Apple Lawsuit Against John Prosser

From relay this is Upgrade Episode six hundred and thirteen for April 27th, 202 6. This episode is brought to you by Fitbud, Mercury Weather, Claude, and Steam Clark. My name is Mike Hurley, and I am joined at full volume by Jason Snell . I'm at full vol ume because I'm not recording in the spare bedroom today. Oh, I see. Yes. I I I well not yet, but this may all get erased by breaking news later that you have to we have to record a new version of the opening in your in your spare bedroom don't wake the baby up hello from surely it can't happen again upgrade surely it can 't happen again it can't happen again not for 15 years I have a snow talk question that comes in from Andrew who wants to know . Jason, do you listen to the niche British Rest 's history series, like the recent 1975 to 78 masterpiece? If so, do you enjoy them? I mean, of course I do. I listened to I loved the Britain in 1974 series. Yes. And I'll tell you why. One of the okay, so the rest is history. One of the reasons that I love the rest is history is because it is storytelling, right? It is I don't know if I I I assume I haven't said this publicly, but um that I realized that they haven't done a series about the British Civil War and Tom Holland mentioned this great book about the British Civil War, the English Civil War, sorry, English Civil War. I think it was just an English Civil War at that point. Anyway, uh, so I got the book. I did an interlibrary loan and I got the book. I was like, well, I'll just read this book since they haven't done it. And what I realized is this is the sort of book that Tom Holland reads and then turns into great podcast storytelling. And it's a very long book with very small print. And I uh I I'm not gonna read that. I'm not I'm not gonna do that. I want Tom Holland, a trained um historian, or Dominic Sandbrook, a trained historian, to read about the English Civil War and then uh tell an engaging story about it. So this is what I love about the rest of his history. In fact, I might even say that something like the niche uh Rise of Margaret Thatcher 1975 to 1978 series that they just did is exactly the kind of thing I like from the rest is history because they're not just telling me a story, but instead of it being a familiar story where I don't know many of the details, it's an unfamiliar story where I know none of the details. And other than I mean, the very broadest, like I know who Margaret Thatcher is, right? But so I know I know where she ends up. But um I find that delightful because it really is about telling the stories and all of the little detail little weird details that they uh that they sprinkle in along the way, especially since this is Dominic's area of specialty. He knows a lot of very he's obviously over the course of 20, 30 years of of his uh of his professional research into this, there are certain stories that have flagged his interest as like this is a ludicrous story. And he's he talks about all of those stories, right? Because he knows those are the funniest, weirdest stories. So I love it. That's great storytelling. Basically, Britain in the seventies was an absolute disaster. Like it was disastrous here. Yeah, I I didn't realize how bad. And it it it gets so I just I just listened to the section this morning where the one minister who can't be fired because the m the the majority is too small uh Ben . Um he has a great scheme where he's going to give money to workers who are living in a factory that has been shut down and they're gonna make car radiators and orange juice in the same factory. Yeah, and there's a moment where they pause and they're like , there must be some reason, right, why though those two things in manufacturing-wise, and then they move on from it. And it's just like, I love those details, this is so ridiculous. It's amazing. Yeah. So I had previously recommended , you know, like when people ask us like what series, I had recommended the Britain in seventy-four series where they this is just setting up the the the year in nineteen seventy-four where we had three general elections uh in a year. Um three of them. That is that is a message . Imagine a presidential election three times in one calendar year. We had that. It's and I was really hoping and I was very much looking forward to them returning to talk about kind of like the rest of everything that happens, 'cause Britain only gets worse from this point. Turns out. Um into when Margaret Thatcher comes in and makes things worse and then kind of controls them. Not necessarily in ways that are good for everyone, but kind of gets Britain back on a path. It definitely puts into context uh the arrival of Margaret Thatcher, right it's like how could that how could that happen and it's like oh I see yeah um and so I was really looking forward to it and returning to it because they did it in 2024 they've just followed up in 26 and in classic Resist history style they finished the series now they,'re gonna do more next year and, Margaret Thatcher is still not the prime minister. Not the prime minister. Yeah, that's the way to do it. You gotta leave them wanting more. Yeah. And I do, and I'm looking forward to it. It's the best podcast around. So I put links in the show notes to those two seasons if people want to go check them out. Uh if you have a snow talk question of your own that you would like to send in to help us open out a show or open up a show or do whatever, please go to upgradefeedback.com and send in your snowk Tal question. Uh we have some follow-up, Jason. So uh last time the the main important thing of last week's episode was our Apple at fifty draft. Clearly. And we gave people the opportunity to vote on who would who had the best list. And I knew how this vote was going to go, but it didn't go exactly how I thought. With seventy five percent of respondents saying that you had the better list and mine was twenty five percent. I don't think that it's that different, you know, but sure uh I was picking from the heart so it's I'm the real one. Yeah you made you made people have to choose. Yeah it might be that seventy five percent of people think that I very barely beat you . Right. That's a beautiful way of putting it. Yeah. Right? So it's okay is the case, but it doesn't mean that they think it was a blowout. It just means that a lot of people thought I won. That's all that means. And I don't care because I was picking from the heart. I know I picked too many iPods, but you know what? I didn't put a printer on my list, but somehow we got that on there. And I actually have a question that came in from Steve who wrote and I said, Any Apple list about the laser writer is not an Apple List. That product and what it catalyzed had an impact on society that rivals the iPhone. Thank you, Jason. I'm not sure if I agree with that part. You know how good that pronounced. Okay, that's why you didn't pick the laser writer, but I did. Yeah. I do you agree with Steve's take? It had a huge impact. It did. Uh on on the computer industry, certainly, on society, maybe somewhat uh rivaling the iPhone, I would say probably I mm I wouldn't go that far, but still pretty good. Pretty good. I appreciated you attempting to see if you could get to Steve's point of view, but you couldn't get there. I I wanted to see how far down the road I could go before I said nope, I can't go any further and that's how far is like impact it did have an impact on society. What's this next part? Rivals the iPhone. Well, what does rivals mean? Is it no, no? Rivals and roses. Uh and obviously we got a bunch of inevitable I can't believe nobody picked this. Um and I wanted to just read a couple of these because they're funny to me. Thomas says, I can't believe nobody picked the Emacs. I can.. Me too The EMAC is weird. Uh, it wasn't even I mean, it's interesting and all, but like it's just a G3 IMAC with a G4 in it kind of and for education, but then they sold it and like whatever. I mean, again, it it it you can have it, Thomas. It's on your list. It's on your list. It's your number one draft pick. Congratulations. With my compliments. But I I feel like to me, the fact that we picked both the G3 and the G4 is like that's enough. We d you know, the Emacs. I don't know, man. I don't know if it deserves to be on there. Pick the emate instead. Yeah, ex actly. We pick the emate. Be happy about it. And then Eric wrote and said, I'm a bit sad to see the the original Apple airport not get its place on any lists. It wasn't the first wireless router, but it was definitely the attainable wireless access point as an individual and an infec inflection point. So historically important, and I thought about it. The UFO shaped airports, the the the um kind of gray one and then the white one, yeah, were really impactful. And when I was trying to think of Apple hardware products that were not , you know, computers, uh, but accessories, that's one that I thought about. And in the end, I just decided they were so they they were kind of unreliable, they burned out that I decided it left enough of a bad taste in my mouth that I I couldn't pick it, but I thought about picking it. I'll put it that way. I mean, the airport, that original airport was so it was groundbreaking, but it was also so early. For those who don't remember , like the number one mode that you would use to use that airport is you'd plug it had a it had a modem in it. So you'd plug it into your telephone. And when a device came on the Wi-Fi and wanted to get to the internet, the airport would dial your ISP and then you could be on the internet. That's how long ago this was. I mean, you could also put it on Ethernet, and I had DSL at this point, but like that was , yeah, that was that was that it was long ago. Anyway, it was a huge deal, but I just decided somebody's uh one of the suggestions we got from somebody was the add-on card for airport that added airport to Apple's um early airport capable laptops, it didn't used to come built in. You had to like lift flip open the keyboard and slide this card in in order to get Wi Fi support on your laptop because who needs only some people need Wi-Fi ? Um, but we didn't pick either of those things. So yeah. Um, I have a couple of things on the airports. I'll put a link in the show notes to the Wikipedia page. One, the original airports, the UFO ones, I'd forgotten how big the Apple logo was on those, and it looks honestly ridiculous uh to me, even though the design was cool at the time. And it reminded me of the Airport Express, which was just basically the very big looking power adapter. Then that was a cool product. That was a cool product. I'm sure I'm sure they all did eventually. Yeah. Um and then I had forgotten that the because in my mind when I think of the airport now, I think of that kind of like big white tower one. Yeah. I'd forgotten that was a time capsule. That was the time capsule. Airports were smaller. Yeah. I just I think of just the the little plastic Mac minis kind of. So there you go. Uh and an anonymous person wrote in and said, You'll be pleased to know that the iMac Pro continues to live on at Apple in every mailroom. It always makes me smile when I see them. I would love to know what's going on there. Is that what this means ? Post room? Yeah, this person had written in and it clearly indicated to me in the language that they spoke because it was more than this that they were writing in from from uh the UK, I believe. But it says post room and I and I just I code switched to mail room uh for you and everybody else. That makes more sense. I was thinking like is this like post production of video or something like that? But in a mail it it that sounds like a thing that could totally live in the mail room. But IMAC Pro though ? You know? We could have just had a 5K iMac. Yeah, I don't know if we needed the Pro. I don't know. It's like when you would see um like Tim Cook touring facilities and it'd be like iMacs running windows like hanging around over the top of robots and stuff. That's where it reminds me of. Uh now I have a completely unrelated question. And this is going back to us talking about the MacBook Neo a couple of weeks ago. Holly wrote in and said, with the success of the MacBook Neo causing potential shortages of the Binn A eighteen Pro, do you expect this to impact other planned product launches that may use the same chip? For example, could the new Apple TV box that have used that chip as well, be delayed? It's possible. I would think that Apple would be planning out their chip usage uh for eventualities like this. Does it need to be an A18 Pro? Could it be an A18? Could it be from some, you know, an A 17? Could it be from some other bin ? Like I think they've got options there. So I would I would imagine, but it's possible. Like if they really again, I have a hard time believing that they didn't have a contingency plan for for the MacBook Neo being a big hit because it certainly was a real possibility. And so I don't think they would be surprised. And that makes me think that it would be unlikely that they would say, oh no, we had planned on using all those in this Apple TV and now we can't release it. But I don't know, maybe it's possible. But I w I would think they would be better at planning than that. You know, I c I can't get over how often I'm seeing the MacBook Neo now, just like in videos and people just using them. Yeah. Like it's just not a big deal. And it's like, oh, I still really want one, Jason. Hmm. You have no use for it. I have zero use for it, but I still want one . This episode is brought to you by Fitbod. It can be hard to change your fitness level. You can feel like something you have to climb up a big hill to do essentially. Maybe you want to climb up hills to change your fitness level, but it doesn't matter how you um no matter what you want to do, Fitbot is there to support you. 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And I was very happy we that we got something together because imagine how hilarious that would have been uh for that being just sitting out there for a week, the draft. Yeah. But here we are. So uh after a week more to think about it, how are you feeling now about this? Is there any areas that are interesting to you, exciting to you, concerning? Where are you? I you know, I'm kind of interested in it's been interesting to see everybody's takes on this. I find it very funny that there's definitely a certain por tion of the internet . I mean, it happens every time, right? It you it's almost like a Rorschach test of the content creators out there who are like how can I how can I make this be a reason to repeat my worldview again right or or right like and and I've seen some really amazing takes that are like hey , there's gonna be a new CEO at Apple, so let me complain about my you know personal whatever it is, my you know, my love of weird Chinese Android phones and why they aren't available more broadly, uh and making that about John Turnus somehow. Like, okay. Like there's there's a bunch of those I've seen, um I've seen a bunch of uh uh kind of like one last chance to complain about Tim Cook and his you know his uh his treatment of the Chinese government and of the Trump administration, which you know, fair, fair, fair do, like to get your get your licks in. Um it's just interesting to see the different reactions that people have to it. Um also the the the glee in some areas where it's like, oh, finally with not with Tim Cook not there, things will be different, which, you know, I I also think is maybe a little overheated because there he's first off, he's still gonna be there uh as the executive chairman. And second, this is a many year plan and John Turnus has been a major part of Apple all this time. And while I'm enthusiastic for the opportunity for change, I think it would be a mistake to assume that especially that everything you've disliked about Apple, it's a it's like Allen Dye again, right? Which is like you can be hopeful for change and think that this is an opportunity for change without kind of loading all of your person al uh frustrations onto this one change and thinking that this is the one that's gonna solve it because I think you're gonna end up disappointed because there's gonna be way more continuity than you would expect. So I don't know. It's I I a lot of it has just been human nature. The the spread of reactions has not been um surprising. In fact I I was amused that there was one piece that I saw that was um that was very much like I'm disappointed that everybody's just been praising Tim Cook, but I'm gonna be critical of him. And I thought, well, did you not look hard for the everybody's been praising Tim Cook is not how I would phrase it, but sure, again, get your get your take in, which was a that was a completely different take about about other reasons. I did, you know, I thought the the the guy who wrote Apple in China um wrote a not bed in the New York Times that I thought was kind of interesting where he was essentially restating his thesis uh which is that you know, Apple Apple's being successful also uh built up China's manufacturing capacity. I would argue maybe he takes it a little too far when he makes that argument. He he it's much more dramatic to say sort of like Apple made China , which is not true, but Apple helped. It's it that is true. Apple helped. But I think he overstates it sometimes. I think I think to make his point more seem more broad and more important. Um but I I do think that that was interesting. And then of course he also makes the point that I think is really well made in his book that one of the challenges that is that in in priming Apple for success, Tim Cook has also made Apple incredibly vulner able for in terms of its reliance on China in the supply chain, uh its use of Chinese markets to grow the business, but you know, that's dangerous too in case there's uh something cut off there. And then he made the point I think that I haven't seen anywhere else that he's never that Tim Cook is basically doesn't go to Taiwan, even though Taiwan semiconductor is his chip supplier, because it would offend China. So he doesn't go. I thought that was interesting too. So there's some interesting bits in there that but uh you know, I it's been interesting to see the reaction and I'm I'm glad that we got to be in on the on the on the forefront of that. I mean we literally recorded that right after and then I sat down and I wrote a couple thousand words about it and then I got to watch everybody else do their thing. Yeah I think for me I kind of have a few different feelings going on. Um I agree with everything you said that right, like it it is very funny to watch like all of the hammers and nails that people are using, right? Like yeah, you have this hammer, and so this is just a nail for you to to hit on. And I think if I am to have a hammer and nail, it is that I just like it when interesting things happen because then we can talk about them. Like I remember when when this was all breaking last year, um about it seeming like that we were really speeding up towards uh some kind of retirement message, like with the FT thing and then with subsequent reporting from Mark Gurman . Um I was hoping it would happen because I thought it would be interesting to cover. And so I still I mean I feel like I'm e the the level of interestingness I actually think is higher than I had imagined. Like now we're here. It's like, oh it's interesting this has happened. Now we have a few months of speculation, and then things are going to start to change from that point. Because there will be change. Like there will not be rapid, massive change to Apple. Like Turnus is going to make a mark and then things will slowly start to change from there. But this will absolutely come September first be a change, an inflection point for the company because he is he is a person with his own opinions and he's going to have them. And like you know, it's like uh people say like, oh, he's been there forever, you know, he's gonna I think you know, he he he's gonna just do whatever Tim wanted to do. And I don't think that is completely accurate. Like being part of the machine doesn't mean he agrees with everything that everybody wants to do. And now instead of just being on the team, he's now the guy in charge. He's now the guy in charge. I I I think you could probably say that probably over the last five years to six months, whatever it since he be became SVP to now, he's obviously been increasingly involved as part of his training and run-up to being the CEO, increasingly involved in in this process, but still in the end, it's Tim Cook's decision. I would say that um that probably since this, probably since December, assuming that that's when everything was finally just decided, that any decisions that are kind of long-term decisions that Tim Cook has been bringing John Turner is into the loop about if he wasn't already. And then but but you're right. It it it's going to continue to transition over uh the next few months until September. And and then we'll go from there. And there will be there will be change. I think it's it the question is just sort of like everybody, it's just very easy to overload all your dreams and hopes and put them and put them in a box and think, well, John Turnus is going to come in and solve all these problems. And there is going to be more continuity than you might expect because he is on the senior management team. Uh, but he will also make changes because he's not in that same role. Both of those things can be true. Um, I I think oh, I wanted to mention another thing that I thought was really funny is that there was that one report out there about how like you know what was he involved with and he was really into the iPad uh stuff yeah and making the iPad more usable and then um but he was also one of the people behind the the touch bar and I've seen that thrown up as like ah failure the touch bar and I'm just gonna say it again he's the hardware guy the touch bar hardware was kind of impressive the problem with the touch bar was not the hardware it was the fact that the software group didn't bother with the touch bar. And I'm gonna, that is a hill I will die on. Is that the touch bar could have been better hardware and they could have iterated on it. But what I find interesting about the touch bar is that it was an interesting piece of hardware that was you could see the software group run away from it. Like they never did anything to make it better when it could have been much more interesting. They just didn't bother. And that to me, I I thought that was one of the most visible examples of one port one part of Apple just not playing ball with the other part, where like literally you could see the hardware group thought this was worth doing the software group didn't so they didn't and that was a bad bit of management who you know Tim on Tim Cook's level right that they could they they shipped a hardware feature on their laptop that their software group didn't want to do anything with. And so it just laid there until they finally got rid of it. Like I I'm I'm sorry. I just and and that's a that to me that's always a sign of of a an argument that is weak is that it's somebody who's just cherry picking something that they don't really have all the facts about, or they want to just use it because they want to throw that in there at John Turnus. It's like I that is a much more complicated story. But but sure, fine. I have two areas that I want to get your your take on for at potential areas of change. One is the app store. Do we think there will be any change to the app store and the kind of the business of the App Store. And two, do you think there will be any change to how Apple events are conducted ? Um App Store, what I would say is this is an opportunity for a change in policy if a change in policy is um something that that John Turnis wants to do. I I think it's very clear, and we can go back to all of those uh court transcripts, right? It's very clear that Phil Schiller even made the argument that maybe they should live up to what Steve Jobs had said, which was we're really just here to cover our own expenses. And once they're making a billion dollars on the App Store, maybe they should start easing some of the rules of the App Store or some of the their cut of the revenue from the App Store. And it's clear thatly somebody, whether it was the CFO or whether it was Tim Cook, somebody was like, no, maximize revenue. That's what we're here to do now, which is not what the original idea was as sold by Steve Jobs. And it and Schiller was like, maybe we should , you know, say we've got our cut and the rest of this is to the benefit of our developers. Now that's a, you know, that's a decision that if Tim Cook didn't make it directly, he allowed it to be the decision, right? If the CFO was like, no, and Tim Cook's like, all right, I'm gonna go with the CFO here. It's still his decision. Well, that's an area where John Turnus, we don't know. Maybe John Turnus in the background was like, I don't love this. This has gotten us like a lot of the maybe he's making a lot of the arguments we're making, which is like , is have have we gone down this path too far? Have we been too aggressive? And are we courting just more trouble? Yeah. From all of these other groups, all these other regulators, when we're doing fine, and that like, like the best thing here is not to have this hard rule but to to like back off maybe maybe not but I would say that it's unlikely that Tim Cook, who allowed this decision to happen in the first place, is gonna backtrack. But John Turn us could say it's a new era and we're gonna make some changes. And he has the ability to do that , uh, I would say in a way that Tim Cook is just not gonna do. Yeah. So I I that you know, in terms of the app store , that's what I think is like there's an opportunity for change here because the old regime is gone. And so the new regime, I know it it's a lot of the same people, but like the boss is different. And this is what I've been saying all along. It's a lot easier to get the new boss to say, let's change some things than it is for the old boss to say, hey, some of those decisions I'm I made in the past , uh they were bad and I'm gonna change them, right? It's just it's easier for a new person to say that. Yeah, because I wonder if if you're coming into this role, do you want to now enter yourself into the ongoing legal problems that are just going to continue for all of history? Because no one's gonna give this up. Like it's it's it's a it's a good kind of area for governments to attack. Do you just kind of hold up your hands and be like, forget about it? And also if you're a hardware guy, you know, I mean if he was involved in Vision Pro, say, we all know what happened there. Like we all saw that developers weren't interested. And if you have ideas for new platforms in the future, would it be a good idea to maybe try and make developers a bit happier with you again? You know, like there there is this is obviously something that is not lost on them. Like I do not believe that Apple are not aware of this, right? Because one, we're all talking about it all the time, and I know that they pay attention to the media, but also they know more than anyone that developers clearly were not interested in that platform. And so what now you can never make another platform? Like you're you're basically it has to be piggybacking on the iPhone forever. Like that's not that's not a good idea. Like you need I believe that they need to try and incentivize developers. So maybe you just take this as your time to just do that. I don't know. Also I think I mean 'cause you could I I'm sensitive to the argument that the first thing that the new CEO does is come in and announce a policy that has the effect of decreasing revenue, right? Yeah. I I can understand and I've seen this argument. It's like, well, they'll never do that because that's that's the last thing that the new CEO would want to do. But my counter-argument would be: you could also say that settling a bunch of lawsuits, reducing friction with the EU , solving some press political pressure in the US and also dealing with this in other regions, creating maybe a single worldwide Apple policy that lowers the lowers the tension, lowers the scrutiny being placed on Apple in this moment is also beneficial to Apple, right? That's my counter-argument. Is that it's not all -I would argue, in fact, that one of the reasons we got here is because Apple's executives overemphasized the value of like App Store revenue and some aspects of app store policy and felt like they were worth more than all the stories in the media, all the scrutiny from regulators. Like and and I don't believe that's true. I I think Apple makes so much money from so many different areas that a small reduction, not a vacant vacancy of all that revenue, a small reduction in one small revenue line amid all the other revenue lines in exchange for reduced legal encumbrance and scrutiny and maybe a better relationship with your third party developers that you're trying to cultivate because you're the new boss and you can turn the page now especially like maybe that's a better , maybe that's a better story. But he may he may also like we don't know. He may also feel like that's an area that he doesn't have as much power over, that like that's not where he wants to spend his political capital is on um is on App Store policy because he's got bigger fish to fry. That's also possible. And then what about Apple events then? In terms of events, yeah. Um again, I mean, I would say anything's possible. I think you're gonna need to see . I mean, I'd be interested to see what Phil Schiller thinks. Because Phil Schiller's in charge of events and what great Joswiak thinks because he's in charge of product marketing. They have experimented with a bunch of different ways of doing it. I think I think the truth is that the only events that we can count on are the iPhone and WWDC Yeah. led and yet they still can invite the press or the developers or both to those events and then they're yes, they're just playing a video, but they also have kind of an in-person element. And I think they're probably pretty happy with it. So could you know Junk Turnist could say, hey, is there any way for us to go back to streaming it live, but having it be sort of like a couple of hosts and we talk about some stuff and then we throw it to videos. And you know , you could do that, but what's the benefit? And there's a lot of different downsides of that. I so yeah, anything could happen. My gut feeling is is that the way events are changing for Apple is that you're gonna see more things like the MacBook Neo , where there's a press event somewhere and there's a video and there's a hands-on, but it's not , you know, that was an experience, I know, but like that, that's what that was. Is it it was a it it was was an event that happened for press and influencers and things. Yeah. But there was also just a press release and a product video and then they moved on. So I I I think that I I doubt there will be much immediate change in that area, but I do think that they are always thinking of tinkering with the format because they just want to get the most publicity and exposure. But for the new iPhone, I think the the way they've done it is probably the the way that they want to do it from now on So Tim Cook is remaining around, right? He's uh while taking the role of executive chairman, is also involved in some day-to-day operation of the business, right? Like the political stuff is is a level of day to day operation. So like he's not gone . Um right . How long do you think he's do you think this is I mean we'll get to some stuff that he said later on about being long term, but do you think this is expected to be a long term post ? I think he'll be there at least five years. At least five. Okay . And so in that regard, what do you think about like is is he gonna actually be able to let go? Or like is it gonna be hard for Turnus to like the previous he's right there, you know, the guy's right there. Well I okay . Let me frame this differently. If you're the CEO for fifteen years, and then you've got your protege that you're gonna bring along and now you're gonna be the executive chairman, are you going to be able to let it go? Yeah. I think that's a good question. Is Tim Cook going to be disciplined enough to allow John Turnus to have the space to be his own CEO while focusing on the areas where he needs to specifically focus as executive chairman. I'm gonna say he's gonna have no problem with it because he's Tim Cook and he strikes me as an incredibly disciplined person who wants to give his success or the space to learn the job. And so that's the difference there, right? It's like I think it's a perfectly reasonable thing to say, I don't know about this setup, but I think about Tim Cook and everything we know about Tim Cook. And I I just don't think Tim Cook is gonna be meddling in John Turnus' business. I think he will they will be clear boundaries about like what he needs to care about as a board member , as the executive chairman of the board versus what the CEO will be doing. And and you know, my history and on my one nonprofit board that I was on is the job of the board is not to be the micromanager of the CEO or the executive director in our case. It it's not. It's to be , you know, representing the shareholders, due diligence, advice, but it's not like the org chart go, you know, the that the board is a human being that the CEO reports to. That's not that's not quite how it works. And I think that I I just have a great deal of confidence that part of this is all about Tim Cook giving John Turnus the best runway, being available for advice, but I I just can't imagine that Tim Cook is like, yeah, I'm gonna micromanage that guy. I'm really gonna be in charge. I just I can't see it. Yeah, no, that's a really good point about the discipline. You know, it's like how I do I wonder though like, you know, what it what it will feel like for Turnus and also that there are elements where it's gonna be odd, right? He wants to make a change, but then Turnus has to go sell it to India and China. It's like what is what is that gonna be like , you know? But I guess that's the same as anybody working for the CEO, which Tim is going to have this strange role where he is the executive chairman of the board, but is also kind of like an a member of the team, depending on what is needed of him at any one time. But yes, I I I think you've made a really great point that Tim Cook made that decision, so he's going to stick by it, and then it's just up to John Turners to be able to feel confident enough in himself that he will be able to tell Tim what he's doing and what he's not doing. Yeah and also let's be clear when they make that announcement that says Tim Cook is going to still be involved in dealing with you know global issues, et cetera, et cetera. And when Donald Trump comes out, we miss this part, right? Like the next day. Yeah. And set and says, oh I'm gonna miss Tim Apple Cook all all the the more, but I'll still but he'll still be around and I'll still talk to him. Like this is what this is literally the message Apple is sending. And I've seen people say, like, oh, can can John Turnus? We may get to some of this later. Can John Turnus really avoid dealing with all the political issues and all that? It's like, well, this is this is what Apple's setting up here is. This announcement is very literally like world leaders continue to call Tim Cook. That's what it is. And if they call John Turnus, they're gonna get Tim Cook, right? It's gonna be like, Can I speak to John Turnus? Yeah, this is Tim. Yeah. That's gonna be it, right? Like that's what how it's gonna be for those, for those world leaders, that he that's his bailiwick. And you know, that not only is that meant to insulate Turnus, but it's also so when when I hear people say, oh yeah, but what's gonna stop uh Donald Trump from calling up John Turnus? The answer is gonna be because Donald Trump doesn't want to talk to John Turnus. He has a personal relationship with Tim Cook. Tim and he knows Tim Cook and he knows Tim Cook's the person he's supposed to talk to. So he'll continue to talk to him. That's the idea there. I agree. And I, you know, like I'm seeing it on his code, he mentioned too. I do and I'll point this out again. I do think people are over indexing on Trump in this scenario. Like it's not just him. It's no, it's it's it's China. It's every country around the world. It's India. Yes. And it it is. It is all of that where 'cause Cook has got those relationships and that that is I mean, Trump is is the one that's especially for Americans the most visible, but there are there are lots and that is a whole part of the business that honestly not, only does Cook have the contacts there, but it would take years more for Turnus to get up to speed with him. And I'm sure that's part of the deal. But like that's one of the reasons this is happening is that Tim Cook can take that load when he's learning other stuff. And then gradually he will learn it over time so that he can take it over for from Tim. It's like in fifteen years time, if John Turner has had a good stewardship of these of the company and has built relationships with the world leaders, I expect this to go exactly the same for the next person. Because it this it's relationships, and Apple has the ability to manage these relationships effectively. And it's like I as the lead ers change, I don't expect him to continue working with new people, but for as long as they remain, and in some parts of the world that could be a very long time for some of these people, it makes sense to have some some level of continuity for a period of time until Turnus is like in that world too. And it's also like if you have the ability to not have to give him everything to deal with on day one, then yeah, you Exactly. 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Mercury is available on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac. You download it, use the standard features for free, and upgrade to Mercury Premium to unlock everything. Go to MercuryWeather dot app slash upgrade to download Mercury Weather now and use that link so they'll know that you came to them from the show. That is MercuryWeather.app slash upgrade. The link is in the show not es as well. Try it out and then you can get all the standard features for free. Our thanks to Mercury Weather for their support of this show and rela y . So we've got some additional reporting that obviously it happened after we spoke last week. So Mark German has shared some quotes from an all hands meeting that um the outgoing and incoming CEOs did together at Apple. So Tim shared that he was, quote, healthy and plans to serve as executive chairman for a long time. So the idea of the sharing the healthy part is interesting, right? It's like they didn't mention this really anywhere and I I can't remember which podcast I was listening to. I've listened to lots of them now. Uh but saying that like this seems to maybe have been something they wanted to get out there because it wasn't mentioned and maybe they didn't need to think about that, but now Tim is saying, like, don't worry, I'm all good . Um, he also said, I'll be here to offer my knowledge and experience and be a sounding board anytime I'm called upon. Apple will be my top priority, it's who I am at my core and I can't imagine it any other way . Yep. Sounds about right. Yeah. On the political side, he said this is an area where we've built relationships over multiple years and a decade plus, and I think I can help with that. And I'll probably help on some other things. That is so nebulous, right? Like ah some other stuff. I'll be I'll be doing web objects, I'll be adjusting the the what is it? I'll be in Cafe Max, checking the pizzas out, you know? I'll be looking at uh, you know, the the machining on the factory in popping up. I'll be popping up. Yeah. Uh this is a quote from Mark Garman. Cook was asked why he decided now was the time to step down. He said he desired the best ever transition, which means that the business had to be going great, the product map, roadmap had to be incredible, and for Turners to be ready for the role. He said he wanted the transition to be a textbook succession plan, the best in the world, and I hope that business schools and so forth are writing about it. Yep. This is what I've been saying. Yeah. You were right. Tim Tim Cook wants the best trans ition. And and I'll just say, you know, he didn't get it, and he wants it. And I get why. Like I totally get it. Uh, and that's what they're going for here is Tim Cook didn't want to stick around because keep in mind every year, I mean reasonably, let's just view it this way, every year he stays a CEO is one fewer year maybe that he can be uh in a mentorship executive chairman role. And I think he doesn't want to make it that like, well , I'm gonna stay longer and then I'm just gonna say later and disappear after a year. Like he doesn't want that. Also, there's the other thing here is turn us to be ready for the role, right? Like you also don't want it to be that Tim Cook says, I gotta go, I I got a thing, and John Turnis is like, Well, wait, I'm not ready, right? You want to hit the timing right where things look good and you think the guy who's gonna take the seat is is ready for it. Cause if you wait too long, he's gonna be impatient. Maybe he'll even go somewhere else, who knows, or be unhappy. Um, so you gotta get the timing right. And part of the timing is is he ready? I I don't get the sense from anyone here that John Turnus isn't ready for this job because if he wasn't, they would just wait and do it later , right? Like they're doing it now because they think now is the optimal time. And I if there's anybody who's focused on the optimal, it's Tim Cook. But and that readiness may have also been kind of functional of like, all right, we've made the decision. Now let's have John spend some time with every team. You know, like let's have him go and really understand what's going on in DeJo Brian's team. And let's go have him really understand you know, like just spending that time. Now, right? Between now and September where there may be a a bunch of that going on if there wasn't all that. Exactly. Yeah. So that there will be bits and bobs that they can do without causing too much attention and then some that they will do from now. But like start having this guy and also like his overall visibility has changed, right? Where like as you mentioned with the Neo, but even before then, he's giving more interviews and is being the person speaking about products more. So like giv ing him a bit more experience in this world but also visibility amongst the media, etc. Right. So like he is kind of becoming more of a a a a public presence as such. And then John Turner said he was especially excited to be stepping into the role at this moment. He said, because I am telling you, we are about to change the world once again. I'm not exaggerating when I say this is the most exciting time to be building products and services at Apple in my entire career . So that sounds very exciting. I mean, you know, you can say that. Do you mean it? Maybe, right? Like as we spoke about before, you you you if you're Tim Cook, a great time to do this is if there's about to be a bunch of change. If they've got some products that they are really excited about and that can be hardware and software and should be, right? That like if they've really cracked Apple intelligence and are feeling good about that, excellent time to do it. And if they have a bunch of iPhones or Macs on the horizon that they think are really good, also a great time to do it. And so Turnus may be correct. This might be the most exciting time possible for him to have done this, which coincides with it's also the exact perfect time to make the transition. Sure. I will also say Apple always says that the pipeline they have is the most exciting and amazing one ever. Wouldn't you say Jason that every year is more exciting than the I th I think that they would . I think that that's that's the the case. And I see people where it's like, oh, what does he mean? It's like, well he means that he's saying positive things about the future to Wall Street and to everybody else. But you know, maybe he's also thinking about that folding. The possibility of the home stuff even the stuff we know about suggests that the possibility could be there. That like if they can actually nail those products and make them all really good, you know, like this year's iPhone, next year's iPhone, which could both be big deals, and touchscreen MacBook Pros, and some home stuff, whatever intelligence. Whatever's going on with a Mac Like there is a possibility in which that could be accurate just based on what we know. And so it's exciting to hear him say it . We also have more information from Mark Gurman about Johnny Shrugie and kind of the position that he is in now as Chief Harbour Officer. So apparently, following up from his previous reporting, at the end of last year, Johnny Shrugie approached Tim Cook to say that he was considering leaving Apple after feeling burned out from leading the silicon team, which has been a very big job, very relentless work. And also there's a lot of reporting about like in sorry, it's lot of reporting in Mark's piece, about Sruji being quite a hard leader. so And maybe if you're Yeah that is tiring maybe on him. Um that that and apparently that people so maybe might be some people that are surprised with the change in leadership from Turnus to Sru ji. Um so you know maybe he wore himself out a little bit being a bit too intense. Um and so apparently Cook offered him quote a massive new compensation package and a broader role as Apple's first chief hardware officer. That job, which combines Sruji's old role and Turnus' current oversight of hardware engineering, this is what Mark says, effectively makes him the number two executive at Apple. Now when I read that, I was like, all right, Mark, come on . But then I started thinking about it, right? So in Tim's era , the CEO is number one and the chief operating officer is number two, which is pretty standard for a business . But I was thinking that like, well, to Tim, the s the most important person other than him is the person running operations because that's who he is as a person. To John Turnus , is the person running hardware the second most important person at the company? It's like from that perspective, I could see it. But just in general, I don't agree. Right? Like yeah. Well, being in charge of Apple Silicon and hardware does I think functionally make you the second most important person at Apple because of what you're in charge of. But that's more about the details of the contents, not about the title. Yeah. I think you might be right. I I mean, I don't think anybody would say Sabi Khan is more important than Johnny Surugi. Yes. Like uh n no way . Um so okay, like sure. It it is a it is a major it is a major role. Uh there's no doubt about it. We we we don't need to count. Like and Q's job is also important. Just reactions are incredibly important to Apple. So Absolutely. Apple leadership page. It is a che it is a C suite position, which we've uh we keep talking about. It is that is an important deal. I don't know what that says about the future. Um and I really hope that Surji is in this, not following the same route that Johnny took when he got his C suite position. So we'll see. So Johnny Seruji is going to be splitting the new hardware organization into five distinct teams uh under his new role. So we have five leaders that we have names for all of them. So Tom Mariab Tom was picked by Turnus to succeed him. So he will take the role as head of hardware engineering, but this now goes into Johnny Suru gi. D this but this role will not report to the CEO anymore. It will repeat report to the chief hardware officer who reports to the CEO. Yep. We have Sri Santhanam who will head up the silicon team. So you assume, you know, this is like Sruji's right hand person, right? To kind of take this on. Friend of the show, Tim Millet will run platform architecture. Yay, Tim. Tim has been on the show multiple times. Tim, you standing invitation to return whenever you like. Tim's Tim's brother listens to upgrade, right? Yeah. So so Brother Millet, you can tell Tim that he has a standing invitation to return. But but we're also Tim has been very present for a long time uh in Apple Keynes, um as the person who tends to explain the chip and what it can do. Yes. Uh we then have Zhong Yixian Zhongxian, Zhongxian Chen, who will be in charge of advanced technologies. I don't know what that means. I don't know. And Donnie Nordhughes, who will run program management. I also don't know what that means. Yeah. That's okay. But that's this is not my area of expertise. Uh the other ones I can work out. This is these two are. Exactly. Exactly. So I clearly cannot do this job. So there we go. We have we have people now. We can't really do much with that, but it's interesting to have those names. They're names that we now have uh in the roller decks as it's as such. So that is all the additional information that we have. Uh I have some questions that I want to get to from upgradients about about Tim. But I wanted to ask any additional areas of speculation that you may have. Ah . So, you know, my one, and I'm gonna say it again, I said it last time, I'll say it again, I'm gonna keep saying it forever. I think there will be more C suite positions in the future. That is my my thing that I think's going to happen because it would be very strange to me to just have Johnny Surugi elevated um because that is going to start hurting some feel ings if that's the case. Um but what about you? Do you have any other areas that you you wanted to touch on? Um I wanna say that when you've got hardware ascendant in the organization and the head of software has not been promoted, and that there's been some issues on the software side, that I would say there's a spotlight on Craig Feder igi , and he has to execute especially the Gemini integration Siri kind of thing, but we also know that like those home products that John Turnus likes so much have been held up because of software issues. Now , I think you could argue that it was because of AI issues that were really the responsibility of John Jan Andrea, who is gone now because of that, and that that's not on Federigi, but it's on Feder ighi to deliver. And I would say, I don't I don't know because I don't have inside information about this, but I would say that if Federig is not on the hot seat, I would say what I said . The spotlight is on him. And I do think he needs to deliver because I think in an in an area where you've got this incredible hardware and these incredible chips . And at least for those of us who look closely, we feel like the software side is just not operating on the same level as the rest of Apple's business. From that perspective, you would think that the person in charge of software would be scrutinized. Mm-hmm . Now, I don't know, right? Like I uh the what the personal relationships are and what the strengths are uh that Craig Federigi brings to the table and and how he's perceived, and like all of that , I don't know. And so it's a complex issue, but I would just say as an outsider, I look at that and say, I think I feel like Craig Federigi as a person and also the software organization as a whole feels like is going to be under a lot of scrutiny. But I also feel like the AI reset where the AI stuff was kind of happening off on the side and now it's been integrated into the organization. I feel like um that hits the reset button a little bit, but still it's super it doesn't, it doesn't it doesn't erase what's on gone before. So I think that that's going to be an issue. My kind of my optimist's take on this in the the way that I could imagine this going uh is that the 27 operating systems deliver . Um I think they should be able to deliver because uh they will be using models that everybody knows are good and Apple just has to implement them correctly. So I'm assuming that they deliver and I believe that if they do and they receive well, then Craig Veterigi is elevated to chief software officer by the end of the year. That that's what I think will happen, but it it's it's predicated on it working. But I think it will work. I do. I I uh as we stand here right now, I've been a I've been a big Debbie Downer about Apple Intelligence, I think for for good reason for the last couple of years, but I believe that they will that they will be able to pull something together this year. I still don't think that the things that we saw at WWDC twenty twenty four will ship uh because I think that they were completely fake things created with hope. Um, but I think that they in the meantime will have had some some features that do work and that will work well and they will implement them correctly across the operating systems. But the WW C24 stuff, I just don't know if it's feasible at all. And so I'm not expecting that to to occur. But I just think if if Federegi can actually pull some stuff together and change the perception of Apple in AI, I think that will be a bit of a win for him. But we'll have to see. Yeah, we'll see. The other the other thing that came out of German's report that I thought was interesting is Mike Rockwell, who launched the who who got the Vision Pro to ship. And now I see people saying, like, oh, he's no good. He did the Vision Pro. It's like he got that product out the door. I think that's a miracle. Um Mike Rockwell is on the he's been tasked with Siri, right ? But also the report from German is that like he's been angling for like a promotion and maybe like a CTO kind of role. I don't know quite what's going on there, but this is this is an interesting example where you've got some people who are well thought of, um, who are in kind of nebulous positions and have been given tasks to perform. And it I don't know whether it's a power struggle or whether I don't know quite what's going on here, but that's the other thing to watch. Because like Mike Rock if Siri integration goes well, is Rockwell the one whose r reputation is burnished by that. Yeah. And can they keep him? Do they want to keep him? Because it's the again it's the Allen die thing it's like you know does his opinion of his prowess uh match that of management and I don't know but um but he seems you know he seems based on reports like a pretty remarkable person, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he was brought in as a fixer in two areas, right? So they must think of him well, right? It's like you are a fixer . Right. But if he comes in and says, Well, I'm really disappointed if I'm not given a C-suite position, then you're like, Well, I'm sorry. And that might be enough to make him leave, even if they like him. Like, that's always the challenge with this sort of thing. But this is enough a reason why I I hope for and can imagine larger executive change. Like by creating these new roles like Seruji has, you just created five team leads now. Like you can create new roles for people to get increased visibility in the organization and move up, right? So that like in 10 years' time, friend of the show, Tim Millet is the chief arbor officer, right? Or or whatever it might end up be ing. I I think that you Apple needs to t no, the people that are on that leadership page have been on that leadership page forever. Yeah. They have to start creating new people that could could move in or they end up leaving and that's not great for the future of the organization and when you have somebody new in John Turnus in place maybe that creates opportunity to kind of start moving people out and up without firing people, right? Like that maybe don't need to be fired except for the fact that you want to have some fresh faces. And so we can we can start kind of laying the groundwork for that . Got some questions. Alan wrote in and said, Do either of you se anen official biography of the infamously famo private tomb cook ever being produced? If so, is there someone you would see him trusting to write that story like Steve Jubbs did of Walter Isaacson? It seems wild that someone who can make the case for the greatest CEO of all time I'm gonna say I I think that before all is said and done there will be a semi official, if not official, Tim Cook book . But it will be , it won't be a cookbook. I mean, by definition, it will be a cookbook, but it's not gonna be recipes from Tim. I've got to tell you what it's gonna be. It's gonna be . This is my prediction. It is going to be a lessons learned, my life and my challenges, and how that it's gonna be a business book. That's what I'm gonna say it is. It's gonna you're gonna the people who yearn for a like a heartfelt biography about like Tim Cook and his, you know, his life and and and I think you will be disappointed because I do think it's gonna be that the the when I think of what's the book that Tim Cook participates in, it's gonna be like Apple University for Tim Cook. It's gonna be Tim Cook and how lessons from his life informed his understanding of business, that's my prediction. Because look, everything we know about Tim is that there really isn't much else to say. And like in that seems to be the choices of his life. It's often in the context of either a business understanding or a core value that is applied to the business. And so I can I can see a whole book that's about that. So not just like how I learned about this thing that made me think that it's great to not have any uh you know invent excess inventory in the channel, right? It is also like you know, in the South, uh I learned this lesson that is important. As stated in his community letter, Tim Cook is famous for getting up every morning and reading emails from customers. Tim's email is public information, but Turnus's isn't as of now. Do you think that John Turnus will make his email public so he can continue this direct line of custom er feedback. People are just gonna gonna um email all possibilities of Turnus and see what they're doing. Yeah you're going to lose that email address, right? By the way, I I'm I'm pretty confident that that there is a staff who is the gatekeeper to the email and then passes the email to Tim. Because I've seen a lot of people say, Oh, you think that they they only feed Tim good stuff, but no, no, he also sees the bad stuff. It's he's yeah, they also feed him the bad stuff. Yeah, he still has he is not reading the fire holes of email. No is going to Tim Apple.com. It's a curated subset. There will be a you know CEO at Apple.com or John at Apple.com that will be go into the executive assistant pool and will be curated and passed to John Turnus . Uh or his uh either that or the first time he appears at the iPhone event, his little credit will say John Turnus, CEO , don't email me. Don't email me. Don't want to email me. One of those. No, because look, the thing is, this is a this will continue because it was not a Tim Cook thing. Jobs did it too. Like this is a I think time honor tradition now that like essentially it's possible to receive an email from the CEO of Apple. Like it, you know, they they wrote them differently, but it's it's possible. Like it is a thing that can happen and will continue to happen, so I expect that there will be a John at Apple.com email address. Probably. And an anonymous person wrote in it says, Is it delusional to think that Turnus would not get dragged into the politics even with Cook taking ownership? No, because they won't let it. I mean that that I I I think I don't think it's delusional. I think that they are going to make a concerted effort to not. That that Tim Cook is going to be the voice of that. And and people might try, but I don't think they're going to succeed. Interesting. See, I think that I think that he will and he should be. I I don't What is the dragged into? Is it I mean like I got an email today that dragged John Turnnis into politics because I got an email today from the union that represents the people at the closed uh Towson, Maryland uh Apple store that was the first unionized Apple store, and they they're Apple shutting it down al,ong with a couple other stores. Yep. And they are doing like a uh press conference and they the entire like angle that of their story pitch is as Apple undergoes an executive transition. Is it time for Apple's new executive team to change the way it handles its workers, right? Like it's obviously it's a very self-serving. It's from the union, but but um so that's i is that dragged into? Well then I guess. I mean, are people going to be able to point at politics and point at John Turnus? Sure. But I would say in terms of Apple's engagement with it, Apple has the ability to just not engage with John Turnis over that stuff and engage with other people. If if putting a picture of John Turnus up and pointing at it and saying, see, shame, politics, then sure, but like I would say that there is a real power in controlling where your executives go and what they say and who says it. And I think Apple's gonna be pretty disciplined about that for a while. I think I'm looking at it more from the functional side, not from the world side, like of people like pointing, like for example, if Xi Jinping is meeting with Tim Cook and he's like, I would like John Turner to be there too , they're not gonna like say no, right? Like they'll manage it the best that they can, but ultimately, yeah, maybe he goes along but he doesn't really do the talking. Tim does the talking. Like I I I consider their possi a scenario in which he is in involved as he should be as the CEO of the company, but not in that he's the person necessarily dealing with it, in the same way that he wouldn't be dealing with the application of new HR procedures, which would be DeJo Bryan's role to do. But it's not like he's not gonna know about it if it's something he needs to know about. That's kind of one I'm getting at more. But like I guess the the dragged in part seems to suggest a little bit more kicking and screaming, which I'm not expecting as such . This episode is brought to you by Claude from Anthropic. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you. Whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. 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That's C L A U D E dot AI slash upgrade and check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all of the features mentioned right now. That is Claude.ai slash upgrade. Our thanks to Claude for their support of this show We have uh some rumor roundup, Jason Snap. Yeah. So uh Mac world is reporting that a source in the supply chain has shared with them the color options for the pro iPhone this year. Well that's exciting. We have light blue is described as somewhat similar to the current mist blue color of the base iPhone 17. Dark cherry, described as a deep wine like red, not a bright fruit punch style red. Silver, this is described as similar to the iPhone 17 Pro's silver and white design and a dark gray. Um, so I've also pulled some of this information from 95 Mac who have an image as well that they've kind of made like a render. So we'll have to say goodbye to our friend Orange. It looks like, but I personally I like the look of that that light blue. That looks really fun. I like the look of that. If that's the way it's like, it looks like a real color. I mean, we'll see how it looks like in person. And I the the uh dark cherry I'm sorry, that that feels very much like the classic color, not a color from Apple. It's like it's a red tinted black. Yeah. Whereas the light blue is uh uh at least in this concept in this image and we should say Macworld got this right last time. Same writer got this right last time. So um that that looks like something that's that's noticeable and that you'll be like, oh, that's the new iPhone blue. I see. Yep. Yeah, I uh I dig the blue. I agree with you that the the I just I'm just not a fan of that that kind of purpley reddish winish colour. It's just not for me. But it feels like what the blue was for this year's phones, this particular phone, 17, right? Where it was like very dark, so it's like a hint for colour. Mm-hmm. I'm happy they're bringing back essentially a a black phone. I think that was a a bit of a miss from the lineup. Like just to have silver, I think they should have also had a darker colour, but not at the expense of there being two colours. So two colours, two neutrals, I think that's a great lineup. And I'm excited about the blue. I'll miss the orange, but I'm happy to get something hopefully that's also pretty vivid in color. And that that blue one uh I dig. I dig that . Umh Mark Goman has also shared that he expects the touchscreen MacBook Pro will most likely ship in early twenty twenty seven, not late twenty twenty six, because of the ongoing RAM shortages, which is a bit of a bummer . Yeah. It's funny because he's been hedging I mean, honestly, right, from the beginning when he was talking about this, he said it could be early twenty-seven. It's Steven and I on the liftoff podcast always used to joke that whenever anybody tal ked about a mission that was probably headed for for Q4, what we would always say is Q4 is Q1. Like Q4 is Q1. It's just so easy to push those back. Um and since the beginning , Gurman was like, maybe ended they're targeting end of the year, but it might be next year. So clearly it was one of those things where it's like even the faintest gust of wind would send it over the edge . Yeah, I'm I'm a bit disappointed about it because I uh I would like to upgrade my laptop and uh I'm waiting for this because I think it's going to be interesting and or really good uh to have a touchscreen Mac . Um and so I'm waiting, but I would love I would love to have a little bit more RAM and a little bit more storage than I do in my MacBook Air Um my M2 MacBook Air, which is also it's uh it's feeling its age, it's showing its age a little bit, that computer. So I really would like I'd like it a lot. And I would also uh so in my I've been going through this ongoing um disaster of backups, which I've been chronicling on the connector podcast. And so I'm now have a my old MacBook Pro, my M1 MacBook Pro, I've been running um as a to do some backups and to backup my uh Dropbox account stuff like that. And I have remembered how much I enjoy a high refresh rate screen on a Mac . Oh it looks so good. Pro motion on that display. I love it. Well, finally getting your money's worth there. Well, uh no, because I'm not plugged it into the studio display. No, no. Uh so I look forward to eventually being able to have a laptop that can drive my studio display XDR correctly as well. Wouldn't that be nice? Yeah. So uh that will be yeah I'm excited about all of that. But then it will be so funny that I'll finally have the display specs that I want, but then it will be a touchscreen that will just be closed uh whenever I'm at the studio. But I do use my Mac. I've been using my Mac more and more at home recently rather than my iPad for work stuff. Like I use my iPad for all kinds of things, but for a while I, was using my uh iPad Pro for any kind of work stuff. But now I have this feeling of like I'm just gonna get rid of my MacBook out of my back. It's just I I know I'm just gonna be able to do whatever I need to do easier and quicker using the MacBook. Um and so I've just been I've been jumping for that. Like love my iPad Pro, use it for all kinds of stuff. But if it's a work thing of any description, I just want to grab my MacBook Air L . Which has been another part of me where I'm like MacBook Neo. You know, like uh every time well, you know, MacBook Neo, you know? So every time, every time there's any kind of it's like, you know, MacBook Neo. MacBook Pro, MacBook Neo, you know, MacBook Pro could MacBook Air. I'd be bringing the MacBook Pro home every day, but I could just use the MacBook Neo, right? A long time ago, we had discussed Apple suing John Prosser over the manner in which Prosser leaked information about iOS twenty-six, uh which was essentially allegedly, I'll say allegedly, paying someone to break into a roommate's iPhone and that roommate worked at Apple and uh show John Prosser information and pay them for it. Uh and then we'll also follow it up by talking about Prosser's seeming lack of cooper ation with the court. This seems to with this case continues, and this um inconsistent cooperation over this lawsuit can also seems to be continuing. So Mack rumors is reporting that recent findings suggest that Prosser is only partially cooperating. Quote While he has provided some responsive materials, he has failed to fully respond to certain requests and has not responded at all to others. Apple's lawyers are essentially asking the judge to force Prosser to explain why he is not being forthright and provide the documentation. Prossa's co-defendant, Michael Remakyotti appears to be continuing to do all that has been asked of him thus far, and it looks like a potential settlement is on the cards between him and Apple because of this. I'll also say Jay Peters at The Verge had a really good feature story about the whole ordeal. So if you're like trying to catch up of what's going on here, uh Peters is and also Peters spoke to Prosser at certain times uh to try and get um information which process seems to be like I would say maybe in a in a in a way that feels accurate to the type of person he portrays himself on on his YouTube channel is like saying things that aren't at all backed up in what is going on in the court filings of like it's like, oh, I'm fully cooperating. But then Apple and the court are saying that he isn't. So I I still like at at the this time like struggled to get my head around this because it it feels like Apple is is eventually going to destroy this man's life and from the outside, kind of appears that John Prosser is trying to pretend that that's not going to happen. As he continues to also do what he has done. And Jay Peters at the Verge says that like um if you 'cause it seems like he's been watching process videos and like you know for the research for this article and he's like you can see that while he continues to to to do the leaks, the process in which he is reporting appears to have adapted a little bit that like he is trying to hedge a little bit more, so maybe he's trying to at least not pulling this these exact tricks. But I find this a fascinating story to keep track of because right now it feels like we're hurtling towards a disaster for this man. I do wonder I mean, if he's got legal representation, I do wonder what his lawyers are saying. I I did have a thought about him continuing to post stories about Apple rumors, which is one of the things Apple, I think, wants to try to do is get him to stop reporting about Apple rumors. That was one of the things Apple was was seeking , right? Was to force him to stop. So I do wonder if one of the pieces of advice, assuming he's got, you know, actual legal counsel, one of the pieces of advice is you need to continue to post what you post so that we can and again, not a lawyer here, but I just I wonder if it's so that we can say this is part of your profession, this is part of your your channel, this is your business that you've built, and that that um it's active and that you are continuing to do it and that you know to make the argument essentially like don't take this active part of his business away. Like to to make the argument that saying never report about Apple anymore is gonna do more damage to his business than is justified. Because I fundamentally it's a big question. It's a big thing to ask to say, um, in the United States, where we have a first amendment to say we want to bar this person from their speech, and having it be in his business and the and an act of publishing that is happening on an ongoing basis. I wonder if that's like the maybe even the lawyer saying you need to keep posting because you need to stay, keep your business active, because that's part of our argument. Or the the the the concern here is that this guy is like posting through it and is not getting good advice. So I guess we'll find out. But it is it is very weird. Also, given the the the other defendant who seems to you know arguably have done the had the worst behavior here is the one I mean maybe that's why that's the one who's like going to Apple and trying to negotiate a settlement and all of that. But I it is it is a little bit weird and I appreciate Jay Peters at the verge checking in about it, but it's a very strange situation. Yeah, like there was this one part again like, I've I've had to I had to do a bunch of Googling this morning to try and understand some terms, right? But there was this one part in in J. Peter's article that I find i I c I don't understand how the law works, but a a clerk entered a default against Prosser earlier that month after he repeatedly failed to respond to Apple's complaint. The company said in a filing that Prosser had been served personally on july twenty ninth, twenty twenty five, had missed the August nineteenth deadline. Apple gets to continue its case against Prov rosa and Ramakyotti. Only now Prosser can't participate in his own defense. Yeah uh we talked about this before and I think that there's this this idea that um they will be able to move the court to set aside a d th that default judgment and that they will engage in the case. But it is a very weird situation that you g that you let it get to that point and that it still seems kind of unclear about what's going on with his defense of this. And that it's like, okay, so that happened and you're like, oh, we're gonna try and get him to push that aside, but also we're not still fully not participat ing. I just all of it to me is just like it just feels it just feels so disastrous the whole thing. And like I agree with what you're saying about like um there being a first amendment and you know maybe he's he's continuing to pause for that reason. But like from Apple's perspective, it's like they obviously s see what he does as something different because of the methods in which it came and from their perspective, they just want to stop him, right? Like they just the thing is there's there's what he did, and there's the harm that it caused, and that you could argue that's illegal. I'm personally skeptical of the idea that you take you run from that to this person is barred from performing their act as a journalist. Yeah. Which, you know, we can we can debate it, but like let's just say that John Prosser is a journalist. We might not like him, we might not like what he does, whatever. But let's say it. Like uh that is uh to me a very different argument. The idea that and that's what what in the original reports about this jumped out at me is Apple wants him to never write about Apple or r report about Apple ever again. I'm like, I don't know. Like, I don't think the law barring a person from speaking I'm I'm really, really skeptical about that. Because that gets to whole like freedom of speech issues that are separate from did he induce these people to break their contracts and and and potentially even pay them to induce them to break these contracts to do things that I mean that that that's not legal, but that's not necessarily the same as saying and now this person is barred from a whole area of speech. That that's like another another aspect of it. Not lawyers just saying as a journalist, I find that troubling. Yep. It's a mess. It is absolutely a mess. And I I'm still every time this pops up every few months, I still can't believe that it's continuing and and that it hasn't been resolved yet. I can't I can't believe that John Prosser doesn't seem to be portrayed as being an active participant in these affairs. That's the part that really gets me. Exactly. That's the part that baffles me is not that there are lawyers jousting about this in court, but that John Prosser then is sort of mentioned as being like, well, you know, maybe he'll be involved or not, which is I don't know what's going on there, but I guess eventually we'll find out. Yeah, and like my favorite part um in in J. Peter's is uh piece is that it he says somewhere along the lines of Process still appears to be in the US . It's like, oh my god, like I guess he is to that level, right? Where like maybe eventually the way he deals with this is he flees. Prosser tells the Verge he is still in the US . That's not great . This episode is brought to you by Steam A lot of mobile apps get the job done, but they aren't exactly delightful. When an app is great though, you look forward to adding it to your home screen. Steam Clock Software builds mobile apps for companies that care about taste. They're a design and development studio based in Vancouver, Canada, and they've been shipping iOS and Android apps for over 15 years. Their clients are growing tech companies that care about mobile but don't have the in-house team to build something truly great. Steam Clock works with companies to level up their app 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 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 in your situation before you commit to anything. Their client apps have been downloaded over ten million times and they've helped five of their clients through acquisitions. If you're building something and need a mobile team that cares just as much as you do, Steam Clock is where to start. Visit SteamClock.com slas h upgrade to get in touch. That's steamclock.com slash upgrade. A thanks to Steamclock for their support of this show and all of Rela y. Ask upgrade questions. This first one comes in from Mark who says Do you ever imagine yourself being in a similar situation as someone like Mark German where you have a secret source in Apple' suppsly chain and you were the one breaking the rumors that everyone's talking about. Or are you comfortable with your level of analysis where you break down the possibilities of the rumors and come up for your own theories? Well, uh I wanna say well I mean Mark German has more than supply chain sources. He's got Cupertina sources. Yeah. Big sources . And he cultivates sources. And he's got multiple sources and he puts a lot of work into it. And I think that's an important part of understanding what Mark German does is he's putting in the work to do this. He's not a passive receiver of information. This program sometimes passively receives information, but Mark Ger man is a uh is a reporter who is dealing with sources and checking and double checking with other sources and things like that. So it's a high-level thing that I am not interested in doing and have not been interested in doing in my career. And so I uh do not imagine myself in that situation. That's not a role I am interested in playing. Yep. I was I was thinking how you just uh posted a podcast about somebody who does this. Uh it actually just came up. Yeah, so I I will promote this. So we're just uh episode of Cortex today. So we have Jason Schreyer . Uh Jason Schreyer is Mark German for video games. Yeah. So at Bloomberg. At Schreyer works at Bloomberg. Um and I would say actually like you know Mark Gurman is who he is mostly for Apple. Shryr is the entire video game industry. So like imagine someone who is connected in every tech company and that is who Jason Schreier is for video games. Like if you care about video game news, you you come across Jason's work because people talk to him. And so this was a lot of my conversation with him was kind of asking what it is like to have this kind of trust and to work with sources. And it was really interesting to hear his process. So if you're you're intrigued about what it is like for somebody who has this kind of sourcing and how they manage all of that, um you can go listen to it. But it it informed to me it underlined to me why I would not want to be this person. I would not want to have to think about my as Jason called it, upsek as much as he does. Um that you are dealing with information that could mean that people lose their jobs, that could mean that people are in really tough situations, and you have to handle that and handle the trust and handle it all very responsibly. That seems horrifying to me. Um and also it feels like a level of work that I am not interested in. Like I care more about talking about things that have happened or information that is received by others than being someone who has to try and cultivate and break down news. That's just not what I'm interested in. Um I I care more about what we do. And it just seems like I don't know, it just seems very, very stressful in a way that I wouldn't want to deal with. Yeah. I mean it's a choice. Um and it's not a choice that I think either of us are interested in making. No it's fun. It's fun when something comes in over the transom, but like yeah, breaking scoops and uh cultivating secret sources and stuff, like no, I'm not. I like it as the occasional time that's that nine to five Mac writes an article about a thing we said. You know, like that's fun for me. Uh everything else is like, I don't know, man. That seems hard. Yeah. Macho writes in and says, What do you think about Apple rebranding any chips for the Neo as maybe a new N series chip? I could see them coming out and saying the Neo was so successful, we're making chips for them. They're still just binned A series chips, but they could call it whatever they want. Do you think they could do this? I mean they could do this. Um I mean again the marketing power of Apple is incredible. They can do whatever they want. It doesn't solve any of their problems with bin chips, though. No. Um I I don't think they will do something like this. I think they've got enough labels, and I think Apple's been pretty good at labeling chips what they are and not sticking fake labels on them to call them things that they're not . So I think they'll just kind of continue doing what they're doing. But they could. I mean if they found value in it they would do it. Do you think that they pay any mind to the like to people saying like, oh you know, this just this is an iPhone chip and it can do all of this and the iPad can't. Do you think they care about that kind of criticism? No. No. I think I think there is a very small group of people who will make statements like that. Yep. But um I don't think the m people in the market who are buying these products care. Yeah, that's fair. Uh Phil writes in and says, My current iPad is an eight year old iPad Pro that I exclusively use for travel. I'm thinking about replacing it with a MacBook Neo, since I like the idea of having a full Mac with me when I travel, but I need something that will let me download streaming shows and movies for offline viewing, for example, on a plane without Wi-Fi. Netflix and the like do not support this. They don't allow downloads except on mobile devices. Is there a way I could do this or should I just stick with an iPad? Stick with an iPad. I think for this very specific use case, if that is that important to you then that's what it's for to do. The the they won't let you do it on desktop because they're afraid that you're gonna crack the DRM and pirate it and stuff. So you gotta use the iPad. Or you get used to buying a bunch of stuff from from the Apple TV app and just like watching that on your Mac, which you could it's not gonna be a Netflix stre show. No. Right? So it's not gonna be you'll have to change the things you're doing. But yeah, it's like it depends on what are the most what is actually the most important thing to you. Like is the idea of having a full computer with when you travel, is that more important than downloading this content? But if the downloading of content is that important and you have no choice because they don't let you do it. It's just uh the the app versions only where they do that. Yep . Uh Logan writes in and says if Apple launches an AI-based Siri chatbot as has been rumored, do you think that they would block it from presenting information, say like rumors of upcoming products? If you ask Claude or Gemini, it will tell you all of the rumored features. But I doubt Apple would want Siri being a spokesperson for features that they don't want I don't know. I mean they Apple Apple blocks some stuff and pre-codes some things into Siri, and there's still going to be like a layer here where Apple is controlling what goes to and from and fills things out. So I don't know, maybe it is an interesting question. It's like the the the actual question here is like I don't know. But there there is the the broader question of how Apple is going to tune Gemini's respons es and and what they will and will not allow like the guardrails as such and like will this be part of the guardrails? Like it's gonna be interesting to see. Like this was something we wondered about with Apple Intelligence, but it just turned out that Apple Intelligence just wasn't capable enough that there really was much you could have to worry about in the end. Um but now they will be dealing with something quite different and like what what that's going to look like is going to be interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I mean they'll they'll make some attempts, but I don't know. My guess my guess here is that they they won't do a lot of this stuff because everybody's looking for the gotchas from Apple, but like it's not like you can't go into Safari and search and read things like that Apple doesn't want you to see because Apple's not gonna intercede there. And I think this is probably one of those areas. But you know, they do they are they are kind of customizing what the Siri guardrails are and and we will have to see what those are . And finally, Darren says assuming that the MacBook Pro that that supports Touch comes out at some point, what is the overunder and whether they'll also support Apple Pencil? Do you think there could be any special features that you may get if using an Apple Pencil, or do you think a Mac specific version could be released? I am gonna say I'm not gonna give you an over or under. I'm gonna say they're not. And I'm I got two reasons. One is the incredible thinness of the top uh uh plane of a laptop really reduces what can fit in there and two , you can't detach the screen or even fold it back real far. And the ergonomics of reaching over the keyboard to write on the screen with the Apple pencil are lousy. And so I'm very skeptical that Apple will do that. Yeah, I I agree. I I think it's just not the setup that works for the pencil. It would be weird. No. It's like too much pushing against it, it. It'd be too much wobbl ing. Well, and you're pushing against the screen, it's gonna what? It's gonna fold back. Yeah. Where like a tap is very good. Yeah. I just don't I just don't see it ergonomically unless they d completely rethink how um MacBook Pro Ergonomics works, which I don't think they'll do. And I also just think from a product market perspective, once the Macs support touch screens, they need to keep some reasons for the iPad and like the iPad having the pencil is like a good thing that it can do. Sure. That if you care about that, you still have that world available to you. MacBook Pro makes sense. And also let's just get touchscreen dealt with first before we start putting styluses in as well . If you would like to send in a question of your own, or if you have any feedback or follow-up for this week's show, please go to upgradefeedback.com. Thank you to our members who support us with Upgrade Plus. Uh this week, Jason, let's get an update on Jeopardy from the case I know there's been a lot going on. Still an update on Jeopardy. All right, so go to get upgradeplus.com. You can sign up and get longer ad-free versions of the show each and every week. If you want to find a video version of this show, just go to YouTube and search for the upgrade podcast. I would like to thank Fitbod, Mercury Weather, Claude and Steam Clock for their support of this week's episode. And most of all, I'd like to thank you for listening. Until next time, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Goodbye, Mike Early .