The Classic iPod Video

From relay this is Upgrade Episode 6 12 for April 20th, twenty twenty si.x Today 's show is brought to you by Delete Me, Squarespace, Steam Clock, and NerdWallet. My name is Mike Hurley and I'm joined by Jason Snow. Hi, Jason Snell. Woo! It's four twenty, Mike. You think people in Cupertino are blazing it today. I think they might be. Alright, so let's set some context. Uh it's 10 PM on Monday night. I am at home. This is the first home podcast recording I've done because Tim Cook has just announced that he is stepping down as CEO of Apple. Yeah. Um so here's the thing, we recorded an entire episode of Upgrade that we will still play for you today. It's a really fun episode, but there was no way we could let this moment happen without being here to talk about it. Exactly. We would have preferred it an hour earlier or twenty-four hours later. Yes, because then I st well yeah, actually either of those would have been great, but here we are. Yep. Uh Jason, could you read from Tim's community letter that he posted to Apple.com? Yeah, so it's really interesting. Apple posted a community letter from Tim and two items which we'll get to that are in the newsroom. Um and and Tim there's some very nice personal stuff in the letter about how much he thinks this this is the best job in the world and all those things. But to get to the the core of it here, he says today we announced I'm taking the next step in my journey at Apple. Over the coming months I will be transitioning to a new role, leaving the CEO job behind in September and becoming Apple's executive chairman. A new person will be stepping into what I know in my heart is the best job in the world. That leader is John Turnus, a brilliant engineer and thinker who has spent the last 25 years building the Apple products our users love so much, obsessed with every detail, focused on every possible way we can make something better, bolder, more beautiful, and more meaningful. He is the perfect person for the job. John cares so much about who we are at Apple, what we do at Apple, who we reach at Apple, and he has the heart and character to lead with extraordinary integrity. I am so proud to call him next Apple's next CEO. The company will reach such incredible heights under his leadership and you will feel his impact in every bit of delight and discovery that grows out of the products and services to come. I can't wait for you to get to know him like I do. This is not goodbye, but at this moment of transition, I wanted to take the opportunity to say thank you. So before we talk about the details. a What beautiful way to introduce John Turnus as a CEO. Like Tim understood the assignment, did the job. Mm-hmm. Absolutely did the job. He starts by saying how great the job is and how he appreciates hearing from people every day and his email and all of that. And then pivots to saying, I can't wait you for you to get to know John like I do. Absolutely. Yeah. Which is lovely. I mean, and this is exactly what we thought it was going to be. Um this is going back to the Financial Times. So I have here, I've been keeping some notes about this because I've been preparing for this. I guess a funny thing is a few months ago I received we received some tips that something was going down and I thought it was going to be this, but it ended up being an all hands meeting for something completely different. Right. So I started keeping some notes. And so on the who was right, uh the Financial Times was right. As soon as early 2026, uh Mark Ger man said he would be shocked if Cook left before mid 26. So I think in the who got this right in the end? Uh Financial Times. I also think uh that there is some other news today , which is that Johnny Sruji is stepping up to a new role called Chief Hard Chief Hardware Officer. Which you know, I'm sure that you would agree with me here. This feels like Mark Gumman being completely correct about Sroogi threatening to leave when this information was probably shared of executives. Yeah, there's so much to for us to talk about here. Um Sro og ee, I yes, I think that report that Sroogi was like, is he leaving? Is he staying? And we said so at the time. When you start having executives moving around, it makes everybody say, well, wait a second. I y might you mean I'm gonna report to the guy who I consider my peer, or maybe I more important than him, John Turn us, instead of Tim. What does that mean? And they like they really want to keep Johnny Stroogie. And I think at the time I even said, this is where you say, yeah, he's going to be the new CEO, but we'll give you a new title too. And we want to make sure you stay. And of course he what he said was, No, no, I love it here and I'm gonna stay. But um I think this is what was leading to that kind of report was this sort of thing. And if you um and so they made him they made a new title for him, Chief Hardware Officer, which, you know, John John Turnus was the SVP of hardware, right? So you can't have a chief hardware officer, a CH O . If you've also got a an SVP of hardware, but you don't anymore because he's going to be the CEO. And it gets him in the C-suite, which was probably part of the deal. I think we even talked about it back then. Uh shows how much they they care about him. And I'm not saying this is like, sure, give him some stuff, give him some candy to make him happy. No, this is show your actual legitimate appreciation for Johnny Struggy by moving him into the C-suite, giving him a title. Because when Tim is leaving, if you're Johnny Stroogie or somebody at that level, you might say, Well, what does this mean for me? And is this a good fit? Or you know, or should I go f somewhere else? I'm not if I'm not appropriately um appreciated, which is not to say he necessarily wanted to be CEO. I don't think that's necessarily true, but he might have. But uh that he wanted to like what what does this mean for me? If Tim is leaving, what does this mean for me? And you know, am I gonna be comfortable in my role in this new world at Apple? And so that's that's what happened with Johnny. Um I have some there's board shenanigans to talk about as well. I love them. So let's do it. Um it's a this Tim Cook's um leaving a CEO is effective September 1st . Um so the Discord is pointing out that technically means both the Finan Times and Gurman are correct, but I still think the Financial Times had this more correct mark in the end. Financial Times said as early as which gives them infinity of time after the beginning of the year. I think they they were they were not as right as they led people to believe, because they suggested it was more imminent than it is. And I also think that Mark German obviously said it wasn't going to happen by mid year and it did. So I think they were both a little bit right and a little bit wrong, which is I know the most unsatisfying thing, which is to say But to back it up further though, Marcus had this right the whole way along. Who it was gonna be and and getting the Suruji thing. You know, this is Yeah, Mark you know Mark Mark German got this years ago and has known this was coming. And and in fact it it feels very much like a like a an apple product launch where it's a big deal, but also we knew all the details already. Both of those things are true. You know, and also I I just want to touch on what you were saying about the chief hardware officer role for turn uh for Sru I mean I've I said this at the time and I stand by it now and I hope this is the change that Apple should have more C-suite roles than it does. Like there should be a chief hardware officer, there should be a chief software officer and a chief design Offeric. I think that they should exist . It doesn't make sense to me why you'd have people like Federigi not in a C suite position at this point. Like I I hope that they start to shuffle things around, and I expect it's going to become a little more awkward now, because why Johnny? Why not everybody else? And like I don't yeah, I don't know what the conversations are there. And like maybe this is a thing that will happen later and it you know it made sense to to talk about Struggy today because obviously there is now a a vacuum left by Turnus moving. Um and so yeah, it is super interesting like the way that they've chosen to do this. Uh before I we we dig into some of the board shenanigans. I did just wanna mention, Jason, where were you when you found out that Tim Cook was stepping down as the CEO? I was sitting in uh studio B in the back room in my house working on some other projects for the afternoon, just taking a you know different change of pace, go to a different place, work on some other stuff. And uh and then I saw the uh you know the red alert from uh it was actually t full full credit m,ust credit um our editor Jim Metzendorf posting the Mark German tweet. Oh really? Yes. Is that where oh it was almost as if Jim was like, do I need to re-edit, upgrade today? And the answer is yes, hi Jim. Yes, yes, sorry Jim. You do. What about you? Uh so Sophia's a little bit under the weather and she was struggling to go to sleep. So, you know, it's like 9 30 and I'm just ti finally getting her down. And so uh I took my phone out of my pocket to mark that she'd finally fallen asleep and I had lots and lots and lots of text messages and then I freaked out now because it's like what am I gonna do? So yeah, I'm in our home like Ediana's home office recording right now. Uh and I'm I'm maybe a little quieter than normal because there is a sleeping baby. So I apologize for that. But there was no way we weren't gonna do this. Babies know their their parents' voices and they they they don't mind, I think. Um my my experience was that like at a at a sporting event oh the opposite is also true at a sporting event, like the whole crowd would scream and nobody would care and then I would scream and my kids would be like, What, what, what? And it's like because they were tuned in to me. But you're at home. And anyway, so uh so yeah, the um I do want to credit Mark German. I think he got he got the gist of this right way in advance, which means it is like an Apple product launch where it's a big deal, but also we already knew, uh, which I'm sure they hate it. Uh in fact, there is a line in the um in the press release that says this transition, which was approved unanimously by the board of directors, follows a thoughtful long term succession planning process, which pat yourself on the back on that, sure, but also yes, we know it was long term because we've known about your process thanks to the Mark German leaks especially for quite a while now. But the board has to be involved. This is this is a the board hires the CEO. So this is obviously Cook and the board have been working on this for a long time, probably about as long as we've known about it. And um it's effective September 1st. What Tim Cook is doing is becoming executive ch airman, which is I believe not a current job. I believe there is a non executive chairman, which is Arthur Levinson, who was the guy who was aging out of the board and they changed the rules to say, no, no, it's important he can stay which they can do because it's just board rules. Um so Arthur Levinson is going to become lead independent director so not working at Apple um uh and he's going to take that role on. John Turnus is going to join the board of directors as CEO and Tim becomes executive chairman, which is a different interesting job that we s we all suspected. I think this wasn't reported as much as just everybody kind of figured that might be a thing that he would do. And there is a key phrase in the press release about Tim Cook's role that fits with our expectation for what was going to happen. And I'll read it to you now. As executive chairman, Cook will assist with certain aspects of the company, including engaging with policymakers around the world. There you go. I mean so I was gonna ask why now I mean it's not a question we can answer. Maybe this was just the time. I my guess is that they pegged it ten days before their quarterly earnings so that they can get this out there before they go quiet and let everything settle before they talk to the financial press next week. I meant more in the broader context, like why why why April twenty twenty-six? Like do do you have any I mean that I know there's no way of knowing. I the fact that Tim is setting up an another role would suggest that he's very fit and healthy to do so. I think that I think they had a plan for twenty six. I think this is what the Financial Times got right, which is they had a transition plan for 2026. I think we our speculation that it would come after they had their uh blockbuster quarter. It's actually, you know, the it it is uh it is further after that, but before their next quarter. Um we know like Chan Turnus introducing the MacBook Neo at the event in New York was part of this transition plan. And we thought so at the time, but it's very clear now that that was what was going on. It's like, let's get John out there high profile uh in advance of this. And I would uh you know I I would imagine that they had a plan, you know, of like we're gonna announce it here and then there's gonna be this and then Tim is going to go and transition later and they're gonna spread it out a little and give e everybody on Wall Street plenty of warning and and time to communicate it and and perhaps even John Turnus will join the call on uh you know, next week. And this is all about that. I mean, he absolutely will, right? And and then you get WWDC, right? Where they'll probably do some stuff together. And then I would expect the iPhone, that's a turn 's production. Yeah, because it'll tip Tim will be not he'll be out of there. He'll be in the boardroom. There's something to say about timing. If you're like, well, if this year is going to be a really interesting iPhone year with the folding iPhone. Maybe that feels like a good time put the hardware guy out there to have that transition. And then before next year with the 20th anniversary iPhone, which is what Mark Goman is rumoring is has rumored will occur. If they really do feel confident about their product roadmap, this is a very good time to have this happen, right? Like if they feel like the next few years from a just pure product perspective will be financially good . Do it now. Like if you think you have a very good pipeline, which they keep talking about, if you do it now, you mitigate any unsettled feelings that might occur over the next couple of years because as with any transition. Yeah, there's gonna be change. Uh change is weird. And and they I mean I keep coming back to this, which is Tim Cook didn't get to have a smooth CEO transition. He did a bunch of acting while Steve Jobs was sick. And then when Steve did the executive chairman transition, he was dying and too ill, and then he died. And Tim didn't. I am 100% guaranteeing you that Tim Cook's goal in all of this is to give John Turnus every opportunity that Tim Cook didn't get because of what happened with Steve. And that's what's going on here is give him the runway, give him the um, you know, give him the the time and the product pipeline and presumably multiple years of prep before this announcement even came out, and be around as executive chairman after the fact, take some of the ugly stuff like the political stuff off of his plate so that he doesn't have to deal with that right out of the gate and he can focus on the stuff that is is not gonna attract that kind of attention. I that was the plan all along, and I do think that that comes not just from the board , although I'm sure it does, but from Tim Cook wanting it to be like this is how you do it. In some ways, maybe a last act by Tim Cook is I want to do a good transition. Not, I mean, obviously, Steve Jobs, it was out of everybody's hands, right? It's one of those things that like nobody had the control. It just is how it happens sometimes. But Tim was like, I don't have to have that happen this time. Let's do this the right way, and that's what they're executing right now. And I guess this actually reflects on Apple as a company now. That like, you know, I pulled some some stats on this a while ago, just preparing for this kind of thing to happen. And something that I note is the company's revenue doubled from twenty eleven to twenty twenty. So kind of you know, from Cook taking over to 2020. That's how much bigger Apple became as a company during that time period. If you're this big, you can't mess this up. Like you have to have this done properly with time and you ought to settle everything. Because Apple's too big to just kind of like bounce around into a succession plan and it just happen, right? Like as you say, like this has to be considered th,ought out, well executed down to every last min ute detail because it they are too important now. They're too big. You can't just like and look, anything can happen, right? As we've said before, Tim Cook could have been hit by a bus six months ago, but they would have had a plan for that. Sure. Now you've got everything settled in the exact way that you want, you do it properly. And it's like this, right? Like set it up so that Tim can manage all of the current government leaders he has to manage for a few more years. And then maybe people start to turn over and then Turner starts to take those relationships because they're new relationships. There is, you know, you don't just be like, all right, good luck, everybody. Yeah, but it's like Tim Tim Apple . Tim Apple's still there. And in fact, I think that'll be the message is don't worry, just call me. I'm I'm Tim App This is the way it should be. Like these things are relationship based. Why exactly? It would be wild to do it any other way, no matter who the president is. And let the uh let the new CEO um have some time to to work on the other aspects of the job. Um yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Going back to Johnny Struggy for a minute. Yeah . Um, I just he so he uh Apple bought his company and it was the foundation for what everything Apple has done in their in their chip design, and basically we would say now he's the father of Apple Silicon, basically. Yeah. Um I at the time when there was that rumor of like, is he shaky? Is he going? What's going on? Like it became clear if it was not crystal clear before how important Johnny Struggy is to Apple because their trip their chip strategy is such a huge part of their hardware advantage. And they've they've spread it out. So now it's everything they make is Apple Silicon, right? It used to be like, well, the iPhone, which is su the most important product they make, but now it's everything. So the I we'll see what happens here, but this sh to me looks really like Apple's priorities are in the right place. They know they need to keep Johnny Thruggy. They are they they want to keep him happy. They wanna give him whatever he wants essentially so that he stays because he's a huge asset for them and they don't want him walking out the door. I also have to wonder if another one of these things that we didn't quite see, but we could guess about is I this is my theory, but I'm just gonna throw it out there again. Did Alan Dye leave because they were not going to rush to protect him like they did Johnny Sroogee? Not not directly, not like oh, you,'re treating Johnny this way, but more like this obviously shook every aspect of the senior leadership at Apple, but the idea that Tim was leaving. And and my theory when when Alan Dye left was not that he wasn't liked, because all the reports say he was liked, but maybe he wasn't liked quite as much as he wished he was. Whereas Johnny Shrugie clearly was like, we gotta keep this guy. I said it at the time and I still think it's I think even more so it's the case now. I think Dye asked to be chief design officer, and I think he was told no. And I think that's was like well, fine. And then he's out the door. Yeah. And because I expect, as you're right, like everybody started to get told about us at the same time because those stories, the Alan Dice story and the Johnny Shrugie story, I think they're in the same week. So that would suggest that they were a lot of these happening at the same time. There was this whole thing going on toward the end of the year, right? So um John Turnus. Haven't talked a lot about him. I'm I'm I've talked to him a couple of times. Yep. Um , so that's great. I get to play it now. Like the Don Turnus at least could see my face and and come up with a name. So that's awesome. Because ch Tim Cook doesn't know who I am. but But John John Turnus does. So that's great. Hi John. I have a selfie with each of them. Yeah. Well. Taken in the same year, I think. Very nice. Very nice. Not bad. So um here's what Cook um Cook said John Turnis is the mind of an engineer, the soul of an innovator, and the heart to lead with integrity and with honor. He's a visionary whose contributions to Apple over twenty-five years are already too numerous to count, and he is without question the right person to lead Apple into the future. I could not be more confident in his abilities and his character, and I look forward to working closely with him on this transition and in my new role as executive chairman. Now, here's John Turnus in the same press release saying I'm profoundly grateful for this opportunity to carry his mission forward. Having spent almost my entire career at Apple, I have been lucky to have worked under Steve Jobs, get that imprint in there, and to have had Tim Cook as my mentor. It has been a privilege to help shape the products and experiences that have changed so much of how we interact with the world and with one another. I am filled with optimism about what we can achieve in the years to come. And I'm so happy to know that the most talented people on earth are here at Apple deter,mined to be part of something bigger than any one of us. I am humbled to step in this role, and I promise to lead with the values and vision that have come to define this special place for half a century. Um, and as Apple PR points out, Turnus joined Apple's product design team in 2001, became VP of Hardware Engineering in 2013. He joined the executive team in 2021 as SVP of hardware engineering, and has overseen hardware engineering work on a variety of prod products at Apple across every category, including iPad and AirPods and many generations of iPhone, Mac and Apple Watch. So basically here are his credentials, but I think most importantly, for those of us who watch Apple, first off, you don't get a new CEO at Apple who hasn't been not just on the uh exec team for five years, but a VP for 13 years and an employee for 25 years. This is how Apple works. It's why it had to be him, because there are not that many people who have risen. He he's risen to this point because of who he is, and they you don't bring in somebody from the outside. No, absolutely not. I mean the history of them doing that with other positions has not gone very well, right? Like historically, even under T in Tim Cook's tenure, the people that he brought in from outside to fill executive positions, I don't know if any of them remained. Or or at least lasted for very long. I don't know. Not not not so much. Not so much. To be I mean to be John Turnus in this moment must be a very surreal experience. Gotta be, right ? What a mantle to be taking. I mean Yeah. It's a mantle that has been held by many people but only remembered for a few. Mike Scott. Nobody remembers. John Scully. No. Michael Spindler, Gil Emilio, Steve Jobs, Tim Cook , John Turnus. Yeah. I think that's it. In September. Not yet. Yeah. He's he's, you know, don't put new curtains in the office yet. Tim's still in there. Um So what else? I I I noticed something in the press release that I thought was interesting because it's it's Apple PR, Apple Newsroom, Apple Market trying to place Tim Cook in context . And I think that says something. And this is this is the part that I wanted to quote . Apple services has been a major focus area of Cooks, and during his tenure the category has grown to become a more than one hundred billion dollar business, the equivalent of aune Fort 40 company. Cook was also instrumental in creating the wearables category at Apple, which now includes the world's most popular watch and headphones, and which has served as the foundation for Apple's remarkable impact on the health and safety of users . Under Cook's leadership, Apple also transitioned to Apple designed silicon, enabling the company to own more of its primary technology and deliver industry-leading gains in power efficiency and performance. So you can see it's sort of like this is their version of the quick bio of Tim, which is services, growth, wearables, and really when you think about it, health and safety in especially the wearables category. This is the you know, your Apple Watch or iPhone saved your life kind of stuff. And then Apple Silicon and and saying he was, you know, he helped enable that with Johnny Srujry, obviously. Um I I mean, not a real surprise, but it's it is interesting to see this is the rare opportunity where Apple is putting Tim Cook's era in its own context, which is a weird thing to think about, but like up till now there was no reason to put Tim in context. But now we need to put Tim in context and this is how they've chosen to do it, which is again, we could all write that paragraph and it would be very similar in terms of what his things are that we would focus on as being kind of legacy of Tim Cook's era. Yeah, I mean it's a good summary, but I actually don't think it's completely fair. Like I think that it's odd to me that they do not talk about continued sh continued stewardship and development of their key platforms. The iPhone's not in here. But it's not like just because he didn't he wasn't the CEO and they created the first one that that means he doesn't get cred it for the all of the ones that came after. Yeah. And he's got I mean, there's a there's a first paragraph there that talks about new categories and products and services and expanding existing product lines and the it mentions vision Pro and it mentions Apple Pay and all of that. And I mean, they tried to be comprehensive. I just thought it was really interesting that they specifically called out services here because that absolutely I mean, for those who don't remember, this has been going on a while, there was a there was a moment in the mid to late 2010s when they basically said, We're gonna grow services a lot really soon. Watch us grow it. It's gonna double in the next three years or whatever. And it doubled in less than that. And it's continued to grow since then. And that was very clearly a major initiative under Cook. And we can debate the good or bad of it, right? Like I would argue that Apple's services focus has overheated to the point where it's harming some of the product quality, right? I think it's Sure. I I I think I I would definitely say that. I think that maybe they've they've gotten the mixture wrong there. Not that it isn't wrong to generate um more money out of all your iPhone customers, but that maybe they make some decisions that I wish that there was more thought put into what that meant for the user experience. But there's no denying like that was a huge aspect to the to the expansion here. There's also no denying a a thing that we are going to talk about again later in this episode in the pr the stuff we already recorded that part of this is also like the iPhone 6 coming out and with the larger phones and more options, that was a a rocket ship of iPhone growth. And like just the growth that started with the iPhone 6 in 2014 completely transformed what Apple was going to be just because of the the money, the size, the scope. It completely changed the company in a very short amount of time in some ways because the iPhone , which had been doing really well , suddenly was just out of control uh growth. It just enormous growth. And that changed everything about Apple and how it operated and how it saw itself and the whole thing. Yeah, it's like, you know, as you say, they they talk about instrumental and expanding existing product lines, etc. etc. I do feel like I've fit just finished reading Apple in China at the exact correct time for me right now if I wasn't going to have read it, read it immediately. Because I think the thing that cannot be denied is Apple is only able to be as big as it is because Tim Cook's operational skill and the way that he's crafted this company to be this operational powerhouse enables them to sell the amount of products that they do because without someone who of his skill who was able to put the right people in the right places, they just wouldn't be able to sell all the products. Like it it needed someone who was able to manage the operations, manage the political climate, manage working with China to get to the point that they could be as big as they are. Like services, sure, but most likely his actual long lasting legacy was the operations apparatus that Cook put in place at Apple. Oh yeah. I mean yeah, it it was was Tim Cook's legacy goes back to when he was COO. It goes back to all of the manufacturing stuff in China and how so much of what Apple's been able to do has been enabled by their ability to build systems to build what they want instead of using that's the great I mean that's the great thing that I learned from Apple in China is I knew it like to a certain degree, but I didn't realize it was so much that that literally Apple would say, We want to build this thing. And any other company that said that, they would be told you can't. That's not how it works. Apple would just say, We're going to do this. And they're like, o,kay I guess we're going to figure out a way to manufacture what Apple wants. And then everybody else in the world gets to use that technique to build their own smartphones or whatever. And that that is that is Tim Cook stuff. Like that is all Tim Cook stuff. So that is a huge legacy of Tim Cook. Is just Apple. Also, I remember when Apple, I mean, Apple used to have swollen inventory. They would have thousands of computers that they that were in the channel that they couldn't get rid of, and that if they would come out with a new model, they would have to write those off because nobody was ever gonna buy them. And like Tim Cook, the impression I get is that Tim Cook was one of those people who came in and was like, uh-uh , we're not gonna do it this way. We're gonna be ruthlessly efficient uh in ways that has benefited Apple. Um, you know, there's a complex legacy there because they were also enabling uh Chinese manufacturing capability. And you know, you could argue that in some cases they made Apple a lot more prone to danger because they were reducing the um the diversity of their um of their supply chain and all these other things. It's complicated. But like also there's no doubt about it that I get the sense that Apple's whole manufacturing thing was just really badly run and that Tim Cook uh was one of the leaders who who got it into shape. It's like going into the very long term, yeah, maybe there are some decisions that were made that end up not being the right ones to have been made, right? But in the intervening time from Cook to now , I mean they're a company that's been able to grow to the scale and size that they're at because they were able to produce and also innovate. It's not just can we make a hundred million of these? Can we make them to the quality level that we're making them? Like that has been incredibly important and has needed the investment and the setup and everything that they've had to develop in China and elsewhere now. Yeah. So to sum up, Tim Cook's gonna end up being CEO of Apple for about 15 years because he started in August of twenty eleven. So it'll be fifteen years and a handful of days . Um and you know, he's got he's gonna be leaving Apple kinda maybe kinda on top, honestly, after especially their all-time you know record quarter that they just had, and with the Mac sales, presumably gonna be interesting with MacBook Neo. Um and and John Turnus you know knows they know what's in the pipel ine, so he's he knows what he's going to be introducing. And like, yeah, we will have plenty of time to consider John Turnus, to consider the legacy of Tim Cook. This is a first draft, because literally we just found out about it, which is why Mike is recording a podcast very near his child. Um but we couldn't again if we had already dropped the episode, what would we do? But uh we didn't. Um so we had to put something in. Yeah. So we'll have much more about this. Next week we will. Next week. And here's a here's the deal, dear upgrade listeners. Not only did you get more than half an hour of us talking about this breaking news, right now . But now you got a couple hours of evergreen fun with your friends past Mike and Jason talking about 50 selected randomly somewhat products from Apple's 50 years in the rest of this episode. And I think you will enjoy it. You don't have to listen to it right now. You can listen to it whenever, because it's not unlikely It's not going to grow old. But we hope you enjoy it as much as we did recording it in a more innocent time when Tim Cook was the CEO of Apple. We are finishing our Apple at fifty programming on this week's show with a big old draft. We are doing the Apple at fifty draft. We are going to be picking twenty-five items each amounting to 50 total picks and we're picking a set of products made by Apple or Apple Computer Inc. These will be physical products only. We're not picking software. We are not picking components or entire product lines. This must be a specific model. These rules we came to an agreement on during upgrade plus last week. Last week. There will be no concepts. These must have actually been released products, so we will not be picking the knowledge navigator here. Or air power. Or air oh, I forgot about air power. Well I mean is air power a concept? I mean I think they thought it was a thing. Yeah, but it was never actually released. So it doesn't count. We will be choosing these items based on our own defined criteria. There is not a defined criteria ranking like significance, importance, or favorite. This is based on personal vibes. Mm-hmm. This is not a pre-agreed list, like many of our other drafts. The picks that we will be making will be a surprise to each other. Jason and I have both amassed our own individual lists and we will be taking turns to pick them. In the show notes, don't do this until the end, but in the show notes, there is a poll where you as the upgradians will get to decide who has the best list . Jason, I have a snow talk question for you. Okay. What was your personal methodology for the list ? I chose I chose products I like. Products you like. Okay . Yeah, with maybe one exception, but but I what I didn't do is like I didn't choose like bad products or or or dumb products . I I chose some weird products, but the weird products tend to be products that are weird. I like them because they're weird. Yeah. I like them. But I I didn't make this like an anti draft or or some eclectic. Like I I uh good vibes. I'm going for good vibes. What about you? What was your methodology? It is a combination of things that I think should be on this list, but mostly ranked with things that were important to me, right? So my list is of things I think should be on here. I have ranked them in such a way of personal importance with some exceptions and also some stuff that's for the fun that like I think should be included in a list. Uh even if maybe they don't deserve it. I might not get to those though, right? Because those some of those are more towards the bottom. And so in upgrade plus today we will most likely be dragging out some of the things that we didn't pick. I have sixty items on my list and I only get to pick twenty-five. So that's gonna be a problem. I have forty-four. Um that's gonna be uh well we'll see. Also, I love the idea that you have ranked them 'cause I have not. So I thought about not ranking. So my I have an Apple note. My Apple note is at the top of this note is a table and I broke it down into the product categories and then picked my favorites from the product product categories, right? And up that was how I was gonna go into this episode, and then it felt too complicated, so then I I ranked them. The ranking's not gonna stick though Whenever we draft, I rank them and then I start moving things around. I just if I didn't do some level of ranking, the I the reason I had to do it because I knew I was gonna forget something if I didn't try and do some kind of ranking and then I'd feel bad. Um oh by the way in Upgrade Plus as well we we gave a a Google form for upgradians to send in their things that they didn't want us to forget. Uh did you choose literally any of the things? I'll tell you right now, I didn't choose I think anything that was in that list . You know, I did just I was I'll put it this way, I was reminded of products by that list . I think in one case I smiled because I already had at least one. I mean, there were several, but there was one that I thought was esoteric, and somebody mentioned it, and I was like, yes, they see me. They see that I've already got that. And then there was one where I thought, oh, that reminds me I'm gonna put a different product on my list. Right, which is pretty funny. That's good. I think that's what it did for me. I think that list reminded me of entire product categories that I could consider, but there wasn't anything where I was like, oh, I should add that one thing to my list. Um, but it was a helpful thing to have, and I'm happy that we did that . So I think considering so this is an exhibition game. Uh the pennant is not on the line here. Um I think is what we decided. This is just this is for fun. But because you are the reigning defending draft champion, I think you should get first pick. Oh well that's very kind of you. I didn't assume that well in that case with the first pick in the Apple of fifty draft, I have to do it I I thought about this a lot. I thought about like what does it mean? And I'm gonna go with what is absolutely the most important product, not the product that without without which the the app that Apple wouldn't have stayed in business, right? Because you could, you would, you would have to dial that all the way back to the Apple II. It's the original iPhone. Okay. This was my number one. When you were teeing that up, I was wondering if you were gonna say the Mac . No . No, in fact, I have I have uh John John Sarakia should should cover his ears because I have the Mac one twenty eight as as groundbreaking as it was, was really not that good. Uh and then they had to fix it later that year with a better version of it. So I I'm I'm I'm gonna say it right now, I'm not gonna pick the Mac one twenty eight. Okay. There are better Macs to pick than that one. Uh even though it was historically vitally important . Um but uh the original iPhone like it it it changed what Apple is completely and it changed what the world is and how people in the world use technology and live their lives. And you know, it was only the first and it didn't sell as well as subsequent models because it was the beginning. I also think that it's got um some remarkable uh characteristics, right? Like I I my Jeopardy anecdote was about picking it up and holding it for the first time, right? When I was expected to have coherent thoughts and ask questions, and I I couldn't because even though retina didn't come until the iphone four the iphone screen was higher resolution than a Mac it and it's in your hand and you're touching you're putting your finger down and things are reacting. Like it was in that I I I completely remember that moment. It was transformative. It was like, oh oh yeah. Okay. This is what this. Like it was clear to me . Clear. And uh, and it's still a pretty cool design for all of the limitations that they had to build into it . Um , it because you know, because of the limitations of building this thing, I I see what Johnny Ive is go is going for. He he he couldn't get all the way there, but I actually think it looks pretty cool, um, even still, given all of that that I was a first generation model. But certainly cooler than the next two, where they're like, ah, whatever, plastic. Yeah. Um, and not until the iPhone 4 did they end up with a better, um, a better design. But the first iPhone, um, yeah, for for many reasons, it's in my number one. Yeah, I think that there are and you've kind of already mentioned one, and I think there are many categories where the original is not the one you pick, right, from any category. But the original iPhone is maybe as good as a product could ever be being the first . It was incomparable. Like nothing came close. It was there was nothing like it. And one of the things that at least the way I've been approaching my list is if you're picking a later product you have to pick you know you you're not encompassing yes in my mind you're not encompassing the entire product line and picking a representative product you need to say why that one and so I did seriously consider the I iPhone 4. wrote a whole thing last week on Macworld about the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 is amazing and will be picked in this draft. Oh, absolutely it will be. If not, if not soon, then eventually. Yeah. Because it's amazing in so many ways, but I I'm not gonna sweep all of the greatness of the iPhone into the iPhone 4 because uh that's not how this works, I think. So original iPhone for this one, but you're right. Um I'm not pitching picking the original Mac . I'm not gonna pick the original iPod . I'm not gonna pick the Apple One or the Apple Two. Like, first versions are not always very good. Yeah. But this one was. I mean, look, you know, this this will age, but I do I don't think there will ever be a more consequential consumer tech product than the iPhone. Like for for what a product is released and then the world changes, like I'm not sure that's ever going to happen again because I don't think it ever happened before. Like personal computers, incredible. But one singular product from one company made that much change. As somebody who spent his entire professional life um talking about technology, i is a real uh head scratcher to realize that um all of that time I spent in my career focusing on computers before the iPhone came out was just a prelude that the per whole personal computer industry was really just a setup because we couldn't get smartphones yet. And that the smartphone was essentially the destination. Now maybe we will go further and maybe there will be some kind of earth shattering pro I think anything that comes along, it will be like oh yeah, it's incremental it's kind of like a phone or it's kind of like this. It the iPhone was just like, oh, when it's not like the other products, it's not like the products it's competing against. It just wasn't. Like it was as much competing against them in that it could make phone calls and it went in your pocket, and that's basically where it ended . Like it was it just maybe the best thing ever. Like yeah . What do you have? So that was my number one. So now I'm gonna go with what is my number two, but we'll very happy to be my number one, the iPod Mini. Alright. The iPod Mini, you know, like we spoke about this in our origin stories, uh the iPod Mini is like the it's the most it is the Apple product I have such I like the highest emotion for because it's the one that brought me in and like m brought me in this journey. And I think the iPod Mini is a very significant product in the success that it brought Apple. Like you know, I think to get to the iPhone we needed the iPod Mini because it was the product that I think really exploded the iPod line and the explosion of the iPod line brought Apple back to where they are or where they were able to be to be able to get to the point that they could produce a product like the iPhone. Like I think the iPod mini is like that is the way it's important to me, but I just think it was was it really emblematic of what was attractive about Apple at that time, in that it was fun and cool, right? Like the design was so weird. It was like you know, it was like a little rectangle, but it had really rounded sides. And it came in a whole range of colours. And it had the white click wheel and the color, like you know, the the the LED colored screen, not a colour screen, right? But it was like blue, right? And it just it had this feel to it, and it was young and fresh, and all the advertising was so good. Like to me, is just such an incredible product, and I I love it and I still have my iPod mini to this day. Uh yeah. I think it's just a fantastic product and and deserves to be high on this list. I get it. Um and I get your personal connection to it. Yeah. And I'm not running your pick down by saying this, but I didn't have it on my list. I'm not surprised. And and I know that there are lots of people that are really upset about it. But I think you're right. I think I think you are are making a perfectly valid decision. I know how much it means to you. And I think there is a real strong argument to be made that that's the iPod that really kind of like made the iPod explode. Yeah. I mean this is the thing. I had my first two picks was the this is the pick for you and then the pick for me. And you picked my for you pick and now I'm picking my for me pick and it's the Apple Mini. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um I'm gonna go number two with uh the most influential computer that Apple has ever released, or at least in the last twenty years . It's the second generation MacBook Air. Oh wait, hang on. What are we talking about here? The the eleven inch and thirteen inch MacBook Airs. Which generation were they the second or the third? Not the bad one with the flip-down door. Okay I believe MacBook Air. Yeah. 2011. Yeah. That one. That one, because that was when they got it right. The first MacBook Air we don't want to really talk about, I had it. It was bad. It shut down a core when in the afternoon when the sun came in my window. But the um with the eleven and thirteen inch MacBook Airs that they released in twenty eleven, they got it right, and like literally every laptop made since then is aiding the MacBook Air. That period. Like it they created like ultra books as a category to so they didn't say Windows laptops that are kind of like the MacBook Air. But like I mean and and the MacBook Pro, even the MacBook Pro is like the MacBook Air now. It's not because the MacBook Air has evolved too, but they're closer than they used to be. And like it the everything has been informed by that MacBook Air design. It it was um it it's the most important it's the defining Mac of you know from the twenty tens to now is the the last fifteen years. And I I think it's uh I think it's one of the most definitive Macs of all time. So this was actually my third pick and specifically I was going to pick the 11 inch because I had the 11 inch MacBook Air and I I adored that computer. Like it it was so fantasti c to have a computer that was as capable as it was in at that time in that form factor. Oh, it was brilliant. The eleven inch McBacare. I know you're a super fan of the 11 inch MacBook Air as well. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I guess it's late it's the late twenty ten MacBook Air. Yeah. Is is technically what it is. Um that's the winner. That's the one. So um everybody knows what I'm talking about. Anyway, yeah, that that was the date. It was late to I was there. I mean that that's the funny thing, is like what year was that? But I remember going to that event and walking away with MacBook Air, because everybody got to walk away with one. And that 11 inch model was I mean, yes, when I think of it, I think of the 11 inch model because that was my main computer for the next, you know, six years or whatever was an 11 inch air. But um just amazing and and definitive like change change uh we talk about changing the game like how the i p the iphone changed the world um in terms of computers and laptops the mac air changed everything uh i'm gonna stick on this vibe and I'm gonna pick my favorite Mac ever, which is the M2 MacBook Air. You know, this is on my list. Good good job. Uh this this is absolutely on my list. This laptop it's it I think is basically perfect. And so like I love you know I'm starting with the M2 because and that's the one that I have but obviously if you get the M3, the M4, is there an M5 of this? Yeah, it's M5, yeah. They all have it. They all have it. Yeah. It's the new it's the current uh design language where it's got the flat, it's not the wedge, it's got the the flat top and bottom and the rounded sides. And um I remember again , I remember getting this seeing it at the event and then getting uh my review unit and just th saying like, oh boy, that this is so good. Like and I again as a MacBook Air wedge partisan all the way back to as we've just determined late 2010 . Yep. I I I I get I get that your wife has uh a great fondness for that wedge design and all of that. I totally get it. But for me, as somebody who also had great fondness for that, when the M2 Air came, I thought, oh this is the one. Because this is the this is the computer that Apple Silicon enables on that side, right? Like Apple Silicon kind of enables computers on both ends of the scale, right? You can have something incredibly powerful because of how powerful these chips can be and how power efficient they are, but you can also have something incredibly s thin and light with no fan that is plenty powerful and incredibly battery efficient because of what these chips enable. Like the, you know, we've all said that many times. The M2 MacBook Air is what they wanted to make when they made the Tormic MacBook, right? Like that is the product you would want to make. And it turns out they were able to make it many years later when they actually went to Apple Silicon. And it's like you know, you look the M1 MacBook Air as, great as it was, you know, it's like, oh, we're gonna take this design and put this chip in it, wonderful. But what if we started from zero and the zero we're starting is that we base it around the capabilities of Raposilicon chips and you create this computer and it to me is like it is the most awesome combination. Like I love my M2 MacBook Air and it will be I will be very sad when I replace it with the touchscreen MacBook Pro because I really want a touch screen Mac. And so and but as soon as they put a touch screen back on that Mac will care, I'm going right. I think I think that that is a conversation for another time, but I think that's a the product that it's gonna a lot a lot of it's gonna be in the details of how they do that. Oh I know. All right. Um for my third pick, I'm gonna finally uh leave the twenty first century. I'm gonna go back in time and I'm gonna uh make a pick here that is the product that I think you could argue allowed the Mac to flourish and succeed. Um it's also gonna be our first accessory slash peripheral in the draft, but I feel so strongly about this that the Macs of that era were okay to good to great, but what made the secret sauce that made the Mac succeed in the eighties and survive in the nineties is the laser writer. Wow. Wow. Ye.ah Come to school. Time for a history lesson, Mike Curly. Please, please. The laser writer, which integrated Adobe's Postscript technology and allowed Macs to become desktop publishing engines and create content at printed quality right out of a computer complet ely change the game. It's what made the publishing industry embrace the Mac. It led to many other models, but and you could upgrade it to a laser writer too by putting a different logic board and all they they improved it in a bunch of ways, but the laser writer it really did change the fortunes of Apple, the Mac, and Adobe and the publishing industry completely. This is how desktop publishing came to be. Is this product? It was kind of accidental in some ways. It was part of the Mac Office, which was this initiative with that that is mostly remembered now for the Lemmings commercial that was so bad. Um parts of the Mac Office never shipped, like the file server that they could never ship, but the laser writer didn't need the rest of the Mac Office. It just I feel like you probably pick this one now because it's important to you, not because you thought you were gonna lose it otherwise? Uh because I think it deserves to be this high, more but definitely not strategically um because I know you're not gonna pick it. But I I you know what? I'm not gonna I'm gonna I'm giving it to you because you know I wasn't gonna pick the iPod mini. Here we are. There you go. Well, congratulations, laser writer. Laser writer. Uh I'm going to pick now what I consider to be one of the most important iPhones ever shipped and it's not the one you're thinking of. I'm going to pick the iPhone 6 Plus . Ah, okay. I see what you're doing here. This was the first big iPhone. Mike! It's iPhone Math. It's iPhone. That is an incredible deep cut where it it from a trailer. Somebody mistranslated of the plus and they they translated because it was presumably in China and in and i i i in a language that was not English and somebody interpreted that plus as being math. And so they said the new phone will the larger phone will be called the iPhone And we all had to deal with that for a little while. Amazing. I love it. Um the iPhone six plus was the first big iPhone. Um and while necessarily you know I think while maybe big iPhone was not super popular at that point, it obviously set trajectory to where we are now where all of the iPhones are massive. Where all of the iPhones now all phones are massive bigger than the iPhone six plus, right? Yeah. This is this is the response to Samsung having success with the Galaxy Note. Yeah. And and and realizing because Samsung just released a bunch of stuff and was like, well, let's see what happens. Yep. Um, and everybody was like, Yes, I want a giant phone. And Apple, which had been so skeptical, and had built iOS around these like fixed sizes that they had to very rapidly say, no, uh make your apps be able to expand to different sizes. Uh because they realized that they had left this opening and they had to fill it. And and the truth is, uh a lot of us out there can grouse about like big phones versus small phones, but the market spoke. The market spoke. People want big phones. That's just I I know some people want small phones, but almost everybody wants big a bigger phone with more stuff on it. So that iPhone 6 Plus, you could also I mean, you know, I love my financial charts and all of that. This is when the I the um this is when Apple and the iPhone exploded in terms of revenue was this product, and they never came down. Yeah. This was a part of why I picked this. It is also the point when the iPhone became serious. Like at this point, like the the reason that we are here where we are now with the iPhone was the iPhone 6 line. You know, it's the thing that we spoke about on this show many times. This is also when we launched the show was the iPhone six, right? Um that was true. Episode one of Upgrade was the iPhone six. It was my review of the iPhone six, yeah. Um and it was at that point where all charts became meaningless. Um and then Apple was digging itself out of a hole for a few years because they sold so many that there was this blip. Now it came down and then went back up and then you know it's like as you do have done many times once you kind of normalize those charts you see it's just a linear progression. I did just look it up. The iPhone 6 Plus had a 5.5 inch display. The iPhone 17 E has a 6.1 inch to score. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And obviously it's it's the phone was m physically larger because we were dealing with bezels and a home button and all that kind of stuff then. But it it's a funny thing. Um I just think, you know, and also the the iPhone 6 design language, I think over time it got we got very tired of it because Apple did not change anything for many years. Um but at the time it felt very new, great in hand, right? Very thin and rounded. Like it had a very nice different feeling to the phones that had come before it. So yeah, the iPhone six plus for me. Great choice. Fantastic choice. Um not on my list, but I I knew you would pick it, so it's fine. I am gonna go with another Mac . And it's tough because I want to kind of like paint a picture here. I want to pick some a good selection of Mac s. Um here's my uh we're going back in time again. Here's a this is gonna be a historic pick, and I have a little story about why. It's the power book. I'm gonna say the one seventy, although we could really just say PowerBoko first generation, and it counts the 100, the 140, and the 170, all of which came out basically the same time . So they did the Mac portable and it was a disaster. Um, and this is the earliest days of laptops, and there weren't there weren't a lot of laptops out there and laptops were underpowered but the uh the power you could get by bringing your computer with you and not by taking like a a classic shaped Mac and putting it in a bag and lugging it around but like literally, uh uh this was actually part of Steve Jobs' original conception for the Mac. He was like, he had a whole like phrase, he was like Mac in a book by 1986. Like he really wanted them them to have this uh a laptop essentially what we think of now is a laptop. Yeah. And the the short version of the story is all laptops at this time did not look like laptops do today. This is you want to talk about a change the world moment. This is a change the world product because there was an engineer who was messing around with like uh little drawings and cut-up pieces of paper, and then eventually a foam core model that he brought to a meeting, and he said, What if we took the keyboard? And the keyboard at every laptop at that point was at the front of the of the of the the control surface. What if we pushed it back? That gets us palm rests and a place for at that point a trackball to move the mouse. And the reason that they had to do this, the reason Apple is the one that came up with this concept was because PC laptops are in DOS. They didn't need pointers. Yeah. Max, you could not operate without a pointer. You had to have a mouse. So how would you do that? And so he had this idea of like the keyboard doesn't come all the way up to the front. You push it back, you got a place to put your palms , your wrists, and you've got a pointing spot . And that after this, every laptop looked like that. Literally, every laptop looked like that. Also, for people who do not remember that far for people who are not the olds I'll just say the PowerBook was a sensation. This was in many ways the first Mac to actually like get people talking and it was expensive . These were expensive. But like there was the one I c I like to cite is that there's a New Yorker article about how tech or not tech entertainment mogul uh Barry Diller used to do his power lunches in Hollywood with his PowerokBo on the table. Like it was like a power move to have his computer with him at all times. And like it it it not only did it make the laptop a key part of Apple's entire Mac product line going forward . It never they never went back. Uh, but it redefined the entire market. So powerbook, first generation. It's iconic the look of this thing. Like I you know, m again, I I remember seeing these in my life. Um, like my uncle had one and it was like, whoa, such a cool looking thing. I had a PowerBook 160, the second generation, and I loved that thing so much. It was uh awesome. Yeah. I was thinking now, you know, the pick that I'm gonna make now, I feel like oh I',m picking everything that's modern. But the pick that I'm about to make was released sixteen years ago, so I don't think it's as modern uh as I think. This is the iPad, the original iPad . Um at the time, you know, it really did, it felt like the next big thing from Apple. And for a while it was. You know, like the the iPad was an unbelievable success uh when it first shipped. And you know, things changed over time with the iP ad and its trajectory, but it started something new. You know, like it it wasn't just a big iPhone. Like it did do different things. Apps were made differently for it. You know, like there was a whole wave of apps that had HD in the name because they had a different UI and people sold them separately. And you know, it was an I say extra points for the presentation from Steve Jobs, right? Like it was another classic in a very different way that the original iPhone presentation was a classic. You know, this was much more relaxed and that actually worked for the presentation. But also like if you were around at the time or paying attention at the time , the four hundred ninety-nine dollar price tag was an absolute mic drop from Apple. Everybody thought this thing was going to be like a thousand dollars or whatever. Because we all knew a tablet was coming and it was just about what it was going to be be. But four hundred and ninety-nine dollars for this thing was incredible. And yeah, it was it was a real time when the iPad came out and uh I hold that time special. Had it on my list too. Um it's uh it's actually if you've ever if you haven't held one recently, it's actually kind of great. Like it obviously the iPad has evolved so much since then, but that hardware design is amazing. Yeah. It really was . And at the time just it blew me away. So clever. Like it had like the bump right in the back, so they could make it thin at the edges. It was a very clever design. So you can hold it in your hand and it feels like a magical, you know, future tablet thingy. Um and then obviously defined what these things were going to be at that point. Okay. I have one more uh in my top in our top 10, our collective top ten and I am going to go with a computer that I bought and love and uh you know how much I love it Mike because it took up a lot of time in the uh the podcast-a-thon last fall. I'm gonna pick the Apple IIE here . Um need to represent the Apple II, wrote a long article on the Verge a few weeks ago about why the App le II is the product that established Apple as a company. The Apple IIE was the best iteration of the Apple II. Sorry, fans of other Apple IIs, it was the best one. It sort of solved all the problems of the two and two plus line and then they iterated on it with the two C and the two G S. But like I think the two E was like just straight down the middle the core great Apple II and it uh they couldn't kill it. They tried they tried it with a Lisa, they tried it with the Apple III, they tried it with the original Mac. The Apple II was Apple's best-selling computer for a very long time. And they were still in use in classrooms in the late 80s and early nineties, like they were still out there and had a bunch of great games and educational software and all sorts of other things. Um expansion cards, so you could do all sorts of different stuff with it. That was Waz saying we're gonna have a bunch of expansion slots in this thing, even though Steve Jobs didn't want them. Um yeah, just I I think it's a a a definitive Apple product, and they sold a huge number of them and it's the thing that built Apple as a corporation really is the Apple II in general and the Apple IIE as the kind of like the the the final ultimate example of that product line. So Apple IIE. Had upper and lower case, Mike. Upper and lowercase. Big time. Yeah. Terrible case. You can always tell back in the um back in the uh the days of the at the time the keyboard didn't seem as a mechanical keyboard. When I in hindsight it's I hadn't touched one until last year. And uh in hindsight it's not good. No, no, no, no. No, no, I I have fond memories of it and then I was typing on it uh on Steven's Apple Twee and I was like, woo boy, this is not so. But on uh bul on computer bulletin boards back in that day, because we didn't have the internet yet, um you could always tell who had an apple two plus because they they typed in all caps. Yeah. It was just shouting at it. So apple two E, let's hear it for the it was a lowercase e. It really was. And that's one of the reasons why. As I'm going through my list, I feel like I am building something that wasn't necessarily intentional, but I'm here anyway, so now I'm just leaning into it. Uh my last pick in the top 10 is the iPod Nano, the first generation iPod Nano . Um there there's again like there is part product, part strategy that I find so interesting about this product. Um like one, it looked stunning. It was incredibly thin. You know, like thin to the point that Apple has only recently made a product thinner than it. It looked so good, right? Where it was essentially a small version of the regular iPod rather than the mini which was its own design, right? Like it had the the black or white pl like colour with the clear acrylic on top and then the stainless steel on the other side. And it looked amazing. It looked even better when it got all banged up. Like that was one of the iPods that just looked fantastic and it got banged up. But that one got banged up in every direction. The you know, ever wonder what this pocket is for presentation moment, right? When Jules pulls it out of the little uh ch coin pocket in his jeans. But also just the boldness of the strategy that the iPod Mini was the best-selling iPod, and instead of doing an iPod Mini 2, they replaced it with the iPod Nano. And then the iPod Nano then got many revisions. From my perspective, none of them as good as the original. Um I I from a f all of the things that I loved about the iPod Nano. I don't think there was ever an iPod Nano that was better than the first iPod Nano. I was not really an iPod Nano person, I think for this reason. Like as the product went along and became more vibrant and colourful and f took on various forms, for me, none of them were ever as good as the original iPod Nano. I love the iPod Nano. Also, for the people uh the nitpickers out there, there were two generations of iPod Mini. There was an iPod mini two . Yeah, but was it though? Yeah. The next year they came out with an updated version of it with different colors. Okay, yeah, but colors is not. But it's basically the same. Yeah. And then they killed it. Yeah. And it was their it was their best selling product and then they killed it, famously, which is why the nano is so interesting. Thank you for c the clarification. But from my perspective, it's like, you know, they didn't do for the iPod mini that they did for basically all of the other iPods where it's like we're gonna keep iterating on this product and making it different. Um so yeah, that but the for me the iPod Nano was amazing. 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 everybody vulnerable. 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So I'm gonna I'm gonna jump in to the iPod . Uh and I'm gonna pick the question here is like I'm gonna do the classic iPod and I think I want it to be the fourth generation iPod . So this is so the first generation, first two were Firewire, port on the top, and then they moved and then they had the third generation, which was the one with the four horizontal touch buttons that was the worst iPod of all time. And then there was then they came back, they brought it back to the click wheel design. Was this the iPod photo ? No. The iPod photo was next. Okay. Maybe. Okay. This is the iPod fourth generation or the iPod click wheel where they bought the click wheel back. Okay. Um and that is, yeah, it's it it all gets messed up. Yeah, the iPod photo came a few months later. But I'm not picking that. I'm picking the fourth gen iPod because I want the best kind of classic before it started getting a whole bunch of stuff added to it iPod. And I think the iPod fourth generation is that one, because the third one was bad and the first two like I have a lot of fondness for the first one. I have one um it has a moving wheel the wheel actually moves um and it's got the buttons around the ring and then they changed the the wheel to be a to be like a capacitive wheel, but you still have the buttons around it. Then they did the four touch buttons that are so bad. And then in this one, it's a click wheel for the first time. So you've got a non-moving wheel, but that you can move your your finger over it to rotate. And if you click at the edges of the wheel, that's how you do your controls. There isn't a ring of buttons around them. I feel like this is kind of like the home of like the definitive classic iPod is right here. So that's why I want to pick it. Because the iPod, very important to Apple's history. I was a cla I was a uh what we call iPod classic, big iPod user the whole time. I never used an iPad mini or an iPad Nano. I always or iPod Nano, I always had the big iPod. Yep. Um, because I had lots and lots of music and I wanted all that music and then later podcasts that I would sync to it. And so I uh I gotta go with a fourth generation iPod. That's my that's my iPod of choice. Yeah, ' thiscause click wheel design it debuted on the mini first and then a few months later came to the classic, what's now I guess known as the classic. Yeah. And they and and replacing that that uh four horizontal buttons. Terrible mistakes. Really ugly. Steven loves them and I don't understand it. I feel like there's just some weird nostalgia there for him. Yeah, that's what it is. Because that is that is I think the ugli est of all of the iPods. Um it's not not not a look of that one. Don't I'm not f and I'm not fan of those buttons either anyway. Like the little touch buttons. Not not great for that . Alright, so okay . Yeah. I'm looking up I mean this is the thing where I have this tearing in my list and I'm like I just don't know, but there's some stuff here I know I'm gonna get to it eventually, so I'm just gonna pick this now. Uh I'm gonna go for the iPhone 10. Uh high on my list. You got you kinda got jumped right in ahead of me there. iPhone ten. Great great choice. It's you know this was I think somewhat similar to the original iPhone, and it was a product that felt like it was from the future at the moment that it arrived. Was again similar to the original iPhone, shown in the fact of how expensive it was compared to competition, right? But like the original iPhone, it wasn't a high value, but it was a value you had to pay on top of a contract. You know, like it was a it was an exp ensive phone compared to what was going on at the time. And the iPhone 10 was a thousand dollars, I think, was the was the the starting price for the iPhone 10. Impossible. Yeah. Which and you know, it was obvious that it was so expensive and considered to be a luxury item because they also released another iPhone alongside it, right? They released the eight. And that was the expectation of like, hey, we're gonna put this out there because we know we're not gonna get everyone onto the 10. But again, obviously the 10 did so well and then continued from there because people could see it was like, Yeah, I want that. Right. And it really what was the the b the two big things for the iPhone 10 was a full screen, we're moving the button and we're doing face ID. Like unbelievable technology at that point. And the things that they were doing to make all of that work. The iPhone 10 was incredible. Like an it was an incredible time. Uh and was it I really hope that next year we get a similar for the twenty . First OLED iPhone too. It was, yes, it was the first OLED iPhone. Yep. Yeah, I the iPhone 10 to me is um kind of an archetype. It's it's Apple doing what Apple does, which is they built a product that That feels like the future. And they did it by they pushed the technology. It's a bunch of new technology in there. It was more expensive. I think that was part of the strategy was to push the price up. I say this a lot, but like the iPhone 10 ushered in an era where Apple has continued to explore how much they can charge for an iPhone before people say no and they haven't found that answer yet. Yeah. That was probably a very exciting time for them. Yeah. Like, oh my God, they bought the thousand dollar phone. Well, what if it was and now we hear thousand dollar phone? We're like, yeah, okay, so but like at the time it was a it was a huge deal. Well this year we will probably pass two thousand, right? With default. It is the defin ing uh iPhone of of this era of the last almost 10 years is um it it it set us on the course that we're still on in terms of iPhone design. Super important phone. Uh had a high on my list. Completely agree . And now for something completely different. I am you know I I'm gonna I'm gonna go back to the Mac now and I'm gonna pick the best Mac design of all time , which is the IMAC G four. Okay. Um the the float like there was a little period where they could make a a computer with a floating flat screen. Yeah. And actually take advantage of the fact that we have these flat screens. When you think of how big the iMac G3 is . And it we left this period very quickly because screens kept getting bigger and they couldn't make an arm the where it was practical to have a giant screen on that little arm. So they m they moved to the iMac G5 design, which is essentially the design of every IMAC since then. But in this little shining moment, they got to build this thing with that incredible chrome arm. It is the Sunflower iMac. It is, yeah, I think it's the best, one of the very best pieces of industrial design Apple has ever done. Um, and it is the best Mac design of all time. Now, as a computer, it was fine. Like it was better than the iMac G3 . But um but really what it what's amazing is that it it it has that Apple feels like the future thing going on there. And the fact that they put that ridiculous amount of engineering effort into not just the chrome arm itself, but also the cabling required to get all the stuff up into the display through that arm so that they could suspend the arm up and then fit all the whole computer into that kind of half volleyball that was sitting at the base. Just kind of an amazing bit of engineering all around, but the best industrial design. So I'm actually four. It was almost like uh the product was an advertisement for Apple . Like I I I remember there was uh like a department store close to where I was where I lived as a kid. And uh they had the iMac G4 , they just had it out there for years, like way after it was sold, and people were always playing with it because it was just like, What is this thing? Like it just it looked like the most expensive computer you could ever imagine, you know, like because of how beautiful it was. Uh I've moved up something in my list because I think it feels right to pick it here, and that's the iMac G3. Okay. Um I you know the the the story of the IMAC G3 is well known, you know, like it it it really it was the beginning of the one of the greatest partnerships in computers in like in technology, right? Of jobs and I've like this was their product that they started on together um and really pushed into becoming something. So beautiful. There was nothing like it. Nothing existed like the IMACG3 and kind of after it nothing has existed like it since, really. Obviously with the other i the exception of like the iBook, right? But like not n technology has never again looked like this . Uh and it's just an incredible computer. I remember I did uh work experience as a kid. It was arranged for my school and I was working at like a an internet learning facility for schools that didn't have computers. So like schools could come and use computers and it was all I'm actually throughs. And so I spent a week updating all of these iMac G3s to a version of Mac OS 10, like what whatever it was at the time. And it was just an incredible week. I just got to use all of these iMac G3s and I just had a wonderful time with it, just like playing around with these computers for a week. Um that was the most time I spent on a G3. I didn't have one. Um and it was an absolute delight. Uh 'cause those computers were delightful. They were huge. And obviously all the stories about it saving Apple's bacon and allowing it to have its turnaround and they were so definitive and and everybody knew it and everybody talked about it and the look of them made a difference and it again was one of those things where everybody , all the other computer companies tried to ape it and they kind of couldn't. I mean, they they failed to do it. It was it was a it was very much a a message that only Apple could do this. And the Apple and China book um puts that into detail like in in many ways nobody else could make it because even Apple couldn't make it. They had to figure out how to make it. Apple in China is great for both the G three and the G four, like the story of those two computers and the the details that uh McGee got were really, really, really good. Yeah. Yeah. So I love the iPad and I haven't picked an iPad product yet, which is a little bit weird. I'm gonna get weirder though, Mike. I'm gonna get weirder. I'm gonna pick the second generation Apple pencil. Okay . Okay. The apple pencil. Yeah. It is it like it in some ways it defines now the iPad. It is the Apple device that is you can use to to draw and to take notes. Uh it makes the iPad have more powers than other Apple devices have. And the second generation one is also brilliant. I know we've talked about it on this show before, because if you're holding I'm holding one in my hand right now, it you might as well be holding a block of wood. Like it doesn't feel like technology. The the tip screws off. But like it doesn't have the little pl the first generation one has a little plastic cap that you pop off, and there's like a little lightning nubbin that you have to weirdly stick somewhere in order to get no no this one. It's magnetic attach , um, inductive charge. There's no interface to it. It it's a piece of hardware that feels like nothing, like a pencil. And so that part of it is brilliant. And then what you can accomplish with it is amazing. And as somebody who doesn't really draw or like to handwrite things, I fell in love with it too because I could use it to edit podcasts using Fairrite. And I had that moment where I thought, oh, this input device is better at this than the other traditional input devices that I might use, including even just my fingers on an iPad. And uh I think I think it is a transformative I I I really believe that the iPod iPad is in many ways defined by the accessories you attach to it. Uh it is that kind of product. It is, it is this kind of core that you then choose how you want to use it. And I think the Apple P encil is a uh fantastic accessory that defines the product to this deck. I've moved a product up my list because I consider justice. Justice is needed. The first generation Apple Pencil. Oh no. Look, I understand why people laughed at the design, right? That that oh like oh it's got this little cap on it and there's a lightning port but I have always appreciated the practicality of that charger because ultimately you needed to be able to charge this product with the device that you used it on. And Apple ended up solving that in a very great way with the second generation. Yes. But the first generation did it did the job, right? Like it did the job. If they didn't have another way to do it, this was the way to do it. There was absolutely a way to do this , which it did not look like that, and they were gonna make you plug in a cable into that thing or something like that, right? Like or they were gonna make you use an inductive charger and it would have been really annoying because you would have needed another cable with you. But the the product was and it was and they they engineered it in such a way that you could plug it in for a very short time and get use out of it. I don't remember the exact amount, but it was like you could plug it in for a minute and use it for half an hour or something like that. Like they they were very focused on making that quick . But all of that people focus on so much, but ultimately it was the Apple Pencil, right? Like all of the things that you love in the second generation was in the first generation, right? Like in that it was it's the best that we've ever had this kind of technology of a pencil input onto a screen. You know, the the all of the work Apple did to make the latency so low that it felt natural. Um and it was for me at the time was such a blessing because you could also use her for controlling the iPad Pro and I was dealing with some bad sci. Well, it worked and then they took it away and then they brought it back again. Like but like it was it was really wonderful for being able to control the iPad interface as well as drawing on it. Um and so perfect no, but absolutely got the job done. That's fair. That's fair. Okay, well, two Apple pencils go here in quick succession, a quick run on Apple Pencils. Uh-huh. I guess I'm gonna have to pick the Apple Pencil Pro now just to nope. I'm not gonna do that. Well, uh people who've listened this far know that we we are picking things in totally wacky ways and for wacky reasons. I have been watching I've been, you know, writing about the Mac since nineteen ninety-three. I've been a Mac user since nineteen ninety. Uh I've been an Apple user since the eighties. I have seen a lot. And one of the frustrations I have with like the Verge did their fifty list, which was after we had thought about doing this, by the way. We weren't inspired by the Verge. We we were like, ah, they did it. Let's put ours off for a while so people aren't totally sick of it and then we'll still do this. Um there you know people who have only been paying attention to Apple for 10 or 15 years might um kind of lose perspective about some of the the history, which is why I picked the Apple IIe and it's why I picked the laser writer. Um and and so when I say this , I want people to take into account the fact that I am considering the grand sweep of Apple's 50 year history. When I say if you can make a Mac laptop for $5.99, it's one of the top 50 products of all time for Apple. And that's why I pick the MacBook Neo. Wow . Wow. Did I did I do it? Did I do a number on you there? I when we started this episode today, I was like, I don't think we're gonna pick the MacBook Ne o. Yeah, baby. Wow. Wow. Uh yeah, the MacBoook Ne. I mean they made them they made a full functional laptop for $5.99. Yeah. Yeah. It's selling well. It works. It's good. It's cute. And I think personally, and this may be a pick later, that the moment when they put out the Mac Mini for $4.99 was also an incredible moment for the Mac to have that. And then very the next year they're like, how about $5.99? Uh but they had it there for a moment. And I think Steve Jobs, like he had that little glint in his eye. He's like, Oh yeah, we did it, right? Like the that that expensive Mac. Now you can get this thing and you know, bring your own keyboard and display and mouse, but you can get a Mac. And that MacBook Neo, like, it's the same thing. People, I I was standing there at that warehouse in New York City where they had this event, surrounded by very smart, knowledgeable people who watch Apple, and nobody believed that it would be anywhere close to 599 or six ninety nine. Nobody they're all like it's seven ninety nine, right. Maybe it's seven hundred, but probably seven ninety nine. No, it's five ninety nine and it's fully functional and it's the a triumph of Apple Silicon and it's a perfectly good little laptop for that price and it potentially will upset the entire Windows laptop market. Yep. And I think it's a milestone. So uh I here it is. Yeah, it's reminded the scenes of the iPad, right? What I was saying earlier. Like nobody thought it was gonna be the price that it was, and the fact that it was all of that computer for that price is kind of unfathomable . I love it. All right, my next pick. I feel like it has to be on the list, and I feel like it has to be in the top 20. I'm picking the Mac , the 128K. I don't have a ton to say about this computer. It is, but it is iconic and it will always be iconic. It is iconic. And it for me, it kind of doesn't matter what its capability was, it doesn't matter how good it was, it doesn't matter how good other products that came after it were. Look at that thing. You know? Just look at them. I know. It changed it changed everything. Yeah. It it it I was steering away from it because it is I mean it it's a it's a good pick. It it was underpowered. They had to put out the FatMac, the you know, the the five twelve, um, later that year because the lack of memory, the fact that it didn't have uh, you know, a hard drive or a second internal floppy, what made it very hard to use. It was it it it didn't sell very well because of that. They had a lot of problems with the Mac product line. But you cannot argue with the fact that this is the product that changed what computers would be. Like this is the start of it. This is what happened. And it was because of that. Steve Jobs and that incredible creative team of people, um, many of whom were basically burned out after this and we' likere, we're done. But um but this product is a triumph. Yeah. No doubt about it. No doubt about it. It's an all-timer. All right. What's your this will be your tenth pick, right? So this is this will be pick 19? 19, 19. Um, I am gonna come back to the modern era and I'm gonna say a product that I was deeply skeptical of because I like products the way I like them, and that this was doing something different. Um, and it has proven to be one of my favorite Apple products of all time. I'm gonna pick a very particular model of it, which is the first gener ation AirPods Pro . Okay . But I want to break the seal on the AirPods here. Okay. Because I think they're amazing. And I I want to take you back to an era where a lot of people like me said, oh, Apple's headphones are garbage. They used to include headphones with everything, like little those little white earbuds. They would include those with the iPhone and with the iPod and stuff. And for me, it was just not even unwrap it, just like straight in the dra wer, forget about it, who cares? 'Cause I I thought they were bad. I didn't like how they looked, I didn't like how they fit in my ears, I didn't like how they sounded, put in my snazzy in-ear headphones that sound really good. And so when the rumor came that Apple was going to do wireless headphones, I'm like, whatever . And um they have replaced my in-ear headphones for almost everything I do except for podcasts at this point. They are so good. So I love the AirPods in general. And I think the way that they've um like the way they executed on them, the fact that lots of people love the AirPods now. They really have become a hit product. But um those first AirPods Pro um that that added the noise cancellation, it's like how could you even do that on things that aren't big? I I had written it off. Like the only way to do noise cancellation for me, because I don't like the big cans on my ears, would it would be the in-ear where it cancels the noise. It doesn't cancel it, it just blocks it. But these things actually cancel it and they work and they work really well and they've only gotten better over time. So AirPods Pro, I think they're really great. Yeah, my tenth round pick is the AirPods Pro 2. So you're a fast follower, right? For all of the reasons you mentioned, but the adjustments that the second version got really to me made them sing, you know, so obviously like all of them, improvements to sound, improvements to noise cancellation. But the swiping to change volume was amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that was one of the things that was very frustrating about AirPods and AirPods Pro is you couldn't change volume with them. That felt like a like a step back from having like their little in line with the clicker. Uh it has U one in the case, so much easier to find the AirPods Pro, which is important. And MagSafe charging. So you don't have to plug them in anymore. So the little magnetic will sit on the little check the case. Um I don't remember if the AirPods Pro 2 could charge on the Apple Watch, but I think so. I think so, right? And so yeah, that was very clever too, that that you have multiple ways of charging that product, um, which is super nice . This episode is brought to you by Squarespace , the all-in-one website platform that is designed to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just getting started or scaling a business, Squarespace will give 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. With Squarespace, you can make the most of their Blueprint AI system, which is their new website building platform, which will let you quickly and easily build a site bespoke to your business. You just input some basic information about your industry and the goals that you want for your site and they will make a set of recommendations to you. 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When you're ready to launch, you can use the offer code upgrade and it will get you ten percent off your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.comslash upgrade and the offer code upgrade for 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the show. A thanks to Squarespace for the support of this show and all of Relay . Alright. Pick number twenty one. All right, number twenty one. I'm gonna go with uh because I said I love the iPad and I don't think I picked an iPad. I just picked an Apple Pencil. I'm gonna need an iPad to use with it. Um, maybe some compatibility issues. We'll work it out. The uh iPad I'm gonna pick. So I iPad is tough. I had the first iPad on my list. Then it gets weird. There there was the iPad two, which is fine, and then they went retina, but there was the bad retina and then they went retina with the good retina. There's a lot going on there. Um I'm gonna go the other direction. I'm gonna I'm gonna pick uh what I think is in some ways the pinnacle of iPad design, despite the recency bias, it might it it answers the question: what happens if you took all creative pursuits and crushed them in a hydraulic press until they just oozed out color? It's the M4 IP ad Pro. Yep. The ultra ultra thin iPad Pro with the tandem OLED display gorgeousness. It is the ultimate iPad. And I think in some ways, when I hold it in my hands with no case on it, I am still baffled about how that product exists. It's it's so great. Um, and this is the iPad that I use every day, is is one of these. I think my I have an M5 now, but like whatever. They're they're the same. It is the it was introduced in the M4 iPad Pro. It is incredible. So the display, the the processor, love everything that goes along with it. It's an amazing product. Yeah, this is you know, I'll probably say this at least two more times in today's episode. Uh this was the iPad that brought me back to the iPad again in a big way. Um the M4 is just incredible. Uh I I love my the eleven inch especially, but both of them are wonderful, but it's just such a great display, such a great form factor. It really is brilliant. Such a brilliant machine . I'm also going to pick an iPad Mini. I'm going to pick the iPad Mini 2 . So this product was This is on my list, Mike. This this is the right iPad mini to pick and it was on my list. What made this iPad mini so special? So two things. One, it had a written display. Yeah. Oh boy. That's number one is is I remember getting this and being like, oh here we go. But the thing that was so striking was that it had essentially the same intern als as the iPad Air. And so the the the conversation at the time was all you need to do is just choose what size do you want. Do you want the big one or the little one? And you're going to get the same experience from like a power and performance pers pective. Uh but the iPad mini two was unbelievably good. Such a great iPad. Um I it at that time it was the best iPad to pick, um uh of of all them, I think. Um and uh yeah, I loved it. Love that iPad mini . It's a great choice. Um while we're on iPads, you know, uh I again I made the case that what is an iPad if if it's not for its accessories? And for what this represents, I'm gonna put it here, which is the magic keyboard for iPad Pro. Yep. In a uh kind of a dark time. Uh this was a a a shining beacon because this is the moment where apple said yeah the iPad can have a pointer it's got a trackpad on it and like I thought about picking and uh you know we we may get there the original iPad Pro which came with the with the the keyboard but, the keyboard was like didn't have a pointing device and it had to sort of double fold over and wasn't great. Whereas this one, it's got the cantilever design, it turns your iPad into a laptop. It's got a good keyboard, not the kind of membrane key board of that previous smart keyboard. And it's got the trackpad. And that means you've got a pointer on screen and it really changes the game. And I liked using my iPad Pro a lot before, but this is the moment where I stopped taking my laptop outside. Like literally, it was just the the iPad in the keyboard case. If I wanted to go somewhere and do some writing, um, that was it. It was it was all over when they came out with the magic . Now they've improved it since, but I will stick with the original one. You know, it had limitations, it didn't have the function row that is nice to have, but still, just for the transformational moment and the fact that they backed it up with the software features inside to give you a full-on pointer, not the kind of weird accessibility pointer that you could kind of use, but like a full-on supported by Apple pointer on iPad OS. I just loved it. Fantastic moment. I'm putting a link in the show notes to the video that you put on your YouTube channel, which was like it was the first video Apple made, right, in the COVID era. Oh yeah. At the time felt so weird, but I was just watching it then. I mean like, oh no, I know what this is. Like it doesn't feel weird watching it now because it's like, oh, they all look like this. But at the time it felt very strange to just have Craig Federiki on his own in the in an office, yeah, talking about the cursor. I'm not I'm not surprised that we've got ten to like into the twenties without picking an Apple Watch? I'm not either. I I struggled to pick an Apple Watch. Right. So did I have a couple on my list, but I did struggle with this. So did I, but there was I thought if I was going to pick one, the one that I would pick is the Apple Watch Series 4 . Oh, okay. This is I this was the first and I think maybe only significant redesign of the Apple Watch, um, like where it actually started to look quite different. And this is, you know, make they made the case a little bigger and the screen much bigger. Um and so like this was like, you know, we finally got what is essentially an edge to edge display on the Apple Watch. It wasn't kind of like just stuck in the like a little square a little rectangle inside of a bigger rectangle. We got the corner complications and all that stuff. But the other thing for me is it had the gold stainless option, which is in my opinion the best looking Apple Watch Apple's ever made. The the gold stainless one. So the Apple Watch Series four I think it it was also the always on display as well, which was a big deal for the Apple Watch because it finally made the Apple Watch a watch that you could see the time on all the time, which is not a thing that you could do beforehand. Uh because if you were looking down at your at the desk and you didn't raise your hand, well that your sc your watch was black. It didn't do anything. Uh so I think the Apple Watch Series 4 set up a lot of what the Apple Watch came. Oh, it was on with Series 5. Sorry, it wasn't series four. Uh thank you to the Discord for correcting me. But nevertheless, still loved love the way that the series four looked. Um it was a it was a good looking Apple Watch. All right. Well I'll g I'll give you always on even though that was the next model. I struggle with this too. I I I think I decided that if I was going to pick an Apple Watch series, I would pick the 10 . Um just because it got super thin then and I think that and and and with the big screen. But I struggled with that too. Yeah. I'm gonna go a completely different direction and pick the greatest of all classic Macs, the Mac SE 30 . Um I had I didn't have one. I had a Mac SE, but if you talk to John Syracuse, Adam Anks, John Gruber, they'll all tell you that the SE 30 is the best. It one of the reasons it's the best is because it had expandability and it had a 68030 processor. So it was as fast as a Mac 2, but in a compact case. And although the internal display was black and white, you could put in a color card and stick an a a big external color monitor on it uh and do all sorts of other stuff with it. It had internal hard drive, which was huge because you don't want to be using floppy drives uh and swapping disks and all of that. It was overpowered uh and lasted forever because it was so overpowered. It was really a standout Mac uh and if you mistook it for a Mac SE, I'll just say the difference between the 68,000 processor and the SE and the 68030 and the SE30, uh, you do like a couple of clicks on an SE30 and you realized, oh, this isn't an SE. It's like not even close. It was so fast and power ful. And uh, you know, talk to anybody who was a hardcore Mac user around then and they will extol the virtues of it. Plus it was still on the classic Mac form factor and you could just pick it up and carry it around with you. So our list is having less overlap at this point than I thought it may. So I'm starting to move some things up that I'm I'm worried otherwise won't get picked. Okay. Um and there's things that I j I just want to include on this list. We'll we'll see, because if you pick 'em and I say I had it on my list, then you'll know that But I still want to get them. You underestimated me. Okay, go ahead. The MacBook. The polycarbonate one. For me, the white one, but it also came in white and black. I had the black MacBook on my list. Yeah. I loved this computer. Um now I am talking about the original. Uh in looking stuff up today, had forgotten that they brought it back um in two thousand and nine. They they brought it back again after the again m complet ely I had forgotten that they had one version of this, the MacBook, that was a unibody alumini um computer. I complet ed 2008. It is the 2006 polycarbonate MacBook. 2006 one for all of its faults, the cracking, the the the like it yellowing, doesn't matter. This computer was so cool. I loved it. It was the entry level Mac for a long time. You know, this was one of the the Macs where like there were all these pictures of of like uh lectures right and all of the students had Apple logos on their computers and it was MacBooks. Everybody had the MacBook. The polycarbonate MacBook was a great computer. Um it was my the second Mac I ever owned of my own. Um and was just it was great. I loved it. It had all of the IO that I wanted. The screen was great for at the time. Uh I was a big fan of this computer. It looked good. It felt great. The the keyboard was really fun and different. Um it was a great computer. Very nice. I said earlier that it would get picked in this draft, and I'm gonna pick it now. It's the iPhone 4. Um the iPhone 4 , first off, it's got the design that uh I I think was definitive in the four and five generation and then came back . Uh and the modern iPhones still are using a variant of this same design. It's that flat sides design. The gloss kind of I love it. I think it looks so good. I think it is the best iPhone design. Um I wrote a piece about this, like I said, it at Macworld last week. Um it's the one that was found in a bar. It's the one that had antenna gate. It's the one where they announced that it came in black or white and then the white one didn't ship for 10 months. Yeah. It's the first retina iPhone. It's the first Verizon C DMA iPhone . Uh, so it broke the ATT exclusivity in in the US. Yep. It is not only a good looking, impressive phone on its own, but it's also if an iPhone were a person, this iPhone would be a hot mess. And I love that about it too. That it's just all the scandals, all the disasters, the fact that they couldn't The iPhone 4 is a problematic fave. That's what the iPhone 4 is. The iPhone 4 is like the real Housewives of Cupertino kind of product. It is a mess. It is just like, it's it's it's so impressive. And then and you're like, oh, this resume is very impressive. And then you get the like background check and you're like, oh no. But it's so beautiful. Yeah, but it's so yeah my god, but a retina. Have you seen the retina? It's like oh I can change him. I can change him. I'll put a bumper on him. I can change him. But you can have a bumper if you want. Whatever . Uh I'm gonna pick the iPod video . There it is. A video iPod baby. Nobody needs a iPod iPod with video. Yeah. Except you do because you can watch the office on it. Uh yeah, yep. Everything you love about the big white iPod of a wider screen. And this was the last one before it went aluminium and they killed the design, in my opinion. Um, this this was the last good looking uh in my opinion, iPod classic. Love love the iPod video . Yeah, it's great. It's great. I I did watch some stuff on it, I have to admit. In fact for years, maybe I mean I don't know how many years, but I I mostly because I thought it was funny, I synced Citizen Kane to my iPod video. Cause I liked the idea that I could watch Citizen Kane in the way that um that Orson Wells intended it on a very tiny screen while I was riding the bus. Yeah. It's a great choice. It's a great choice. I have one more iPod , and I'm gonna mention it now. Okay . I think it's one of the another one of these great wacky ideas that is it turns out to be an incredible bit of design collaboration and software collaboration. I'm gonna pick the second gener ation iPod Shuffle . Oh it's one of my favorite iPod designs of all time. This is just the wheel, right? It's a clip. Yeah. So it's a clip and you clip it to your clothing, and there's a little there's a little wheel with next and previous up and down and play pause. And it's super tiny. And you just plug your headphones into it. And for years, this was my like lawnmower iPod . Because and and you could no display. So you could have it shuffle through a playlist. In the later versions there were some ways to kinda like key off certain things and like kick in this playlist or whatever. But it had a little it had a little uh slider for like if you wanted to shuffle or not. And that was about it. It was but it was so simple. Again, like a little like the Apple Pencil. It felt like just like a solid object. It was not like where where is the computer here? And it's like, eh , it's an appliance. It's a very simple appliance. I think it's a brilliant thing. And the clip , man, what a breakthrough. What a what a great idea. Whoever in the design team had that idea of like, why don't we literally so they had made and it's on my list and I might pick it, it it may happen. They had made a remote for the iPod. And this was a wired remote. And I had a backpack that my iPod went in, and then the wired remote came out of the backpack and I clipped it to my back pack strap. And you could get the shorter headphones, couldn't you too? So your cable wasn't super long as well. Yeah. Yeah. And that's like if you want to carry your iPod in your backpack but you want to play pause next all of that. How do you do it? And so they built this accessory that let you do that. And I have to think that whoever designed that accessory said, you know, what if we made that and it was the whole iPod? And that's the iPod shuffle. Yeah. Second gen. They ended up replacing it with a uh one that had no buttons on it, and that was like, whoops, too far. And they went and then they went back. The last iPod shuffle actually was again this design. I just think it's a brilliant design and a brilliant moment to think if we make this thing a clip, people could clip it to whatever, because it's obviously a personal object. Clip clip it somewhere on your body and you and and then that's it. And then there's no iPod in your pocket hanging, you know A product that has had a renaissance in recent years. Uh people people buying these and and using them as MP three players, but they're also like a little fashion accessory 'cause you can get them a little colours, put them in your hair and stuff like that. Like it they've they've they've kind of uh look like a little hair clip, well they clip it to a hairband. Like we've seen a lot of that. That's happening again. Uh I wasn't gonna do this, but I'm gonna pick another iPod now, and this is not the last iPod I even have on my own. I can't be stopped. The first generation iPod touch . Because if you it's the first taste of iOS outside of the US, right? If you were not in America, this was how you got iPhone OS. And the because the iPod touch came out at the same time everywhere. The iPhone didn't. I we had to wait to the following year here in the UK. With the I think the second launch market, we had to wait to get the iPhone. But I was able I got the iPod Touch as soon as it came out. Um I actually um I remember I was uh I was in London on a work training event the day before the iPod touch came out and I was walking past the Regent Street store and they had them in the window. I just went in and bought one the day before they went on sale. I have no idea why that happened. But I got an iPod touch one day before I guess I was supposed to. I have no idea what it was like right at the end of the day. So maybe they were setting up for the next day, but they sold me one. Um the iPod I remember and and the iPodch Tou was great for that because it was I mean it's also super thin, right? Like way thinner than the iPhone. Uh 'cause obviously didn't need to do so much. Um I'm sure it was less powerful in certain ways, but I I was in love with this thing because I got to play with a version of what I was going to get later. Like I remember I went on a family trip, uh, we went to Spain for a week, and uh I have a vivid memory of spending hours on this holiday updating my contacts list in the contacts app because I I just wanted to spend time with that iPod Touch. Great time. Amazing . This episode is brought to you by Steam Clock. A lot of mobile apps are mediocre. They're not broken, they're just okay, but you notice the difference the moment that you use something good and Steam C lock Software builds mobile apps for companies that care about taste. They are a design and development studio based in Vancouver, Canada, and they have been shipping iOS and Android apps for over fifteen years. Their cli ents are growing tech companies that care about mobile but don't have that in house team that's going to build something great. Steam Clock works with companies to level up their apps so they can go from it's holding us back to it's pulling its weight. Some of their clients discovered the hard way that vibe coding your way to the app store is not a viable product strategy. What makes Steam Clock worth calling isn't just that they execute well, it's that they'll help you figure out the right approach and give you an honest read on your situation before you commit to anything. Steam Clock's clients have been have had their apps downloaded over 10 million times and they've helped five of their clients through acquisitions. If you're building something and you need a mobile team that cares as much as you do, Steam Clock is where to start. Visit SteamClock.com/slash upgrade to get in touch. That is steamclock.com slash upgrade. Our thanks to SteamClock for their support of this show and all of Relay . So we are at draft pick thirty one now . We have passed halfway. And it's down to you, Jason Snell. Unbelievable. Okay. Um you earlier on decided to stand up for the moment where Apple realized that Samsung was onto something and the iPhone six plus came out and we began walking down the path of large phones. Oh, I see where this is going. I would like to salute the great, beloved dearly departed iPhone twelve mini. Okay . I love it. I would say just departed, you know. Dearly departed. I love it. I know lots of people out there are clinging to them or just now replacing them. Um I love it. It it there is something about it. Now do I love using it. Like I loved it in my pocket. Sure. Did I love it out of my pocket as much? No. No, because it was really cramped and and it was very clearly like nobody was even testing software. It's like there there would be things that you couldn't really touch cause sometimes in apps, cause they oh it's not ideal. But like I loved how light it was and how small it was in my pocket. That's the thing I loved about the iPhone 12 mini and the 13 mini . Um, I wish I I gotta be honest, I wish they still made it, but I understand why they didn't they don't make it anymore. And I had a moment of of real kind of uh self-clarity when I was using the iPhone Air, and I thought to myself, I actually like the iPhone Air screen better than the iPhone 17 Pro screen because it's bigger. I thought, oh , I betrayed myself, right? But what I liked about the iPhone Air is that it was light and thin . But the screen part was like, yeah, yeah, I have big screen. I actually do like the big screen better. So, you know, what they need is some sort of foldable um thing that's small and then gets bigger or something. I don't know. But uh I want to pour one out for the iPhone 12 mini. Uh great phone that a lot of people really, really love because not everybody wants a big phone. Sure. I guess The iMac Pro . Oh wow. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Poor one out again. This is old friends, ghosts of old friends are visiting us now, Mike. I sent we'll we'll say this is like the the the matchup of the one and done's even though I don't think the twelve mini There was a thirteen there was a thirteen mini, but the IMA just say I was gonna say which generation of iMac Pro was it, Mike? It is incredible that there was only one. Like they never updated it. Nope. But I think it was a testament to the fact that this machine was so good and such a beast, it didn't need to be updated during its entire lifetime. I think anybody that bought one and then eventually moved to an Apple silicon computer of some description , they never left that iMac Pro feeling like, oh, this thing's done. That machine was amazing. And it was a sad day to let it go. Like, what a computer. You know, it again we spoke about it so many times on the show, it's from a different time, right? Like it it was on its o it was on a path that we never saw where that path was gonna go. It's from a parallel universe that Apple by the time it came out, Apple had already decided not to go down that path. But it was great. Just a great computer. Great computer. It came in black. Well, essentially, what was black? Yeah. Fantastic. I've got one. I've got one right here. It's still worked. Love mine. Love mine. Yeah. All right. I'm gonna go more modern now. And I know that again, just like picking the MacBook Neo, you're like, uh recency bias. I'm like, uh just is it really I think this one's gonna stand the test of time because of the design . And you know, I'm gonna pick it. You can't really buy it, but I'm gonna pick it. I'm gonna pick the M4 Mac mini. This is on my own , ye.ah. Yep Te.eny Teen tinyy Tiny Mini. Yep. I love the Mac Mini. I almost picked the 499 original model here, but like for years we kind of looked at the Mac Mini and thought, are they going to keep it around? And are they ever going to design it to be smaller because it doesn't be big? And remember those early Apple Silicon Mac Minis where you could open it up and be like, you could put more Mac Minis inside here. Like there's just nothing in there. They were just using the aluminum tooling from the previous Intel models and they finally did make the teeny tiny Mac mini and it's it's so small and so adorable and yet with Apple Silicon so powerful I I think uh I think it's an all-timer. I really do. I think that it's a very special computer. You can fit a whole pro chip in this bad boy, right? That's and that's what I have. And this machine, I mean, I honestly forget that I don't have a Mac Studio. I have mine in one of those little the Spiegel case that that makes it look like the Tangerine IMAC G3 styling.. Good size Nice. Good times. Cute. Cute. Yeah, it's I just we waited so long, but they did it. You know, they made this incredibly tiny Mac Mini. It's just so impressive. I just I think it is. The Mac Mini, after all that time living up to its name in a way that it couldn't before. Yep. And so powerful at the same time. Just amazing. If you have a Mac Mini, you need something to operate the cursor with. So I am picking the magic trackpad . Oh , you s you sniped me good that time. It's been sitting there and I'm like, when do I pick the magic are you picking the original? Uh I hadn't really thought about that if I'm being honest. That's the one with the rechargeable uh battery instead of the triple A the double A batteries that go in the diving board. It's the full-on modern one. This is the one. It's the one with with the with the haptic, right? This is the one you want. The magic trackpad too. Uh I love the magic trackpad. It's huge, which is fantastic. It's got gestures which I adore, um the the the the haptics and all of that stuff so you can click it anywhere. It's just it's the ultimate accessory for for using a pointer. I you know and I think every desk deserves one if you use a mouse. I use a mouse. I use the MX m whatever it's called now. I don't even know where MX Master three S I've got on this desk. I have the four and the other one. But I still have a magic trackpad because the gestures are so good. You know, the zooming, the going between spaces, mission control, all that kind of stuff, like unbeatable the magic track power. That's where it's at. Yeah. Plus, with most Mac users using laptops, at least some of the time . Having the continuity of gestures is super important. I always used um for many years I used a trackball. Yeah. Uh because I really liked and it actually I felt like it was healthier for me to have these kind of like bigger gestures instead of like gripping a mouse and and moving it around. And and so the when the they came out with the magic trackpad, it just was um it it was revolutionary for me because it it allowed me to solve because the trackballs were all kind of like fading away and I was stockpiling trackballs that were usable and then I then I started using the magic trackpad and the modern version with the haptics and the rechargeable battery and it'll run on a wired connection or wireless like uh it's the best. I totally I mean I had one I forgot about the one where you would like unscrew the little coin thing and put the double A's inside. I completely forg ot about that. Yeah, yeah. And that was more diving board kind of thing. No, this is the one. And it's been a we've had it so long now that it feels like forever. But it's uh it's an all timer. It really is. Well if you put touch ID on this thing, I will make it number one the next time. No kidding. Alright. That is my promise. No kidding. Um , alright. Well , what am I gonna do here? I've got I I'm feeling like I'm running out, right? I only have eight choices left . Um I'm gonna okay, I'm gonna go a little bit wacky, but when the Apple Watch came out in in 201 5 after it was introduced in 2014. When and when when it was introduced and we started having we talked about it , one of the fit parts of the conversation was Skepticism about the watch bands. And one of the things that I find very funny is that we still have them. Like we still have them. All of the watch you get a watch band from the original Apple Watch and you can put it on a modern Apple Watch and it it would would work, which is hilarious. But the number one eye roll I remember from 2014 was when Apple and Johnny I tried to sell us this Kakamami story about how this stupid plastic rubber watch band that they designed was somehow a good design and not just a cheap uh uh fallback b for people to to make the Apple Watch cheaper if you didn't want to opt for a metal or leather band. And it was the word, Mike, the word was fluoroelastomer. Oh I I if you didn't say it, I was gonna say it. That word is committed to memory for me. Floroelastomer band. And we're all like, oh boy, Apple's new watch is coming by default with a cheap, crappy band. And that's why I'm gonna pick an all-time under dog great product . The sport band. Yes. The sport band , which I heaped so much scorn on . It's great. Yes, it's the goat. It's so good. The material is good. It holds up. It comes in colors. It's got the little the the the closure where you slide it and then and then pop in the little round nub. Oh yeah. Like it it's so good. So like this is my I I have been very critical of Johnny and I've in in a lot of ways, but I'm gonna say, Johnny and his design team, whoever came up with this, whoever built this, whoever decided on the floro elastomer uh material, all that, like, it's great. It legitimately is great. It's it's maybe my favorite thing about the Apple Watch. It's amazing. I was so worried when they introduced the solo loop that they were going to get rid of the sport band . Um because I I don't like the solo loop. I I don't find that to be either a very comfortable product. I actually had forgotten until I was just on the website right now. It's not made of the same material, solar looped. It is a silicon rubber. Yeah. Rather than fluoroelastin. It still says on the Apple website today, Flora Lastema. Uh but I'm so happy that they they kept it because I just I've I agree with you. That design that is an iconic design, right? The the the sport band. Yeah and it and it's to this day. And it could have been the cheap fallback lousy rubber cra like so many watches that I bought over the years, you get the band and you're like, Oh, it's this plastic band, it's so b ad . And thought that that was what the sport band would be. And it's not. Like I like, I really, really like and I bought a bunch of different bands. The Nike one's a great band . Yeah, the the Nike ones are great. The sport band, it's just a great design. It's a great design. Vision pro . I'm picking the vision pro. All right . I I had it on my list. Yeah. Look , I get it. Right. I get it . But it is genuinely one of the best computing experiences I've ever had. The Vision Pro is one of the best pieces of hardware Apple has made. And and and the operating system that runs it is incredibly impressive as well. And if you disconnect that from the fact that it doesn't really have any software or any content and nobody's really supporting it and it costs four times as much as it should and just appreciate this amazing piece of hardware. It is an amazing piece of hardware. It's incredible. You summed up the exact three points, which I was saying. Like it it is it is a device that is chock full of wonder, but limited in all the wrong ways, right? As you said, developer support, all of the weird edge cases of using it, and the price. They hold it back. But every time I use the Vision Pro, which unfortunately, is less and less these days. I can't help but marvel at the way that it works. That it actually feels like it's reading your mind at a certain point because you become so comfortable with it. Every time I put it on, I want to find reasons to keep wearing it. The problem is that I I very I struggle to find reasons to put it on or keep wearing it. That's the challenge, right? Is it just doesn't have there's nothing in there. Um but the the technology, every time I use it, it is magical. I I cannot believe it w when I'm using it. It it really is incredible. And if you look at the hardware, if you hold it and look like it it what a kind of incredible piece of hardware it is. Yep. It so yeah. I hear you. Yeah. I think it deserves to be though. I hear ya. It was on my list . Um I am going to pick The um well I I'm down to I'm down to my quirk some I want to leave my quirkiest picks. Okay, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go, we're gonna go back to into the old school. There's a whole story about this. Okay . One of the ways that that um the Apple II was a failure originally was because in order to put programs to save or load programs or data, you had to have a cassette tape and then press load or save and then press play or play and record on a cassette audio cassette tape basically and it would save like beep onto the tape. It was incredibly slow and linear, right? So like there wasn't random access. It was just a tape. So it was linear . And they knew they needed like a floppy disk drive. And they found a floppy disk drive from a company, I think it was Shugart, and it was too expensive, and there's no way that they could do it. And Waz looked at the board of the shoe cart thing and said, you know what, because this is the most typical WAS thing ever. He was like, there's 22 chips on here. I could do this in two chips. And Steve Jobs, in the maybe the most Steve Jobs thing ever, said what if it's Shugart was like, could I not buy the whole disk drive? Could I just buy like the mechanism and not the whole disk drive that you're selling and get a deal? And they're like, I mean, I guess, sure. And so Apple bought this mechanism and then was built a controller around it that made the floppy disk for the Apple II, which was a game changer, because now you could stick in a floppy disk and boot it up and load programs almost instantaneously and save data and it completely changed the game and enabled everything that came after it. And it was if you talk to people who know, it is Waz's most impressive perhaps bit of electrical engineering, the disc two. And so I'm going to pick the Apple Disc II, Waz's miracle product. Wow. I don't really know what to say about this one. Sounds like a good pick, Jason. I love it. And more storage picks in the future, please. Thank you so much. Why didn't you say yes, why didn't you pick the the ins ider or the cider hard drive, which was an actual Apple drive guessled. Yeah, I don't know, because I picked the just two instead. I am picking the mag safe charger for the Mac . Hey . You can, you know, I don't think it really matters which one, which of the generations. I mean, there was a bad generation, but never you just pick your favourite of each uh of either. Yeah. No more yanking your Mac off the table when you kick the cable. Like it's a simple thing, but it was so amazing. The little status light, you got an extra port on your Mac because it wasn't going to be a USB C port when they brought it back again. I like I like how you've basically picked a feature by picking the accessory that goes with the feature. Exactly. Ch sneaky. I know the rules . It's a good one. I don't really have a lot to say about it, but it's a great piece of technology. Like it's is such a good little thing to have and and and and I I'm so happy that it's back with us after it's uh uh demise for a while. Okay. I'm gonna pick the iPad Smartfolio . Okay. Remind me which one this was. Well, I'm picking the modern atta ches magnetically on the back, and then you can fold, and then you've got a little flap that you open and close. Because I I this is what how I use my iPad most of the time. And I really love it. You can trace its lineage back to the what the iPad 2 smart cover? This was in the list a couple of times from upgrade. Yeah. And I was cons I was uh that was the closest one for me adding because that was I mean it was the first smart fol io, right, where it's like the cover that was also the stand. Um and but also it was like it was so lightweight that it didn't have a back. Absolutely. Yeah, the f the first one didn't have a back, but it have did like metal magnet clips for the side. Yeah. But you know, I I had to pick one and like the modern one that's got the magnet uses the magnets on the back to create the back plane and then you've got the front that you flip open. Um I'm gonna pick that one. Yeah. But really I just want to recognize all of these. Like this is this is one of the sets of accessories that I I will not use an iPad without one of these. It's a game changer. Having the ability to prop it up, having the ability to have the screen be covered. It auto sleeps, it auto wakes. So, you know, that that is that's what I'm trying to get at here. Um the current one is very light and thin and and and pleasant. Um I never really loved those metal things on the sides, but that's what you had to do if you wanted to be single sided. Finally they just decided to make it double sided. But either way, I think it's just a great accessory and it's a must-have for the iPad, and that's how I use my iPad most of the time. Do you remember the original case for the first one? It was like impossible to get it out. With all the flaps. It was so hard to get it out. It was. It was. All the flaps and everything to get it in and out of that thing. Yeah. Not the best. Uh for pick number 40 . I'm going for the iPhone twelve Pro or Pro Max, it doesn't matter. Because the things that I'm picking it for, this was the return to flat sides, which we were desperate for by this point. This is the the iPhone four design. coming back Stainless steel gold were it's just so beautiful. Like there was a time when I had stainless steel gold Apple Watch and iPhone and, I was so happy. It was they matched so well. It was such a good looking iPhone. 5G, which I know was a joke at the time. 5G . But is good that they added it did, it right? Like it it is good to have the extra speed. Now the millimeter wave, jury's still out, but the actual going from four G to five G great five G five G five G. Five G MagSafe. This is where MagSafe, my favorite, uh, came to the iPhone. To me, this made like wireless charging worth it. Um, I wasn't a big wireless charging fan before MagSafe. Uh and also when I was looking this up on Wikipedia today, I was reminded that this was the first iPhone where the base storage went from 64 to 128 . Pretty nice. Nice little thing to to know about. Pretty nice . This episode is brought to you by Fundera Powell by Nerdwallet. Running a small business is tough, and when it's time to get a loan, it can feel impossible to find a lender that you can actually trust. Big banks say no, and then the internet is full of sketchy offers with sky high rates and fine print that you can barely read. It's super confusing out there for small businesses. Whether you need help covering payroll, managing cash flow or investing in growth, you deserve better. And it should be simple. You don't want this to take up a bunch of your time when you're already so busy running your small business. That's why you should check out the small business marketplace fundera powered by NerdWallet. 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There's one Apple Watch that is not that difficult to pick, and so I'm gonna pick it, which is the Apple Watch Ultra. Oh, okay. Uh I I just the that they did uh this iteration, it looks really interesting. It appeals to people for whom the Apple Watch standard does not appeal. They allowed to it allowed the product outline to to grow, which I think is one of the hallmarks of Tim Cook's era is you don't need to replace product A with product B. You could just sell both and appeal to a broader selection of people, which is I mean, with the iPhone that always made sense because, you know, they've sold so many iPhones to so many people. The only people left who have not bought an iPhone, you know, what are the reasons and how do we reach those people? I think the Apple Watch Ultra was a little bit like that as well. I love how it looks. I don't have one because I don't really want to watch that big, but I love how it looks. Um I think it's uh a a nice addition to the product line and I I think in many ways it is the most standout of all the Apple Watches because the you know the the series line is just sort of doing its thing, but it's not that different from all the way back in the beginning, whereas the ultra really stood out. So I'm gonna pick the Apple Watch Ultra. My pick is gonna be the M1 MacBook Pro . So this was one of the first Apple Silicon computers, right? And as one of the three. I mean you can kind of you know, there was what the air, the mini and the pro . Um I'd forgotten that the M1 MacBook Pro still had the touch bar. That's fun. That I'd forgotten about that completely. That's fun, yeah. If you tried it out, but I just think you know, I could have picked the Air or the MacBook Pro here. I wanted to pick the MacBook Pro . It the battery life, the performance. This machine showed us the possibility of the M chips. You know, like we I think was everybody was surprised at just how capable these computers were. Um what you could get for the power efficiency, just unbelievable. Um and it converted a lot of people, myself included, uh back to the Mac full time again because it was like, Well, now I have all of the power efficiency of an iPad with all of the software that I could ever want. Uh yeah, M1 Mac Pro. Great . All right. Very nice. I'm gonna go next uh with the we can't pick colors , but I'm gonna pick the iPhone 17 Pro. Oh, okay. I I think that the uh aluminum back shell design is very impressive. Um uh a a variant on the idea of the metal sides is extending it all the way to the back in that new manufacturing technique. I love the two tone part. The little gloss part in the middle I think is a nice one. Yeah. It's got the it's got the cosmic orange if you choose to have it in orange. It uh solves the heat issues that were in the previous model. The cameras are great. Like there's a lot to love about the iPhone 17 Pro. I think it is gonna be my favorite of the this sort of like post iPhone 10 iPhones. Certainly to date, it is my favorite. I think that they did a really great job with it. I could have almost also picked the 17 here just because they brought so many pro features down into the 17 that's impressive, but you know, the with the orange and that and that uh the aluminum shell, I I think I gotta pick the 17 Pro . I'm gonna go with the Apple TV 4K second gener ation. Okay. This was the one where it it came with the good remote. The the the original Siri remote. Yeah, we got rid of that. Um just look, the Apple TV is the best option, right? Like if you for having any kind of box connected to your TV, it just absolutely is the best option. The the remote is a good one. I felt like the Apple TV deserved to be on here because it is an Apple product that I use every day and don't really think about it. Um but I appreciate it. I appreciate the features that it has. I like that it's got a thread radio in it so it can act as like a hub for my uh smart home stuff. Um I appreciate that it's got EARC and the HDMI 2.1 stuff, so I can very easily have my Sonos uh system attached to it. Um I I I really like the the Apple TV 4K. Um it does exactly what I need it to do. It doesn't get in my way. Uh, and the remote is good. Okay . Sounds good. With uh my next pick, I am going to p the mag ic keyboard with touch ID. Well, okay . Wh ile touch ID to the Mac. And it's a good keyboard, the magic keyboard. Um , but the touch ID, I mean, means you can also just tear it apart and use that touch ID sensor anywhere that you want. Yep. But um but that they did it and that that I'm especially thinking about the fact that they did it for the IMAX and they made all the the the color match keyboards, which is totally unnecessary. And I love that they did that. Yeah. Um, but uh but good keyboard with adding touch ID on the Mac, which I think is a real big plus . Um I want to shout it out. And and there are it was either this or maybe like the extended keyboard too, which I don't have as much fondness for as a bunch of people I know do. But like this is a this is a Mac keyboard that um I think is good and adds that important uh feature so that people who are not using a laptop can do the touch ID unlock. So I like it. And the colors on the iMac didn't didn't hurt. Didn't hurt . Oh man, I have a I have a list of stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got to pick three final things and I'm just not sure what's what is the right stuff to pick from here. I'm pleased that my list isn't as long as yours. Um I'm gonna go. I mean, we've spoken about this product line a lot, but I I think that the the OG deserves a shout out, and that is the AirPods, just the original AirPods. Okay. That design seemed so ridiculo us at first. Those stems are real long. The real long stems. It's like I'm not sure about these . But very quickly, the convenience of no wires made you forget all about how ridiculous they looked and they eventually ended up becoming iconic in their own way, right? They became incredibly popular. Um not immediately, it was like a I think it might have been towards the second gen or whatever, and they just it absolutely took off as a product. Um, but you know, it did it didn't take very long for you to accept the downsides of that product because the convenience level was so high . I'm going with the iPods . All right. I we talked about the i um Mac i Mac Pro being part of a parallel kind of a parallel universe. Yeah. I have another product from a parallel universe. Now, Steve Jobs came back to Apple and he killed a lot of products. And one of the products that he killed was actually getting a little bit of traction. And there's lots of reasons that they needed to kill it. And I get it. It had a Johnny Ive design. Yep. It was really potentially the start of something interesting. And you could even maybe see the genesis of something like the iPad and the iPad in a keyboard in this product. It's one of a kind , and it's not its fault that it was part of a failing product category that was championed by John Scully, and that Steve Jobs was more than happy to kill. And with all due honor to the Newton Message pad two thousand, I'm going to pick the E mate. Oh I absolutely thought you were gonna go for the Newton. Were you she sent me up here? No, the E mate, which was the Newton laptop. Yep. And amazing design . Weird plastic stuff. It's Johnny Ive doing weird plastic design stuff. It was designed for education. It had a pen so that you could do the Newton stuff, but it also had a keyboard. Um really interesting product. And again, I think just wrong place, wrong time . Um so yeah, the the EMate 300, I guess, technically, but like it was uh it was a really interesting product. Like what could we do if we built a laptop based on this super lightweight operating system instead of the Mac. And I don't know. There's a world where that leads places and I'm certain that it was you know, even though it made sense to kill all of those things . Ah boy, what an interesting product that had to uh had to get uh thrown out when they shut down the Newton. We had these in my school for any kids that broke their hand or wrist and so they could continue to do their work without being able to write so they would type on them . There you go. That was my experience with the emate, the green translucent thing. Yeah. Yeah, because it's Johnny Ive. Yeah. My penultimate pick. I I don't think this is gonna win me a lot of points, but it means something to me. The iPhone 3G . Oh . For two things that it had. GPS and 3G made a massive difference to the iPhone experience. So, I mean, the GPS, I got mine before I went on holiday to Paris the next day, and it was like my first kind of like uh trip with a partner kind of as an adult, which was the two of us. So being able to navigate around the city using GPS was really helpful, uh, and I was very c grateful for that. Um, but the 3G connectivity was a huge deal for just general usability of the iPhone that like it could load all the data you needed significantly faster than the connection that was in the original. Um and while not unique to this device, but important alongside was the App Store. So I think the App Store launched the day before the iPhone 3G. Um and obviously it was a bit more capable than the original. So, you know, it gets a a little gets a rub there, but not bonus points as such. But yeah, I'm going with the iPhone 3G. Even though the design not so great, um I at least appreciated that they embraced the plastic and just went with it. They did. And it was nice to hold at least . All right. I reached my last pick. And how hard is it? For this pick, we're gonna we're gonna take you back to 2004, back to an event that I attended and that you have picked the primary product for from that event, the iPod photo. Oh, okay. Um, at that event, California Theater in San Jose . Um Bono and the Edge were there to unveil the U2 special edition iPod. What a weird iPod. That's just a weird product. I mean it's just an iPod in red and black. The colors of U2, I guess, colors of that album. I think it's like why didn't they do more of that? You know, why was it just you two that got that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But some but there was another product introduced there, Mike. Another Apple product, hardware product was introduced there, one that doesn't get talked about enough, especially for a product specifically referred to on stage by Steve Jobs as a revolutionary new product. I'm picking iPod socks. Oh, it's not what I thought. You can't stop me. Are you getting it yet? Are you getting it? These are socks. You put your iPod in them. And they were real. We thought he was kidding, but they were real and they sold them, and you could put your iPod in a sock. And so, with my final selection for Apple at 50, I choose Steve one of Steve Jobs's less uh beloved revolutionary new products, the iPod socks, which did 100% of what they were promised to do, which is be a sock around your iPod. I thought this was going to be the iPod Hi-Fi. When was the iPod Hi-Fi? Because this was definitely a good one. Oh man, that was a different event. Okay. I did not have that on my list. I had a I decided to go with iPod. I had it on my list in honor of you because you had and used one for so long. I don't know if you still do. I don't use it anymore. I I have a couple of Sunday speakers, but it's still around. It's still back it's right back behind me now. I was considering the iPhone pocket here as my final pick. Uh yeah, see, you were we were thinking on the same lines, I think. Uh but I'm gonna pick something that is true to my heart. I love this thing. I have one behind me, sitting next to my iPod Mini. Yeah. The original iPod shuffle. Okay. So the stick of gum. Stick a gum. It had a lanyard. Yep. Amazing. It did. And like the Apple Pencil, had a USB port under the cap. Yep. But what was so great for someone in school at this time is you could kind of partition this thing and use it as a USB stick. And so I had some music and also my coursework for school on my iPod shuffle. Uh good times. Like you could put documents on it. It was great. I loved it. I'm so d I have my original iPod shuffle and it's dead and like it's unrevivable at this point, which is so sad because I would love to see what files I had on that thing. Uh bit and the packaging was so great too. It was like green packaging and it was like you opened it up and it was like suspended in the plastic. I put shuffle. First gen is the last product. Yeah, it's a fun, it's a fun product. Like I said, I like the second generation one better, but uh it was a very fun little product. Nice idea. So upgradians, there is a link in the show notes for called who had the best draft list, and you can go in and vote. But I think for the ease of voting, we're each going to list now our picks. So Jason, can you very quickly run down your list of twenty-five? Sure. I picked the original iPhone, the late 2010 MacBook Air, the Laserwriter, the first generation PowerBook , the Apple IIe, the fourth generation iPod, the iMac G4, the second generation Apple Pencil, MacBook Neo, AirPods Pro, the iPad Pro M4, Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro, Macintosh SE 30, iPhone 4, iPod Shuffle, Second Generation, Apple Watch Ultra, iPhone 17 Pro, Magic Keyboard for Mac with Touch ID, E Mate 300, and iPod Socks. And I picked the iPod mini, the M2 MacBook Air, the iPhone 6 Plus, the original iPad, the iPod, the original iPod Nano, the iPhone 10, the i Mac G3, the first generation Apple Pencil, the Mac 128K, AirPods Pro 2, iPad Mini 2, the Apple Watch Series 4, the Polycarbonate MacBook from 2006, the iPod Video, the first generation iPod Touch, the iMac Pro, the Magic Trackpad 2, Vision Pro, the MagSafe Charger for Mac, iPhone 12 Pro, M1 MacBook Pro , Apple TV 4K second generation, the first generation AirPods, the iPhone 3G, and the iPod Shuffle. So you can find in the show notes a link to vote and uh we'll reveal the results next week as to who had the best draft list of the two of us. Sure. But they're both good and it's all just in fun and Yeah, they're all good they're all good. They're all good lists, you know? They're all good lists. Yeah. They're all good lists. Thank you so much for listening to this special episode of Upgrade. If you would like to send us in your feedback, which I'm sure you have some, uh you can go to upgradefeedback.com. I can't believe we didn't list Thank you to our members who supporters of Upgrade Plus. This week we're gonna maybe touch on some things we didn't pick and have some very important follow-up uh discovery that I made by searching through some detail. You can find a video version of this show by going to YouTube and searching for the upgrade podcast. I would like to thank our sponsors of this week's episode. That is the fine people over at Fundera, Steam Clock, Squarespace, and Delete Me. But most of all, I would like to thank you for listening and we'll be back next week with a regular episode of Upgrade. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Goodbye, my curly