two? Exactly. Exactly. I mean and you know the Apple over the the years has done stuff like they'll they might release an S E or they might release a color of an iPhone, but no, let's just actually make it that there will be one in say March and there will be one in September and you just rely on that. Samsung has done this for ages. Like for ages. This is when I when I when I saw Samsung were doing this over time, it's what made me think about it. It's like they they released their like expensive big phones and their foldable phones at one point and then they're like flagship kind of this is the phone that everybody buys at another time, like a a different time of the year. Uh they actually do the I think they do the more expensive ones at the beginning and then the kind of more mainstream ones towards the end of the year, but like whatever, it doesn't matter. Um and what I was thinking about this today, about like, you know, should they do this now? Would it make sense to I kind of realized they do not do this to any other product line. They don't release like all of the Macs at once. They spread it out a bit because it makes sense to do that because just logistically, marketing wise, product development wise, there is a sense to kind of stretching this out a little bit where you can. So I think this makes a lot of sense to do, especially if there are six devices, they won't be able to talk about them all in one event anymore. Like I can't I and really give them a fair shake. Imagine how much easier it is to make iPhones if you have separate production ramps. We just saw this with the 16E, but going even further, separate production ramp up required, separate finalization, all the steps are off a little bit. You're using a lot of the same base technology, but you don't have to ship them all at once. It is, like you said, it is like not shipping every M4 Mac on day one because that would be really, really hard for lots of reasons, for engineering reasons, for marketing reasons, for for factory reasons, for part reasons. There's so many reasons it would be hard. So you spread it out into two. You're giving yourself breathing room as a every aspect of your company, you're getting breathing room. And like I said, I don't think it makes the iPhone message weaker. In fact, I think it makes it stronger because you get two punches at an iPhone event. And the iPhone event is by far the most uh watched Apple event. So if they do two iPhone events, I think that benefits them. I think that there's a net benefit there uh on marketing plus literally everything else. Yep. All right. Let's take our first break now and then we'll get into this this big chunky segment. Uh this episode is brought to you by our friends over at Oracle. There is a growing expense eating into your company's profits. 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That's Oracle.com slash upgrade are thanks to Oracle for their support of this show and all of Relay. It's time to lawyer up . Clunk clunk indeed. Alright, so uh there's some context around this one. We're gonna get into it and we're gonna talk about all of this stuff, but I think that there are some some table there's table setting to be done. So last Wednesday, uh in the kind of next event in Apple's epic five year legal dispute, Apple and Epic's epic five year legal dispute, uh Judge Ivon Gonzalez Rogers made a huge ruling over Apple's ability to collect purchases made outside of applications that are on the App Store. So in twenty twenty one , the judge had uh gave an injunction, ordered an injunction that resulted in Apple creating the ability for developers to have one text link to an external page for purchases that contained no tracking information would display the scare screen to them. What did you call those screens? So like this app may kill you. This app may kill you. This app will kill you, right? Like danger, this app could kill you. Uh that was a long time ago, but scare screens is so perfect. It's just perfect. After all of that, they would still demand 20% of any subsequent purchases, and you as the developer had to do all of the accounting to work that out for a I think it's a seven-day period of any purchase that could occur, even though you couldn't have any tracking on them. Epic went back to the judge and argued that this does not meet with what the judge ordered and effectively results in no change for Apple, which we all knew was the case. The judge subsequently ordered further hearings. These went incredibly poorly for App le and has resulted in a fiery eighty page opinion that rules that Apple can no longer impose any commission or any fee on purchases that consumers make outside of an app. They cannot place any restrictions on how a link or a button looks to start a purchase via the web from inside an app, and they cannot present any screens or dialogues to users to discourage them leaving outs leaving outside of something that says a user is going to a third party website. Essentially, the result of this injunction is that now, from now, from last week, but it's happening now, a developer can choose to forego Apple's in app purchase system and the thirty percent fee completely. All they have to do, and I say all, but all they have to do is the work to enable a web-based purchasing system, which frankly most large companies have anyway because they don't exist in just one place, but you could be any developer and have this set up with accounts and such and are happy with their customer leaving app to complete it. So me and Jason make an app, uh we want to charge say like say we made an app for upgrade plus and we want to charge for it in the previous system. Even if we collected payments outside on our own it was fine. If we had an an iOS app we would, have to do this via in app purchase to be on the app store. That no longer needs to be there. Um and you can't do the purchase inside of the app, but you can have a button that just takes you to a website and you complete the purchase and you're all done. Yep. And those URLs can't the you didn't mention in your bulleted list, but the URLs that Apple said, okay, we're gonna we'll let you do it. You can link to one URL and it has to be static. Which is the worst, right? Because what you want to do as a developer is link to the particular membership plan that they're on or the particular uh item that they want to purchase or whatever, and none of that was allowed before. And in this ruling, uh the judge said, you no, you can let them link to whatever they want. Yep . This is pretty huge. This is yeah. This is pretty huge. And and just to be clear, um the judge the judge's take here is I gave you Apple the opportunity to implement my ruling in order to be non, you know, not be anti-competitive anymore. That was her ruling. And so I don't want to hear it. I this is a an important point. I don't want to hear it from the people who say, oh, it's so outrageous. Judges and regulators and the legal system are all making free enterprise follow their rules and build products that that that you know that they should be building and the other they should the judges shouldn't be building it that's outrageous the judge here let apple implement something that was in line with the with the rules. She said this is anti-competitive. Here are the reasons why. You need to make it competitive. She didn't say, let me design a system for you. This was three years ago. And then it went through the the sir the court of appeals, the circuit court, uh, and then it went up to the Supreme Court, and then and and in neither case did those courts say Apple is right about this. So they they, I mean, there were like little details that she gets to into the ruling, but basically, all the way through the Supreme Court, they said yep. And the day after the Supreme Court denied cert, which is basically said, We're not going to even take this case, right? Like, no, it's fine. This is the ruling is fine. Uh Apple had to implement this thing. And this is the important point, which is she gave Apple the ball. And all she said was, you design your own system. Here's what I'm looking for in terms of being uh not being anti-competitive. And and what we know because she details it because there was more discovery of memos at Apple. Is Apple was well aware of what was being asked of them. Apple had internal debates about what they wanted to do to implement her ruling . S many senior Apple executives said this means we need to do things like allow people to link out and And and they were overruled by other executives inside Apple who said no, what we need to do is maximize our revenue in a way and our anti-competitive behavior in a way that has a fig leaf. It looks like it would be competitive, but all of the details will be poisoned. They decided to go that path. Now, the way the legal system works is it has come back to the judge in the case because Epica said they're not doing it. It's still anti-competitive. They the thing that they built, 27% of credit card purchases and a seven seven day tax on any further transactions in the store from somebody coming from the app . This is not what you asked them to do. And the judge said, it's absolutely not what I asked them to do. And the deal is I gave you a chance to build what I wanted. You refused to build it. Yep. So now you don't get to build anything. And this is this. She says that this is not a negotiation. This is not a second try. I gave you your try. You chose to refuse to honor what I ordered you to do. So now you don't get to build anything. You just have to turn it all off. And that is what we've we've been talking about for a while now. That is the consequence of this incrementalism, this malicious compliance, is in this case, the judge can say, I you only get one swing at it. You squandered that swing at it by trying to by conspiring to and and cooking up fake reasons, and she's got the the the details, in order to, in order to maintain your your anti-competitive behavior. And so I'm just blasting all your rules away. And so as of the next day, all of those rules didn't go to well, what about 10% or what about 15%? No, it's zero. And what about the URLs? No, you just can. And what about the scare sheet? No, it's gone. It's not like it's gone beyond a small thing. Because the I mean, this is the truth. She gave Apple a chance to comply and actually behave in a in a way of Apple's choosing that fulfilled her desire. And Apple refused. And so they are now reaping what they sow or sowing what they reap. I don't know. Both. There's a lot of reaping and a lot of sowing going on. And I think as well, I I think what's important to note that I mean I don't know exactly I don't know exactly how these things go. Um but there is a scenario where you know they did it, they did it in a way that the judge wasn't happy, and we kind of go back around again. But the difference here is she found the evidence of the of them trying to get around it. Like that's that's the problem here. It's not that like, you know, Apple took this and they misunderstood it and they acted in good faith and and this is what they implemented. No, like uh I'll give a quote from from the the uh the opinion. Apple despite knowing its obligations there under thwarted the injunction's goals and continued its anti competitive conduct solely to maintain its revenue stream, remarkably Apple believed that this court would not see through its obvious cover up. So for example, the twenty seven percent. Yep . It is exactly what we thought it was, which is a bunch of Apple executives said, well, it it's a little like arrested development. Like what what could a banana cost, Michael? A hundred dollars? Um it's like, well, what is credit card transaction? Thir three percent? Okay, we'll just make it twenty-seven percent instead of thirty percent. And they knew what they were doing. They knew that what they were doing was poisoning the entire concept because it was not going to save anybody any money to compete with Apple's purchases, and therefore you should just stay with Apple. And then what happens is an app developer came to them and said, I think it was a dating app, and said it's it's like it's not even three percent, it's like more than four percent. So we're gonna lose money if we go outside the store . And Apple's internal reaction was: good, good. It's even working even better than we thought. But what they said to the judge was, oh no, 27% is totally a scientific number that we arrived at by scientific means. It just we calculated up all our expenses and the cost of our APIs and like 27% is what we have to we just have to charge that. But she's got the receipts. It it it it that's not what it is . It's they're doing I mean, Mike, I don't know if it struck you, but as I read the entire judgment, which I did, I just kept shaking my head and thinking it's exactly what we thought it was. Yeah. We knew it was but it but it but it it's worse to see it in black and white. Like it's worse that way. It it is. And if you're a judge, you know, we we can look back with our you know with our popcorn and be like, oh I, knew it. I knew those guys just made up that number. But if you're the judge and you're saying you need to do this thing, and they're like, No, we don't wanna. We're gonna make we're gonna I mean, this is why sh uh she forwarded Apple and one of their executives for criminal contempt. Yes. Like it's hard not to say that Apple is absolutely in contempt of this court, acting in contempt of court, because they literally made a mockery of her instructions, which were to eliminate anti-competitive behavior by creating a new anti competitive system. And so is it any wonder that at the end of the day the judge said, forget about it? It was it was more anti-competitive because like in a scenario based on the fact that somebody would have to then incur all the additional costs of the accounting, like if I as a customer went to this link, right? And like signed up for an account but didn't pay. If I then went back on the web within three days, Apple wants that money. Then that's not how it works in the App Store. Like if I go to you know look at Netflix and I'm like no I don't worry about it and then three days later go you know what I do want it and go to the web browser and sign up. Netflix don't have to give Apple any money right? And just to be clear because I'm seeing some comments about um, well App,le got three years where they got to rake in more money, and that's like, haha, look what they did. Okay . But here's the thing: Apple was given an opportunity to build a reasonable proposal. Yes. That would include more language that would scare you, that would include them taking a percentage of uh transactions outside their store, maybe not the seven day auditing, whatever, but maybe ten percent or something. And by foregoing that, they got there two or three years in the sun or whatever, but the judge now is saying you can take nothing. Yeah. Ever. There was that was a world was that a good move? In which you could have ten percent, five percent, three percent. I mean, uh this probably wouldn't work, but a world where you could be like, it has to be Apple Pay, right? So you they get a little bit or like whatever. That wouldn't be you know, you get my point. There are like lots of different things you could have tried, but now you have zero percent of nothing. Right. All all you had to do was build a system that was arguably competitive, right? So if if Apple said and and and it's not like I I know people have said, oh well what if they did, you know, five percent? They would feel pressure to compete. It's like, yeah, but they've got the home field advantage. They've got it's so easy. You've already got your credit card at Apple, all of that. They could even make make it clear in their rules that the the outside link and the in-app purchase link had to be on the same screen, right? They could they could make a bunch of rules like that. And then they could say, you know, we're gonna take 10% or f or whatever, and then and then Epic might complain, and other companies might complain, but what Apple would I think Apple would have a strong argument to say, look, our system is really easy, it's already there, it's convenient, it's it's secure, people trust Apple for that. You pay 10% . But if you don't, you you're you're doing what again? We've we just heard you're you're doing what four percent five percent? So and we're giving the customer the choice, right? Like so we're g custivoming ers the choice. And you can choose. Yeah. I mean you've got to see what the judge might say about that. But like all you want to do is create an area where there's a competitive uh opportunity to not use what Apple forces you and see if that competitive system is more of a benefit. And then because what Judge uh what the judge in this case, Judge Rogers uh Gonz Gonzalez Rogers said is competitive. Make it competitive. She did not say Apple can't compete. She said make it competitive. But Apple didn't choose to build a compet itive framework. They chose a non-competitive framework. And again, if I were her, I would be furious. And she's furious. And I and we're not lawyers. I know that Ben Thompson pointed out that there's there's some you know questions about like is this takings and all of that. Although I feel like Apple stance Apple's standing is m greatly decreased because they are acting in contempt, right? Like they got their shot at it. Um so it strikes me that this is going to be a a rough one for them. It's not impossible. They said they're going to appeal, but you know, even Tim Cook. The appeal was filed this morning. Yeah. And Tim Cook, you know, basically said, but you never know what might happen. A and and it's in effect now. That's the other thing is that this first round happened with appeals, but I believe this is all just in effect they had to do it the next day because it we're at the end of that process now. I mean I I would be really surprised if their appeal worked. Like th they might be able to gain some ground back, I don't know. But there is also this thing that like I mean well I I even as I'm saying it, I'm like no, but like it does it feel like the genie's out of the bottle on this one, but no Apple doesn't care. They will just go back. We know this, like we can see this . Here's what I say, just a quick aside actually about saying about seeing this. I can't believe that all of this inform ation was just written down. It is kind of amazing, right? Haven't these executives learned by now? But here here's the thing, I don't know. It it may be that they were ordered to keep notes of the meetings involving compliance with the orders, right? Yeah. Yes. I mean it's it's super damning. And and you're in a you're you're literally in meetings where you're saying how do we scheme to get around the judge and people and and people are taking notes. Like what are you what are you doing? Yeah. I I just feel like at this point I it it surprises me. I mean, maybe they decided this was the route they wanted to go down because you know, Google lost its case, like lost its case and continu es to lose lots of its cases because they they kind of instituted this system of like, let's not write this down, and that actually came back to bite them big time. So maybe it is the right call to you know actually the right call is just not to just don't do anything anti-competitive? Like maybe that's just the right call, just be competitive. So speaking of that, let's talk about Phil Schiller. Yeah. Because Phil Schiller comes off pretty well in this document. Not like a hundred percent. Like but but here's the point. Phil Schiller, first off, did the work. And there' theres's a very strong indication from the judge that she is not impressed by other Apple executives who have lots of opinions about her ruling but are but did not read it and were not at the trial. Yep. Uh whereas Phil Schiller was at the trial and clearly she says read every word of the judgment and and and expresses awareness of what is being asked. And so when all of these these jokers are saying, oh, well, let's just do 27% and let's avoid this and let's avoid that. Phil Schiller rolls in and says, and and Phil Schiller , he's a true believer. He's a lifer. He is not some malcontent uh revolutionary inside Apple. He is a made man at Apple. And he says, this outside commission thing, we can't do it. We can't do it. It's it's a bad idea. The judge is is clear about what she wants here. We can't do it. And Luca Meistry and the finance team basically says to Tim Cook: don't listen to Phil . Just do this thing. And then Tim Cook says, I'm going with what Luca says, and not the guy who was our guy at the trial who knows every detail of it, who is Phil Schiller, Apple Fellow, and very senior person at Apple still Phil Schiller. I'm gonna go with the money men . And as the judge wrote, Cook chose poorly. So I it was reading as a John Voye's at Max Story used to be a lawyer, right? And so like you know, he he wrote a good piece about this. They also spoke about on app stories, I really enjoyed it. And something I didn't understand that John explained is like typically a company, a large company, they will appoint an executive specifically to go and listen. Like that's the point. You're going and you're listening. That person was Phil Schiller. So he was appointed as the person to go listen and then they didn't listen to him. So why why why even have him? Like how much money did did that cost to send Phil? And like, you know, in his time, m like time for money for his time, right, which must be very expensive, to have him go and sit in that courtroom and listen for hours and hours and hours and hours, right? And then he was in this situation. He's like, we shouldn't do this. Again, like someone who has effectively before now ran the app store for a decade, who has sat there and not wanted to change these fees, right? And has done everything possible over this last 10 years or however long to hold on to that 30% . He is the person in theory would least be likely to say, let's get rid of this, because he could have gotten rid of it at any point before now . And he's like, we shouldn't do this. Because he knows it's now a question of following a judge's orders. It's the law. Yes. We are saying and and I mean I'm gonna boil it down. There's a meeting where the guy who went to the trial says the law says we have to do X. And then off in the corner, the money men say, Oh, let's not do X. Let's let's concoct a scheme to avoid X. Let's break the law. Yes. And Phil Schiller says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm as true a believer as anyone. I want us to get our money. I believed in the 30%. I bel I I believe it's still the 15% for the small developers. We did that, but the 30%, it's our bread and butter. We have all this. But we can't break the law. This is the law. So we need to find the right approach that benefits us the most that follows the law. And the money men are like, I think we should break the law. I think we should concoct a scheme to break the law instead. And Tim Cook said, let's do that. Let's break the law. Let's ignore the judge's wish. Let's ignore the guy we sent, our expert, uh, Phil, who's been around longer than anybody at this point in the senior ranks. Let's ignore him who's saying you need to follow the law and let's break the law. And that and that's why the judge says that was a bad decision by Tok. That was a that was a a bad decision. You are defying a judge . Because, and I think this is the way we have to say this, Apple executives, at least some of them, not Phil Schiller, Apple executives think they're above the law. That's it. That's the answer. They think they're above the law. And here's the thing that kills me . It's everything we thought they thought. Yeah. They've behaved in the last five or ten years like they're above the law, that they have contempt for everyone, including judges, including regulators, and including their own third party developers, and this ruling just says, yep, that they are who you thought they were. And like saying about breaking the law, it is now being considered that one of those people actually also lied in court, right? Like that they lied in court. And it was a simple I mean it's very simple. Like the lie was you know they the judge asked him yeah asked him like, you know, did you have any idea about the about the the the yeah, when did you come up with this idea of twenty seven percent and they said a date or whatever and it's like you didn't have it before then? It's like, nope, this is the first time we ever spoken about it. But this meeting that Jason's talking about happened months before. Long chain of events involving them concocting the scheme and then reverse engineering. And and so this is why this I think the whole thing, and especially this, is now being kicked up to the district attorney for North Carol uh North Cal Northern California, the US attorney for a criminal content. Yeah, yeah. So it's the it's the U.S. attorney in San Francisco, it got kicked there to for for criminal contempt, which is they'll the that attorney will decide if they want to pursue that or not. And given the current uh state of the justice department and the Trump administration and all that, who knows whether they they want to uh you know any corporate crime is worth prosecuting to them or not. I don't know. I'm sure that Donald Trump would get a call from Tim Cook if they tried to prosecute one of their guys. But um but still , I mean the point is made that they've been referred to the U.S. attorney because the judge feels that they've committed criminal contempt in a in a case. That's not great. That's not great. I should also say, because I saw there was a particularly uh disturbing piece last week on a kind of a penny ante Apple website that is embarrassing and is even more embarrassing now, and I'm not gonna even mention it, where they said something derogatory about the judge in this case. They have also in the past said that about the regulator in the EU. It's uh it's sex ist. But I just want to point out , how do you get that job , you gotta get nominated by the president of the United States and confirmed by the Senate. And this judge was concerned confirmed by the Senate like like eighty to fifteen or something. Like, this is not a rando judge that rolled in off the street. This is a a federal district court judge doing all of this. So I I I think it shows you what dire straits we're in that a a bunch of people who are who are reflexive Apple boosters and propagandists have to resort to insult ing a distinguished judge because they got nothing left. They got nothing left. I don't understand uh like obviously I love Apple products and I love in like the idea of the company and have done for twenty years or whatever. Um but most of all, like I care about the products. But like I just I don't understand how at this point you feel the need to defend them in this? Like, why do you anyone why why would anyone feel the need to defend Apple in this scenario? Beggars belief to me. Anytime anybody wants to come to me and say, oh you shouldn't say those things about Apple. They're really just making a good decision because of this and that. I'm just gonna point to Phil Schiller . Do you think Phil Schiller is against Apple? Phil Schiller is a true believer and a lifer, an Apple lifer and a true believer. There is nobody more in tune with Apple and also with Steve Jobs and what he believed about Apple than Phil Schiller. Number one guy. And he's waving his hands, saying, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't do this . And they did it anyway. So like, I don't want to hear about it. Phil Schiller was right. Don't break don't do crimes. Okay ? It's not hard. It's not hard. And they went the other way. Let's talk about the developer response. Um as I expected this is a big topic. So do develop a response and then then we'll get into what I'm labeling as the further ramifications. The aftermath. The aftermath of this. I want to read a little bit from underscore Davis Smith, who posted on uh Mastodon about this? And I think the underscore is so perfect because like in even like even in private conversations, underscore says to me the same stuff that he says here, which is like, I am very happy to and have been very happy to give Apple the you know to be in the Apple ecosystem, to play by the rules, like it doesn't bother him, right? But I want to read this thing from him on Mastodon here saying that reading this it is clear that the highest levels we are viewed developers we are viewed as a resource to be extracted from, not a customer to be served. It feels like Apple got turned around here and stopped trying to grow satisfaction with developers. Because you know, he's saying that like and I'll read a little bit more to kind of put a bit more context his words. Over the last seventeen years I paid Apple and eye watering the large sum of money for the services they provide me and I don't begrudge them at all. Like because someone like underscore the life that he has is based upon the fact that Apple gave the tools that they gave, right? But I think that there has been um a hopeful uh what it was originally an implicit understanding and a hopeful understanding as time has gone on that no matter what Apple do, at their core, they do still value the devel oper, but it feels like at this point they have gotten far enough away from that that it doesn't feel it doesn't feel like that anymore. As he says, they got turned around and stopped trying to grow satisfaction with developers. Yeah. It it is um I think the I think it's broader than developers too, because there is a tendency for people to sort of say, well, boohoo developers, right? Like you've chose this path and whatever. And I think that's wrong. But I will also say hurts consumers fundamentally. It's a consumer harm. Because we're not saying we're really not saying, you know what we need is Apple to take the 30% away so that uh they can come in with alternate payments at four or five percent, six percent, whatever their processing fees are, and then the devel opers just take all the money away. That could happen. But the other argument is that it makes more price competition because you've eliminated an enormous amount of overhead. And that you will now have price competition where they could charge less, maybe not all that less, and they are more productive. You could also say that it makes it easier for developers to be successful at the App Store. But I I do think that there is a fundamental kind of I keep using this word contempt, that that parts of Apple feel and I also want to be clear, I know people in the developer relations group. They really there are parts of Apple that really do love and care about developers and want to do right-by developers. And I'm going to return now to that image of Phil Schiller in a meeting saying we need to follow the law, and I'm going to continue to call them the money men in the corner, Luca Maestri and his cadre of finan cial uh group people who said no. And why did they do that? Because the organiz ation chose money over everything else. And we'll we can talk about this more in the aftermath, but like it's not just about the money. It's not. And you and an effective CEO needs to balance a lot of different aspects, including the money, but not limited to the money. And this is a case where , you know, there's a shiny object out there, shiny gold , and the judge says, don't take that. You know, well, what if I do a look over there and I take it. Like you just can't it's it's it's the marshmallow experiment on a except for CFOs . Don't take this marshmallow. Like, nope. They they took the marshmallow. Expensive marshmallow. So very the it's already started, right? So the the rules had to be changed immediately and they were uh basically as immediately as they could be changed. And you're already seeing a couple of key players, maybe the most aggrieved, ready to go. So Patreon right out of the gate. So this will allow again if you're a cost your mind back a few months, uh Apple put its uh uh thumb on Patreon and insisted that Patreon take uh give Apple thirty percent of any subscription that was signed up for in the app and also demanded that the everybody had to have the ability to sign up in the app. Right. So it wasn't even like a an individual creator could choose whether or not someone could sign up in the Patreon app. It was like that one two punch. Well, they're now not gonna do this again. And so they've gone back on it again, which is great. So creators will now be able to be in the Patreon app and accept payments from the iOS app by going outside, right? So that's how it's working. So it's the same for everything. You'll say like subscribe in the app, you'll tap it, you'll go out to a website. Something I don't know, but I think I know the answer to is it doesn't you can't do this in Safari View Controller, but it just it opens a website. I I don't know the answer to that questi on. Um I would like to will I would I would love it if it could just open a Safari view controller window right within the apps, you know, actually even being kicked out to another app. But ultimately I don't really think it matters. I don't think customers will care. Um so this will this now means that Apple will no longer be forcing themselves into the process and taking money from creators, which I think is fantastic. I'm so happy about this. Um Spotify, they were they've been ready to go for like four years. Yeah. Uh and it's now shipping. So this one's in the store. Like Federico had some screenshots like you do it, right. You press a button, it's like an actual button um unbelievably, and it takes you out to it opens safari. So I think that might be the route you have to do. Because I'm sure Spotify would push any line they could push. Yeah. No, you have to go out to Safari. Right. Um although just come on. But anyway, um I I'll take what I can get at this point. I won't take anything 'cause this is just in the US, which I'll I'll just quick diversion. Come on, Apple. Like I mean I know you won't, but just like give it up. Just give it up. Like you've this will c we'll I won't step into the ramifications point yet. We'll get there in a minute. Uh stripe has already published a huge set of documentation to help developers implement payment processing of their own. And Epic, Epic have said that they want to bring Fortnite back. There's been a lot of question about if they ha can can or cannot do that . I don't think that Epic would say that unless they actually had a developer account. Like Epic have developer accounts outside of America because otherwise they couldn't publish the Epic Game Store in Europe. Yeah, but that's because they were they were Apple was forced to allow that. And I don't see any sign that that the judge in this case has forced Apple to allow Epic to come back to the store in the US after violating the Epic says a lot of things. know the answer to that. Like we'll have to wait and see. You know, like no one's saying anything other than Epic is saying we're coming back. Apple hasn't said Epic's not coming back. So well there's some bad there there's some bad story news stories that got published that said Fortnite's coming back to the App Store and it's like no, Epic said Fortnite's coming back to the app store in the US . We'll see. But they haven't made some other stuff. So they have announced that the Epic Game Store will come. Again, they're making lots of announcements. Well, all we can say is Epic have said that the Epic Game Store will be available and it will offer game developers payment processing at no cost for the first one million dollars of revenue, then it is their usual eighty-eight to 12% split for being on their store and using their infrastructure. And they're also working on something they're calling web shops for developers of non-games that will be hosted by the Epic Games store. So if you wanted to sell digital content or something, you could Epic will give you the tools to set up a store that, you know, you you have all the links and your cust a customer will click it. It will take them to the to the site, they'll, you know, take them to the web, they th'oughll have your your Epic store there. They have said they haven't published this book be better rates than Apple. They will handle the infrastructure and customers get kind of credit that they can then use in the Epic Game Store for any purchase that they make on an Epic web shop. So my point is this is a few of the many things that's going to happen. You know, uh revenue cat. I don't know if they're doing anything yet, but you know they're going to have stuff. Like ev and there will also be whole new companies that are created to facilitate this stuff. But you're gonna see I think a lot of a lot of success from Stripe and and a lot of these developers are also already using payment processing for things that happen outside. So to build in a new flow that just takes people from the app to their existing outside payment processing. Same makes sense. Makes sense. All of this though, it's messy and ugly for customers. So like all major companies now are gonna implement their own systems and they're gonna be forcing you out to pay because you'd be bananas not to. If you're Disney, if you're Netflix, if you're Amazon, anyone, everyone, why would you give Apple thirty percent? Why would you do that if you don't have to? Thirty percent is a lot of money. Even the fifteen percent that some developers get under certain circumstances is a lot of money, right? That you're not gonna make your service cheaper, but then you get fifteen percent more of it. Like why would you not do that? And the problem is now customers are gonna be thrown left and right to be signing up for accounts all over the place. This is the exact thing that Apple was saying that they were trying to avoid, right? Like they're talking about consumer privacy and stuff, which uh Judge uh Gonzalez Rogers said was a lie. Well like right? Something along those lines of like you just you you hide behind this, which again is a thing that we've all felt. Uh I think Gonzalez Rogers might be an upgrade listener. If you're out there, Judge, we're we appreciate you. But like if Apple chose to be a partner to either the devel opers or the legal system, not a gatekeeper , they could have kept the experience at least for their customers being good because of the experience is going to be worse now than it was before. Because as a customer, your experience of signing up for stuff in the Apple ecosystem, having all your subscriptions available in the App Store, oneck-cli cancellation, all of this stuff, share purchase sharing, all of these incredible benefits that you get as a customer, amazing, but they're going to be gone now. You're not going to have these because no one's going to use this anymore. Even fewer people than before. So if they would have actually just prioritized the customer experience, the experience of their development partners, everyone could have been better off. All customers could have been better off. Apple could have been better off because they could have gotten something out of this. And it's all gone now. It's been thrown away. In the US. Yep. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting or scaling your business, Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings of a professional website, grow your brand, and get paid all in one place. You can get discovered fast with Squarespace's suite of integrated SEO tools because nobody wants to build a beautiful website and Squarespace websites are beautiful because they're so easy and wonderful to build. Uh for you don't want to build this beautiful website and then nobody sees it. That's why every Squarespace website is optimized to be indexed with meta descriptions, an auto-generated site map and more, so more people find your site through search engine results. Stuff like that is exactly why I've used Squarespace for 15 years because I am aware of these terms. 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Then when you're ready to launch your site to the world, use the offer code upgrade to save 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com slash upgrade with the offer code upgrade to get 10% of your first purchase and show you support for the show. A thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show and all of Relay . So I s I was saying you know I I'm I'm frustrated this is US only, honestly, because I think it'd be great if everybody didn't have to keep paying this, developers, customers. Because you know, I know that there are things that I pay more money for because I choose to do them in the Apple ecosystem than if I would have just got to sign up uh on the developer 's website . So I wonder, look at Europe and the DMA. Like, are they just gonna look at this and be like, oh, you know what? Actually, that's that's what we wanted. Like what we wanted was more competition. What we wanted was our developers to make more money. We don't really care about these other app stores anymore. The cut is the biggest problem. It's always been the biggest problem. We'll take that. Similarly, like other antitrust lawsuits, right? If you kind of tie these things together, like you and uh Apple's still got that outstanding case of the Department of Justice. We now know if you look hard enough, there's a ton of stuff available in Discovery. There was so much damning evidence that seemed somewhat readily available to Judge Ivon Gonzalez Rogers. And so is there more of that sitting in there? I've I've got to assume yeah. Like especially in the Slack, which I think we'll get to some of this again in a minute, but like a lot of the Slack messages is by designers and and engineers, people who don't care at the same level that the C-suite would about being about being careful about what they're saying. You know, so like they're just doing what they've been told to do or doing what has been loosely instructed to them and they're just talking about it. But all of that stuff is available under subpoena . So like is this if you you know if you're a uh um if you're a lawmaker and you're now being like great it's in there. We know we can get it. I don't know . I don't know. And then you think about games, right? I mean games is kind of the big thing here. This is what makes up the majority of that service's revenue, right? Is the assumption is the assumption. It's it's coins and gems in games. No game is gonna give Apple the 30% . Right? None. And well, again, it depends on the implementation because I I think you're right that they're gonna be extremely motivated and probably they'll just they'll be a price disparity between them. But I think you still have to offer in app purchase as an option. Maybe hidden away, but I think that rule is still in effect that Apple also needs to be there ? Really? I think so. But um it doesn't have to be visible, right? Well what about for the things that you c that you couldn't? Because there's now stuff that like you couldn't do with in app purchase, but the rules have been changed and you can do I don't know. I don't know. But uh what I'm what I'm saying here is I think there's some especially since that's a hundred percent profit, right? I think there's some benefit to giving Apple's Apple its cut and having it be super easy. And I'm sure these developers will learn if they don't know already the dynamics of parental controls and asking for approval from parents and is how much does opening safari to a web page where a kid has to go and tell their parents to log in or put in their credit card in order to get buy those gems. Or even just you as the consumer, like giving you that second thought before you press bar. Like there is there are there are uh economicces practi there. That's the home field advantage. Th you know, again, but that would be you know, that would be Apple competing. So we'll see. But these things, right? The way that this could touch the money in quite significant ways, the way that this could play into more kind of uh legal challenges . Th this decision to me feels pretty existential to Apple's business . Now, because it's services, right? So services is the growth area. We're gonna talk about earnings in a bit, but services is the growth area it has been for years is what they have always pointed to for Wall Street to be like hey look we're still able to do stuff . You know, our products might be flat, but look at this growth. It just goes up and up and up and up forever. You couple this decision with the fact that it's looking more and more likely like the Google search deal money's gonna be going away and in a few quarters from now that services revenue could take a pretty big decline that would feel at least unlikely that they would be able to build up with any kind of speed. So I don't know, you take away the services revenue. Obviously Apple as a company I'm is doing fine financially, it would be a big chunk, but not you know, they're gonna carry on, but the stock market's not gonna be happy, right? And how much do they care? I don't know. I think this is a an important point, but I also think that it can be over emphasized.. Yes I am much more skeptical, it sounds like than you are of the Google search money going away in part because I have a hard time imagining a remedy that is in a case against Google that allows Google to keep money and harms other people who lose money? Seems like a very weird remedy against Google to say, Google, keep your whatever they're spending in total, thirty billion dollars. Just keep that. And everybody's gonna choose you anyway, and now you're not also I I don't think it actually fits very well because it's it's it's it's referral money, it's affiliate money. And I think the most that will happen is that they won't be allowed to um be the default, but everybody's gonna choose them anyway. I think Apple still and and by the way, Safari , default Safari search is so valuable that if Apple is not allowed to make a deal with Google for it, Apple will find another way to make money on it. They will set up their own search engine with their own ads. They will find a partner. There will be somebody who will pay for Safari. It might not be as much. And this is what my point is. I don't think you're you're going to talk about 20 billion going to zero. But it could take a hit. And I don't think, I don't app purchase and app store revenue is going to go from all to nothing. I think it's going to take a hit. And that means yes, the services line we're probably headed for a moment where the always goes up surface line is going to have a correction . But I will also say, because we're going to talk about Apple's results in a little bit, that if Wall Street understands it and they understand the ramifications, and after that is done it continues to go up from the new low le lower level, they'll probably get over it. Right. They'll they'll get over it it''s nots not it existential because Apple's doing fine it really is just it's an area that they've really built up that they're gonna get a black eye in but if it's about court cases and you know, things like that that are that are out there that are just part of doing business. I I don't know whether Wall Street will be too upset about it in the long run, even though it's going to be a hit to them. Yeah, that's fair . Um so I wanted to I wanted to talk about Luca Maestry for a second. Okay. Great. Good. Because he left. He's not the CFO anymore. No. And one of the stories here is that is that Luca is prominently named as one of the people, and one of his lieutenants is the was personally referred to for criminal contempt. He's referred to in that story as Phil Schiller, who's paid attention to the whole trial saying we can't do this, and Luca Maestri says, No, let's do let's concocked a thing, and Tim chose poorly and chose to go with Luca. I'll also throw in that report from a couple of weeks ago about how Apple's AI team wanted to buy a an enormous amount of GPUs for AI training, a key area where Apple is behind. And the report was that Lucas said no . And Apple actually responded to that report. And their response was weak sauce because their response was no, no, no, no, no. All we did was slow down the amount, but they did get it eventually. Which to me, I read as being, that's not great. No. Apple's got its hair on fire about AI training and AI models and all of that. And you go and you and and and your boss, your your the head of AI says, We're gonna buy this stuff. And then the CFO rolls in and says, Well, let's not buy it all at once. Why not? It's like your parent coming in and saying,, Well I know, I know you want this thing, but why don't we get you this lesser thing? Or why don't we just do a little like why don't why don't we rent a surfboard instead of buying a surfboard for you, which is great if you're gonna go on to the next thing, but it turns out AI not the next thing. And and I d I got really bad scary vibes from the idea that the CFO was telling the head of machine learning how many GPUs he could buy. Yep. And the sl and slow played. Apple's argument is essentially, well, we just slow played him. Which is not, I mean, that doesn't really help. So I have to say, knowing what we know now , one , I wonder if this is why Luca's not the CFO anymore. That that people within Apple were very unhappy with this kind of behavior and they knew that there were going to be ramifications of it. Maybe, maybe not. We'll see. And two, I want to point out that we can't make Luca Maestri the boogeyman because as I as I mentioned earlier , and as I know from all through my career , the job of the CEO, the job of the person at the top is to balance all the needs of the organization and have a vision for what that organization needs to do. And their job is not, and I hear this a lot in in some bad analysis . I hear people say the job of the CEO is to make the shareholders happy or to maximize revenue or to maximize prof it. And what I would say is, I think the job of the CEO is of a public company to make the shareholders happy in the long run , in terms of the corporation's value. The danger is you get these short-sighted CEOs whose job is to make the number this quarter and not worry about next quarter and try to make that quarterly number as long as they can. And once they finally don't make it, they get a golden parachute and they're gone and they replace it with another guy who goes through the same process. And that's how you hollow out successful businesses and destroy them. The job of Tim Cook is not to be pennywise and pound foolish. The job of Tim Cook is to listen to his CFO , yes, it is, but also to consider the value of the brand and the long-term relationship with developers and the possibility that if they lose this, if they displease the judge, they're not going to just lose some money. They're going to lose all this money because they're going to be zeroed out by an angry judge. The job of the CEO is to consider all of that. And that's the part that troubles me the most about this is not because I'm not saying don't listen to the moneymen. I'm saying CEO's job is to not just listen to the moneymen but consider the big picture. The moneymen have a very loud voice. A good CEO knows that you can't just listen to that noise because there are bigger pic picture issues. And I gotta say, this is the most disappointed, and I know that other thing , this is the most disappointed, I've been in Tim Cook because this suggests to me something that I didn't really think was true of Tim Cook, which is that at the end of the day, if there's an argument between doing a good thing that takes a hit in the short term but is probably better for Apple in the long term and also um complies with the law, or just spiding a judge's order because you want to maximize revenue, he that he chose that one. That that's very disappointing because that is not thinking big picture of a guy who I think has shown that he's pretty good at thinking about the big picture, but I think he got overwhelmed by whatever it is that Apple thinks it's really entitled to not compete and to take uh as much money as it can out of the market. I'm gonna go one step further than you, uh, because I agree with you completely. So I I I find in general it to be quite tiring to hear people try and say, fire this person, fire this person, that kind of where every time you're unhappy about something that Tim Cook does. Um we have friends that have wanted to fire Tim Cook for a long time and talk about it often . Um this is the first time that I really think that it it could be time to consider a new CEO. And the reason for me is not it's not the Luca thing, right? Like it's for me, it was the fact that there are designers who were egging each other on to make the sc are screens look scarier because it would appease executives. Like that there's transcripts of this from Slack. Yeah. That it would make the bosses happy if they made it worse. And similarly, the people inside of Teams who were celebrating the fact that this would be more expensive. It seems clear to me from seeing this slice of communication that Apple's corporate culture has changed to a degree which I'm unhappy with. It's all I've always felt that and the reason that I love Apple products and why I I respect the company is it feels like their corporate culture was about producing the best possible work. And I know that there that that is the thing that uh encourages people to go work there. But it seems like there is a level of the company now, a level of the company which is being listened to by the CEO maybe more than any other level, where their most important thing is to make money at all cost s, which is what most businesses do , but then you lose the custom experience which is Apple's whole friggin' thing and it should have remained the whole thing and I just feel like if you've gotten if you are at the point where you've taken Apple and turned it into something where there are designers that are trying to make text reads scarier to customers so they are less likely to click a button that would save their money, you've gone too far. It's gone too far. And I don't know how you untangle that. And I d and I don't think this is it because I know those same people are now like that dang judge, she doesn't understand us. How dare she? That's our money. How could she? And the reason and like that and I am com I'm very confident that that thinking is encouraged which would suggest to me and I feel confident in that just from reading what I have read in the last few days. And so I I feel like at this point there needs to be some change. I don't know if it's Tim Cook. I don't know. Right? Maybe it was Luca. I don't know, but they've jumped the shock at this point, I think. So yes. I mean the argument is that Apple's whole business model is they use advanced technology and their own innovation to create products that delight customers and the money follows. And what this is is is, this a little thing where they got a they got an enormous injection of revenue that they didn't really I think expect, which is app store revenue, like when it happened, and they've become not only have they become kind of reliant on it, which I don't think is actually true, but it is a source of growth for them. Wall Street loves it. But it it they become addicted to it and they feel they deserve it and that they feel that it belongs to them. And it has it has I I don't know whatever metaphor you want here. I mean it's hollowed them out, it's poisoned them, it's addicted them to something. They they they feel entitled to it. And and that's what you're saying about the culture being broken, the priorities being misaligned. And and and you know, you can uh we I I mentioned Luca Maestree. I don't know, that's just a weird coincidence that these two things happened, but I will say it goes to in the end to the CEO. It goes to Tim Cook. Tim Cook talks a good game about what Apple stands for. But when you look at this, you see that part of what Apple stands for is compromising their values in order to prevent competition and maximize revenue. And again, I'll make the point , CEO's got to think of the bigger picture because this is a real, if they if this stands, this is this is a completely avoidable misstep that will dramatically harm their revenue and dramatically harms their image. And they've got a house on fire when it comes to how developers feel about them anyway. Um and so the problem, Mike , is this is happening simultaneously with us being in an era where Tim Cook has culture c cultivated amazing relationships with key global players politically , and is the master of supply chain in general, Apple supply chain in particular, at a moment where the supply chain has to be reconfigured rapidly based on global events. So the problem if I'm on the board is I don't like what this says about Tim Cook's approach to these areas , but these other areas is what Tim Cook is great at, and that Apple would be in a much worse place if he wasn't able to do his magic there. Yeah. And so I would be torn as a board member about that, but I will say this. I'm not going to go so far as to say it's time to consider a new CEO. If I were on the board, what I would say is I'm troubled by this report and the suggestion that Apple has lost its way culturally. And that given that Tim is not going to be staying as the CEO for 10 years or whatever, that I want to accelerate a clear succession plan and say if you've got a favorite, let's let's name our favorite who's going to take over in three to five years and let's get that person up to speed and let's make that person more visible and let's explain to that person as a board what we think of as the strengths and weaknesses of this along with the CEO. I would make my displeasure known to Tim, but what I would say is not you're fired. I would say you need to you need to also start planning your and maybe this has already happened, but like you need to you need to know when you're going and it needs to be in the next three to five years. And we're not gonna, we don't want you to stay beyond that. You need to step off. And the and and the new person coming in needs to know what we want from you. Because this is, I think, a a, you know, they shot themselves in the foot here. This is this is unnecessary and they they are going to pay for it. But I don't think I could say you gotta go to the guy who's kind of holding it together, given everything else. If this was a calm seas kind of moment, yeah, I would say maybe you've stayed too long . But it's not a calm seas moment. This is why I'm like I I struggle to be like I'm not saying fire Tim Cook, but I'm saying something needs to change because it seems to me that the culture is broken, and like what does that need to be? Is it he steps aside? Is it they as you say like they accelerate the new CEO and like now internally in the company everybody sees this person as like the new light, you know, like in the and we you know we look towards them. And I will say as well, you know you're saying about oh Tim Cook's, you know, it would be concerning like he's built all these relationships. Apple has the model. Tim Cook becomes executive chairman or chairman of the board, like Steve Jobs did, and then the new CEO comes in. Like sure. That I think would be the way they should do this, right? T to to have that um like that whenever Tim Cook does retire. I think that is that should be part of the plan. Of like he's still there, he's still visible . He's still someone that can be called upon. And then they transition out that way . But I agree with you in the broader sense, which is this is the least confident I've been in Tim Cook, seeing what's in that document makes me much less confident in Tim Cook as a CEO because he he took bad advice for the wrong reasons and applauded bad decisions like this like making the scare sheet almost satirically ludicrously scarier. Yep. It and he specifically applauded that as Phil Schiller saying, that's not really allowed. That's not really the spirit. Didn't matter. He went all the way in, which suggests a level of and this is the thing that comes of course they're gonna appeal, because of course they're gonna appeal. It's a it's a judgment against you, you appeal it. Great, but like I do think that that says something, which is that they just don't believe that they're in the wrong. No . And and that's the problem is it's very hard not to look at that seventy page thing and say , you're in the wrong here. And maybe privately they're saying we should have listened to Phil. I hope that's what they're saying. They're definitely saying that now. Like they are saying that now. Maybe. Maybe.. I hope so I hope so. Because that's the only way you learn is to be is to be in this case brought low and told you have to break all of these rules that you set are just gone because you screwed this up. Like that 's what you need to hear, and then somebody needs to actually believe it and try to institute change. And I'm not convinced that Apple is capable of that. But um we'll see. So I don't I don't like particularly begrudge them for getting to the point that they got to with the like that led up to everything before this court case, right? Where like like and I I wouldn't have said you should fire Tim Cook because they wouldn't get rid of the thirty percent. Like that just wasn't my feeling. The thing that that why I feel like it should be considered now that just change should happen. Like even if it's Tim needs to change, which I also would like to see, like he's you know, re kind of think about how he's considering this, is that when forced to rethink it, from a legal perspective, they were like, Yeah, but what if we didn't, though? Like that was the the the prevailing sentiment. Yeah, but what if we didn't? Like what if we didn't and we did everything possible , including either asking to or encouraging someone to lie under oath, right? Like I don't know why that happened, but there are two reasons why that happened. I don't know which one of them it is that this guy wanted to lie to keep his money or w it was suggested. Who knows? Right? Like I'm not gonna say either way, but there's only two ways that that kind of thing happens. Well there's a third one is like that they really just don't remember, but I don't know about that . I do wanna just before we wrap up on this, Jason, I do just wanna read because I've mentioned this thing about the designers, right? And like the copywriting about the scare screens. I want to read this passage from The Verge because I think it is it it shows what I'm talking about. And there's also one paragraph at the end, which I think is just just objectively hilarious. So a user experience writing manager at Apple instructed an employee to add the phrase external website to the screen because it sounds quote sounds scary so execs will love it. Another employee gave a suggestion on how to make the screen quote even worse by using the developer's name rather than the app name. Quote Ooh, keep going, another Apple employee responded in Slack. So that is the that's that just doesn't I just don't like any of that. Like it it's like it's it's become fun to make developers seem untrustworthy. Right. And then I'll carry on. Even Cook got in on the action. When he finally saw the screen for approval, he asked that another warning be added to state that Apple's privacy and security promises would no longer apply on the web. And then this is the part that I think is hilarious. In core, Apple tried to argue that the term scary didn't actually mean it wanted the screen to scare people. Scary, it claimed, was quote, a term of art, an industry term with specialized meaning. In fact, the company claimed scary meant raising awareness and caution. The court did not buy it, saying the argument strained common sense. Yeah, we're all talking about that like scary design. You know, it's a new responsive design. Scary design. Uh and it just means consumer privacy. Scary design. Yeah, it started with the spice girls and it's just gone on from there. Consumer consumer spice. Oh boy. Well , here we are. Yeah. They also they also say things are sport y. Yeah. Or ginger. I mean, it's just a thing that happens in the tech. I'm surprised people more people don't know this. The most tech are described by spice girls. Sporty design. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm looking forward to the to the posh redesign. Uh-huh. And uh in June. Yeah. Let's do it. This episode is brought to you by Delete Me. Delete Me makes it easy, quick and, safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. Sadly, it's easier than ever to find personal information about people online. Having your address, phone number, and family members' names hanging out on the internet can have consequences and nobody wants to feel vulnerable. With Delete Me, you can protect your personal privacy or the privacy of your business from doxing attacks before sensitive information can be exploited. I love and use DeleteMe. I am a very happy customer. They gave me a subscription, but I continue to use it because I love having somebody in my corner looking out for the information that I don't want to be online . And this isn't just because I mean for me, I love it because I am a public person who likes some of their life to remain private. But even if I wasn't, this is something that I would want for the reasons of like your information can then just be used for spam. It can be used to put you on mailing lists that you don't want. It can be out there that somebody could use to try and uh get at your information if they wanted to, right? Maybe with uh if they want to try and impersonate you or something. You don't want any of that, especially when delete me makes it so easy. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me with a special discount for listeners of this show. Get twenty percent of your delete me plan when you go to J O I N D E L E T E M E dot com slash upgrade twenty and use the promo code upgrade twenty at checkout. I'm gonna read that again because I'm not sure I spot it correctly. J-O-I-N-D-E-L-E-T-E-M-E dot com slash upgrade twenty. That's join delete me dot com slash upgrade twenty and enter the code upgrade twenty at checkout. That's joinedelete me.com slash upgrade twenty and the code upgrade twenty are thanks to delete me for their support of this show and relay. Jason hit me with the jingle. Money money money money who has all the money Money Money Money Money Who has all the money? Money money, money, money, who has all the money It's Apple for now. Alright, so it's Apple Earnings. It's Apple Earnings time. Awkward, it was the next day. Pretty awkward. All right, let me run through the top line. Revenue, ninety-five point four billion dollars, up five percent year over year. This is overall revenue. Uh Mac was at seven point nine billion, up seven percent. Uh iPad was six point four billion up fifteen percent, the iPhone was forty six point eight billion up two percent services up twelve percent at twenty six point six billion and wearables, home ac,cessories , it's the uh ugly stepchild, $7.5 billion down 5% . You did a um a really good article on Six Colors uh that I enjoyed, where you were like, All right. Thank you. Let's actually look at the the headlines here and what is really going on. Um I know you sometimes done this piece on Macworld, uh but I They don't want it anymore, so I read it here now. And I I really liked it. I I I thought it I thought it had a different kind of vibe than the one that you usually do. Um and I I found it really useful. I put more jokes in it, Mike. I put more jokes in it's probably why I liked it. It's just written more like you, right? It's because it's well, the six colors voice is different to the MACCOD voice as it should be because it's not your publication, right? You kind of have they have a style that you fit within when you're there. But um I'm gonna there's a a bunch of things that you pointed out in here, but like essentially the things that I found interesting is that iPhone revenue has been flat for the last three years. Uh and iPad is up fifteen percent and it's four straight quarters of growth after being down for nine out of ten previous quarters. And I for the iPad specifically, I don't feel like I can really put my finger on why it's so successful right now. I mean they're ship ICANN. They're shipping new iPads. But they've always they always ship new iPads. No, but there was a year where they didn't. But that's that's that's more than nine out of ten quarters, though, right? That's what I'm it's like I know there was a year where they didn't, but like I I don't know. It's hard. It's hard to look at these shots sometimes. My my argument is there was a pandemic high where they sold a lot. Then there was a drop off after that because they had they had sold a lot to the people who were going to probably buy one in the next year. Then they didn't release an iPad for a whole year. And now that bar is low enough that by releasing iPads in a regular schedule, they can be higher sales numbers than the year where they didn't release any iPads. So I think that's actually what's going on here. But yeah, the net result is they had a really huge spike with COVID, and then they kind of like fell off for the following couple of years, and now they have a little bit of a resurgence, which I I do think that those are the two things going in there is they're they they had their year of no iPads and they had the year where they were coming off the high of uh of COVID and that that's why. Okay. That's fair. Um I think . Wearables, five percent drop year over year in line with the last seven quarters, which showed revenue drops . Yep. What's um and it's and it's actually uh ten of the last twelve quarters have been down. What 's going on here? Well, I laughed out loud when Apple said that it was a difficult compare with last year because last year they introduced the Vision Pro . Although, I have to say, if you do the math and multiply uh a hundred thousand or whatever it was two hundred thousand by thirty five hundred , you can you can get that nine hundred or four hundred thousand four hundred million drop-off. You can get it. If Apple sold 1 15,000 more VisionPros last Q2 than this Q2 , that would actually account for it. I'm sure it's not all Vision Pro, but like it doesn't take that much to to account for that drop in revenue. And then the other thing that they also I lifted my eyebrow at was they mentioned the Ultra 2 Apple Watch. That's like, okay, the Ultra Two Apple Watch was for sale in Q 2 last year . But it had been for sale for four months prior to that . And so I mean, but I actually I actually don't doubt though, I I honestly I don't doubt the fact that there is a an aging curve of any Apple product and that when you're in month four versus when you're in month sixteen, that month four sells more than month sixte en. I I I I don't doubt that they sold more more ultra twos last year than they would this year when it's an old product and there's probably an ultra three coming in the fall. I don't doubt it. I just find it very funny that their difficult compare is a four-month-old watch and the Vision Pro. But that's where wearables home and accessories is right now, which is why I referred to it as the ugly dog in these results. It's like, ooh, ooh, I mean, I love you, but ooh, you don't look that great. That that's what's going on here. You seem very nice, but but also, you know, you wouldn't win a a contest or anything right now. That's where wearables is. I think personally, my theory is this category is driven almost entirely by the iPod or by AirPods Pro. Yeah. And they've have and they haven't been around and they haven't been updated in ages. And uh that when they do a new AirPods Pro that they'll get a big boost in this category, but also that it's just kind of flat to down and that's just where they are right now. I can't I can't get I cannot get my head around the Apple Watch Ultra Tube . I don't know. Right? It's a different one compared, Mike. How much though? Like what you saying people don't like the black one? Is that what you're saying? Because there's a new black one. Honestly, I think they looked at the 4$00,000 or sorry, $400 million difference between Q2 last time. It was $7.9 billion now seven point five billion. So $400 million . And they looked at, well, why is that? Why we need an excuse. And they looked and they said, well, actually, if you add Vision Pro and Ultra 2, you got all of it. And somebody with like a green eye shade in a back room somewhere, back behind Is it green because of money? Is that why? He's just got like a little adding machine and a green eye shade and he's doing long division and all that. When you said eyeshade, I think you meant makeup No, no, no. Not eyeshadow. An eyeshade. It tints everything green like money. I get it, I get it. Um and he's back there counting pennies and doing whatever click click click on the adding machine and all that, and goes, ah, I got it. If you add these two things together, it makes it a difficult compare. And uh and the the Kevin Peric, the new CFO, was like, great, that's what I'll say. And so that's what they said is, well , boy, it was tough this year. No vision, no new Vision Pro, no new Apple Watch Ultra really saddled that category down. I'm like, okay, I mean I think it's technically true, but what a weird case to make. Well it just it's weird. Weird. I mean I just just say Vision Pro . I know. But they had to throw an Ultra 2 as well. Why? Just say Vision Pro. Like are they are they mad because there was some executive who was like, Let's not do an Ultra Three this year and they're like, Oh, how dare you I'll gonna show you. Like I just feel like they d obviously do not need to they don't need to b Apple's kinda constructed their owning school in such a way that they don't need to tell you anything they don't want to tell you, right? And so like I just don't know why I mean it it helps with safe face a little bit if they're like, oh yeah , man, Vision Pro made us so much money and now we don't have it. The new like it's uh I just f I I just find Ultra 2 being brought up there to be s very curious. Yeah, right? I mean 'cause it's it wasn't this is the thing. Tough a tough compare, a difficult compare that they talk about all the time. Usually it's about a a product that launched. But they bring up the ultra two and it's like, really? The ultra two didn't do as well this year as it did last spring after it already had been out since September . What? And also like the Ultra 2 . I don't know. I can't get this out of my head now. The Ultra 2 was like not even really a good upgrade from the ultra. Like I bought it because I've been waiting. But like it added like one sensor. It was like and it wasn't even a helpful sensor, if I remember I can't even remember what it was now. But it's like it was like such a peculiar product to bring up. Like, why not bring up the fact that you have not updated AirPods Pro, which is obviously all this is ? Weird. I don't know. Very weird. Just weird. Just weird. Look. Look, there's very little uh when they do these things, you gotta glean what you can because there's so much of it that is uh is just sort of boilerplate and almost marketing. But uh that that one one, yeah, step just I I was struck by that. Just Vision it's a tough compare because of Vision Pro and Apple Watch uh Ultra 2. Okay, I guess . Strange . There were they didn't if I'm they didn't really talk about the um the the legal stuff, right, on the on the earnings. Like not very much. No. Um this is the line that I thought, I mean, so Tim Cook said, we strongly disagree with it. We've complied with the court's order and we're gonna appeal, which is I of course he says that, but I thought it was, you know, it's I think it's BS, but that's what he has to say, fine. But what he didn't do is say, it 's not going to matter. Don't worry about it. Instead, he said, We are monitoring these closely, but as you point out, there's risk associated with them, the Google case as well as the Epic case, and the outcome is unclear, which I would say it is. So at least he had that in there that this is not they're not they're not take they're not taking it lightly, nor should they. I feel like it c would have been made more of a thing if Taris weren't also in conversation. So I've got uh a good quote here and some information. So Tim Cook said that for the June quarter, we expect the majority of iPhones sold in the US will have India as their country of origin and Vietnam to be the country of origin for almost all iP ad, Mac, Apple Watch, and AirPods products also sold in the US. Uh Chinese made products will be sold over else, and Apple said that they expect to lose around 900 million dollars in the next quarter due to tariff implications, which that number is large, but as you very astutely pointed out, the this quarter was eighty five point eight billion. Sorry, the the qu the quarter that they're gonna be comparing against was an eighty five point eight billion quarter that they say they're gonna they're expecting to beat. So Yeah. So it's it's a yeah. Nine hundred million seems large until you realize it's gonna be a beat on eighty six billion and they're gonna just take, you know, zero point nine back from that . Uh it's not massive. They could do that. I think the challenge is what happens after that. And the the thing is, Wall Street wants certainty, right? That's what they like. They don't like to be surprised. They want certainty. And the problem with all of this is, as Tim Cook says, nobody knows, right? Like nobody knows. He says, we'll be thoughtful , we'll manage the company, we'll focus on the long term, uh dedicated to innovation, right? All those things. It's like great, but like that's all he can say is like, look , we'll we'll try our best to weather this, but he can't say it's not gonna be a problem because nobody knows. It is a problem. It's just how it is a problem. Right? Yeah. Because they that's 900 million dollars they weren't expecting to not have, right? Like that's again, it's like even to a company that makes the money that they make , I'm sure that they could use a billion dollars, right? That they would use it on something. I don't know what it would be, but they would use it on something and who knows what the potential knock on effects of doing what they have to do is. We don't know. Like there could be knock on effects that they can't even perceive of yet. Like we were just talking about it last time, right? Of like how how ready are these manufacturing pipelines for what is now being thrown at them ? Were they that ready? Like are they gonna be ready? Like what is the p is there going to be you know, like uh for the iPhone this year, will America have less units available for launch day than they would have otherwise? Right? We don't we don't uh d I I'm not saying this will be the case, but there are knock on effects. They also kind of wouldn't they were asked right, if that if I remember right, they were asked r and didn't really say much about uh if prices were gonna change. It's kind of just like, hey, who knows, man, we have to wait and see. Like for customers. There's no there's nothing about it. 'Cause I don't think they know yet. Right? Like nobody knows, right? It's like even I'm sure they've got lots of contingency plans, but you can't say here are various contingency plans. You basically say, we don't know, we'll see. We're gonna like what Tim Cook said, which is like we're gonna keep doing our thing and monitor everything closely, but that is not like that isn't and the analyst did say like, do you have any color on like the rest of the year? And they're like, we told you about the next three months. That's it. That's all we're willing to do. And even there, they're like, by the way, this is an assumption that nothing changes over the next rest of this next two months, I guess, left in this quarter. If something changes, it'll be different. Like the nine the nine hundred million is only if things stay the way they are today or last week. And like when has anything in the last five months stayed the way it is today, like it it just doesn't happen. So we'll see. Yep. Yeah it was an interesting it was interesting earnings. Oh also on Apple Intelligence, Tim Cook said we need more time to complete our work on these features so they meet our high quality bar . We are making progress and we look forward to getting these features into customers' hands. Not much of a statement, but no. He did say they're still working on those features. Yeah. And and and again, clearly it's like they weren't good enough. High quality meet our high quality bar is a very weird, like that's you don't meet the bar, you clear the bar, I uh raise the bar, but you don't meet the bar. Um, whatever. Uh but it's okay. Like uh also I I I wanted to shout out um one of the analysts on this call. So there's a bunch of analysts, they're they're like characters in a weird sitcom that only airs every three months. Um one of them uh is a guy named Richard Kramer at uh a reach research. And uh he had the line of the whole thing, which is when they they because they they say, okay, I'll we'll take our next question, please. And then the the operator comes on and says the next question is from Richard Kramer from Marit Research. And then there's the like clicks and pops, and then and then you hear the voice of somebody else on the call, and they say, Ah, Tim, Kevin, thanks for taking my call. Uh, and then he says, I'm not gonna ask about tariffs. Because literally every question up to that point had been about tariffs. And Kramer's like, I'm not going to ask about tariffs. And you know what? I feel like in that moment, the Apple people were probably like, oh thank God, we don't want to hear about tariffs anymore. And then he asked two questions. His two questions were, so uh you failed to ship that Apple intelligence uh feature set that you were talking about. What's up with that? And they said, Well, it didn't get the high quality bar, but we are making progress and we're gonna get those into customers hands and then his follow-up question was so all these court rulings against you the one yesterday the Google thing where you've got all that money and search referrals what's up with that and they're like uh uh this thing and I just like I don't know if he's gonna get invited back uh I he he I I gave him a gold star basically in my column I actually got an email from Richard Kramer who was like thanks I've I've just Googled Richard Kramer. I got I mean I don't want to reveal too much, but I will say I got a LinkedIn message from Richard Kramer, which is the most analyst thing possible. But like at least he asked these qu like imagine going through this whole phone call. Without without giving it away. Was which Richard Kramer happy to be mentioned in the article? Yes. Oh yeah. No. He was very appreciative of it. Oh, I love that. Oh my god, that's so funny. But but like can you imagine going through this whole thing without anybody asking about them failing with Apple Intelligence stuff and being in all this peril in courts? Like somebody needs to ask that question . So they did let Richard Kramer ask those questions and they had their little statements about it. But I I'm glad somebody did because every I mean tariffs is big and people need to ask about tariffs. But I just laughed out loud when he said I,'m not going to ask about tariffs. I'm like, oh man, here we go. Something that is not another question, trying to get them to say anything resembling anything about tariffs, which, you know, they don't want to do. So thumbs up to Richard Kramer. Good job. Um, and then the only other detail, which probably was known, but I they they they kept talking about, oh, you know, we love the U.S., it's one of those, right? Like we love the U.S. Tim Cook twice listed off all of the states that are in that February press release about their US investment of five hundred billion dollars. They list all those states got listed multiple times. There's a list. Tim Cook's got it right in front of him, taped down that says Michigan, Texas, California, Arizona, Nevada, Iowa, Oregon, North Carolina, and Washington. There it is. Sounds like one of the songs that you learn in school. Mm-hmm. That's right. And uh the part that I thought was an interesting detail, probably already known, but I thought it was very specific , which is the TSMC project in Arizona. He said, we're gonna get tens of millions of advanced chips from that, and they are going to be systems on a chip. They're SOCs. And he said, we are the largest and first company getting product out of that. Now they're not cutting edge, they're legacy notes, but it is, there's going to be stuff in, I don't know, the next Apple TV, that little, that home thing, some other low-end Apple products that are not using the latest and greatestest, hott TSMC processes will be processed will be powered by uh chips fabbed in Arizona by TSMC. Um so you know, I don't know. There was what a week, Mike, and what a whiplash from the judge's report the day before to then that uh uh that uh I I was wondering if they were would say would have like a comment on it and instead that it was sort of just this mild answer to a Richard Kramer question at the end. So yeah. Yeah, they were just hoping they were like, oh, no one's gonna bring this up. Everyone's gonna be too focused on tariffs. But we can always rely on Richard Kramer. I assume those analysts have their questions like vetted beforehand by Apple and like but I don't know. I don't know. I didn't ask Richard Kramer that. But I'm glad they invited him because uh somebody had to ask those questions . Big episode. I think we'll uh we'll come back to ask upgrade next week 'cause we've we've run very long. Give the lasers the week off. It's fine. Yeah, so you can send us your questions uh by going to upgradefeedback.com. You can get your question in for next week. Similarly, if you have any feedback or follow-up, please send them in there. I want to thank our members who support us of Upgrade Plus. Go to getUpgradePlus.com and you will get longer ad-free versions of the show each and every week. You can find the show on YouTube by searching for Upgrade Podcast, and I want to thank our sponsors again for this episode, that is Delete Me, Squarespace, and Oracle. But most of all, I want to thank you for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Goodbye, Mike Hurley .