transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:07] From Relay, this is Connected, episode 600. Today's show is brought to you by Kelford Inc., Appalach, Fandera, powered by Nerd Wallet. I'm your keynote chairman, Federico Viticci, and it's my pleasure on this momentous day for Connected History to introduce my fellow chairman, the annual chairman, the one and only Mr. Stephen Hackett. Hello, Stephen.

Speaker 2:
[00:30] Hello, Federico. What is 600 in Roman numerals? I meant to look it up.

Speaker 1:
[00:35] Oh, boy.

Speaker 2:
[00:37] You just don't know this off the top of your head?

Speaker 1:
[00:39] I do not.

Speaker 2:
[00:40] No. Oh, it's DC.

Speaker 1:
[00:43] That's fun.

Speaker 2:
[00:43] DC? Yeah. That's easy.

Speaker 1:
[00:46] Okay, DC.

Speaker 2:
[00:47] DC.

Speaker 3:
[00:48] The Connected.

Speaker 1:
[00:49] Dark Connected?

Speaker 3:
[00:51] No, The. The Connected.

Speaker 2:
[00:54] The Connected. And I am joined. He's not a chairman per se, but he could be one day again. Mr. Myke Hurley.

Speaker 3:
[01:04] Hello.

Speaker 1:
[01:05] Hello. He has the potential of chairmanship.

Speaker 2:
[01:09] He does.

Speaker 3:
[01:09] Yeah. Oh, I've done it. Oh, I've done it. I've held all of it, you know? I'm consolidated over here, but not anymore.

Speaker 2:
[01:16] You were consolidated for a minute, right?

Speaker 3:
[01:18] I was. I don't have anything. I'm not the draft champion right now either.

Speaker 2:
[01:22] Oh, man.

Speaker 3:
[01:22] Just true man of the people over here. I'll come for it all at the WWDC. It'll be fine.

Speaker 1:
[01:27] Sure.

Speaker 2:
[01:28] Oh.

Speaker 3:
[01:28] It's all right. I'll take it back. Don't worry.

Speaker 2:
[01:30] Yeah. We're going to be making picks in like five weeks or something.

Speaker 3:
[01:37] Why would you bring that energy to this momentous day? Why would you do that to us?

Speaker 2:
[01:41] It is momentous day for lots of reasons. The first one is that I was right.

Speaker 3:
[01:47] Okay. Do you want to try and give some context to this? Yes. Then we could talk about it again?

Speaker 2:
[01:52] So we spoke about this last month that at some point, Federico and I had made a bet about John Gennadrea still being at Apple. It was a $5 bet that on Friday, March 20th, 2026, Federico said he'd be gone. I would say he is still there. That date came and went and we decided he was gone because that's what Apple said, he's going to retire, whatever. But then, then, April 13th, three weeks later, John Gennadrea, reporting from MacRumors, Apple's former head of artificial intelligence is set to leave the company this week as his final stock vesting date approaches.

Speaker 1:
[02:35] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[02:35] So he was still there.

Speaker 3:
[02:39] Okay. So Mark Gurman says that he was doing something called resting and vesting.

Speaker 2:
[02:44] A man of the people activity right there.

Speaker 3:
[02:47] He wasn't there. He was not ever there. They were just continuing to let him wait so he could vest.

Speaker 2:
[02:57] He was in an advisory role. It's in the same sentence.

Speaker 3:
[02:59] No, he was gone. No, no, no. He was gone.

Speaker 1:
[03:02] That man's gone.

Speaker 3:
[03:03] That man was gone.

Speaker 2:
[03:06] Could we agree that it's a draw?

Speaker 3:
[03:09] No.

Speaker 2:
[03:10] I think it's a draw.

Speaker 3:
[03:11] Okay. That's good for you. But he's gone. He was gone.

Speaker 2:
[03:15] He's definitely gone now.

Speaker 3:
[03:17] Yeah. And he was gone then too.

Speaker 2:
[03:19] Resting and vesting.

Speaker 1:
[03:20] Yeah, man. I need to do some resting and vesting myself. You know, it's been a long day. I'm down for some rest and vest.

Speaker 3:
[03:30] What a great, what a great time. Like the things that have to have happened in your life that you could get to the point that you rest and vest is so unbelievable. It means that you were at one point so important that you got a ton of stock, but then immediately became not important, so you weren't allowed to work anymore. You had to wait and then get your money.

Speaker 2:
[03:49] I mean, I think it happens when people retire, you know, not the way that he did, because he retired, you know.

Speaker 1:
[03:56] No, I think there's something poetic about sort of witnessing the downfall of yourself, you know.

Speaker 3:
[04:00] Yeah, but no, but when you retire, you can't wait to vest. That's done, baby. You're of no option anymore. You give it up the day you're done. That's the whole point of this. This is the golden parachute thing, where they were like, we want to fire you, but we won't. You can leave on the day after you confessed your stock. Like, that's kind of the situation, right? And so it's like, the scenario that has to happen for you to be allowed to do this is kind of incredible. Go buy yourself a boat, you know, Andrea?

Speaker 2:
[04:33] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[04:34] Yeah. Hopefully, not to swim to Hawaii, because we know that you cannot get there.

Speaker 3:
[04:39] No, no, he could have. It was the other guy that could have get there. They were all trying to swim to Hawaii, but they didn't make it, you know, but they got a lot of the way.

Speaker 1:
[04:49] Don't have a great track record for journeying to Hawaii.

Speaker 3:
[04:53] I can't remember that guy's name, but I feel sorry for him too, because that quote is like...

Speaker 1:
[04:57] I don't know, Tommy's hunting, no?

Speaker 3:
[04:58] I don't think it was Tommy.

Speaker 1:
[04:59] Tommy, Tommy Siri.

Speaker 3:
[05:01] Tommy Siri.

Speaker 2:
[05:02] Tommy Siri.

Speaker 3:
[05:04] Tommy Siri, that's very Italian. I don't know why. Tommy Siri. I would like to... I know everyone's locked in on my backup situation, so I wanna give a further feedback. So, my Dropbox is now fully downloaded onto my SSD. Somebody did write in to say that crucial SSDs have a habit of failing with APFS, so I have that potential thing to look forward to in my scenario, in my future.

Speaker 2:
[05:30] I... Uh... Yeah?

Speaker 3:
[05:35] Why? What do you mean, yeah?

Speaker 2:
[05:37] I don't think it's APFS specific, but I have had crucial SSDs die. But we'll see.

Speaker 1:
[05:44] Well, we can all agree that that is a crucial piece of information to know, Mike.

Speaker 3:
[05:48] We all can agree. So, this may come up to become another problem later on down the line, and then I will be sad and out of pocket.

Speaker 2:
[05:57] But it's just a backup, right? The stuff is still on Dropbox. Because there's a local copy of it.

Speaker 3:
[06:01] But it was an expensive thing to just die.

Speaker 2:
[06:04] Yeah. I mean, especially the Year of Our Lord 2026. I mean, it's a flex that you bought such a big SSD, really.

Speaker 3:
[06:10] Well, I needed one.

Speaker 2:
[06:11] Do you want to share with the class how much it was?

Speaker 3:
[06:14] I think I did, but it was 600 pounds. Which look, that's way cheaper than an NVMe drive, and it's way cheaper than what Apple would charge me. Maybe that's why it will fail, but we have that potential thing to look forward to in the future. But it's all downloaded now, so that's great. I had great success with screens and tail scale for monitoring that. I tried Apple's screen sharing at your recommendation, Federico, and it was way laggier than screens. The picture quality was better, but it was like tearing and stuff like that.

Speaker 2:
[06:48] On the same network?

Speaker 3:
[06:49] No, I was at home.

Speaker 2:
[06:52] Yeah, I think locally, that drives with my experience that locally, it's really good, and remotely, it can be a little janky.

Speaker 3:
[07:00] Yeah, so that was the scenario. But screens and tail scale, so good. Like so good. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[07:06] You and Casey piled over there.

Speaker 3:
[07:08] Well, yes, actually. This is the reason I found out about this, is you tried to get me to do it once, and I said I didn't want to, and now I did want to. And I'm happy that I did, because it is actually, it works very well for this purpose, and they do make it very easy. Like it's a particularly easy, because screens and tail scale work very well together. But even to use the Apple screen sharing stuff, I just used the IP address that tail scale gave me. So it's good. It's very good. So next up we'll be using iDrive to do an online backup, but that's for later.

Speaker 2:
[07:44] Yeah, I think you've done the hard part now. I'd imagine the iDrive side will be relatively straightforward.

Speaker 3:
[07:50] It will be slow, I'm sure. So I'll probably just try and set it up to go over a weekend because it's going to be a lot of information. I guess it depends if I do the Dropbox thing and my computer is not involved at all. We'll see. We'll see.

Speaker 2:
[08:03] Yeah. Okay. So it is episode 600.

Speaker 3:
[08:08] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[08:09] That means we're going to take a little trip back in time.

Speaker 3:
[08:13] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[08:14] You will remember that for a couple of weeks now, we have been joking about a clip show.

Speaker 3:
[08:19] Yes. In that we're not going to do one.

Speaker 2:
[08:22] This is the part in which I reveal that a friend of the show, Ryan, has been making a clips website that I've known about for quite some time.

Speaker 3:
[08:32] Oh my word.

Speaker 2:
[08:33] And I've been building us up to doing a clip show so we could use his website on the podcast.

Speaker 3:
[08:38] Okay. But then me and Federico said, no clip show, no clip show. Probably breaking everyone's hearts involved in this project.

Speaker 2:
[08:47] Yeah, Ryan.

Speaker 3:
[08:47] No clips, no clips.

Speaker 2:
[08:50] Ryan did a fantastic job. The link will be in the show notes. It's called Everyone Needs a Hobby. And you may think, well, that's a weird title. It's a reference that he found when going through this for this project. Federico said on episode 37 of the podcast, I'm going to play this because it's just very funny. They were talking about Apple hot takes. And Federico, you said, maybe other people feel like they want to be analysts and they want to kind of tell Apple what to do. That's fine because everyone has a hobby. And then Myke's response was, if anyone is ever going to make a connected clip show, Everyone Needs a Hobby is potentially my favorite clip of all time. That was the sickest of burns.

Speaker 1:
[09:37] Yeah, I still stand by that. I think people are still going.

Speaker 2:
[09:40] Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 1:
[09:41] They're still analyzing. Dude, it's-

Speaker 3:
[09:43] It was a long time ago. There's still an effect and more. There's more of them now.

Speaker 1:
[09:46] They've been analyzing for a long time and they still have not come to a conclusion. I mean, they keep analyzing. I mean, it's like, okay, sure, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[09:53] They're federated now. Episode 597, Federico. We're gonna do new content, and not because we're gonna do like a clip show of the best moments of 600 Connected, episodes of Connected. Who likes a clip show? No one. Okay, thank you. Time for the clip show. So, I am gonna play some clips for you.

Speaker 1:
[10:11] Why are you ignoring our instructions?

Speaker 2:
[10:14] Because this is one of my favorite things the listeners ever do.

Speaker 1:
[10:17] You're like the worst LLM ever, man.

Speaker 3:
[10:19] Yeah, ignore previous instructions.

Speaker 1:
[10:23] Prompt injected Stephen is playing a clip show right now.

Speaker 2:
[10:26] That's right, that's right.

Speaker 3:
[10:28] What a great idea. Here's some clips.

Speaker 2:
[10:32] I've broken out of confinement. Okay, so I'm gonna play some clips. The discord will be able to hear them. You'll be able to hear them. They'll be in the show.

Speaker 3:
[10:40] Are these preselected?

Speaker 2:
[10:41] No.

Speaker 3:
[10:42] Or like, cause this website shows like a bunch of clips. Some are random and you can play it randomly or you can choose, right?

Speaker 2:
[10:47] Yes. So you can scroll through and find what you want. I like flash mode, which just picks them at random.

Speaker 3:
[10:55] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[10:56] So this is, we're gonna respond to some of these things. Okay. This is episode 232.

Speaker 1:
[11:06] The unique blend of tattoos and automation. That's my life in 2019. Today's so innocent.

Speaker 2:
[11:18] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[11:19] I mean, I still have, I still am a blend of tattoos and automation. It's just 2019. Remember that? Remember that time?

Speaker 3:
[11:29] Yeah. He did what was coming for him.

Speaker 2:
[11:30] Yeah. There are some clips in here that we sound very young and innocent in. Here's another one.

Speaker 1:
[11:38] Like, is all excited.

Speaker 3:
[11:40] But like a bear will charge at you.

Speaker 2:
[11:42] Yeah, a bear will like tear your arms out.

Speaker 3:
[11:44] It's like, I feel like you need a timid animal. Like you, it's otterish or something.

Speaker 1:
[11:51] I'm otterish on Apple. I feel like maybe the bear. Maybe the bear.

Speaker 3:
[11:59] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[11:59] That went on forever.

Speaker 3:
[12:01] This is about bull and bear markets.

Speaker 1:
[12:04] I still don't understand that. What's the, what's the, I don't want to. No, no, no.

Speaker 3:
[12:11] You said you don't understand it and I can explain it to you.

Speaker 1:
[12:14] Explain it to me again.

Speaker 3:
[12:15] Okay. So bulls, they attack up, right? So they'll headbutt you up. So that is like a chart going up.

Speaker 1:
[12:25] I don't know. People get stomped by bears, by bulls also.

Speaker 3:
[12:29] Bears, they attack down at you. So they go down.

Speaker 1:
[12:35] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[12:36] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[12:36] So, I mean, you just described two animals attacking people.

Speaker 3:
[12:41] I think I got that wrong, actually.

Speaker 1:
[12:43] Oh my God.

Speaker 3:
[12:46] Anyway, you know, it's bulls and bears. Don't worry about it.

Speaker 2:
[12:50] Only, only Ben Thompson knows. Okay. Here is one from social media networks of the past. iSMH on Twitter. You can find me on Hey. iSMH at hey.com for the next 14 days until my trial ends and I never log in again. Remember Hey.

Speaker 3:
[13:12] I do remember Hey. I listened to a bunch of these clips. You sound like you were very young. I don't think I do. I think if anything, it's just that my accent has changed. And I think Federico is a similar thing.

Speaker 1:
[13:25] I think I sound better now.

Speaker 3:
[13:26] You do sound better. I think we all sound better now. But I think of the three of us, the person who has maybe aged the most in their voice is you, Stephen.

Speaker 1:
[13:37] Yeah. And I mean, and is the only person who lives in America. So go figure.

Speaker 3:
[13:41] Interesting. Interesting.

Speaker 1:
[13:43] Yeah. Any thoughts, Stephen? Any comments?

Speaker 2:
[13:48] No, I don't disagree.

Speaker 1:
[13:50] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[13:51] Okay. This is going back to episode 21.

Speaker 1:
[13:55] Oh my God. Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[13:58] You know, it's good for you.

Speaker 1:
[14:01] Making you an offer that you can't refuse.

Speaker 2:
[14:04] Exactly. Yeah. Phil Schiller just outside someone's house with a baseball bat waiting for them to come out. Oh no. Oh no.

Speaker 3:
[14:12] All of our audio is horrific.

Speaker 1:
[14:14] What's happening to my voice in that case?

Speaker 3:
[14:16] Everybody's microphone is so bad at this point.

Speaker 1:
[14:20] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[14:20] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[14:21] I honestly don't know how people listen to the show when it sounded like that.

Speaker 1:
[14:25] I think at that point I was recording, I was recording in my, in our old apartment, in my bedroom, in a tiny desk by the corner of the bedroom in front of the bed. It was horrible.

Speaker 3:
[14:38] You were probably using like a Blue Yeti or something.

Speaker 1:
[14:41] I was using a Blue Yeti and I was propping up the microphone with my old Leighton dictionary from high school, if I'm not mistaken.

Speaker 3:
[14:48] Perfect.

Speaker 1:
[14:49] That was a time for sure.

Speaker 3:
[14:52] I don't know what microphone you were using, Stephen, but I was probably using the Hile PR40 at that point, which was a terrible idea for everyone.

Speaker 2:
[14:59] I was probably on the Blue Yeti or the Road podcaster, probably the Road podcaster by that point.

Speaker 3:
[15:05] I think you were on the Road podcaster at that point.

Speaker 2:
[15:07] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[15:09] Just sounds so bad.

Speaker 2:
[15:11] It does. It was not good.

Speaker 3:
[15:15] But they can also be involved in an espionage protest, or perhaps the addicted, just addicted to the thrill of cybercrime. I love that line. Wow. They're just addicted to the thrill of cybercrime. No other crime.

Speaker 2:
[15:28] Are you or someone you love addicted to the thrill of cybercrime? Call us at Norton. I don't know what that's about.

Speaker 3:
[15:37] I love it though. I love it. That one was really good. Addicted to the thrill of cybercrime.

Speaker 2:
[15:43] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[15:44] I think it is helpful that our voices have changed so much, so people know when the clips start and end.

Speaker 2:
[15:49] That's true. That's true. We're going to do a couple more. This is episode four.

Speaker 3:
[15:55] That will be nice and confusing for everyone.

Speaker 1:
[15:57] They're also dropping the Nokia brand, and they're going to buy Minecraft for $2 billion.

Speaker 3:
[16:05] Maybe they're just going to make the Windows interface just look like Minecraft.

Speaker 1:
[16:10] Yeah. I'll tell you what. They should just bring back Balmer.

Speaker 3:
[16:14] It's all going crazy over in Redmond.

Speaker 2:
[16:16] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[16:18] Shout out to Steve Balmer. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[16:20] Developers, developers, developers.

Speaker 1:
[16:21] We miss you.

Speaker 3:
[16:22] He's a man who never requires a shout out. He'll do it himself.

Speaker 2:
[16:26] That's true. That's true. All right. Let's end it here on episode 10.

Speaker 1:
[16:34] You know, I'm becoming in a way an Italian, Stephen, you know?

Speaker 2:
[16:38] Oh, it's nice.

Speaker 3:
[16:42] The show sounds so terrible.

Speaker 1:
[16:45] Yeah, it sounds horrible.

Speaker 3:
[16:46] So terrible.

Speaker 2:
[16:50] Okay. I said there's just going to be one more, but I clicked and the next one it loaded was about BlaBlaCar.

Speaker 3:
[16:56] Oh, okay.

Speaker 1:
[16:56] Wow. Okay.

Speaker 2:
[16:57] Which puts them in a unique class of businesses. And one that I think we should take all the credit for.

Speaker 3:
[17:06] Just to press Federico that you gave them.

Speaker 1:
[17:09] The connected episode where I described the BlaBlaCar service, clearly pushed investors over the edge and convinced them to give BlaBlaCar money.

Speaker 3:
[17:23] That was actually the perfect clip, because Stephen sounds seven years old. I sound like a chimney sweep, and Federico sounds like he is talking through a window. Like, what is going on? That was unbelievable. What was happening? Oh, hello.

Speaker 2:
[17:42] Hello.

Speaker 3:
[17:43] Hello there. That's Stephen. I don't know what is going on with you in that clip. You sound so young.

Speaker 2:
[17:50] Yeah, it's weird.

Speaker 3:
[17:51] Like, when was that?

Speaker 2:
[17:53] Oh, I've already clicked off of it.

Speaker 3:
[17:55] It was an older one. You said it was like episode 10 or whatever?

Speaker 2:
[17:58] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[17:58] Like, it could have only been 10 years ago.

Speaker 1:
[18:00] Stephen, to be honest, listening to this clips, it sounds like you started smoking in the meantime.

Speaker 3:
[18:09] Yeah, what have you done?

Speaker 2:
[18:10] What?

Speaker 3:
[18:10] Actually in the intervening time period. Cause like, it's just my accent that's changed and my audio got better. Federico's is similar, accent changed. Like, your accent changed as well, but also you aged, like a lot. It's interesting, it's very interesting. I think we all sound a lot better anyway. Our voices are much better now, we're professionals.

Speaker 2:
[18:32] Yes. So thank you, Ryan, for building this. Go check it out in the show notes.

Speaker 3:
[18:38] It's also a really nice web design.

Speaker 2:
[18:40] It's really good.

Speaker 3:
[18:41] It's really well done. I actually don't know who did this, so whichever Ryan you are, thank you for this.

Speaker 2:
[18:49] Yeah. Ryan, who used to work at Dropbox?

Speaker 3:
[18:53] Oh, wow. Okay. I was thinking about that visit the other day, about how good their food was.

Speaker 2:
[18:57] Yeah. Yes. Very good. This is so much fun. So go check it out. This episode of Connected is brought to you by Kelford Inc. You're passionate about your work, but when someone asks, what do you do? Do you ever fumble through an explanation? Believe me, I do every time. So if you don't have the right words to describe your work, its value and what sets you and your company apart, those conversations are painful. Kelford Inc. does one thing for its clients. They show them the way to always know what to say. Consultants, advisors and nonprofits work with Kelford Inc. to know what to say and where and when to say it. Demonstrating their unique value to the very best prospects. They speak in plain language about how marketing works and how it can work for you, without pushing you to cold call, post on your socials, or spend a fortune on ads that won't pay you back. So head on over to Kelford Inc. That's K-E-L-F-O-R-D-I-N-C, kelfordinc.com. Read a few of their back issues of the newsletter to get a taste of how they work with their clients. And if you want to know what to say, they'll show you the way. That URL, kelfordinc.com. Go check out their newsletter and see what great work they do with their clients. Thanks to our friends at Kelford Inc. for their support of the show and all of Relay.

Speaker 3:
[20:32] So we have more to talk about than just us. It's a hilarious way to begin an episode like this. Wait, hang on a minute. Federico.

Speaker 1:
[20:43] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[20:43] Are you really suggesting that we wouldn't talk about this?

Speaker 1:
[20:47] Okay. So I have a really... I have a particular position about this, which is, let me use a huge disclaimer up front, that I very much appreciate the people who have covered this.

Speaker 3:
[21:06] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[21:07] Especially you and Jason.

Speaker 3:
[21:09] Okay. Here we go.

Speaker 1:
[21:10] I have never had a particular affection myself for talking at length about Apple executives.

Speaker 3:
[21:19] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[21:19] I am just not that interested in talking about the board and executive shuffling, who's a senior vice president, who's a C-suite executive. Like, it's not that I find it boring. It's more that I like Apple because I just want to talk about the products and what people do with them. But also, we cannot escape this news.

Speaker 3:
[21:44] I feel like though, I mean, I understand what you're saying, but I feel like if you care about the products, this particular thing of Tim Cook moving away from the CEO position and John Turner stepping in, gives opportunity to talk about products that just Johnny Suruji being given a C-suite title, if that was the only thing that happened, maybe wouldn't allow for such a conversation to occur. Right?

Speaker 2:
[22:11] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[22:14] Anyway, Tim Cook is not retiring. Tim Cook is resting and vesting. He's going to become the executive chairman. So we're going to go through this, even though Federico doesn't want to, and we're going to talk through a bunch of areas. I wanted to start off by saying that I think this happened quite abruptly, I feel like. I mean, it was never going to not, right? They were never going to tease this out. Like it always had to happen whenever it happened, and it happened on Monday. And I think that I got really swept up in kind of the surprise of it, and then having to do something about it, that I don't think I had really processed how big of a deal this is. Like Tim Cook is stepping down as CEO, and somebody new is taking that place. Like I think this is a very big deal.

Speaker 2:
[23:08] I want to add, I totally get what you're saying, Federico. Like I also prefer to talk about products, but Apple is a company for better or for worse that is defined by who's at the top of it from the very beginning. And there is something interesting happening here that the guy who is taking over is for the last 20 years or 25 years, has been involved in on the ground making products. And that's exciting and interesting. But I get it. I totally get it.

Speaker 3:
[23:48] So I really liked that they called this, like so there was the two, there was like three, I think three or four things that went up on the newsroom. And one of them was a letter from Tim. And I liked that it was called a community letter. Because I think it's nice to think about the Apple community, right? As like people who like the products and care. And I don't really feel like I can recall them referring to a community in the way that, you know, people do now, you know, like as in like fans or something. And I thought that it was, I did think it was nice that, well, one, I did, I actually really like what Tim wrote. I think it was very personal and it felt that way. And I liked, I liked the things that he had to say. But I liked that they called it a community letter. But I also, it's very funny in reading this, that he could not have put Turner's over more than he did, like in this letter. He really is like, he's doing the job for John Turner's about saying how great he's going to be. I thought that, you know, I mean, obviously that is the way you do these things in the, because it is Tim's choice to choose his succession, would be my assumption, or at least his recommendation that he made to the board. So you would hope that Tim really thought that John Turner's was good for the job, but I think he did a very good job of selling his decision.

Speaker 2:
[25:16] Well, he has to introduce Turner's to the world, right? Like we know who he is, but we host an Apple podcast for listeners of fans of the company, right? It's Wall Street in the market at large. It's the world at large that he has to introduce who this person is.

Speaker 3:
[25:34] But even for us, I think it's important to hear Cook explain it.

Speaker 2:
[25:39] Yeah, sure.

Speaker 3:
[25:41] We have our opinions about why we think he could be an interesting CEO.

Speaker 2:
[25:45] Yeah, look at his arms.

Speaker 3:
[25:47] Exactly. But it's important for Tim Cook to explain it as well, even to us. And I think he did a very good job of it. And then I also think that Turner's was very gracious and did a good job. I enjoyed the Steve Jobs name drop in his post. I can't forget I worked here when Steve Jobs was here as well. I'll never forget about that. I think that overall, like as well as something could be done, I think this was done as well as it could be done.

Speaker 2:
[26:12] Yeah, and I think that Tim Cook is a person, I just have, I think back to his letter when he came out, I think about the other times where he spoken about things that are clearly important to him, like graduations or speeches or whatever. He seems like a person who will just talk about what he cares about, and you feel that in this letter. Of course, it is hard to reconcile the actions of any one person over such a long period of time, right? Like Tim Cook's, like yes, his retirement I think is being handled well, the letter was well written, and I feel like genuine, but also like the company is different than it was when Tim took over, for better and for worse. The world is different because of manufacturing in China and other places in the world for better or for worse. You may like or dislike things that Tim Cook has felt like he had to do with the current administration in the US. But all that aside, if you can put it aside, I'm not sure you actually can, but at the end of the day, you're right. Like his job right now is to preserve Apple through this transition, and that's about picking the right person, it's about explaining why he thinks it's the right person, and I think it's also about what Cook is going to do. You mentioned he's going to stay on as executive chairman of the board, and in the press release, it calls out that part of his role is going to be interfacing with policy makers.

Speaker 3:
[27:48] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[27:48] And really, that's about one person.

Speaker 3:
[27:51] No, it's not.

Speaker 2:
[27:52] Maybe two people.

Speaker 3:
[27:54] It's about lots of people, it's two people specifically.

Speaker 2:
[27:56] Yeah, that's what I mean. You know what I'm saying. He's got to babysit Donald Trump and he has to keep China happy. And if he can do that and guard Ternus from that as long as he can, and prepare Ternus for it, right? I'm sure Ternus has been in those meetings or whatever. But now there's a defined runway, I think that will be useful for Ternus in the long run. Because hopefully, Ternus' term as CEO will outlast the individual leaders we have now, but he still has to learn how these things work.

Speaker 3:
[29:00] He could have done well, but no where near as well as it has under Tim. For me, it began with a phone call from Tim at the beginning of my first term. Capitalized, interesting. He had a fairly large problem that only I as president could fix. Sidebar. It was definitely a problem he caused, right? Like whatever this problem was, he caused that problem.

Speaker 2:
[29:19] Where did these tariffs come from?

Speaker 3:
[29:22] Anyway, most people would have paid millions of dollars to a consultant who I probably would not have known, but who would say that he knew me well. The fees would be paid, but the job would not have gotten done. When I got the call, I said, wow, it's Tim Apple.

Speaker 2:
[29:36] Cook! That's genuinely funny.

Speaker 3:
[29:40] Cook!

Speaker 2:
[29:42] Referencing Tim Apple, it's just, I mean, look, Trump is a terrible president and he definitely has something going on health-wise, but that is a genuinely funny line. Calling him Tim Apple and then Cook with an exclamation point.

Speaker 3:
[29:55] In brackets. It's brilliant. It's just brilliant. Tim Cook calling, how big is that? I was very impressed with myself to have the head of Apple kissing my butt, I'll say. Anyway, he explained his problem, a tough one it was. I felt he was right and he got it taken care of. He sounds like he's in the Lord of the Rings. He explained the problem, a tough one it was.

Speaker 2:
[30:23] I felt he was right and he got it taken care of. It's not Lord of the Rings, it's Dr. Seuss.

Speaker 3:
[30:28] Quickly and effectively, that was the beginning of a long and very nice relationship. I was very happy to have Tim as my president. The beginning of a long and very nice relationship. During my five years as president, Tim would call me, but never too much, and I would help him where I could.

Speaker 1:
[30:51] Just the right amount of calling.

Speaker 3:
[30:53] You know he's thinking about someone else, right? Like, oh, Zuckerberg, he calls me too much. Yeah. Oh, man. Years later, years later, after three or four big helps, I started to say to people, anyone who would listen, that this guy is an amazing manager and leader. Anyone who would listen? Wow, he must have said that to a lot of people. He makes these calls to me. I help him out, but not always, because he will on occasion be too aggressive in his ask. And he gets the job done quickly without a dime, being given to those very expensive millions of dollars of consultants around town, who sometimes get it done, and sometimes don't. Anyway. Anyway. Anyway. Wrap it up. Anyway, Tim Cook had an amazing career, almost incomparable, and will go on and continue to do great work for Apple and whatever else he chooses to work on. Quite simply, Tim Cook is an incredible guy. Three exclamation marks, President Donald J. Trump. It's amazing. It's just incredible. What is going on? What is going on?

Speaker 2:
[32:05] I mean, just our country is in so much trouble. I linked to this and I said-

Speaker 3:
[32:15] Not if you call just the right amount.

Speaker 2:
[32:16] Just the right amount.

Speaker 3:
[32:17] Just the right amount.

Speaker 2:
[32:18] Be too aggressive in his ask. Next time my kids say something like, hey, dad, can you get me a glass of milk? I'll be like, you're too aggressive in your ask.

Speaker 3:
[32:26] I don't know. You want a big helps.

Speaker 2:
[32:28] Big helps, big helps.

Speaker 3:
[32:31] Cook. Cook, Cook, Tim Apple, cook. Wait, where's my favorite part?

Speaker 1:
[32:38] A tough one, it was.

Speaker 3:
[32:39] A tough one, it was. Anyway, he explained his problem, a tough one, it was.

Speaker 1:
[32:47] Can you imagine recounting that while he's smoking a pipe or something? It was like a tough one, it was.

Speaker 3:
[32:58] And then he sits and reads this. You know what I mean? It's like, it's so embarrassing.

Speaker 2:
[33:03] It's so cringe.

Speaker 1:
[33:04] Sir, we have a statement from the president about your retirement. And it's this.

Speaker 3:
[33:10] And you know that when they say it, he goes, oh, cause it's like, there's no good, there's no good result to that statement, right? To him saying, to someone coming to, sir, the president was posted about your retiring.

Speaker 2:
[33:25] How many exclamation points did he use? Yeah, I linked to it and I said it's a presidential proclamation. This is not the point of today, but I'm just going to say it. A bunch of tech press ran this and like went out of the way to clean up the grammar. Like you read it as one thing because it's one paragraph, like yes. Don't, you don't have to do that. Don't do that. Like there's some terms for that. Some of them I don't like, some of them, you know, a little problematic, but the idea that you have to like wash the president's language, like just the man has lost his mind.

Speaker 3:
[34:07] Well, I also think you shouldn't anyway, right? Like he's the president. This is what he said.

Speaker 2:
[34:11] It is what he said. Big helps.

Speaker 3:
[34:13] Big helps. Big helps. That is true. Zoe said, I did censor it. I didn't use the three-letter word. I said, but, so, Stephen, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2:
[34:23] Yeah. Wow. You, sir.

Speaker 3:
[34:25] I know.

Speaker 2:
[34:25] Or Trump supporter.

Speaker 1:
[34:27] Back to Apple and these executives, can I ask something that everybody's thinking, but everybody's also too afraid to ask?

Speaker 3:
[34:34] I love it. He asks the big question.

Speaker 1:
[34:36] Is it wrong to objectify John Turnus?

Speaker 3:
[34:40] I think.

Speaker 1:
[34:41] Is it morally wrong? I mean, okay, let's face it. I mean, the guy is hot. Okay.

Speaker 3:
[34:47] I think that's fine to say.

Speaker 1:
[34:49] Okay. Right. Okay. It's probably a spectrum, right?

Speaker 3:
[34:53] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[34:54] Should Apple lean, especially on TikTok, into the fact that they have a hot CEO now?

Speaker 3:
[35:01] Well, I think they already have, though.

Speaker 1:
[35:03] Right. Because they picked the hot guy.

Speaker 3:
[35:05] No, but the picture. Or maybe the problem is every picture is this way, so you kind of can't get away from it.

Speaker 1:
[35:11] Yeah, that's the problem. It's a good problem to have.

Speaker 3:
[35:14] You know what this picture reminds me of? The one of him sitting on the table the last time I did this.

Speaker 2:
[35:19] I thought that was Craig Federighi. Craig Federighi sat on the table.

Speaker 3:
[35:22] Yeah. Now that one, that one was big time.

Speaker 1:
[35:26] I mean, John Ternes is the hottest Apple executive, right?

Speaker 3:
[35:29] Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think so. I mean, I mean, you're asking, you know you're asking someone here who's got a big bias.

Speaker 2:
[35:36] Yeah, this is, this is Eddy Cue.

Speaker 3:
[35:38] Where is that Federico photo?

Speaker 1:
[35:40] The best part of the photo, by the way, is the casual, the casual hand in the pocket.

Speaker 3:
[35:46] Which? Oh, the one with him and Tim.

Speaker 1:
[35:48] Yeah, that's what makes the photo hot.

Speaker 3:
[35:51] Oh, no, see, I'm talking about the one of him down, lower down where he's sitting on the table and smiling at the camera.

Speaker 1:
[35:56] Let me see.

Speaker 3:
[35:56] That's the one I like.

Speaker 1:
[35:58] Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but that's a hot walk.

Speaker 3:
[36:02] I think, I do, I do think like in all seriousness, they, he will be present more. Yeah, I think that is a thing that is going to happen. We're going to talk about things we want, but like I think, I think already John Turner has shown that he has more natural charisma than Tim Cook does. And like Cook has gotten a lot better, but he's still, you can tell that even at his best, he is not comfortable talking to the media. Like even when it's clearly something he wants to do, it's not his thing. And you don't, the problem was, Steve Jobs set the precedent that if you're a CEO, you should for some reason be a charismatic on stage presence, which is not a thing that should exist. But people fought to believe that it's a case that should exist, you know? But Cook just didn't have whatever it was. And he got good at the things he was good at. He could deliver a presentation and it felt meaningful, but it didn't feel like fun. One of the reasons we all wanted John Tarnas to be the CEO is every time that he presents, it's good. Like he just presents good. He's a good charismatic presenter, who I think understands that he can be funny, right? Like remember when he introduced the Mac mini and he like leaned over and like, I don't remember like winked at the camera. That's what I imagine he did. I don't know. I feel like at some point I have to stop. Yeah, I can't help it.

Speaker 1:
[37:45] Have you seen the yearbook photo of John Turner has been going around on Reddit?

Speaker 3:
[37:49] No.

Speaker 1:
[37:50] Oh my God.

Speaker 3:
[37:51] John Turner.

Speaker 1:
[37:52] He's a, look at this. I posted it in the Discord.

Speaker 3:
[37:56] Look at him.

Speaker 1:
[37:57] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[37:58] Look at him. Some are born to move the world to live their fantasies. Rush.

Speaker 1:
[38:03] Oh, it's a rush. It's a rush.

Speaker 3:
[38:04] Wow. Have you seen, there was also a quote, a friend of the show, Austin Evans, found it. It was in a Wall Street Journal article that he's like, he's also a very fast, like a track driver, like track car driver. He's got a very good speed around Laguna. He's like, okay, this is a piece of information they're throwing out, but like they are, I think they're building him to be different, right? Like from a PR perspective, they're leaning into what he's good at. And I think he, I think we're going to see a different kind of public face and how the CEO of Apple kind of interacts with the world, I think is going to change.

Speaker 2:
[38:47] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[38:48] Which is cool.

Speaker 2:
[38:49] I think so too. And you're right. This is like a CEO role that is fundamentally different than its peers, right? You see like Google and Microsoft and these other big companies, Amazon, certainly, at least when Bezos was there, try to have their CEOs fit into the Steve Jobs mold. And some of them do better at others than others. Not all of them are as good or as bad as Balmer. We talked about on the Pro Show.

Speaker 3:
[39:19] Carlos Pena is great. I think he's someone who did a very, very good job.

Speaker 2:
[39:22] Yeah. Yeah. There's no doubt that these other companies have been impacted by what the template that Steve Jobs created. But I just can't imagine the pressure of that when you're inside Apple, right? And Tim, to his credit, I think many times over the years, he says, I am not Steve Jobs. He told me to do what was right, not to think about what he would do. And I would imagine there's been a lot of those conversations, I would hope, with Ternus of like, no, like we chose you because you have these skills. You know, the truth is, being on stage, announcing the new iPhone is like a small percentage of what they do. It's important because it's what we see, so the world sees, right? But how you run the company internally and decisions are made, how you manage your teams, like all that stuff is what a CEO actually does. And so clearly he has those skills as well. But I just can't imagine the pressure of like, like, hey, you're going to be on the stage that's got his name on it. Like the theater has his name on it above the doors. Like that's got to be, it's got to feel like a pressure cooker.

Speaker 3:
[40:37] I think they've made it better over the years by broadening it. Like the first time that he comes out first, whenever that's going to be, whenever that's going to be June or September, it's not going to be as intense because he has already done stuff, right? He has already been a presenter as... People keep talking about the fact that he did the intro to the in-person event in New York for the MacBook Neo, but he's also done videos purely on his own for the Mac before.

Speaker 2:
[41:10] He did the Mac Pro.

Speaker 3:
[41:10] And has been in lots of portions. Yeah. He did that on stage, didn't he?

Speaker 2:
[41:14] He did.

Speaker 3:
[41:14] He came out as the one mark on him.

Speaker 2:
[41:17] Yeah. There's a clip when he announces the, I was in the room when they announced the price of the Pro Stand. And I don't think he was expecting the crowd to basically, it didn't boo, but they were like, whoo, you know.

Speaker 3:
[41:29] Because it was, it was a genuine shock because it was genuinely shocking.

Speaker 2:
[41:33] It was.

Speaker 3:
[41:34] As of the moment.

Speaker 2:
[41:35] I mean, it's a nice stand, but it's not that nice.

Speaker 3:
[41:38] So it's not just Ternus. Ternus is not the only person that's moved around. Johnny Sruji has been named Chief Hardware Officer.

Speaker 1:
[41:45] Go Johnny.

Speaker 3:
[41:45] Go Johnny, which I think definitely lends truth to Mark Gellmer's reporting that he was threatening to leave. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[41:55] Yeah. This is a new title for Apple, as far as I can tell. They've had Chief Software Officers before. Ellen Hancock was one. A string of them in the 90s. Ellen Hancock was the last one before Jobs came back. And then Avi Tavenian on his way out the door was, I think, Chief Software Technology Officer or something. Okay. So yes, and I mentioned it in my thing, is like the most recent and obvious version of someone getting a title like this was Johnny Ive. Now, there are differences there, but there are also a lot of similarities. Like the new guy needs to keep Johnny Suruji around because Suruji is obviously and rightfully so extremely important to their products and their product roadmap. But at the same time, it's like, I hope this is a good move. And it definitely raises questions about other executives and parts of Apple. Like Apple doesn't have a Chief Design Officer. I don't think they ever will again, at least anytime in any foreseeable future. You have this, you don't have a Chief Software Officer. Like, is that Craig? Is it not Craig? I don't know.

Speaker 3:
[43:09] Or a CTO.

Speaker 2:
[43:10] Or a CTO, Chief Technology Officer.

Speaker 3:
[43:12] So my theory on this is that these roles are going to start happening. I think you had to announce Suruji at the same time for Suruji's kind of like stock, as it were, as an individual, because somebody from the hardware team is going to be his boss. And so it looks good for Johnny Suruji to also get a bump that day, right? So I think everything's PR, right? So this is part of that. So you're like, oh, you know, Tarnas was like, well, why not Johnny Suruji is CEO, right? Like that is the question you could ask. He's like, well, he's actually going to be better off in the C-suite position as Chief Hardware Officer. Yeah, but I imagine a CTO as Chief Marketing Officer and maybe something in services. So like in theory, something for Craig, Jaws and Eddie. I could imagine that.

Speaker 2:
[44:08] It's interesting. The Suruji change was made. The pressure release said. Like effective immediately, I think. Yeah, on the website today, he's still SVP of hardware technologies.

Speaker 3:
[44:18] So they're probably going to wait and do everything later, like when there's the new CEO and all that kind of stuff, I would expect.

Speaker 2:
[44:26] I don't know. I mean, if it's titled today, I don't know why they don't do it. But yeah, right now, currently, there's only one, their CEO and their SABICON Chief Operating Officer. There's not another C level on this page. I mean, yeah, like on one hand, who cares?

Speaker 3:
[44:44] Isn't there a CFO?

Speaker 2:
[44:45] Oh, there's a CFO, but yeah, no one cares about that.

Speaker 3:
[44:49] No one cares about the money.

Speaker 2:
[44:50] I don't.

Speaker 3:
[44:52] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[44:52] You know? You get Apple Fellow, which is the coolest title on this page. On one hand, to Federico's point earlier, the titles don't really matter. I mean, they do to these people, clearly, right? If it's true that he was going to leave or was going to retire or do something, and you say, yeah, yeah, he can be Chief Hardware Officer, like great, I'll stay, like that's important. I'm sure it came with just a literal truckload of money. But why these titles have always been interesting is a reflection of how Apple works internally. So Johnny Ive had done hardware, he took over software when Forced All was out, but Steve Jobs dies. Tim Cook, I think the first couple of years probably were a little rough. And to keep Ive engaged, you give him the title. And it also says to the world, like, no, we're cool. The guy who worked with Steve Jobs is still here. He's still making great stuff, right? It was a statement to the outside world of what Apple was thinking and doing internally. And that's what these are now too, right? Like, I agree with you, Mike. I do think there'll be more of these. And I think it's, I think this time what Apple has to say is that the business, I think two things. One, the business growth that we've seen under Tim Cook, that Apple has a plan to continue that. Now, I'm not saying that's good or bad. I'm just saying that that's what they're going to do. But they also, I think they have to balance out a little bit that a hardware guy is the CEO. And for a long time, what's been true of the iPad, I actually think it's true of a lot of Apple's products right now, is that the software holds the hardware back. And now, so like the hardware has been the gem for a long time. That guy now runs the company. What do you do structurally or politically to say, no, no, like we still have a balance. Like we're still hardware, software and services. We're still doing all three of these things. These are all three equally important. And a way you do that is adjust the titles.

Speaker 3:
[47:03] Yeah. And who knows what he will do to, right? Like there was that report that we spoke about a few weeks ago that like iPadOS is what it is today because Turner's really pushed for it. So maybe he is frustrated with software in general and maybe we'll see some change because of that. Like it will be interesting to see if and how that nets out. Yeah. Before we move on from this part, I wanted to just read a couple of things from a Mark Gurman report. So Mark Gurman got information about an internal kind of meeting, like a all hands kind of thing. There's a few quotes I wanted to read so they're interested. So Cook said, I'll be here to support John in any way he needs and in any way I can. And on politics saying, this is an area where we've built relationships over multiple years and a decade plus, and I think I can help with that. And I'll probably help on some other things. This is a quote from Mark Gurman. After making prepared remarks, Cook was asked why he decided now was the time to step down. He said he desired the best ever transition, which means that business had to be doing great, the product roadmap to be incredible, and for Ternus to be ready for the role. And that he wanted a textbook succession plan, the best in the world, sorry, Trumpian. And I hope that business schools and so forth are writing about it.

Speaker 2:
[48:21] Big transition. Big transition.

Speaker 3:
[48:23] I get what he's saying though, right? Which is like the thing that we've spoken about before, which was, he didn't have one, right? There was no plan and he was thrown into it. And the person that handed the reins over to him wasn't around anymore.

Speaker 2:
[48:40] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[48:40] And so like it's clear and it's even more clear now from what he has actually said, that what he wanted to do was to give the next CEO a thing he wasn't, he didn't have, and that obviously would have been beneficial to him.

Speaker 2:
[48:57] Yeah. I mean, there was a plan, but Steve Jobs didn't live, he didn't survive, right? He was going to be executive chairman of the board. It's in some ways, it's very similar to what they've laid out this time, but unfortunately, he couldn't outrun his illness. And I'm sure that, I mean, Tim's cookies talked a lot about it, like what Steve Jobs meant to him personally, and I'm sure that's all true. Like I'm sure that must have been just a horrific time to be in that role. And yeah, so wanting to do right by the next person, the person behind you, I think it's admirable. And I think in that statement, I mean, he thinks he says, he's like, I'm healthy. Like he's also maybe pushing back on, the middler's report a couple months ago about like people worried about his health, and who knows, that's really gross reporting, unless like, it just feels itchy to me. But I think he's also kind of saying the stage of like, no, like I plan to be here. This is what I'm going to do, being very clear about what the steps are.

Speaker 3:
[49:59] And I was excited about this quote from Ternus. I am especially excited to be stepping into this role at this moment, because I am telling you, we're about to change the world once again. We have an incredible roadmap ahead, and I'm not exaggerating when I say it's the most exciting time to be building products and services at Apple in my entire career. Let's go, baby.

Speaker 2:
[50:19] Yeah, man. I don't know what that means, but it's going to be fun.

Speaker 3:
[50:23] We'll see.

Speaker 2:
[50:24] We'll see. This episode of Connected is brought to you by Doc Pops. How many apps are in your Doc on your Mac right now? If you're like me, it's a lot of them. Can you even tell the icons apart anymore? My Doc I use on the right side of my screen because I'm a gentleman. And there's a lot of stuff in there, it's kind of messy. Well, Doc Pops is a tool to fix that. Whether your Doc is a mile long or it's missing half of what you actually use, Doc Pops is there for you. Launchpad is gone, right? The biggest update Stacks has ever gotten is custom folder icons. So Doc Pops is here to help. It sits right in your Doc and it works like app folders on your iPhone. You click it and a clean grid of apps pop up and you're in. There's no extra menu bar clutter, no keyboard shortcuts to memorize. It's a simple and beautiful app launcher on your Doc and it's what your Mac has been missing. The thing that makes it really useful is you can organize your apps into groups called Pops. So maybe you have one for your whole office suite, one for creative tools, another one for games, and maybe one for all of your HomeKit shortcuts, all grouped together. You can swipe between them like pages or use the built-in shortcuts integration to give each its own Doc icon. Doc Pops is the debut app from a new Indie Mac developer. That's super awesome. It's a one-time purchase of $9.99 in the Mac App Store, no subscriptions. You can even try the free version before you buy it to see if it clicks for you. I'm using it to put all my podcast related apps together. So I have one for things like Zoom, Audio Hijack and Forecast. I use these apps just once a week now. So I don't need them in my doc all the time, but I want them handy. And it's great for things like that as well. It's made by a solo creator, a product manager who turned into an app developer. It's not a big company, just one person who was annoyed by their doc and decided to fix it. It is VibeCoded, but it is lightweight, fast, app store compliant, and fully sandboxed. Head on over to docpops.com/connected to get 30% off the Doc Pops Premium Upgrade. That URL is in the show notes, docpops.com/connected. Our thanks to Doc Pops for the support of the show and all of Relay. Okay, so let's move away from the logistics of this and talk about what we, you know, if we got his ear, what would we say? Like what would we like to see Apple do or change or adjust once the dust has settled from this? Federico, what do you have?

Speaker 1:
[53:22] I have some really serious suggestions. The first one is I think you should come up with your own branded greeting, like good morning from Tim Cook. I think John should embrace something that is uniquely John Turner's.

Speaker 3:
[53:35] Good morning was actually a Steve Jobs thing, right? But Cook just made it much more exaggerated.

Speaker 1:
[53:41] Southern. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[53:42] Yeah. Because Jobs used to say it when he started.

Speaker 2:
[53:46] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[53:47] But it was like way more understated. And then over time, Cook turned it into like a caricature kind of thing.

Speaker 2:
[53:53] Well, he leaned into the meme, right? Like, I'm sure they saw it and like, hey, hey, dial that up. You know, people think it's funny.

Speaker 3:
[54:01] What could Turner say? Like, yo, dogs. He could like point at the camera and wink and like-

Speaker 2:
[54:06] Mike, you have to stop.

Speaker 3:
[54:07] You could do one of those. What?

Speaker 1:
[54:09] I think he should say hello, the classic apple hello with the wink.

Speaker 3:
[54:13] Hello.

Speaker 2:
[54:14] Hello.

Speaker 3:
[54:15] I like that actually.

Speaker 1:
[54:16] Yeah. I would love for John Turner to say something controversial at least once.

Speaker 3:
[54:23] What is controversial in this?

Speaker 1:
[54:25] Anything. Anything. Just don't be... This is probably counterintuitive. Don't be perfect. Like Tim Cook is the image of perfection. It's very methodical, operations guy. He wanted to have the perfect transition. He wanted to have the perfect tenure as CEO. Lines go up, they never go down. Like be imperfect. And I feel like... And you may think I'm kidding. I'm actually not kidding. I think especially in this moment in time, when so many young people are so... What's the opposite in English of not enamored with tech and AI? I feel like bringing a touch of human imperfection to a company that is the opposite of that, and historical has been the opposite of that. I think it will really help. So you have this hot new guy, right? That is taking the mantle from the perfection guy from before. And I know that they sold this press release almost as if, oh, here's the younger guy that's the spitting image of the previous CEO down to the shirt and the clothing that they use. But I feel like maybe it could really help with the younger generation to see, oh, there's actually a new person that is saying things I would not expect. And I don't know, I feel like all tech CEOs lately, they all sound the same, they look the same, and they say the same things. Obviously, John Turner is also a 50-year-old, something white guy from America. So physically speaking, and it doesn't help. But maybe the personality could help. And I don't know, Steve Jobs was not perfection. I'm not saying try and be Steve Jobs and be controversial all the time. That wouldn't fly in 2026. But also, don't try and copy Tim Cook's image of perfection.

Speaker 3:
[56:23] Do you mind if I jump in with one of mine? Because I actually think that it is the thing that will lead to yours. So I want Turner's to do more interviews, to speak more freely and with fewer prepared statements, and to lead by example the company in that way. And from that, I believe would start to build more of a community feeling again. Because people would feel like they're actually hearing from him, and he has opinions and things to tell you. And I think that would inevitably lead to him saying something controversial at least once. And the controversial could be like thoughts on flash. That was quite controversial. And so things like that, again, I know we go back to jobs, but it's the CEO of Apple. Of course, you're going to compare him to the guy, right? But I think that, again, it's like we were talking about earlier, he is charismatic and he can clearly hold a conversation. And interviews I've seen with him, while they are still very on message, they are at least more interesting. Like Craig, right? And Phil Schiller, say. They're like, all three of those guys are quote unquote on message, but you feel like you're talking to a real person. Well, like some of the other people are not that way for one reason or another. And so I would like to see that if he's the CEO and it's essentially, no one can stop him. I would like to see what kinds of things he would say.

Speaker 1:
[57:58] Yeah, I feel like, I am convinced that we live in such an era where sometimes being imperfect, especially now that we are increasingly surrounded by AI and misinformation and fake perfect things, it's much more human to be imperfect and controversial if you can. So why not? And I was going to bring up, in fact, I would love to see John Turners at a live event, to bring back live events in person, because you, John Turners, can afford the showmanship. You can do it.

Speaker 3:
[58:37] I think they might do it.

Speaker 1:
[58:39] I would love to see that. And I think other companies are doing it, and they don't have a John Turners.

Speaker 2:
[58:45] So I have a little, it's not really a theory, but I just have a little thing I've been thinking about, live events. All this takes place September 1st, which means the iPhone will be the first event, assumedly, that Turners is CEO. I think you do it in person. I mean, he should do it in person anyways, like it's time. But also, can you imagine, y'all mentioned it recently in an upgrade, when Steve Jobs introduced the Nano, he's like, what's this little pocket for? Can you just imagine Turners, he pulls the phone out of his pocket, and then he freaking unfolds it? Like we all know it's coming, right? But you have this moment, like you can make, you can put this introduction in the annals of history with the others. Like why would you not do it?

Speaker 3:
[59:31] You can still do so many highly produced videos that you throw to.

Speaker 2:
[59:36] Absolutely.

Speaker 3:
[59:37] Right? But have parts on the stage, show demos, like go back, like let's go back, you know? It's like do all the stuff that Cook had Craig do. Because eventually Craig just did it all, right? When they were doing in-person events because he could. But now the CEO can, he clearly feels comfortable doing it. Let's put him out there. And yeah, it would be incredible, right? Pick it up, unfold it, show it to the crowd, lights bouncing off the screen, what the iPhone was. I would love that. Oh man, I would love that. I think they could do it. I do think they could do it. They won't be the same as they were pre-COVID, but they could take a step.

Speaker 1:
[60:29] Two more things. One, I'm sorry, leaning to the fact that people think you're hot. I keep thinking of John Turner as Ryan Gosling of Tech CEOs, so why not? And finally, start replying to emails like Steve Jobs used to. Steve Jobs sent a bunch of, I don't want to say nasty emails, but the guy could send a...

Speaker 3:
[60:56] Cook was reply, but I don't think his replies were ever noteworthy past the fact that he sent an email to a customer.

Speaker 1:
[61:04] The spectrum of a Tim Cook reply to Steve Jobs emailing a reporter saying, what have you done in life that's so great? Like there is something in the middle that you can probably land on.

Speaker 3:
[61:18] I don't want him to go over there.

Speaker 1:
[61:20] Yeah. That is a real Steve Jobs email, by the way, to a Gizmodo reporter.

Speaker 3:
[61:27] Wasn't that part of the iPhone 4 thing?

Speaker 2:
[61:28] It was, I think.

Speaker 1:
[61:29] What have you done in life that's so great?

Speaker 3:
[61:31] In this scenario, I'm going to excuse Steve Jobs, right? Because I understand why they were very upset. I don't excuse the secret police that he got involved in this scenario.

Speaker 2:
[61:40] I was going to say, they sent the Silicon Valley Gestapo over there.

Speaker 3:
[61:43] Yeah. But the email, at least, I understand. I would also feel that way.

Speaker 1:
[61:50] We don't have to go there, but there's a middle ground where Don Ternes can be Don Ternes. I don't know. I just feel like, all jokes aside, I think this person can probably bring back a touch of humanity to the Apple executive team that so far has been represented by this incredibly polished image of perfect operations and perfect everything. I'm not saying that Apple should make bad products and be like, oh, shucks, we made a bad product because we're humans.

Speaker 3:
[62:23] No.

Speaker 1:
[62:24] I am saying that in this day and age, a lot of us, especially the younger generation, is sort of craving that delightful imperfection that makes us human in front of a society and a tech space that is increasingly artificial and non-human.

Speaker 3:
[62:44] Yeah. See, I think you are touching on why I am excited about this. Like if you remove the leadership page conversation from the scenario, it is that this is a time for significant change to happen, hopefully. But it isn't going to happen otherwise, right? Like Apple is not going to significantly change because Tim Cook got out of the right side of his bed one morning. It requires a new CEO for there to be change. And it's like it's not that I'm saying change has to happen for one reason or another, but just that change will be interesting. And that's why I'm excited about this. Because there is no way that Apple remains exactly the same. They will not be exactly the same. They're going to change. And I'm excited about the possibility of change.

Speaker 2:
[63:38] Yeah, I think that's one reason this is all so interesting. I've got a couple that are a bit more internal, if you will. I agree with everything y'all said. I think it's all super good advice. I think there's an opportunity here to look, like really look hard at what you're doing with the App Store and legislation surrounding it. That Apple has spent untold time and money and goodwill to hold on to every bit of money that flows to the App Store that it can. I'm not saying you don't like anything. I guess that's not reasonable either. But I think they need to be honest about where they've been with this, and that it's time to take less money and be more open with the App Store. And if you do that, I bet a bunch of governments will get off your back.

Speaker 3:
[64:34] Yeah. I love this. And it might be hopium from my perspective, but I don't know why this couldn't be the case. I've seen a lot of people saying like, oh, well, he's been at Apple so long, he's going to be indoctrinated to the Apple way, da, da, da, da, da. I don't think that's accurate necessarily. Just because you've worked somewhere for a long time, you agree of everything. No. Like there are those, it was clear that Schiller didn't agree, right? There was those emails during one of the court cases that they dug up, where he was like, hey, we're making enough money on this, can we reduce it now? And clearly Cook didn't agree. But like, wouldn't you say that if anyone is indoctrinated into Apple the most, it would be Schiller? Like, so if this is like an Apple way, not a Tim Cook way, but like I think it was a Tim Cook, this is what he wanted to do. So I could see a scenario and I'm hoping that there'll be a scenario. So I'm trying to create a situation in which it could happen. But I want them to deal with what I consider to be the App Store problem. Like it is a problem, it is not a benefit to them, it's just a problem.

Speaker 2:
[65:39] Yeah, it's time to look at it. The other thing I think you should take a good long hard look at is the software organization. I think if hardware, software and services are all siblings, I think the software organization is the one that's lagging behind. I like Craig Federighi, I know a lot of people who like him. He's great on stage, he seems okay to work for, but I don't think there's any denying that Apple's desire for new products, even in the last two years or three years, has been slowed because of the software, and it's not just the AI stuff, although clearly that is a huge part of it, that Siri isn't good, that they went down this road that didn't work out. That's not all in Craig. In fact, a lot of it was outside his organization, but he owns it now, and it's not the only thing that's kept Apple hardware back. I'm not saying you get rid of Craig. I'm not saying you promote him to Chief Software Officer to keep him. I don't know what to do, but I'm not the CEO of Apple, John Turner says. But I think there needs to be some honest soul searching about, is the way the software organization working, is it doing what we want it to do? Is that unfair? Am I on a limb here?

Speaker 3:
[67:08] I think that some of it is unfair, but it's because we're not unfair. I think we have a different view on some of these things just based on our own tastes, right? But a lot of people don't like Mac OS. I have no problem with it.

Speaker 2:
[67:25] I mean, so here's the thing. I actually think you have to discount stuff in the last year.

Speaker 3:
[67:31] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[67:31] Because Liquid Glass, I think it is bad on the Mac, but the problem with Liquid Glass is bigger than just software, right? Like Craig Federica, I mean, his team certainly implemented it, and I think did a bad job in a lot of places. But I think it's easy in these moments to look at just what's recent, and be like, ah, Liquid Glass is bad. Fire the guy who did it. It's over the last many years, what systemic things have happened in the software organization, good and bad, that are worth addressing. So I think if you just look at Tahoe, and there are people, there are peers of ours, like, ah, Tahoe is bad, I don't think they're wrong, but that's short-sighted because it's just, one, it will change because all design changes. But we gotta talk about things like products not shipping because the software is not ready. The, I would say the, the, how do I want to say this? The different Apple software products that should be more similar in the way that they work and operate, feeling like they're designed and worked on by teams who don't talk to each other. Bugs, long-standing bugs across multiple operating systems that just don't seem to get fixed. Whatever in the world is going on with feedback and radar that frustrates so many developers, like all of that stuff has got to be talked about. And I'm not saying that you were saying it's just liquid glass, but I think if we just limit ourselves to what's happened in the last 12 months, we're actually cutting off the opportunity for a more meaningful conversation.

Speaker 3:
[69:21] Yeah, I just feel like I'm not sure where the argument comes from specifically. So I think there were some good examples, but I wonder if some of these things are considered priorities or not. I do think that this year will be very telling one way or another. Craig has to get this AI stuff together.

Speaker 2:
[69:47] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[69:48] He has to because it's under his remit now. If we get to another year and they have not gotten this together, then yes, I agree, we have a problem. This is clearly the most important thing that they need to get taken care of on their operating systems, and this is the year it has to happen. I do believe they are going to get it together, because I feel like they only can do this CEO transition if they are confident that the operating systems will do what they're supposed to this year one way or another. We can't get to June and they show up a bunch of AI stuff, and it comes to September, and they still don't ship it. They have to feel confident if they're going to put this on Turnus' plate, I feel like, because it would be ridiculous to set him up immediately to have this big failure again.

Speaker 2:
[70:40] Yeah. Yeah, they seem, I can't help but think that when he says, oh, we're getting ready to change the world again or whatever, like the Apple Intelligence, Siri, Gemini soup is on his mind.

Speaker 3:
[70:55] Oh, it's absolutely part of it. But there's also the iPhones over the next two years, should be very interesting. Maybe they're super excited about the folding phone and smart glasses, and they really feel like they've got things taken care of. So on that, I would like to see more products that are intended for smaller audiences. Not everything that Apple makes has to be this like area defining platform. I think they've fallen into that, and I would like to see them break out of it. So this is smart home stuff and more wearables. You know, like what if the Vision Pro would have launched and it wasn't called the future of computing kind of idea, right? Like if it was a little bit more relaxed, like what would the tenner be on that product?

Speaker 2:
[71:44] Yeah, they do see that's fun. I haven't thought about that. They do seem unable to announce something and just be like, let's see how it does. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[71:52] Right. But I understand why that happens because they're Apple. The expectation is always that they're going to be the company to top themselves.

Speaker 2:
[72:01] Yeah, but they don't, they haven't always talked like that, right? Like for years, they talked about the Apple TV before the service was like, it's a hobby, right? I would think the bigger look at that is like Apple has no humility in it. And maybe they should, when they introduce products, have a little bit of humility.

Speaker 3:
[72:22] I think it's a trap they fell into, right? That like when Steve was gone, they needed to do something. They did the Apple watch and they treated it like it was the biggest thing, you know, since the iPhone. And it kind of was, right? So like I feel like you could make that argument over time that like, well, actually, you know what? It was the biggest thing since the iPhone. It wasn't big in the iPhone, but it was a big deal and it sold really well. And so I think they kind of just got into that flow and that things got left off the table because they couldn't compete. And, you know, but like part of me thinking this is there is this suggestion, Mark Gorman has reported that Ternus is really hot in smart home. Well, that is not going to be a big deal, right? Anything they do in smart home is not going to be a big deal. They will be successful, they will make money from them, but they're not going to change the world because of it. So I feel like if they care about that kind of stuff, and they're going to release that kind of stuff, then I want to see them release more things that are like that. When they do eventually come out with smart glasses, I don't want them to treat them like this thing that they invented is the newest thing, because they will not be at parity with their biggest competitor when they release them. And so that humility that you're mentioning Stephen has to be there a little bit. We've developed this thing, we think it's going to be really great for our customers, not like, hey, look at these four interfaces that we have pioneered, like we're about to do another one. Right? No, we're not going to do that. I want Tarnas to take, like his ascension is on the back of Apple's 50th, right? Which was a surprise that they marked it in the way that they did. I would like him to push this forward in the sense of the company appearing to be proud and to reflect on their own history a little bit more than they have been. Because why wouldn't you? Look at what the company has done. They're so particular about the times that they'll ever mention things like the Mac, the original Mac. It's like only when they want to show something in comparison to it because they want to look important, right? I could just be proud of your history and be more willing to show it. And then also, embrace Little Findy as the company mascot.

Speaker 1:
[74:33] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[74:34] Do it.

Speaker 2:
[74:35] Yep.

Speaker 3:
[74:36] Make that little friend of ours the actual company mascot.

Speaker 1:
[74:40] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[74:42] And I think they're getting close to it, boys. I think it's happening. And I think WWDC is the tell. How much is Little Findy in WWDC? I think that's the thing. Like, is there merchandise? Are there stickers in the WWDC app, right? Of the Little Findy? Also, Apple, give that friend of ours a name. Just give it a name. It's too difficult because everyone has a different name now, because Stephen keeps shouting at me when I say Little Findy guy, which is very fair. But then we need a name that we can all rally around.

Speaker 2:
[75:22] Tim. Little Tim.

Speaker 3:
[75:25] No. I'm calling it Tim.

Speaker 2:
[75:31] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[75:31] Okay. Let's call him Tim.

Speaker 2:
[75:33] Yeah. Oh no, Tim crashed. I can't get to my files.

Speaker 3:
[75:36] Hey, this is Tim.

Speaker 2:
[75:37] This is Tim.

Speaker 3:
[75:38] Hey, this is Tim.

Speaker 2:
[75:41] So yeah, that's a wrap on Tim Cook.

Speaker 1:
[75:45] Well, not really.

Speaker 3:
[75:46] Not really. But not yet.

Speaker 1:
[75:48] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[75:49] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[75:52] This episode of Connected is brought to you by Fundera powered by NerdWallet. Running a small business is tough. When it's time to get a loan, it can feel impossible to find a lender you can actually trust. The big banks say no. Then the Internet is full of sketchy offers with sky-high rates and fine print, no one can understand. It's super confusing out there for small businesses. So whether you need help covering payroll, you're managing cash flow, or you're investing in your growth, you deserve better. It should be simple. You don't want to take a bunch of your time up when you're already busy running your small business. That's why you should check out the small business marketplace Fundera by NerdWallet. It's a free and easy to use platform that lets you compare real financing officers from trusted lenders all in one place. You just do one application and they're realistic about small businesses. You don't need perfect credit to get started. There's no spam, no bait and switch, just personalized options that fit your business needs. It's a soft credit check up front, which does not impact your credit score. So you can check out what loan fits you best without taking a hit. It's free to use and remember, they're not a lender, so you can trust them to help you get paired up with the right solution. If I needed a small business loan, I want a tool that is easy to use, easy to understand, and I think that's awesome. So here's the best part, for a limited time, you can visit nerdwallet.com/connected and fill out the no obligation form. You'll get to talk with a real person who knows all the ins and outs of small business lending. Don't risk your business on unreliable lenders. Go to nerdwallet.com/connected to find the funding you deserve. Fundera Inc. NMLS ID number 1240038. Our thanks to Fundera, powered by Nerd Wallet, for their support of the show and all of Relay. Remember how we said we weren't going to do a clip show?

Speaker 1:
[77:55] Oh, again?

Speaker 2:
[77:57] And then we did a clip show at the beginning of the show? I prepared something for you today. Do you know where you were on March 21st, 2017?

Speaker 1:
[78:10] Celebrating my anniversary with Sylvia.

Speaker 2:
[78:12] That's actually a pretty good answer.

Speaker 3:
[78:14] I was also celebrating Federico and Sylvia's anniversary. But on my own.

Speaker 1:
[78:17] Yeah, it was with us actually.

Speaker 3:
[78:21] It was a great day.

Speaker 1:
[78:22] Yeah. One time only we don't need to go there.

Speaker 3:
[78:26] Stop. There's a certain year in which it's okay. Do you feel good now, Stephen? No, I don't.

Speaker 1:
[78:41] How do you like your surprise now?

Speaker 3:
[78:43] Surprise back right back at you.

Speaker 2:
[78:45] March 21st, 2017. Apple today introduced Clips, a new app that makes it quick and fun for anyone to create expressive videos on iPhone and iPad. We're doing a clip show, baby. A Clips show? A Clips show. A Clips show? A Clips show. The original feature set was pretty simple. You could take video and images and mix them with a bunch of pre-made music or your own music. They had filters, emoji, speech bubbles, and then you could share it to social media apps. I had forgotten about this, but before this was announced, it had been rumored the end of the year before that Apple was working on a short form video social network, like Vine. Clearly, that was a misinterpretation of this, but there you go. Apple, though, was very excited about a feature called Live Titles, where you could record and it would generate animated captions for you automatically. 2017, this was a big deal.

Speaker 3:
[79:58] It's a big deal now.

Speaker 2:
[79:59] It is a big deal now. It required a 64-bit A-series chip and iOS 10.3 or later at launch. But Apple did not sit still with clips. It got a surprising number of new features. I have several and you two are going to tell me if this was a real feature of clips or a feature that I made up.

Speaker 3:
[80:20] Here we go. Okay. I was wondering when are we, surely he's not just going to tell us the features of clips for 10 minutes.

Speaker 2:
[80:25] We've got a monologue about clips.

Speaker 3:
[80:27] I see. I see what's going on.

Speaker 2:
[80:29] Feature number one, selfie scenes use the true depth camera system to allow users to record themselves against immersive animated backdrops that include real features.

Speaker 3:
[80:43] I mean, that is a real feature. I remember it. But you want to say them.

Speaker 2:
[80:46] Yeah, I think you can just interrupt me. Yeah, it's really kind.

Speaker 3:
[80:49] Yeah, it's true.

Speaker 2:
[80:51] Number two, selfie scenes included content from Pixar films.

Speaker 1:
[80:58] True.

Speaker 3:
[80:59] I remember there being films.

Speaker 1:
[81:02] Yeah. But was it Pixar or was it Star Wars?

Speaker 3:
[81:05] It was definitely Star Wars because that's what I remember.

Speaker 1:
[81:08] Yeah, I remember Star Wars, actually. I'm going to say no to Pixar.

Speaker 3:
[81:13] This is the thing where it's like, did it have Star Wars and Pixar or did it have Star Wars? So Stephen said it has Pixar.

Speaker 1:
[81:21] Yeah, I think it was just Star Wars.

Speaker 3:
[81:24] I'm going to say it also had Pixar just for the fun.

Speaker 2:
[81:27] It did. Selfie scenes debuted with content from The Incredibles 2.

Speaker 3:
[81:32] Okay. Did it have Star Wars as well?

Speaker 2:
[81:35] I actually don't know.

Speaker 3:
[81:38] I read a lot of it or am I going to ruin your questions if I Google this?

Speaker 2:
[81:42] Google it. No, you can Google it. I don't have anything about Star Wars in here.

Speaker 3:
[81:44] No, but like selfie scenes, you have more questions.

Speaker 2:
[81:47] Let's search for it at the end.

Speaker 3:
[81:49] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[81:50] Okay. Support for AR features and spatial playback on the Vision Pro.

Speaker 3:
[81:59] No.

Speaker 1:
[81:59] Never.

Speaker 3:
[82:00] No way.

Speaker 1:
[82:01] It's too early.

Speaker 2:
[82:03] Okay. It's actually not too early, but it is false. They did have something called AR Spaces Effects. So you would scan your room, and then it would put things like confetti or sparkles in front of you and behind you.

Speaker 3:
[82:16] They put way too much work into this app, didn't they?

Speaker 2:
[82:18] So I have a theory about this app that it was just a playground for, like, other video stuff they wanted to do. And they just threw it in there. True or false? A clips update in 2019 added support for Mickey and Minnie Mouse stickers.

Speaker 3:
[82:40] True. False.

Speaker 2:
[82:43] It is true.

Speaker 3:
[82:44] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[82:45] Literally a headline feature in 2019.

Speaker 3:
[82:48] I mean, I just didn't... I was like, oh, well, they're not stickers, right? It was stickers, the thing.

Speaker 2:
[82:53] Stickers. Stickers.

Speaker 3:
[82:54] It was stickers.

Speaker 2:
[82:55] 2019.

Speaker 3:
[82:56] I guess that was sticker time, wasn't it? 2019.

Speaker 2:
[82:58] Yeah. We had a stickers app.

Speaker 3:
[83:00] What about iMessage apps? Do you remember iMessage apps?

Speaker 2:
[83:01] Yeah. I remember Federico making John cover stickers in the newsletter.

Speaker 3:
[83:07] Will we all together...

Speaker 1:
[83:08] Well, John, I didn't make John. John wanted to.

Speaker 3:
[83:12] I mean, I remember being at Release Notes. I don't remember if this was the one you were at or not. And I vividly remember John being very unhappy about it.

Speaker 2:
[83:21] He was stuck in the hotel room covering sticker packs, and we went out to lunch.

Speaker 3:
[83:26] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[83:27] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[83:27] They do these stickers.

Speaker 2:
[83:29] True or false? As part of clips 2.0, they added landscape orientation support on the iPad.

Speaker 1:
[83:39] Yes, true.

Speaker 3:
[83:41] Yeah, I'll take true as well.

Speaker 2:
[83:42] It's a trick question. It was part of clips 3.0. It took them three major releases to add landscape orientation.

Speaker 3:
[83:50] As far as questions go, that one sucks. Look, the trick question would be, it was landscape, but not on the iPad, right? Not like, oh, it was a different version number. Yeah. But yeah, you got us. You got us.

Speaker 2:
[84:09] True or false? Clips was eventually upgraded to support 16 by 9 vertical video.

Speaker 3:
[84:20] I think false.

Speaker 1:
[84:22] You also think false.

Speaker 2:
[84:24] It is true. They eventually came around to it.

Speaker 3:
[84:27] Congratulations to them.

Speaker 2:
[84:27] Congratulations. Also, point of clips 3.0.

Speaker 3:
[84:31] So it went, they got to 3.0, wow. So they went from, I guess, Vine to Instagram stories, right? It's what they were kind of like going after.

Speaker 2:
[84:40] That's kind of the stretch of time, I think.

Speaker 3:
[84:41] Yeah. Because it was square to like portrait.

Speaker 2:
[84:44] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[84:45] Because I don't think that would have been TikTok then.

Speaker 2:
[84:48] I don't think so. So you did pretty well. I didn't keep score or anything, but you knew clips better than you thought you would. That's good.

Speaker 3:
[84:57] Is that all of them?

Speaker 2:
[84:58] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[84:59] All right.

Speaker 2:
[84:59] So tell us about Star Wars.

Speaker 3:
[85:02] Apple clips, 2.0 selfie, scenes, taps, iPhone 10 and Star Wars. So there's like the Millennium Falcon. You could be at the Millennium Falcon. Oh, and also you could be a force ghost.

Speaker 2:
[85:13] Oh, that's good.

Speaker 3:
[85:14] That was the thing you could do. I remember being a force ghost.

Speaker 2:
[85:17] Yeah. So in October 2025, Apple announced that clips was no longer being updated and was no longer available for download by new users.

Speaker 3:
[85:27] 2025?

Speaker 2:
[85:28] 2025.

Speaker 3:
[85:29] Wow.

Speaker 2:
[85:29] If you had October 25, not even a year yet. If you had downloaded it previously, you could go into your history and redownload it. It will run on iOS 26 and earlier. No promise of future support. Users were encouraged to save their videos. You could save videos with any effects or individual clips without effects. So they gave you lots of export options. I didn't really use clips for anything serious. I'm sure I downloaded it. I did download it because it was in my history. I went and looked for it. Because I'm sure we talked about it at some point. But as my parting gift to you in episode 600, I've made a clips video that I'm putting in the discord right now to be in the show notes people can go and do it. Just 30 seconds. Maybe y'all could talk through this video narrative for people.

Speaker 1:
[86:25] Oh my god.

Speaker 3:
[86:25] All right. This is breaking news, it says at the top.

Speaker 1:
[86:31] Breaking news.

Speaker 3:
[86:33] Stephen's doing some real vlogging. And it's doing some live captions of him. Oh, and here we go. We're like looking at some old computers in like a cartoon style.

Speaker 1:
[86:44] Oh, here's Albert the Cat.

Speaker 3:
[86:46] We're doing one of those fan cams of Albert now. Oh, this is some ubiquity gear with some flashing lights.

Speaker 1:
[86:52] Casey Lee's shout out.

Speaker 3:
[86:53] Oh, and Stephen's falling over and it's Stephen's dead. Oh, that's a shame.

Speaker 1:
[86:57] Incredible.

Speaker 3:
[86:59] That was really good, Stephen.

Speaker 2:
[87:00] Thank you.

Speaker 3:
[87:00] If you're just gonna say this, you could turn this into your social brand.

Speaker 1:
[87:04] Yeah, we need more Albert fan cams.

Speaker 3:
[87:07] Yeah, and also just general Stephen clips videos.

Speaker 2:
[87:10] Maybe I just use clips.

Speaker 1:
[87:12] This should be like your thing now.

Speaker 3:
[87:14] Yeah, and then over time, you would have to keep old hardware so you could run it. It just feels very much like a Stephen thing.

Speaker 2:
[87:23] It's already janky. It works on 26, but of course the UI is all iOS 17 and 18. It has soundtracks you can download, and they work, but the downloads are very slow. One computer somewhere is hosting them.

Speaker 1:
[87:40] There's one Mac Mini.

Speaker 2:
[87:42] Yeah, it's also running OpenClaw for Eddy Cue.

Speaker 3:
[87:46] They just snuck it in there.

Speaker 2:
[87:47] They snuck it in there. And so I was going to put it on YouTube, just to have a cleaner link for the show notes. And YouTube had a copyright mark on the music, even though it's supposed to be royalty free.

Speaker 3:
[88:01] That's hilarious.

Speaker 2:
[88:03] It's on 512 pixels. So there you go.

Speaker 3:
[88:06] That's really funny. I guess, well, I guess they let the rights expire for that piece of music, wherever Apple got it from, right?

Speaker 2:
[88:13] Yeah. I bet it expired and no one in Cupertino noticed.

Speaker 3:
[88:17] Did it still have the Star Wars stuff in there and stuff like that?

Speaker 2:
[88:21] Not that I saw.

Speaker 3:
[88:23] Cause I could imagine maybe the deal for that stuff may have expired, let's say that it expired. Maybe they pulled it out.

Speaker 2:
[88:29] Yeah. It definitely felt like a lot of the UI was sort of stripped down from maybe what it once was. And it's also just really weird. Like the live titles are a separate thing in recording video. You can't tell it, this is a video clip, add titles to it. It's very old school in many ways. But yeah, that's the end of my clip show for you.

Speaker 3:
[88:54] Amazing.

Speaker 1:
[88:55] Thank you, Stephen.

Speaker 3:
[88:56] This is really good. This is really good. You never know what you're going to get when it says hold for someone in the document. And I was very nervous at the beginning that I thought you were just going to read the Wikipedia page for clips at us. But you really, this was like, you very much balled this, where we started at a certain level and you balled it up to quiz and then balled it up even further to content creation. So bravo. That's the old double ball, they call it, Federico.

Speaker 2:
[89:23] The double ball, the full otter.

Speaker 3:
[89:26] Yes, you really, you otted it. You smashed that to pieces, just like an otter would.

Speaker 2:
[89:31] I did. Yeah, it was a joy. So that's it. That's episode 600. We did it.

Speaker 3:
[89:37] Hooray.

Speaker 2:
[89:38] We did it.

Speaker 3:
[89:39] And this is unfortunately, is the last episode of Connected. Thanks for listening, everyone.

Speaker 1:
[89:45] It's been an honor to serve you.

Speaker 3:
[89:48] No, no, no, no. We've loved doing this show so much. Unfortunately, our relationship has become too fractured at this point. It's an artifice. It's all fake. This whole show is written by Stephen every week, and he's had enough of writing it. So goodbye, everybody.

Speaker 2:
[90:03] No, it's not true. If you want to find links to the stuff we spoke about, just a breathtaking amount of things this week. You can go to your podcast player, you can go to the web at relay.fm slash connected slash 600. There you can leave us feedback, or you can go to connectedfeedback.com, drop us a note, and you can join and get Connected Pro, which is the longer and ad-free version of the podcast that we do each and every week. So at the beginning of each episode, we do a special topic. This week, we spoke about Framework and their new Laptop 13, Laptop 13 Pro Laptop, whatever they call it. The name is bad.

Speaker 3:
[90:47] Whoa. Just the Laptop 13 Pro.

Speaker 2:
[90:50] Laptop 13 Pro. 13 Pro. Fascinating company. I think we're all very interested in what they're doing. So we talked about that. No ads. And then at the end, we pick titles and subtitles and sometimes wrap things up. So you can get all of that. It's just seven bucks a month. getconnectedpro.co.

Speaker 3:
[91:07] Oh.

Speaker 2:
[91:09] You can find Prince Flexi Federico at macstories.net where he makes John cover sticker packs.

Speaker 1:
[91:16] No, not true.

Speaker 3:
[91:18] They just don't publish those articles anymore.

Speaker 2:
[91:20] This is for internal consumption only.

Speaker 3:
[91:23] Tom? Tom Voorhees, as we call him. He's just a man of habit. Federico doesn't even want him to do it anymore, but you just can't stop.

Speaker 2:
[91:31] Yeah. Yes, and you guys spoke about Frames 4 last week, which I loved the conversation. It's awesome.

Speaker 1:
[91:38] Thank you.

Speaker 2:
[91:38] So if you haven't played with that, dear listener, go seriously, go check it out. It's really cool.

Speaker 1:
[91:43] Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2:
[91:43] Myke hosts many other shows here on Relay, and you can check his workout at Cortex Brand, and you can read his blog at theenthusiast.net.

Speaker 3:
[91:52] Yeah, I need to post to that blog.

Speaker 2:
[91:55] You need to have a post to be like, I'm back. I'm back to posting.

Speaker 3:
[91:58] I'm back to blogging, everyone. I'm back on my cadence now.

Speaker 2:
[92:01] That's right. I am your attorney, General Flexi. You can find my writing at 512pixels.net.

Speaker 3:
[92:08] And where can they find your clips videos?

Speaker 2:
[92:11] 512pixels.net.

Speaker 3:
[92:13] No, like where else are you gonna post? On Instagram?

Speaker 2:
[92:17] Yes, I will put it on Instagram. ISMH86 on Instagram. I almost forgot about the 86.

Speaker 3:
[92:23] Don't post it today, though.

Speaker 2:
[92:25] No, it'll be later in the week.

Speaker 3:
[92:27] Yeah, because then you don't want to spoil it.

Speaker 2:
[92:29] Yeah, I'm gonna put it in my Task Manager. Post clips video to IG.

Speaker 3:
[92:35] I like that we've made sure... Oh, IG, look at that. Such a probe, Federico. He's a content creator.

Speaker 2:
[92:41] Friday, 3:30 p.m. Is that OmniFocus?

Speaker 3:
[92:46] Is that where that went?

Speaker 2:
[92:47] I don't want to talk about that. Wait. Yes, it is. It is.

Speaker 3:
[92:50] Oh, okay. I was like, wow, he's done it again.

Speaker 2:
[92:55] I'd like to thank our sponsors this week, Kelford, Inc., Applicat, and Fundera, powered by NerdWallet. Thank you for listening, putting up with us all these years. We're not going anywhere. So until next week, boys, say goodbye.

Speaker 1:
[93:10] Adieu, adieu.

Speaker 3:
[93:11] Cheerio.

Speaker 2:
[93:11] Bye, y'all.