139: AI, DOJ, 18K, and Riding Around the Apple Ring

(upbeat music) - Welcome to In the News for March 22nd, 2024.

I am Brett Burney from appsinlaw.com. - And this is Jeff Richardson from iPhone JD.

Hey Brett. - Hello Jeff.

You wrote about a month ago, maybe almost a month ago about Apple's fiscal first quarter reports.

And one of the things to the very bottom, I just looked at back at your posts here.

You talked about Apple executives addressing AI. (laughing) And at the time I think you said something like, well, we don't know.

And Tim Cook was saying something like, we'll look at that in the future.

Maybe something will happen.

I know we talked about this a little bit even, but boy, this past week, some very interesting news came up about Apple's involvement in AI. - That's right.

Ever since then Tim Cook announced that at the conference that there would be something AI related coming out later this year.

And of course, as we discussed before, it's so rare for them to make a prediction of what they're gonna do in the future.

They usually just look back at the prior fiscal quarter.

Everyone's like, if Apple's gonna go out of its way to say something is coming, we wanna know what's coming.

And so since then, a lot of reporters have been trying to figure it out, what's Apple gonna announce.

My guess is that this summer, my guess is that it's gonna probably be an iOS 18, which comes out this fall, presumably.

And that Apple will preview some of it this summer at its conference, the WWDC conference.

But in the meantime, some reporters, and of course, one of the big one was Mark Gurman from Bloomberg, who always seems to do a such job, a good job of covering the Apple beat.

What he was hearing is that Apple is talking, this is all very tentative, but in talks with both Google, who has the Gemini AI, and then also with the OpenAI folks, the chat GPT folks.

And the idea is, at least, and this is all just speculation, but I actually think it makes good sense.

On the one hand, Apple likes to do things on device.

When they do face ID, when they do these other things, they have special chips on the device.

And so it's good for privacy.

It means that none of your confidential information is going up to the cloud.

And so your data is on device and Apple likes to do things.

And so a lot of people have thought that what Apple is gonna do is come up with some artificial intelligence stuff that works on device.

And consistent with that, by the way, it was just this week or last week in one of these journals that's for people that are deep into the AI field, people that work for Apple published a journal article on AI. - Oh yeah, I saw that. - It was way above my mental intellect in terms of what they were describing.

But the quick takeaway of it, it was just talking how different people come up with their own generative AI engine and Apple had come up with one that they described in a lot of detail in this article that can run locally.

And apparently it's not as powerful as something like chat GPT, of course, but it's fast, it's local, it's private, it can do a lot, you can have ongoing conversations with it.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could pick up your iPhone and while you're looking at a picture and say, could you turn this sideways?

Could you make it dark?

Just to have a conversation with it.

Can you make this a little bit brighter?

Oh no, that's too much.

Can you turn it down a little bit?

Using your voice and having a conversation as opposed to having fiddly controls that you don't even know where all the buttons are, that could be pretty cool.

And so that's one aspect that I'm sure Apple announces, some sort of on-device AI.

But what the speculation from Bloomberg is that Apple also will have some other AI things that will be more sophisticated and that will require computers in the cloud, networks of computers that are super complicated.

And Apple doesn't currently have that, but Google does.

And so Apple could just form a deal with Google, much like right now, if you wanna search in Safari, Apple turns that over to, by default, Google to run a Google search of the internet.

And that happens on Google servers and then you get the result.

And it happens so quickly, we may kid ourselves and say, I'm running this search on my iPhone.

But the reality is you're not running the search on your iPhone.

Your iPhone goes out to the cloud, Google gets a result and sends it back to you all within a fraction of a second.

What if the same thing happened for AI?

That would be really interesting.

And so if Apple's talking to Google, and apparently they're also talking to OpenAI, the issue, however, is that OpenAI, which is a big Microsoft investment, they don't have, at least the rumor, is that they don't have the infrastructure, the servers.

I mean, Google is just so heavily invested in this.

And so I wonder if they would be able to support the millions of iPhones that are out there, but Google apparently can.

So it makes sense to me.

So even though this is just a rumor and speculation, I would not be surprised if Apple does do something like this.

And I don't think that we'll see the Google logo.

I think it'll probably be like an Apple front end.

But behind the scenes, I could totally see some stuff being done by Google.

And I mean, to get to the end of it, wouldn't it be cool if just like on device, you could ask for things like touching up my photos, and then you can ask more sophisticated things and use the servers to help you.

It's a really neat idea.

And I think it's, everybody seems to say that AI is gonna change everything in technology, it's already started.

And I think this could be a big part of it. - Do you think Jeff that even if they do partner with somebody like Google, that Apple would eventually, or maybe in the background continue to evolve their own technology and then eventually use their own technology?

Because all I could think of when I was looking at this was Google Maps.

I remember when the iPhone first came out, that they partnered with Google, and it was only Google Maps you could get on the iPhone.

And then all of a sudden Apple announced that they're doing their own maps, it wasn't quite as good, but it's continued to get better all of these years.

And I just, I feel like, if I was Google, I'd be like, you know what, you burned us on the map thing.

I don't know if we're gonna do the AI, but I was just wondering that. - I mean, they could go that direction, like Google Maps and like, once they learn how it works, do it themselves. - Right, exactly. - Like Apple Maps.

But on the other hand, the very first iPhone had a YouTube app on it.

And that continues to be, I mean, not default. - That is true. - People still use YouTube for all of their searches.

People still use Google for all their web searches.

There have been rumors that over the past 20 years, Apple has considered doing its own search, just like Google, much like Microsoft did with Bing. - Right, yes, exactly. - But much like Microsoft and Bing have just never quite gotten there.

I suspect that Apple's decided, you know what, Google's really the expert in this area.

So it would not surprise me if the way that we, I just sort of laid it out as how it works.

Apple becomes the expert on on-device AI, Google is the expert on cloud AI.

You know, maybe over the years, as our handheld devices get even more and more powerful, the on-device stuff might increase even more, right?

And maybe the off-device stuff will decrease, but I don't know.

I mean, and it'll be interesting to see how much Apple even reveals about this.

I mean, you know Apple, they like to just sort of present everything, you know, in the clean terms that they come up with their special Apple word for it.

They may not even reveal what's being done by them and what's being done by someone like Google.

That might be the sort of thing that only after the fact do reporters, you know, ask the follow-up questions and figure out what's going on. - Yeah. - But I do hope that there's something to these rumors because this excites me.

I mean, this would be the example of how Apple could come up with something, not in five years, but this year, that really starts to make a difference. - Exactly, right. - By working with people like Google that have been at the, I mean, Google has been at the forefront of generative AI for so long now.

And I think I would love to see this partnership. - Well, if it was up to the US Department of Justice though, they might be putting some breaks on some of this stuff with that.

But this just broke yesterday, I think, that all of a sudden, I mean, I can see both sides where this was unexpected.

At least I didn't think it was gonna happen.

But some people have said, of course, you know, this has been brewing for a while, but the United States Department of Justice filed a pretty big suit against Apple.

In fact, it was joined by what, 15 states here?

Which I'm not even really sure still, I'm trying to parse it out, exactly what it is that they are claiming.

But I guess it really comes down to whether or not Apple is playing fair, if they're a monopoly, I don't know.

I know that this is still breaking and we're trying to, you know, understand the initial complaint that just came out.

But I don't know, it just doesn't look good and it looks a little, I don't know.

It's like, really, like, do we need to go through this?

I guess it's my reaction, at least so far. - Yeah, I mean, it's all new.

I have not read the complaint yet.

It was filed in federal court in New Jersey.

I, neither you nor I are antitrust attorneys, so let's just say that upfront.

But you know, so I only know a tiny bit about this.

My very little knowledge is that I believe that in order to file an antitrust lawsuit, you need to allege that the defendant is a monopoly.

And, you know, I understand back in the 1990s, when the Department of Justice brought us arguably somewhat similar lawsuit against Microsoft, you know, Microsoft really was much more of a monopoly.

They had, Apple was such a tiny portion of the market.

Microsoft really was the dominant player.

And the current smartphone market, you know, Apple has what, maybe 60% US market share.

I don't know if that necessarily makes it a monopoly.

I mean, they have the majority.

They certainly get a lot of the money and I know that the justice, so I mean, I have questions about this lawsuit.

There are certainly parts of it that make sense.

I mean, there's no question that Apple has aggressively done what it can to be the best.

And sometimes being the best means taking advantage of what's there.

And, you know, did they go too far?

You know, first of all, do the monopoly rules even apply to them?

And even if they do, did they go too far?

You know, maybe yes in some places, maybe no in other places.

It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Like for example, the article that you're showing right now from Jason Snell at Six Colors, he's not an attorney either, but he does an analysis.

He points out something that I didn't even realize that was in the lawsuit, that apparently the only, you know, if someone sends a text message to your iPhone, the text message can be used by the messages app, but apparently it can't be used by third party messaging app.

I actually did not even know that.

And so I guess that's an example of how Apple is doing something for themselves that they're not doing for others.

I don't know.

I appreciate that though.

I appreciate that.

Like I look at that as a feature almost then. - Yeah, so, but I mean, maybe-- - But I can see where others can argue differently. - If you're selling the WhatsApp app, or for example, something like that, and you wanna say, you know, we wanna be your one and only messaging solution for both text messages and for WhatsApp messages.

So, I mean, that's an example of, and I can see the argument that Apple is helping their own app versus others.

But then there's other examples that go the other way as well.

So, I mean, the thing is, you know, big lawsuits like this are just as political as anything else, and it'll be really curious to see how the courts handle it over the years.

You know, I think that a lot of the reason that a lot of people use Apple stuff is just because they like Apple stuff, because the iPhone is a better quality in many ways than Android.

So I think it's a lot of personal preference, but we'll see, we'll see. - And it works.

And I feel like, you know, we've talked about this so many times, like it's just a little bit of a trust factor that goes into that.

This is a great article by Jason.

It's probably the best that I've seen without having to read through it.

And he has many disclaimers in here that he is not a lawyer, but he even just says, he goes, "It accuses Apple of attempting to create a monopoly "through its various business tactics."

And one of the other things that he does mention in here is that Apple has reduced competition by making it hard for developers to deploy cross-platform software.

So some of this, I'm just wondering, you already kind of alluded to it, that maybe a little bit of political fallout, you know, from the whole Epic v.

Apple thing, you know, when some developers have accused Apple of, you know, with the whole thing about taking the 30% cut, you know, that type of a thing from the App Store.

I'm not really sure.

Again, we'll probably talk about this a little bit more in the days to come, or maybe this will just fizzle out, right?

And there'll be a small army of Apple lawyers that will just kind of, you know, continue to take this for several years.

And we'll see.

There's another link here from, by John Gruber at Dairy and Fireball, where he links to Jason's.

I don't know if he's got any additional little- - He does. - Points in here. - Yeah, he's got additional analysis in there too, about things, you know, pointing out, for example, that when Apple recently came out with its Journal app, that was an, you know, that's Apple's own Journal app.

And of course, there are third-party journaling apps.

But one of the things that Apple did is the new APIs that they came out with, they made it completely available to anyone.

So Apple's built-in Journal app can use those APIs, but so can any third parties.

And so you could argue that that would be a way of Apple making the platform more equal for everybody.

And, you know, are they doing that out of the kindness of their heart?

Are they doing that to be nice to users?

Or are they doing it because of the threat of things like this?

You know, two other things that might be worth mentioning that the DOJ apparently points out in this lawsuit is that, first of all, we don't have a lot of what the DOJ calls super apps on the iPhone.

And there's really only one good example of that, which is the WeChat app.

I know that if you're in China and some other countries and that parts of the world, you know, you do everything through WeChat.

You chat, you pay for things.

I mean, it's like your one and only app and Apple doesn't really have that.

And then another thing that Apple has in the past made it difficult is to have pure streaming games.

You know, we're getting fast enough internet connections that instead of downloading a game from the app store, you could really play a game online on a computer.

I know a lot of people do that on physical computers.

Apple knows how much you can do that on an iPhone or an iPad.

The iPhone's really the focus of this complaint.

And so the question is, is Apple, you know, being quote unquote anti-competitive in limiting how game developers can do a streaming app, which then the developer could make the app once and have it work up theoretically on every platform versus coming out with apps that are approved by Apple and that Apple gets a 30% take on and everything else.

So I don't know.

I mean, it definitely raises some interesting issues and it's gonna be the subject of all sorts of thoughtful analysis for years to come.

And we'll see at the end of the day, what ends up happening from all of it.

So it'll be interesting to watch. - We talk a lot about Apple, but we don't mention Nvidia, another company in the technology space.

And the only reason I'm bringing them up is to have an Apple bent to it.

But this one I thought was a fun story.

Nvidia actually did have their conference.

I think they were talking about some of the new hardware and I did see a few headlines of a new processor, chip processor, which looks pretty incredible.

And you know, a lot of times I believe if I'm not mistaken, some of the Nvidia graphics chips are actually what powers so much today of some of this large language model and some of the AI technologies.

But this was a great, this was Harry McCracken, of course, where he was somehow, well, maybe you can explain a little bit.

He was using the Apple Vision Pro at the Nvidia conference to get all in and out and around a Nissan Z sports coupe, which is really pretty interesting here.

Nvidia has done some incredible things.

I mean, their processors are so sophisticated.

And like you say, Brett, it may have started out as being for graphics professionals, but those processors are really what's behind so much of the AI stuff nowadays that Nvidia, I mean, I don't know whether Nvidia got there by design or by accident, they are thrilled to see AI be such a big thing because it's fantastic for that company.

But one of the things that they can do with these powerful processors is you need it if you're gonna have something incredibly sophisticated like this virtual model of a car.

So this is Nissan showing out one of their upcoming sports cars where, to see it, you put on an Apple Vision Pro and within there, you can like go into the car and go around it.

But the graphics and the computation that's required, I mean, this is really, really sophisticated stuff that could not occur on the actual device itself.

It would have to be an external device.

And so the idea is that it's an external Nvidia server, which is then serving up the graphics to the headset and you're seeing it.

And it's just as Harry McCracken describes it, it's incredibly lifelike and realistic and would not be possible. - Yeah, he was really going on. - Yeah, it would not be possible without just this incredible backend from Nvidia.

So this is an interesting example of something that, I would love to see this in the future.

In fact, this relates to the streaming video games we were just talking about.

If a company could have, whether it's like Nvidia or some other servers, and if your internet connection is fast enough, you could be wearing the Apple Vision Pro and you could be connected to the server for, the car company or the whatever company.

And you could just be streaming and downloading as all the computations are being done on the Nvidia servers as you look around and up and down and left and right and in and out.

And whether it's for medical devices or looking at the newest car or looking at some product equipment or anything like that.

I've mentioned this before, one of my favorite parts of using the Apple Vision Pro are the few times when you are in an environment that's completely immersive. - Right. - Where it's not just that you have a big movie screen in front of you, but you look up, you look down, you look around you and everywhere you look, it's as if you were there.

Those are the things that are truly transformative.

And I've never used anything like that before in my life.

They're really incredible.

So it's fun to see that Nvidia is coming up with some ways to power these types of experiences. - The Apple Vision Pro has been around for a little over a month, almost a month and a half.

And I continue to enjoy some of these stories.

You link to another one here.

This one is well from Benedict Evans.

Is this his own?

Yeah, this is his own blog here.

A month of the Vision Pro.

Even though I enjoy reading these Jeff, I don't know if there's anything brand new in most of them.

I think most everybody is saying a lot of the same kind of things.

Anything that jumped out at you from Benedict Evans here and yeah, and using the Vision Pro.

There were, he had a couple of observations that I thought were interesting.

I guess maybe they relate to things that you and I have talked about before, but he mentioned how this was one of these rare examples of Apple coming up with the technology and releasing it when it's still the early stages.

We all hear about these examples of how like when they were developing the iPhone, they would have something, and this is I'm sure true for any type of electronics product.

You might have something that it looks like an iPhone in your hand, but in the development stage, it would have a big cord and it would be connected to some computer.

Which of course, and you would never ship the final product like that, but it's the only way that it works for development.

And he says it to a certain degree, the Apple Vision Pro is a little like that.

I mean, you do literally have the cord connected to the battery. - I see that. - It's heavier than Apple probably would have wanted, but it's like, it's a rare opportunity where we are seeing technology that some companies may have said, "Hey, we need to wait two or three years "until we can make this thing lighter and smaller "before they sell it."

But Apple this time has decided to say, "You know, let's sell it now.

"It's gonna be far more expensive than we want it to be.

"And it's gonna be much more clunky, "but let's just get it out there "so people can start to experience and push the platform."

And so he gives Apple some credit for that, which I think is interesting.

And then another interesting comparison that he drew in here is he said that, "You know, this is one of these technologies of the moment."

And he's wondering, is it going to remain fascinating and interesting to people, which I believe is the case, or is he draws comparisons to, there was a time when everybody wanted to get a drone, or everybody wanted to get a 3D printer, and you would get one and you would use it for a couple of weeks.

And then it's just in your closet and you don't ever use it again.

And so, you know, are people buying Vision Pros and then after a month, they're just sitting in a closet and they're not touching them?

That's certainly not the case for me, but I certainly can't speak for the market.

And it will be interesting to see which it is, because I mean, we all know what that's like, how it's like, it's the it product, it's expensive, you know, everybody's talking about it.

And then we move on to the next great thing.

So that'd be interesting. - Even close to the home. - Yeah.

I mean, like so many people that I've talked to that bought one of the Oculus, you know, twos of the MetaQuest or whatever they were, that they raved about it for about a month.

And then maybe, you know, then after that, maybe they would use it once a month and then they were talking about it again.

I mean, I've just known several people that are exactly like that, Jeff, that it didn't seem compelling enough.

And I certainly have seen a much different approach, you know, just even from that, from like a very bigger picture, even from a productivity standpoint, you know, the work, I mean, I've never really kind of thought of the Oculus as something that people would use, you know, from a work standpoint.

So anyway, good thoughts on that.

And if the $3,500 price tag wasn't enough for you, you wanted to spend a little bit more, I'm glad that you linked to this today, Jeff.

The company is called Caviar.

They are making an 18 karat gold Apple Vision Pro.

And did they have the price tag on here?

40,000. - Starts at 40,000. - Yeah, starts at 40,000.

You know, so just a few additional, this is really blinged out here, man. (laughing) Wow, like they've really, they put like an extra cover on here, 18 karat gold Vision Pro.

So I hope that you already put your pre-order in.

There's only gonna be a few, Jeff, so you've gotta get there quick. - That is true, I say what they're making 24 of them next year and that's it.

I almost hesitate to link to Caviar because the company's been around for a while.

They will sell you 24 karat-- - I love it. - 18 karat gold versus everything.

You can buy iPhones that are $10,000.

You can buy AirPods that are really good.

And I laugh at them, but I really do realize that there are some people that actually buy these things.

Obviously, the company's in business.

Maybe you don't have to sell that many of them to actually make money, but they are certainly funny.

It's funny to see what somebody who says, "Money is no object." - Right, boom. - And gold, there's never enough of not, anyone who thinks not enough gold, there can always be more gold.

So if that's you, if you have more money than cents and you believe that more gold is always a good idea under any circumstance, then Caviar is the company for you. - You know-- - Boy, do they have it. - They will sell every single one of these.

I mean, just to be able to say that you have one of the 24.

I feel like this is kind of like the Hermes watch band, or the blinged out version of that, oh, good stuff.

Okay, well, I'm not gonna end up with one of those, but I will tell you an Apple product that I did purchase, and I know that you purchased as well, is actually, I think I purchased three or four of the Apple Airports back in the day.

I ran my entire house, all of my devices, I think from an airport, was it an Extreme?

Is that what it was called?

That's the one that stood up.

First, it looked like a big version of an Apple TV.

It was kind of flat, I think, right?

And then it got to be tall. - Well, at first it was like a UFO, if I remember correctly, and then it-- - Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Well, so I very much enjoyed this little story here.

This is Joe Rosensteil on Six Colors.

It's time for a new airport.

I doubt that Apple's gonna do that, but hey, I'm like, go for it.

I'm glad he wrote the article, just like you said you were glad as well, Jeff. - Joe says it's not too late.

I would love to believe that he's right.

I don't know it.

I mean, look, networking sucks.

It's the one, as much as I am a gearhead and I love technology, I have always despised networking because it's finicky and something doesn't work and it takes forever to troubleshoot and you do something 10 times in a row and it doesn't work. - Everybody's mad. - And then the 11th time it suddenly does and there's no explanation for why it worked on time 11.

So anyway, it was so nice when Apple, when Wi-Fi was in its infancy.

When was this?

This was in the late '90s, early 2000s.

When Wi-Fi first came out, when Apple came out with the original iBooks that had Wi-Fi in it, you know, Apple sold an airport because none of us had a way to have wireless in the home.

Wi-Fi was just such a new thing.

And so for many years, they had these airport devices that would just solve all of your wireless needs.

But then around the time when it was probably what the 2010s, whatever, when just when mesh technology came around, the people at Apple decided, you know what?

We're gonna, there you go.

There's a picture of the original ones. - Yeah, yeah, the UFO. - You know, people, the original Eero company came out with mesh networking and it was such a big deal.

And Apple decided, you know what?

We're gonna get out of the router business.

We're gonna let other people take over.

And I under, look, I'm agreeable that you definitely want to focus on the products that matter.

You wanna focus on the ones that you can really make a difference on.

You can't do everything.

You have limited resources.

I get that.

But for my money, I think that networking is so close to the products that Apple sells, much like AirPods are so, you know, something to listen to things. - Sure. - They're so close to it that I really wish Apple had stayed in this market way back when they had an opportunity to buy Eero.

Google bought Eero instead.

And I don't really have a problem with what's happened with Eero under Google stewardship.

You know, I continue to purchase, I mean, I purchase Eero products and I don't have an issue with them.

They are sort of the Apple of networking in that they're simplistic, not simplistic in that they can't do much, but like you don't have to know anything.

It's almost like plug and play. - Exactly, right, right. - And yet they can create these great networks.

But if Apple had this technology, Brett, I mean, imagine they've got HomeKit, they've got HomePods, you know, I could totally see Apple integrating routers with speakers and networking and home automation.

And I just feel like if they had stayed in this business, if there was an alternative universe where Apple stayed in the business, I think we would be in a better place.

I really do.

But, and that's what Joe, and so Joe also says, he doesn't think it's too late.

He says, "Hey guys, y'all can get back in this business."

And, you know, I don't know. - I don't know. - Once Apple's left the market, are they gonna come back?

But then again, then again, Apple left, you know, when Steve Jobs came to Apple in the 1990s, what did he do?

He said, "Goodbye Newton."

They got out of the PDA market.

And then, you know, 10 years later, they came out with the iPhone.

So maybe, maybe, we'll see. - I just, I was just thinking when you were saying like, if Apple had stayed in the market, like we could have had, you know, an alternate history.

We could have been for all airport on there.

I love that.

For all, so I was just looking this up on Wikipedia.

I love, this is such a track back in history.

This is even going, I forgot they had done PCMCIA cards.

You remember those cards, those network cards, Jeff?

And then they had the airport express.

And then the things that I was thinking about, here they are, this was the time capsule.

So this was, it was like, I remember, I love this.

I had, this is the tower that I had.

And it was so great, just like you're saying, you just plug and play.

It was a hard drive built in, but it was also a router.

And it just, it was the bee's knees.

I love that thing.

And it powered my entire network for years and years.

So yeah, I don't know.

I know we've talked about it.

It's almost like an ode to the airport there, but it's such a great name too.

It's like, how can you just let that go on there?

But yeah, I don't know.

Thanks Joe for the walk down memory lane a little bit, but I think it's a far cry.

Well, okay, Apple now, like you said, is paying attention to their current products, Jeff, including making sure that there are software updates for the Apple AirTags.

This just came out this week, right?

We don't even exactly know what this AirTag firmware update is going to include.

It's a little bit of a mystery there, but you shouldn't have to worry about it, right?

If everything goes right, all of your Apple AirTags should just magically and automatically update because there really is no other way to do it necessarily. - It's almost funny that these things even get updates.

I mean, AirTags are barely more than the size of a quarter.

They are so tiny and they are just so simple in what they do.

And yet Apple updates them every once in a while.

I think the last update was in October.

And so now this week, another update is being pushed out.

Like you say, there's nothing you can do.

We mentioned this just as a public service announcement.

Eventually, if you own an AirTag, it's going to be updated.

We don't know exactly what the new firmware does 'cause Apple doesn't tell us.

I'm sure there's security updates, maybe some performance updates, who knows?

But I mean, it's nice that Apple has the ability to just complete, to update them, but it's not like we're getting any new features or anything like that.

But so anyway, just offer it as a PSA. - And this just out, literally hours old, iOS 17.4.1.

This just came out.

In fact, I think I just saw it pop up on my phone.

I haven't even had a chance to update it myself.

I'm not even really sure what this is going to include in there.

We just had 17.4, but now we have 17.4.1 available. - Yeah, 17.4 was just two weeks ago.

And now we have 17.4.1.

Apple says that it provides, it fixes some bugs and provide some security updates.

So I guess that's all you need to tell us.

No new features, don't expect any new apps or anything like that. - Nothing to see here. - But hey, if you were having some crashes or something like that in 17.4, go ahead and update.

Maybe it'll be fixed now.

But in all seriousness, we know that Apple is updating security things all the time.

We're always hearing about security breaches in the wild.

What often happens for these updates, Brett, as you know, Apple will release the update.

And then in the next day or two, they will update their online security document, often giving credit to the people that send in the security tips.

And sometimes when you look at those things, you're like, wow, those sound like they're pretty bad.

I'm really glad that Apple fixed it.

So I haven't seen that document yet.

I don't even think that Apple's published it yet, but I'm sure they will.

And I presume it's gonna make us happy that we updated.

So. - I even tried following this link here.

They always have a link for like, for more information, visit this link.

And then you go to that link and it just says, we like to protect our customers.

So we don't wanna reveal anything that we're updating on there.

Just sometimes it can sound a little like shrouded in mystery.

Maybe that's what the DOJ is upset about, who knows?

But, you know, anytime that I see even kind of a small, minor update like this, again, once it's a little bit minor like this, I don't have any issues with telling people, yeah, go ahead and update it.

If you see it pop up on your screen, that's important too.

You know, another product, maybe I haven't heard you talk about it in a while, Jeff, maybe because it's overshadowed by the Vision Pro, but I know you still use your HomePod minis a whole lot.

I love this little story that you linked to today from Max Stories.

He or she is a newer reporter, Nylane, I believe. - Yeah, from Paris.

I'm not exactly sure the right way to pronounce it, but it's a nice little article about, and in fact, the product name is called the, let's see, it's the Plusac PCC. - I know, it's a really weird. - For HomePod. - It's a weird name, but there's a link to where you can get it on Amazon. - I like Nylane's name better, RomePod.

She said, or he or she says RomePod on there.

That's much better.

Anyway, go ahead. - Yeah, RomePod is a better name, I agree.

But it's a thing that sits underneath the HomePod mini and so that you can wrap up your cord in there and then plug it in. - That's so great. - And what makes this device nice is that you can have this device sitting there on your shelf plugged into the wall, and then you can take the device, which has the HomePod mini sitting on top of it, pick it up, and then you can go walk outside or wherever else you wanna go.

And I'll tell you, I still do this whenever we have parties.

We had a party at our house about six weeks ago.

One of my cousins got married and we had a party the night before the wedding party.

And so we had the HomePod mini in my living room and the HomePod mini in our front room, and I borrowed my daughter's HomePod mini and we put it in the backyard and I connected it to a battery, which was a little unwieldy 'cause you could see the cord flapping around.

It wasn't nice and tucked together like the device that's shown up here in Mac Stories is.

But it was the same idea, plugging a portable battery into a HomePod mini so you can make it portable, take it outside, put it wherever.

I really like this idea.

And so if I didn't already have a solution that worked good enough for me, what is this, 40 bucks on Amazon, I would use this. - Yeah. - Especially if I did it more often because it's nice.

And it's nice to, I really love that effect, Brett, when you, and people have this with Sonuses all the time too that you can go from room to room to outside to inside and it's seamless music. - Right. - It's really cool.

And it's nice that you can do this so simply with the HomePod minis.

I always hate it when you link to things like this 'cause it's like products that I never knew that I needed and I really don't need it, but now I want it.

I mean, this just looks really cool.

I don't even have an HomePod mini, but I know I'm going to one day and this would be something that I would want to have.

And we're joking about the name because the reporter even says in here, like, "You're welcome, Apple.

"Why didn't you come up with something like this?

"And here's a name.

"You can call it the RoamPod." - The RoamPod. - And you are welcome.

That's even better. - Yeah, in fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Apple did come up with this exact product because it does seem like it would make sense.

In fact, let me just say one thing so that people don't think that it's all just, you know, dancing in the springtime and lovely.

I said before that I hate networking.

That continues to be true when it comes to HomePod minis.

That experience that I described to you of that party we had- - I know you've had some issues, yeah. - It worked, but it did not work the first time.

I can't explain why.

I had to disconnect them, reconnect them.

Eventually, I got it all working.

Sometimes it goes for hours and hours and they all work together.

Sometimes one of them stops randomly.

It's that whole networking thing voodoo that I don't completely understand. - Right. - But when it works, it's magic.

And fortunately for me, it works about 90% of the time.

I wish it was closer to 99% of the time, but so be it. - And I know you, you wouldn't be able to enjoy the party unless that was working there.

You probably were sitting in the corner making sure that that was going.

That's good.

All right, well, now we've come to the video portion of our podcast.

Couple of great videos, but oh my goodness, are they ever so good.

This first one here is from Brian Tong, who I followed, I think for quite a while on YouTube.

I think he's got a blog.

His name doesn't come up quite as much as maybe some like Marques Brownlee and some of the others that we've talked about, but you have linked to some things from Brian Tong before.

And oh my goodness, this could be a masterpiece.

I've only been able to watch a little bits and pieces of this 40 minute video, just like you were talking about in here.

But I just want, I almost don't even care that he's talking to like Jaws and so many other Apple executives.

I just love the beautiful golf cart that they're riding in as they go around the circle at Apple campus.

It's so cool.

Thanks for linking to this video this week, Jeff. - It is great and such a creative idea that he came up with.

I love that Apple agreed to do it.

He got a golf cart, one of the Apple golf carts that they have on their campus, and he sets up a bunch of iPhones to serve as video cameras.

So there's one, look, it's almost like carpool karaoke.

It's got like one looking directly at both of them, one on the left, one on the right.

And so then they just drive around.

I mean, they don't drive, somebody else is the driver.

They're in the back seat and they go around Apple's campus.

We often see the inside of the circle at Apple's campus, which has the beautiful Orchard Grove and all this stuff.

But here they went outside.

So they went sort of around the circle and they went off to where the Steve Jobs Theater is and they went to other places.

But so at the same time that you're listening to these interesting conversations that he's having with Apple employees, seeing the beautiful Apple campus on a beautiful day where the sky could not be more blue.

And there are Apple employees that are sort of walking by that just walk around. - Just walking around. - If you know what is this? - They're eating lunch. - Exactly, what am I seeing?

Oh, so many tables that are sitting outside.

It's actually like, I wanna go there and hang out at one of the picnic tables and have a sandwich or something like that. - One day we will, Jeff. - One day.

So it's great to look at the Apple campus if you just wanna look at the background.

And if you wanna look at the foreground and pay attention to the questions, he has some fun questions.

Some of them are a little softball-y, but that's okay.

With, I think he talks to maybe four or five different folks from Apple about the photography on the iPhone and artificial intelligence.

And when he talks to Jaws, he talks about everything.

But it's a nice conversation.

It's fun.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching the video.

I mean, as I joked in my post, I did not expect to sit there and watch it for 40 minutes.

I'm like, I'm gonna watch it for a minute.

And the next thing I know, I have been sitting there for 40 minutes.

I'm like, oh my goodness.

It's a lot of fun.

I really enjoyed it. - It's just so many, I just so appreciate when Apple, I guess, allows or like, lets the leash go a little bit.

I mean, the only pieces and parts in here that I watched with Jaws is they were talking about that really scary event.

That's what they call it, right?

The really scary, like they were introducing, that was the MacBook, one of the new MacBook Pros or the M2 chip, or I can't remember exactly.

But it was that like Halloween version of things. - It was on Halloween, right, yeah, the day before. - But they were talking about the fact that Jaws was like, you know, they were talking about the photo capabilities of the iPhone, just like you're saying, Jeff.

And Jaws was like, you know, we shot that entire thing on an iPhone.

And Brian's like, we, I know, I was in a room with like 30 other people and all of us like audibly gassed when you revealed that you had shot this whole thing on an iPhone.

And then they were looking up, like you said here, I've just got one little still picture on the screen right now.

There has to be like five or six cameras, iPhone cameras.

And Jaws is looking up in this golf cart that they're running around in saying, look at this.

You're even using this right now.

Anyway, just really cool.

And it also tells me, I'm sure folks like Jaws are like prepped by, you know, the other, the people that they have.

But it just seemed like he really understood what Brian Tong was doing.

You know, they have an appreciation at some level of all the professionals that cover their stuff.

And I just really, truly enjoy, you know, seeing that.

People like Jaws don't have to pay that much attention to kind of things like this.

And I just always appreciate when they do, which is good. - We should mention, by the way, Brett, that Jaws is Greg Kajaswiak. - Sorry, yeah. - He's an Apple executive who came over to Apple in the '90s, I believe, with Steve Jobs. - Yes, yes. - Has been at the company for such an incredibly long time.

And he's one of the top executives at the company. - Yeah, thank you for doing that.

It's J-O-Z, we call him Jaws.

Well, I say we, I've never met the man.

But his real name is Jawswiak, just like you said.

But I was also, not only is it a shortened version of his name, but we also think of Waz, right?

Which was one of the original founders of Apple.

And so, it's just kind of cool that they kind of have that history there.

And then one last video here, which is the newest one, or maybe not the newest one from Apple.

You're in a roll, Jeff.

It's like, what, three or four weeks in a row, it's like different Apple commercials.

One was the car, one was, I can't remember exactly, it was two or three weeks ago.

But this one, oh, it was the one, the power plug on the wall was singing. - Oh, yeah. - I remember that one, too.

This one though, is probably my favorite so far.

We don't like to give anything away.

It's called "Don't Let Me Go."

And it's about getting rid of old photos.

That's all I'll say, right?

But it's like, it's worthwhile.

Well, it's worthwhile spending the 30 seconds to watch. - Exactly, even if you don't spend 40 minutes on it. - Did I give too much away?

I mean, yeah. - No, no, even if you don't spend 40 minutes on Brian Tong, spend 30 minutes on this one, it's fun. - Absolutely, absolutely. - Spend 30 seconds on this one. - Don't let me go.

See, I'm just saying, I went and looked up that song, by the way, because we talked about this, that Apple is always good about putting the original song source in the link down here.

So I'm like jamming away on that song as well.

Good stuff there.

In the know, I got a really quick one today, just because I've seen it before.

A couple of people have asked me about this, Jeff.

It's been around for a while.

In fact, this story that I'm linking to here is from 2022.

And I forget exactly what iOS version.

Let's see, maybe even iOS 15.

Anyway, the point that I'm getting to here is when you turn your phone off, your iPhone, or in some cases, even when you hold it down, like I'd like to do a hard reboot every once in a while, right, if the apps aren't responding the way that I think they should, you know, you do this little button dance, you do volume up, volume down, and then you hold the side button, and you keep holding it, keep holding it till the Apple logo comes back on the screen.

Anyway, regardless of whether you turn your phone off or you do a reboot, there will be a message that has been on there for a couple of years now that it'll say iPhone findable after power off.

Now, I kind of knew that that was coming, so it didn't really bother me all that much, but a couple of people have asked me, what in the world does that mean?

Is it not, is it really not shutting down? - Yeah, I don't remember ever seeing that message before.

Huh, interesting. - Again, you have to like, if you just want to turn your phone off, if you, you know, here, let's try it right now and see.

If you click and hold the side of the on off button, right?

And you keep holding that, of course the Siri might come on.

So maybe, here, let me see if it's the other side on here.

Or maybe it's, do you have to hold the two buttons down?

Yes.

Okay, so if you hold like volume down and the side button, - Oh, I see that. - And it has that slide to power off, there you go. - I've never noticed that.

It's, yeah, I've never seen that. - Well, you can actually, now that you've got it on the screen, Jeff, you can actually tap on that once you see that little message.

And it has a little arrow on there.

And it says, it'll explain exactly what this is. iPhone remains findable after power off.

Exactly, that's the message right there.

So Find My helps you locate this iPhone, whether it's lost or stolen, even in power reserve mode or after power off.

So in other words, it's just really more of an informational thing.

You can just, you know, you don't even have to tap that, but once that message that you just showed on the screen, you can say, okay, or you can tap temporarily turn off finding.

Not really sure why you would wanna do that, but you have the option if you're just turning it off and you don't want it to be available in the Find My listing, you can do that there.

And you can actually, this article that I'm linking to, you can go in permanently or disable the findable after power off.

You have to go into the settings, has to be turned on and go into the settings and do that.

But of course, if there's any particular reason that you feel like you don't wanna have that available, you can go and turn that off.

But for the vast majority of people, I would just say, leave it on.

But that's what it means when you see that little message, iPhone findable after power off.

It just does take and keep a little reserve power from a Bluetooth perspective, just to make sure that it could be findable.

You know, if there's other folks, it's similar to the technology that's used for error tags, for example, today.

So that's what that means.

That's my tip for today. - Yeah, I had not seen the message, but I was familiar with the concept.

And in fact, one of the things I know is that if you're using an iPhone and you let it go all the way down to 0% and it gets to the point where it says, 10% warning, 5% warning, we're out of power, I'm turning off.

What I know is that even after it turns off, it's not completely dead.

It's still, like you said, it reserves just a tiny bit of battery power.

And that is so for a period of time that I'm not sure if it's like a day or hours or a week, but for some period of time, your iPhone will use just the tiniest trickle of battery power and the tiniest amount of its radio antennas to sort of let others know the location so that if you've lost your iPhone and you're trying to find it, even though somebody's turned it off or you turned it off yourself, you can still, or somebody else could find it.

So that's interesting, yeah.

And thank you for that message.

I had never noticed it before, and it's nice to know that it's there and you can get some more information on how all this works.

Very good. - Absolutely.

My tip has to do with the Apple TV.

So when I'm watching shows on the Apple TV, maybe it's because I'm getting older, I don't know, but some shows I watch normally, but some shows I watch with captions.

Now, obviously, maybe not obviously, but of course I'm gonna watch captions if it's in a foreign language.

But even if I'm watching something like, you know, the "Slow Horses" show, which was on Apple TV+, which was shot in London. - Yes, we did the same. - Sometimes just because of the British accent, I might not follow all the dialogue.

And so I turn on captions.

And then, you know, even my son and I have been watching "Masters of the Air" on Apple TV+, which is the world war II. - Oh, yeah. - Oh, it's such, it's so great.

And I have no trouble with those accents, but sometimes they're referring to like a city in Europe or words, or I just like having the captions on.

I know some people find them distracting, but I actually don't mind them.

And so I will turn the captions on for some shows.

So the tip is, and this tip came from John Gruber at "Daring Fireball" a few days ago.

I was not familiar with it.

He explains that, you know how on the Apple TV remote, at the very, the button that's at the very top left, which on old Apple remotes is called menu, and on the newest Apple remotes has got just like a, a greater error, less than sign.

But that button right there, you can use accessibility settings on it.

I did not know this.

On your Apple TV, you go into the settings app, and then you go to accessibility, and then you go to accessibility shortcut, and you'll see like 15 different options.

And one of the options that you can set is you can say, when I use the accessibility shortcut, which you use by triple clicking that button, what's gonna happen?

And so for me, I put on closed captions.

And so now, you know how, if you wanna turn closed captioning on or off, you have to like fiddle around the screen, and find the button. - You gotta go in the whole menu, right? - You can also use Siri to talk to your remote, and say, turn on, but that doesn't always work.

But what's really nice is you don't have to interrupt the show at all.

I can just triple click on the button, and the captions will turn on.

And then I triple click on the button again, and the captions turn off.

And I've been using this for just a couple of days since I saw this post by John Gruber.

And it's been so cool.

It's been so nice.

And so now, it does not work on everything, because some apps, like for example, Netflix, they have their own proprietary way of dealing with captionings.

And so as a result, the shortcut doesn't work.

But it does work on Apple TV+.

I think it works on the HBO Max app.

It works more places than it doesn't work.

Let's just put it that way. - Okay, good, I like that. - And it's so nice.

I mean, if you're not already using the accessibility shortcut for something else, then absolutely turn this feature on, because you never know when you'll just be sitting there with the remote in your hand, and you wanna just turn on captions, da, da, da, captions are on.

And then if you don't need them anymore, da, da, da, captions are off.

By the way, another sort of additional tip, but this is nothing new that you should know, is that if I have captions turned off, and somebody says a line of dialogue that you just didn't understand, you can pick up your remote and you can turn Siri on, and you can say, "What did he say?"

Or, "What did she say?"

They both do the same thing.

And what will happen is Apple will rewind about 10 seconds and turn on captions. - That's right. - So you can just see the last 10 seconds with captions.

And then once you get back to where you were, it'll turn the captions back on, back off.

So I use that if there was just one specific line that I did not get because the sound was too loud or because it was an accent or something like that.

So that's also a good tip.

But this is quickly toggling it on and off.

Oh, I tell you what, you gotta do it, Brett.

It's made my Apple TV- - Oh, I'm sitting in front of the family right now. - So it's made my Apple TV watching experience so much better.

I wish I'd known about this years ago, goodness. - The thing is, Jeff, I remember, I'm of the generation, and I think you're with me, my friend, that whenever I saw closed captions or words on the screen, it was only because it was a foreign language and it was there because it had to be in the way and it was a bother 'cause I had to read it and listen to them.

But I gotta tell you, my kids, and I'm pretty confident your kids are the same generation, they don't wanna watch anything unless it has the captions turned on.

My daughter comes home from college and we're sitting there trying to watch some stuff and she keeps asking, "Can you turn the captions on, please, can you please turn it on?"

I'm like, "Why, why would you do that?

That just gets in the way."

But I am gonna admit, Jeff, I'm coming around to it.

Like, it's the same thing.

It's either a show or just because I wanna make sure that I'm following along a little bit closer, I can't believe I'm kind of turning around into this area.

But this is so helpful, thank you, sir.

I'm gonna send this to the entire family right now just because we're always gonna be watching something on Apple TV anyway, sometimes in Netflix, but most of the time on Apple TV+ and some other places.

So, oh, what a great, and I think even I saw at the bottom here, even John says, "Come on, there's no excuse not to support the triple-click accessibility shortcut."

All of the shows and services should get on board on this.

But that's so great.

Thank you so much, Jeff, for sharing that.

That's really gonna be helpful.

I'm gonna have to try to get that going tonight.

It's like, hey, I'll make the family happy, indeed.

Woo, okay, well, we will talk next week.

I'm just very curious to see kind of what some of this fallout's gonna be with the DOJ versus Apple.

We'll see a little bit more maybe on some of the AI stuff.

Really just some interesting stuff, and it doesn't even have to do with a brand new Apple product, Jeff.

That could be scary, that could be a good thing, and it could be a bad thing.

Anyway, regardless, we'll talk with you next week.

Thanks again.