596: Something You Might Want to Do on a Sunday

0:00Hello and welcome to this episode of Connected, it is episode 596 in fact. I have the absolute honor of thanking all sponsors this week, Sentry and Fondera. And I'm just like pulling this one out a little bit stretching it because I don't usually get much plaudits at this point of the show, you know, like I'm Mike, you'll know me, man of the people. I'm very happy to introduce to you the keynote chairman, Federico Viteci, hi Federico. An introduction from the common folk. I got to keep you grounded, you know, yeah, yeah. Well, thank you, thank you, Mike. We're also joined by my illustrious colleague, the annual chairman, Stephen Hackett. Hello, Stephen. We're like, are we president and vice president? Are we like we're co chairman? We're like president. We have I'm throwing this one in the middle. Who's vice president?

1:00I think he know chairman is slightly below annual chairman. Are you going to take that Federico? No, I think we are co chairman, like a chairman, remember how, remember how you said co chairman, he called you vice president. We're like, Federico is saying we're like blackberry that had two CEOs for a minute. That's what I was, that's what I was going to say that they had two CEOs. They were co CEOs, they were an incredible concept. If you've never seen that blackberry movie, by the way, it's great, a good movie, really good movie, very much recommended. Yes, same, really good. Okay, we have some follow up and we have perhaps my favorite follow up in years. Yes, we were speaking about how many floppy disks it would take to play an episode of connected and front of the show D Griffin Jones basically compress connected down to 1.3 megabyte chunks.

2:04So you could play it on floppy disks. You have to go look at this on Macedon and I'm going to have Jim play a little bit of it here. So you get an example. From really, this is connected at the 594 today. It's brought to you by Century and Copeland. I'm your team of chairman Federico ETT and I'm joined by fellow annual chairman Steven Hackett. We've never sounded better. It's, it sounded much better than I expected it would. It's surprisingly recognizable. Yes, like two, two kilobits per second. I think so. Yeah, like I figured it would be a nightmare, but no, it's you can just understand us. Also, I'm going to put a link in the show notes D Griffin also put it said if you, you know, shared of us that if you would like to download a zip file that contains all 12 parts in 1.3 megabyte, a megabyte chunks.

3:07So you could, I don't know, do whatever you want with it. They also gave us that. So I'm going to put that in the show notes too. Yeah, it's incredible. Maybe, maybe we should just put that in like a feed somewhere. People can like listen to the whole show. Well, like in 12 episodes, yeah, this is like something you might want to do on a Sunday, you know? Yeah. You know, I do have a copy of this zip file on my NAS. I do. We were talking about us and connect to pro Steven's storage. Yeah. Discires. Discires. Discires. It means I will never need to buy an eight terabyte Mac again. That's not true. No, I'm down. I have just two terabytes of stuff on this MacBook Pro now. Okay. But that's not true, though. I mean, yeah, I'll do a four, but I'm not updating it. You will go to again, you will listen or Steven, not me wrote in, but they spelled their name correctly, the pH. That's nice. This is the ongoing feedback about how Mike is an iPod doc truther, it doesn't think

4:12they're real. I pad. You did it again. Can I say iPod again? Yes. When ever the word doc appears, that's what it is, iPod, I mean, that was a time, right? iPod docs were like, oh, yeah, for a long time, do you remember iPod lounge? Oh, yeah, it became I lounge. I do. I read iPod Lounge all the time. Daily. Yep. Anyways, so Steven wrote in, they did not end up going with the strategy doc because pluggable makes an eight in one doc that compromises USB speed, but makes up for it because it's adjustable, like the stand is adjustable. Okay. But this is my point, right? This is the exact point I was making. It doesn't matter what you go with the point was there are many options available, and I just did not think that this is how to one, like, it's going to change the world. So I will take this as a win. Thank you, Steven. Yes. David wrote in and said, I have an upsetting thought regarding little find a guy.

5:12If Apple hasn't savagely taken down Steven's little find a guy empire, does that mean Apple has no plans to do anything with him except for the random cameos in TikTok videos? If so, what was the point? This is a very good thought experiment. It's upsetting, but you know, I feel like Apple's pretty forgiving. You know, there's websites with the word match in the name. Do you? Do you think? I mean, that's what I'm going to say giving company. I'm going to say that because not because they told me to say that, you know, is not someone sitting right next to me right now. Okay. Holding a aluminum and glass knife. I hope they continue using little finder, but we'll see, we will see. Now, there's been no sign of life so far, no, no, but I am getting pictures of people printing them and sharing with me, which is fun. Yeah. Yeah. Sam are in and said, this is in regards to talk about the air pods max two last time.

6:17Sony released the foldable WH 1000 XM4s a month before the first air pods max in the time between then and the air pods max two Sony released a non foldable design for the XM five face backlash and released the foldable XM sixes almost a year ago. So it's very funny. He's been like, you know, Apple changed nothing and in that time, Sony, Sony, Sony did a thing and back got a name backtracked on it and released another thing in between. Yeah. That's that's one of those things like we're close to word war two. Then World War two was to the birth of Jesus, you know, like one of those things. What is that true? Wow. Yeah. Maybe an extreme example. No, that was wild. That's really exciting. I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. Man, I saw some people ordering air pods max. I guess the order went up yesterday and it's like, why, like, what are you doing? I just, I don't know. I've been professionals. Why do you have a MacBook Neal? Because I need a downstairs computer.

7:17Maybe they have the downstairs. Maybe they need downstairs as air pods max, you know, maybe, um, yeah. Okay. Some follow out. Very exciting. Well, I got to be on Mac break weekly this week. So very nice. Jason was hosting. I got to join him and Andy and Christina. And I think we had a great time. That'll be link will be in the show notes. It's one of those moments, um, I mean, Mac break weekly was like the first tech podcast I ever listened to. And so to be on it. I don't know that. Yeah. So to be on it all these years later was really fun. I think we have some great conversations. So, uh, you go check it out. One thousand and seventeen. I know. Unbelievable. I know. It's quite the run. I had to like double check that episode number when I link to it. He's like, Oh, surely there are URLs aren't the episode numbers. Like, Oh, yes, it is. I like that you were really you were playing to the crowd of your pick of the week of a terminal command to hide the Tahoe menu icons. You were really. Yeah.

8:18You're going for it. Yeah. Yeah. Appreciate that. I do it. I can. Yeah. Well, this was actually surprising news because they announced it on Monday. They did. I kind of thought it would be Tuesday or Wednesday. But I think they wanted to obviously they wanted a clear space for AirPods Max to pre worse. I mean, I, you know what? I guess so. Right? Like what? They want to make sure the website can withstand traffic. June 8th through 12th. It's going to follow the same format they've done since COVID where it's there's an in person event with streaming and the sessions will be online. If you're a developer, you can apply for a ticket. If you're press, you just have to wait until two days before to find out an interesting note. I think all three of us clocked this. I'm going to read this from the newsroom release WBC 26 will spotlight incredible updates

9:22for Apple platforms, including a guy advancements and exciting new software and developer tools. Yeah. It's interesting. They call it AI, right? Not Apple intelligence. That's a, that's a choice that they've made. Can I call it Apple intelligence when it's made by Google or or I wonder if they're going to back away from that brand a little bit? Is that brand is tainted? Maybe. I guess so is Siri. They're all tainted. Well, I mean, we'll talk about it later, but it doesn't seem like they're maybe thinking about doing something that kind of stuff anyway, but I think it makes more sense. Just call it AI. It's not calling. It's trying to stop trying to make fatch happen kind of scenario with intelligence. It's like, we don't, you know, you don't need to have your own brand for it at this point because I mean, I think when Apple introduced its Apple intelligence, they were trying to be at a place of like, we are better than everyone else and they didn't ship any of the features. So it kind of like takes the shine of the like, we're different and better. It's like, they didn't do anything ultimately, except a couple of things that most people

10:24don't really seem to enjoy, but it was interesting that they called it out. I mean, I feel like they probably considering where we are, right? And the fact that we still have not got any of the features that were promised this year, I think they know we're not going to get any of those features before WWE see. And so why not call it out specifically here so that people know that we are still working on this stuff. That's kind of how I read it because I don't know why they would be so specific. You know what I mean? They don't usually talk about like, you know, we're going to have some great features of continuity as part of the WWE see. Sure. Yeah, I mean, they're trying to get out ahead of, I don't know, the damage is so bad. We actually talked about this on MacBook Weekly, like, they're in such a hole that they dug themselves with this stuff that they've, I think, they've got to go hard at it if it's ready. And my word, if they promise something that they can't deliver again, I don't, I don't

11:28only think they don't make the promise, right, like they just won't, they won't promise. But how do you do that, you know, it's just, it's very interesting to think about how they could manage this, there's a very fine balance to walk, I think, for them. And I think it's going to be a very interesting time to see, to see where they are. Yep. But it's nice to have the date on the schedule. Yeah, yep, I'll be there. I'm going to go hang out, so nice, say hi, we'll be bringing my mother and Lauren so I can walk as late as I want. Nice, nice. Maybe she wants to go WBC, you know, you're, you're, you're keeping her from going. That's a good question. I will ask, I'll say, do you, were you interested in, do you want to go hang out, Stephen? Then she can go. Yeah. Yes. That's it. She's like, I want to go. Do you know who I am? Well, yeah, I mean, she was, she was a, she was a all wedding. That's right. You were the wedding. I was. I was at the wedding. It was a long time ago.

12:29Yeah. Yeah. 10 years in 2028. So it's eight years this year. Is it another way of saying that? If you can remember what year it currently is, that's true, then you would, then you would say that. But if you don't, you just say what I said. Okay. I have a story about that for you all. I was in a meeting the other day and we were just doing some planning and I definitely thought for like two thirds of the meeting that we were in April and not in March. Right. Say anything, but I was like, why does everyone keep, like, keep messing these things out? Like, oh, next month, like April 17th is like, no, that's, I don't understand. It's like, what a bunch of videos. What a bunch of morons. And, and then I glanced up at my menu bar, I was like, oh, it's March. Very confusing. Very confusing. I know it's obvious and like, we know, I cannot believe we're, like, we're already looking towards WWC, like it's happening.

13:29Yeah. It's like nine weeks away. Yeah. It's like that. It's coming up because, you know, I don't know if what you guys doing or not, but like the Apple at 50 stuff is occupying a lot of my time and attention right now. Yes. And so like, thinking about that and that's like the whole month, essentially. And then, then we're like into WWC speculation time by the time all of that's done. So it's like, woof. Yeah. I am. Yeah. Jason, I've been talking a lot about Apple at 50 and it's just, yeah, like going on, I have found, I have found it to be intimidating to write about it. Like, I've tried a couple of times and I just don't, it's got nothing. You are the history, guys. So you know, but that's the thing it's like, it's so overwhelming. Yeah. What do I pick, you know, you got to take chips at it, you know, like just tiny chunks. I think so. Yeah. It's coming, coming up. Did you see the news about ads coming to Apple Maps?

14:30Yeah. Yeah. And I don't care because I don't use Apple Maps. Same. And so to me, this is not like upsetting or surprising because I use Google Maps and Google Maps has lots of ads in it. So it's like, well, yeah, of course, is the way that I expressed my feelings towards this, but lots of other people online seem to be very annoyed about it. I use Apple Maps a lot and it's just a really nice experience. And I understand why they're doing it. Like I said, Google Maps does it, you know, if there's any other mapping platforms up there, they probably do it. I just, I just have the thought of like, can we just have one nice place, you know, but that's okay. I mean, you cannot, the nice place is just going to be underneath a blue box now. It's true. It would just keep you posted. I do think my feelings about this are conflated with the increased ad load in the app store that they've been doing. So bad. Oh my god. It's so bad. Disco search for something in the app store. You got to add at the top and now you also get to add in the search results.

15:31Now, you know, they're in a blue box. I say add like they are distinguished, but I just. It's just such a huge amount of it of the, of the, of the search screen now is, you know, they're getting like two scrolls and you get one result. And then the rest are ads is rough. It's just rough, but yeah, I mean, look, I do think that there is a genuine story about small business with the, with ads in mapping software. And I, you know, I know that this is what they're talking about, but I actually do think that that is a thing that could exist. Like small businesses could be able to advertise themselves in their local neighborhood. Like that is a thing you could potentially do. And I do know that from a business perspective, search ads in the app store can be beneficial, but it is just, it's just a lot of ads everywhere.

16:32Yeah. For sure. And it is a conjunction with the new Apple business stuff where they're kind of taking on Google workspace in a new way. Haven't helped you if you put your business email in iCloud, but, you know, I have not even, I have decided to not put an ounce of my energy into understanding what this is. It's just like, I don't really want to know. It's actually interesting. I had two people, one in email, then one in real life sent me a text like, Oh, hey, should I like do this? I'm like, no, just keep using Google workspace. Yeah. No. Okay. I mean, maybe eventually, but not straight away, like don't, don't do it right now. Yeah. I mean, the one thing I know about it is it's MDM and other stuff, right? And so like, I guess if you're already using their MDM, like, maybe this works for you to add in calendars and email or whatever it probably is. But yeah, it's just like, I don't know, it's not for me. What if you're using MDA to different thing?

17:33What's that? It's a drug, I think. No, MDM. No, that's a MDM. No, it was a joke. It was like a joke, though, if you got the joke wrong, it's not a joke. You said MDM and I said, what if you use MDA, can't tell me if you can't, if you can't tell me, body, it's an NDA. It's MD, you, you, the joke was there, but you took away a letter that it didn't need taking away. Okay. I think we're, I think we're passing like two ships in the night, a little bit. I think it's two and one ship, because me, me, federally, go definitely in the same ship. And it's not the one that you're in, I'm afraid. This episode of Connected is brought to you by Century. Logs are messy, trying to grab through them and line up with traces and dashboards just to understand one issue, isn't it? Century, that's S-E-N-T-R-Y, has logs too, but they've made them usable.

18:35These logs are trace connected and structured, so you can follow the request flow and filter by whatever matters. And because Century surfaces the context right where you're debugging, the trace, the relevant logs, the error, and even the session we play, they all land on one timeline, so you're not trying to match timelines or hop between tools. Front end, mobile back end, whatever you're debugging, Century gives you the context you need so you can fix the problem and move on. More than 4.5 million developers use it, including teams at Anthropic, Disney Plus, and here at Relay. We have a freelance developer, he has limited time with us, and Century really makes the most of his time, because if we have an issue, he can quickly get to the bottom of it. We've been using Century for years, long before they were a sponsor, and they really have made the upkeep and development of our custom CMS much easier. So try it for free at Century.io, that's S-E-N-T-R-Y, Century.io, and tell them that we

19:39sent you. They have a free dev plan for listeners of Connected, so use the code Connected26 to get $100 in credit, that Century.io and the code Connected26 to get $100 in Century credits. My thanks to Century for their support of the show, and Relay. The information is reporting that Google is giving Apple full access to their Gemini model, which Apple is using for something called distillation. Essentially, Apple will be able to ask queries of Gemini, I'm assuming this is the large model, I'm also assuming that when I finish speaking Federico, we'll have numbers and statistics for this. Essentially, Apple is able to ask queries of Gemini, get a full report of the reasoning and the process that the model went through to get to the result, then take all of that information and use it to train smaller on device models that Apple can use.

20:43To me, this feels like pretty significant access of Gemini. What was your take on this, Federico? Well, first of all, nice deal that Apple got in terms of having permission to run Gemini in their data centers and also use it for distillation. I think that's how you make alcohol. Okay, I'm done. I'll stop. He's really trying. What should we do with Stephen today? You have any idea of Mike? What should I do with you? Any feedback. I mean, we could, unfortunately, it's his meeting, so we can't kick him out. Right, right. I'm just sort of wondering, you know, the best course of action. I think we just have to embrace it. We love you, Steve. We love you, Steve. Yeah, we love you too. Most of the time, we know you're trying. Anyway, are you still on the call, Steve? I am.

21:43Okay. We love you very much. So, first of all, I think it's a, it was non-obvious that Apple would get the ability to also use Gemini output for distillation. So distillation, I think we mentioned it before. It's the idea that you're basically taking a teacher model. In this case, the big Gemini model that Apple can use. And you're using a smaller, sort of more efficient model. To transfer some of the knowledge from the teacher to the student. And you mostly do this by sort of taking, there are many different ways to do this. But in simplifying, you take the reasoning output from the bigger model and you use that to teach a smaller model how to get to the same results in a more efficient way. And I assume this is like, I think both open AI and anthropic of complaint about Asian companies

22:45doing this is what they're talking about when they make those complaints. Okay. One of the popular, so you know, Alibaba, they make a large language model called Quinn, which is open source. One of the more popular versions of Quinn 3.5 lately is a version of Quinn that is small enough to run on a bunch of, you know, regular consumer grade laptops. But it's been distilled from Opus 4.6. And, you know, that makes anthropic really, really happy, I bet. But that's the idea. So obviously, like, interesting. But I have so many questions. Because first of all, what are exactly are you distilling it into? Are you taking Gemini output and using it for distillation of Apple Foundation models? Like, is that what you're doing? You're taking your own models and distilling Gemini 3.1 output? Or is it going to be something else?

23:47Not sure. I assume that Apple is taking Gemini output to distill it into Apple Foundation models. That's my assumption. When I read this news, right, because I know there's been a lot of conversation about how long are Apple going to use Gemini, right? And I have fallen into the camp of, I think this is a long, long, long term partnership. Because I just don't imagine Apple being able to produce something of this power when all these other companies continue to move forward. And when I see something like this, it's like, oh, this to me gives an example. It is another piece of evidence that Google at least believed this is a long-term partnership. Because why would they let another company do this otherwise? Because it seems like you're giving away what you're good at for free, essentially. Yeah. My main concern is that what are these smaller models that are a result of this distillation

24:53going to be used for? Because I have a really hard time thinking that you can use distillation to make a model that is going to be at the center of up intense and coordinating tools. Because even big models, like we're talking GPT 5.4, we're talking Opus, we're talking Gemini size models. Sometimes they struggle with too many tools, with too many potential integrations. So I don't think they're using distillation to power the system that is going to handle all the up intense, all the things they showed off in 2024. So I think they're using distillation to make self-contained models for very specific tasks. Like for example, maybe they're going to use distillation to improve the, to make a model that only handles the cleanup in photos. Or maybe they're going to use distillation to make a model that only handles audio transcription.

25:55Like I think that's what they're doing, but for the more high level coordination of things like handling complex questions, handling up intense, coordinating across multiple apps. I mean, happy to be proven wrong, but I would be really surprised if distillation is used for that. I think we're going to end up having a collection of self-contained small Apple Foundation models that each does one thing. And they were distilled from Gemini. And why does Gemini happen to be a great model for that? Because at the moment, Gemini is the only big model from a big AI provider that is native multi-model. It supports pictures, it supports video, it supports audio, it supports all kinds of file attachments, and it even supports live conversations. In fact, they just released a few minutes ago.

26:55Gemini 3.1 Flash Live, which is what's going to power live conversations. Their names are so bad. Terrible names. But I keep putting different descriptors on it and we'll get it. I think a pretty good model to use for distillation if the goal is to have a bunch of smaller dedicated models for very different tasks that you want to run on a smartphone. So, nice get from Apple, obviously. Yeah. Speaking of Apple AI and what we might see, the rumor wizard Mark German is reporting for Bloomberg and what he is expecting to see it to be WDC. So, there's a bunch of things here. So, first off is a standalone app for Siri. So, a very much a chatbot interface. This is something that had been rumored before that Apple was potentially working on internally, but it was unclear if it was something that they wanted to ship.

27:58Yeah, I think Craig Federighi kind of famously was against a chatbot interface, but that's what all of the stuff. You know, a lot of the stuff was taken shape exactly like that. And so, this version of like, I guess it would probably be the Siri app, which is probably what they will produce here. It will display prior conversations that you can jump back in on, you can pin favorite conversations, search across messages, or the kind of table stakes stuff that you would expect. And the UI will be very reminiscent to iMessage. It was very funny to me that in the report, Mark is like, and it will support like in dark mode. It's like really Mark. Cool. Wow. What a detail. It should be much more and also just in general, they're trying to make Siri more conversational than before in both text and voice. A branding of like quote, ask Siri will be in lots of places throughout the operating system as like a label or a button. And it will be prompting you as the user to send content to Siri for assistance.

29:01Like if you were to highlight text, for example, there would be like a button that might pop up and you could do something with that or you could do it with files, you know, maybe it's like to bunch of files. And then maybe you can ask Siri, hey, rename these or something like that. I'm going to read a quote here from the article. The updated Siri code named Campo is designed to better control features within iPhones and Macs and tap into personal data, like messages notes and emails to fulfill requests. It also will be able to complete tasks within apps, access news content, and search the open web using Apple built interfaces and models. So they're still talking about this like controlling of devices and using your information. Earlier on in the episode, I mentioned about, you know, when I think, I don't know which one of you beautiful cause it was suggested that maybe they're moving away from the Apple intelligence branding. Apple is considering a redesign of the glowing Siri interface that was introduced in iOS 18.

30:02And they're considering moving the main animation to the dynamic island. I read another quote. When processing our request, the pill-shaped indicator labeled searching appears alongside a glowing Siri icon. Once results are ready, the interface expands into a larger translucent panel with Apple's liquid glass design. Users can pull the menu down further to begin conversing back and forth. Seems like they're trying to get a bit of a break from the iOS 18 failures. Let's start over again. And in a couple of of a bit spotlight could be replaced by Siri in 27 of a unified interface that will use personal context to find it more. And Mark says that the current beta of iOS 27 currently includes the personal context and on-screen awareness features. And it's still believed that they were shipped this year, but unlikely before iOS 27, App Intense is still under development as well. What do you boys think about this? Stephen, I want to get your feelings in this first, actually. What do you think about all this? I think it's good that Apple is willing to revisit decisions like the chatbot experience.

31:08And I do think that unifying this stuff makes a lot of sense. Like Siri and Spotlight, all these things. I think when people search today, I think the line is blurrier than ever. I'm searching my device, I'm searching the web, I'm asking for data. That's on my device, I'm asking for data, that's on the web. And I think Apple needs to respond to that stuff. So I think for the most part, what is in here is encouraging to me. And I think that while I'm sad about the gradient, the rainbow gradient going away, I feel like that design is just really tied to what they did a couple of years ago. And I think it's not that personable. And if you, if they're trying to make Siri more conversational, more friendly, which not everybody wants by the way, right? Like a bunch of people in their prompting, like, just answer the question, don't glaze me or whatever. But if they're going to do that, it might need some more personality.

32:08And so what that looks like, I don't know, but it's interesting to think about. My hope would be that it would respond to your tone, but ultimately none of these models would really seem able to fully do that. And like, you know, just like, this isn't right. Oh, yeah, of course, it's not right. I knew that all along. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Very cool. What do you think? I think it's a great idea that they are reconsidering their opinion on the chat experience. Obviously, obviously, a lot of the simple truth is that a lot of people use chatbots, right? And the UI clearly works for about, I mean, if you take it all together, just the big three open AI, so a chat GPT Cloud and Gemini, let's say that we are in the ballpark of one and a half to two billion people using these services on a monthly basis.

33:10You know, this was something interesting recently. I'm not sure if you two have encountered this. That there was this like NBC survey. And it was saying that people don't like AI, right? Yeah. People say that look. Yeah. But like, this is the point that I wanted to get to. It was like, I believed that survey is correct. But I feel like I've been seeing a lot of like assumptions made that like, it means everybody hates AI. And it's like, I understand that. But also, what about the hundreds of millions of people that are using it all the time? No, look, I see this with my friends all the time. I kind of think and stay with me here. I kind of think that using a chatbot is kind of like watching porn in the sense that a lot of people do it, but nobody talks about it. I see this with my friends all the time. Wait, what? About the chatbots. About the chatbots. They are sick. They are not. Look, I am dead serious right now. They all have, and please forgive me.

34:13A lot of them even use GROC. Okay. They all have chatGPT GROC, Gemini. They all do it. It's on their home screens. I see their phones. They make stuff with it. But when you ask them, they're like, man, AI. It's so easy. It's somewhat similar to like, like people use Instagram or Facebook. But they don't like it. They hate math. That's what I mean. Everybody does it. But then when asked, imagine in a survey, you'll be like, no, I hate AI. And then on your phone, you have like three different AI apps. That's what I meant. There's a stigma, I guess. People just don't think about it. Or what's the alternative? All of these companies are lying about user numbers. That's also possible, right? That open AI and Google.

35:13Everyone's boosting it. But it's still being used by an unbelievable amount of people. So let's say that instead of two billion people, let's say the one billion people are using it. All right. Cool. So clearly there is, you could say, some user interest in chatbots. So I think Apple is doing the right thing. Now, I actually think, and this is potentially the, not even a hot take, but maybe a warm take, that if they do this correctly, if they don't screw it up a second or third or how many versions of Siri they've done time, they could actually be the one company that hasn't spent billions upon billions upon billions on AI and data centers, but they end up having the best experience on smartphones, especially when it comes to integrated AI. Yeah. They have spent the one billion with Google

36:13and they have spent, but of course, any money really went one way or another. But I could spend the one billion with Google and they have, I mean, they surely must have spent a sum of money on that data center that is currently sitting unused with private cloud compute. Yeah. But they have spent some money. They obviously have not spent nearly as much as OpenAI and Anthropic did with data centers and GPUs, but there is a potential for them to end up having a really nice user experience for a chatbot product that is deeply integrated with the system and actually works. Because all of these other companies, OpenAI Anthropic Perplexity, Google, and Google maybe less than the others because they do have Android. But all of these other AI labs, they wish they had a delivery platform

37:13like iOS or macOS. And especially on iOS because of the smartphones. They have none of that. And they wish they had it. They could so deeply integrate with things like your camera. Some of them are spending hundreds of millions of dollars for the potential hope of a risk of a chance of maybe one day having it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Horus did you wrote about this a couple weeks ago and the sentence that jumped out at me is AI services. So he's built the case that about $650 billion has been spent, I think, in building these things out. And he says AI services generate roughly $35 billion in total revenue or 5% of what's being spent on infrastructure. Woo! Yeah. So when you tell me that Apple is considering having like a dedicated app that lets you organize your chats, that you have multiple views for your chats, and maybe a new UI in the dynamic island where your serious punses come up in the dynamic island.

38:15But then you can expand them and you can continue the conversation. And then they're going to deliver on that personal context and app intense that they promised. Like all of that, if it works and it sounds like maybe this one time is going to work, like it sounds incredible. To the point where I think if they deliver and I cannot emphasize that, if enough right now. A lot of the people like me or John, like folks who have really spent a lot of time over the past year, right? Exploring AI trying to understand AI for productivity, especially. I think a lot of us will have to have a serious look at iOS and what Apple delivered and re-think some of our workflows. Like, I was thinking about this. How many things I do in cloud right now that are like this Ruby Goldberg machines of prompts and projects and schedules.

39:15And they could easily be just simpler things integrated with Siri and my file manager, right? I think if it works, this is going to be incredible. And we may end up looking back at this past three years with OpenAI and Anthropic spending so much money. And Apple coming in late, spending $1 billion and having the best system of them all as a quite amusing and ironic turn of events. It would be an incredible save. You know, some people like, go Apple planned it. No, they didn't. Like, go back to 2024. This was not what they were thinking. But if it's how it turns out, just like, boy, the universe smiled upon you in a way that was unexpected. Yeah. Like, I could imagine, you know, like, I use different tools for different things. And like, my kind of like, quote, quote chatbot experiences

40:15which have been mostly just not using that anymore. But then some of the more work stuff that I've been doing with Claude, it doesn't seem like Apple's doing this. And this is actually a thought that I was having, which is like, it feels like now, there's a lot of stuff around coding and computer usage, right? It feels like that is like this area that is being identified. And I just wonder that come September, six months from now, where is this going to be? And like, will Apple's features still look innovative, right? On a three-month timeline? Or is it, are we still going to be in a scenario where we get to September? And it's like, well, yeah, you have Siri on the Mac, but really what you still want is Claude. And I don't know if that's important or not. But it's going to be interesting to see like how much computer use that they really enable. Because I want it to be a lot, but I just don't know yeah, that's what we're going to get.

41:15I think, I think you're you're, I think you're right about the fact that the, that there's a split between chatbot experience and the more like productive or some people call them agents, right? Type of experience. And I think short term, if the Apple system works, companies like Proplexity are in trouble. And I mean, it's no, not a surprise that even Proplexity is sort of pivoting to that, to be more Claude-like, right? With computer and personal computer that they're doing. But I think the general chatbot experience, why would I use something else when a pretty good chatbot with web search is right there on my phone? Whereas I may continue to use something like Claude or something like Proplexity computer to do more productive things that Siri alone cannot do. But still, even then, there's the question, okay,

42:15but all of, what if that app intends system actually works? Like, what if it, what if also there's a productivity story there? Because the system that Apple talked about is actually pretty good. What if I could say, hey, assistant, take, take, take my latest, I don't know, I'm just imagining things. But like, take my, the documents that I'm working on in obsidian and save it to working copy in GitHub and send a link to John. Like, something like that. Is that going to work? Because if it does, I mean, that entirely replaces a whole workflow that we built for Mac stories around GitHub and Claude, for example. Like, is that stuff actually going to work? That's my big question right now. I hope so. But they've got to get this part right first. Like, I know, this is what I'm saying, what I would like them to do. But if they don't do it and deliver everything else, I'll give them. Oh, yeah, that's fine.

43:15You know, it's like, please just get it right. Like, do what you're supposed to be doing and get it right. This episode of Connected is brought to you by Fandera, powered by Nerdwallet. Running a small business is tough and when it's time to get alone, it can feel impossible to find a lender big bank, say no. And then the internet, well, it's full of sketchy offers with sky high rates and fine print, you can barely read. It's super confusing out there for small businesses. So 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 taking up a bunch of your time when you're already busy running your small business. That's why you should check out the one of the small business marketplace that's designed for people like you, Fandera, powered by Nerdwallet. It's a free, easy to use platform that lets you compare real, real financing offers from trusted lenders all in one place.

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45:15Fondera Inc. N-M-L-S-I-D number 124-0038. My thanks to Fondera, powered by Nerdwallet for the support of the show and all of Relay. So Mark German also published, I think this was last week, a profile of sorts of John Turnis, another one. I feel like this is more and more and more of these happening over time, which I just think continues to lend credence to the thing that Mark has been talking about for years now that John Turnis is next in line to be the CEO of Apple. And so I've got some quotes that I want to read out some parts of it and we can kind of talk about it as we go. Starting off, John Turnis has taken a bigger role in Apple's product marketing, sometimes personally editing copy for the website and product event materials. I feel it's really annoying. Right? It was really annoying. Like, leave me alone.

46:15I rightly work like coffee go away. Yeah, Jaws is just in there and like a page is document and then turns his little head pops up. Right? That feels like a micromanaging. I'm not sure what that was meant to. I think this is meant that it's like, taking a bigger role, like editing copy on the website. No, I don't think those two things go together before. Yeah, I want to make a meta comment at front. People are like, oh, this is boring and I don't necessarily think that. But I don't agree with that at all. I do think that German basically is reporting a bunch of anecdotes and there's not a real story in this profile. Yeah. Whatever. The story is I was right. Right? From Mark. Oh, yeah. Thomas will be the next CEO. Oh, that's what he's saying. He's like, here's more stuff, more anecdotes that I have about him from people he's working with currently and has worked with in the past. Like, that's kind of what he's easy. Mark is building a big case for himself here. And I'd say if he got this one right, if this happens, man,

47:15this is bigger than the MacBook, like that he got. Like, he called this a long time ago and is followed up the whole way through. Co-workers describe him as a good communicator who empowers employees, a management style that echoes cooks. Apparently, Ternus knows he needs bolder products as part of his leadership. Like, that's what he's looking at. And so at the moment, the list of bolder products that John Ternus is looking over is AI powered home devices. This is something that he has taken charge of after previously thinking in this category would not catch on. He was not a fan of the home pod, for example. And the person who was in charge of that just left for aura. And so something happened there for sure. Yeah. Smart glasses, smart air pods, and a smart pendant. We've got about these before. And quote, he's been a proponent, proponent of the development of a nearly 20 inch wide foldable iPad. Yes. Holy moly ass.

48:15Yes, John. Yes, he is. John do it. I dare you to do it, John. Do it. I'm going to read. This is a longer quote. In the early days of the iPad, Ternus argued the device's hardware capabilities weren't used to the fullest because its software platform wasn't taking advantage of the tablet's more powerful process from a bigger screen. No kidding. He pushed internally for a new operating system and eventually persuaded Federico Federico to build it. Ternus was also instrumental in creating iPad accessories such as stylus and a keyboard, and as well as their magnetic charging and pairing systems. This I think is the most interesting part of German's whole reporting. To me, it shows that Ternus is thinking about products holistically and he's not just the hardware guy. Which is, that's really good, isn't it? It is really good. This is the most encouraging thing that I've read on Ternus, maybe ever. Like, I don't know if it's a good thing or not to kind of stay in your lane in an environment like this.

49:15Should he leave the software people alone and focus on hardware? I can imagine that's the thing that some people would say, but at Apple, it feels like this stuff's supposed to work together. So it feels like if you're on an executive level, you should have an opinion about everything. Yeah. And so yeah, I thought this was good. I assume you think it's very good, Federico. You probably wanted to be CEO more than another. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What are we waiting for again? Well, John Ternus was a drive from force behind the touch bar and the bar flaky board. So it's not all good. Sure. I mean, yeah, I mean, if you're in charge of something, the good and the bad fall to you. So there's also this part in the article that talks about Ternus sometimes having a leadership style that has been unconventional for an Apple executive. So this is a story that late in the development of the Vision Pro. It was discovered that the AirPods Pro were missing a wireless frequency

50:16that would give them the ability to stream low latency audio, which was why Apple ended up shipping that USB-C version when they did. So they shipped it a little earlier than they would have otherwise. Remember, it's like, oh, here's USB-C and it would enable low latency audio with the AirPods Pro. That was supposed to be in the AirPods Pro too. Yeah. Just shipping, but it wasn't done right. And apparently Ternus took this on as a bit of a mission to find the person responsible for the error, which is a style of management that was considered a little old school for Apple. Apparently some people appreciated it. Others did not. But then the article does also say this is not typical for him, but it was something that stood out and he has considered a nice guy intent to quote, see mistakes, a systematic problems that can be solved by better leadership instead of putting the owners and engineers. Which all of this seems very conflicting and so I would like, in a report like this, I would like to know, just Ternus do this stuff a lot.

51:16Why did he do this? Why was this such a thing for him? That's a pretty big screw up, I think. You had to ship a whole new product to fix it, but. Oh, I agree. Maybe he took it a little too personally or whatever, but I don't think it's bad if you try to figure out where a mistake was made and if people get in trouble for it. You know, I see, I mean, I see how that could be viewed as old school. That's a little, maybe more jobsian, then cookie-in, but I don't think that's awful either. No, because ultimately, it meant that people like us who spent $3,000 on a Vision Pro then had to spend enough of $300 in Apple's Pro. Yeah, and so like, it's a good thing to be like, this was bad. Like, this shouldn't have happened because we've now put our customers in a very awkward position. Yeah. Yeah. So I think people kind of fixated on this, but I don't think it's a sign that, you know, he shouldn't be CEO.

52:16Maybe it's a sign he should be CEO. Well, that's what, yes. My thought is that maybe there are, there are times when this kind of thing is necessary. Like, I mean, why? I mean, well, okay. What's wrong with trying to find a person responsible for something? Well, I mean, I guess it's what happens next. Right? Is the thing. Like, was this person fired or demoted? It was that worth it, right? These are the details that we don't have. Well, I mean, we all have responsibilities. If I glue up something, people are, you know, people are going to find me for something. But it seems like at least in recent times this appears to be not the way Apple has worked. Maybe it should work that way. Yeah, maybe it should. Yes, I agree. Maybe it should. You know? Maybe people should have to take responsibility for something. Sometimes it just means that you go gang. This is my problem. And now I'm going to fix it. Right? And like, that's how you take responsibility for it or whatever. And like, maybe that is what happened. And maybe then this person involved was able to very quickly get this new version ready. Maybe this was quicker than they would have had it.

53:16And maybe that was the way it was resolved. But like, is this scenario like this of like, oh, well, this got screwed up. So I'm going to find the person responsible. And then they're going to be tasked with fixing this problem. Like, maybe that is the whole story but we don't have that whole story. But, yeah, I mean, everything that I read about Ternos is like, it encourages me. And I wonder what Apple will be like. Like, what are the things that he will and will not focus on? And like, you know, a lot of it talks about like, obviously, he has been, he has earned the trust of Tim and Tim's and Tim's descendants. So there must be some similarities between their leadership styles and maybe some of the things they do and don't care about. But it surely would be a different company run by someone who came from the product side of the organization rather than the operations side of the organization. Right. Right.

54:16Which is interesting because for a long time, everyone believed that Jeff Williams was the stand-in. Right. If Tim got sick or got hit by a bus on a workout, then Williams would step in. That didn't happen. Jeff Williams retired, like, good for him. But it's just like, there's a shift there somehow. Maybe the plane wasn't for Williams to be the permanent CEO if something happened to cook, right. Maybe it's, or maybe the plane was, if Williams has to step in, that Ternos would be after Williams. I don't know. There's something there, I think. But I do think the company would benefit from a product person at the top. That's not slender on my part against Tim Cook, but I think you can see that there are areas that the company has maybe struggled with a little bit because of that. I mean, anything like this, you know, over time, there can be a desire or a benefit

55:16to a bit of reinvention, kind of reprioritizing. Again, Mark does talk about the continued expectation that Tim Cook would essentially remain the company's chief diplomat, even in this scenario. Yeah. And the company's made in Tim Cook's image now, right. The company is not going to suddenly shrink back down in size or, you know, all these things that have happened in the last, what is it? 15 years, almost. Like, Apple is what Apple is now. And Ternis is not inheriting the Steve Jobs Apple. He's inheriting the Tim Cook Apple. And whatever he does will build a top that, not a rose-colored version of the past. I mean, about that idea that they're going to keep Tim Cook around as the diplomatic figure. How long can that really be sustainable? 10 years. For how many administrations Apple is going to be like, oh, there's a new president. Let's roll out grandpa and go to the White House.

56:17Like, is that? I mean, I think a 10-year period is feasible. Isn't he 65? And I? So I get, like, look, I get it. The president's like 95. It's true. No, it's true. I get it. But like, at some point, it should also be the CEO's responsibility to handle this. I agree. But I think those things they need, if you're going to do them in the right way, you do them slowly. So like, Tynas takes over Tim Cook remains as like egg roll, whatever it is. And in that role, he is dealing with political figures. And after a while, Tynas starts coming too. And you start to build these long-term relationships. So then Tim can fully retire. I think that considering Apple's size and scale and the delicateness of the way that they interact with governments around the world, I think it would be a bad move to just be like. Especially when some of the countries that they're working in,

57:18there's not going to be a new president, right? Maybe they're not going to... No, I'm not making that joke. But like, I'm looking at China, right? There's not going to be a new figure that is going to, in like two years' time or whatever, right? Like that's not... So there's long-term relationships of beneficial. And so building kind of Tynas is like an apprentice in that area. I can see the reason in doing that. And it's like, because I'm reading Apple in China right now, it's fantastic. But what I'm getting from that book is it took Tim Cook a long time to learn it. And he had no one to guide him. Yeah. And so I'm sure that he is aware of the delicacy, delicateness, not delicateness. No. What? I'm going to say delicacy. Is it aware of the delicacy of trying to like establish our relationships and that it might not be beneficial for him just to be like, how is Xi Jinping? I'm gone now. Here's the new guy. Okay. That's complicated. Yeah. I have a question for both of you.

58:18This is a serious question. So you can... I have an answer so you can think about a serious answer if not... What is this a game? It's not a game. Okay. If something doesn't jump to mind immediately, I can say mine. You're putting charge of Apple. What is the first thing that you do to make an impact? To make an impact? To establish yourself as the CEO. So you're like, this is my time now, right? What is the thing that you come in and say, I'm doing this. And it helps establish what you want the company to look like. This continued the macro. That is a great one. I like that. Let's get that out of there. No one needs it. Stephen, do you have something? I would return designed to an SVP position. Oh, can I give an answer? What does that mean? So right now, design, industrial design, and human-based design is a vice president. Oh, position. Okay. Make it a SVP.

59:18Make them SVPs. So both of them at SVPs, you're not going to put like one person in charge of both. No, I think it's fine. They're separate. They are different things. If we've learned anything, they're different things. But elevating them to the level under the CEO says a lot about how Apple thinks about design and values it. And I think that would be a big statement. Do you have one Federico? Yes. Do I look like my co-s and iPodos on the iPad? Mine is sweeping changes to the App Store Cup. Like massive changes. Like, it's like 10% and they're then all but but but but disincentivizes and at purchases and games in some way. So like not to make less of a cut there. But that's what I would be like huge changes. We're going to get rid of all this regulatory trouble. We're going to make it super fair. And that that would be my thing. Just like let's just let's just stop worrying about this for the amount of money that it would be in our balance sheet, which is small compared to everything else that we're doing.

1:00:21And let's just get rid of this monopoly stuff. Let's just not let's get this out of our lives so we can focus on other things. That would be my thing. Yeah, but that's why we'll never be in charge of Apple. Yeah. These things feel too sane. And it suggests maybe we'll make less money. I think Stephens is the only one where they don't have to worry about the money. So this more likely that you also have. I mean, I'm sure SVP comes with a with a raise, but you know, it's not. No, it's not like $200 million. No, we're shaving. Yeah, it's more than 200 million. I'm sure if they they got rid of the absolute thing. That is a good that is a good thing because he is inheriting a bunch of legal mess around the world. And so they could do the the app store changes. They could open up things that like things that the EU has demanded open them up worldwide. The fact that the iOS version that some people get is like fundamentally different in the way that it interacts with things like smart watches. Yeah, it is other people have like that doesn't make any sense.

1:01:23Well, there are just like features in macOS that just aren't available in certain parts of the world. Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's good. I think that's much more meaningful than like a product decision. Other progressions are fun. The legal mess is clearly a big deal. I think that's it. John turners, if you want to come on the show, the invitation is open. You're welcome. Anytime you send you a zoom link, you could you could you could just arrive whenever you like. We don't even need to put to warn us. We'll just send you to zoom link. You show up on any episode. That's right. If you want to find links to the stuff we spoke about this week, head on over to relay.fm slash connected slash 596. There's a couple of other links in the show notes. You can leave feedback. That can be anonymous. You can tell us secrets or you can write us a poem or you can tell us about the difference between iPod docs and iPad docs.

1:02:23Whatever you want to do. You can also join and get connected pro, which is the longer ad free version of the show. We do it each and every week. This week we spoke about our current storage situations, spring cleaning, our computer setups. That sort of thing. So you go check that out. You can find us online. Prince Flexi Federico is the editor in chief of Mac stories dot net related to that. They just updated their setups on the set up page ago. Look at that. Your desk is very beautiful Federico. Thank you. Very nice. Mike. Just Mike. He's the host of many shows here on relay. You can check out his work at cortex brand and his blogging at the enthusiast dot net. I've been your attorney general Flexi. You can find my writing at 512 pixels dot net. I like to think our sponsors this week century and Fondera. And until next week guys say goodbye. How do you get to cheerio? Bye y'all.