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This week, Apple’s controversial Human Interface Design chief is out, and so is the head of AI. It’s the biggest brain drain at Apple for decades — and a lot of Apple fans are celebrating! Also: Intel is coming back to the Mac (but it’s not what you think!) and another pedantic Mac question only Griffin can answer.
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:35 NordLayer
2:44 Goodbye Alan Dye
22:38 Meet Steven Lemay
29:09 Goodbye John Giannandrea
36:08 Intel Inside (again!)
44:04 Apple Music Replay
59:56 Listener Question
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0:02
Hello and welcome to the Cultcast, the best weekly podcast of the greatest gosh darn Apple news blog in the world. I'm
0:10
your host today, Leanna Kenny, and joining me today we have D. Griffin Jones. Hello, Griffin.
0:15
Good evening. I I tried rewriting the intro to maybe something that would come a little more naturally to you, but it seems like you uh smooth it over a
0:22
little bit to make your own style. I know you totally threw me off. I was about to uh I had my own um version,
0:28
another version like I was going to say, "Hey, welcome to the Coldcast. The best weeklong Apple show you're going to hear all hour long,
0:34
but then I thought, oh, that's totally stupid." So, I I ditched it and I'm glad I did. Um but uh yeah, and we also have
0:40
Louis. Hey, Lewis. Hey. And when you said weekly, how do you spell weekly?
0:46
We e k. Oh, no. That's my, you know, British
0:52
self-deprecation coming up. All right, so this has been a crazy week. Apple's
0:58
controversial human interface design chief is out. So is the head of AI. It's the biggest bra drain in Apple for
1:04
decades, and a lot of Apple fans are celebrating. Also, Intel is coming back to the Mac, but it's not the way you
1:09
think. And another pedantic Mac question that only Griffin can answer. Pedantic.
1:16
I like your use of the term pedantic, but uh is it really a pedantic question? I guess we'll find out later. It's
1:24
Yeah, it's not I don't know if it is actually pedantic, but it's um specific for sure.
1:29
Specific and yeah, it's niche. It's
1:35
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nordlayer.com/cultast. That's nordlayer.com/cultcast
3:09
with the coupon code cult-28. Okay, Nord layer, thanks so much for
3:15
sponsoring the show. All right, so anyway, yeah, Apple's design que chief, this is, you know, like a sort of a big
3:21
blockbuster news this week. Uh, quit for meta. Allan dies out. Some say it's bye-bye and some are saying good
3:28
riddance. Why don't you tell us about Lewis? Yeah, I mean, uh, the latest person walk out the door, Alan Dy. He's been the
3:34
head of uh Apple's user interface design thing since uh about 2015. I mean, a long time. He's in charge of a lot of
3:40
stuff. Liquid Glass being the most uh famous or infamous.
3:46
Uh he's leaving. He's going to be chief design officer at Meta starting December 31,
3:52
leading a newly created design studio focused on hardware, software, and AI integration across Meta's interfaces. So
4:00
maybe they'll get some their own little liquid glass or something. Uh yeah, it's
4:05
cra this such a big name to leave and you know this guy's just been I don't
4:11
know what he was the guy who like showed the world Liquid Glass right at uh at
4:16
the last WWDC and yeah he's gone everybody. That's the
4:22
most amazing thing about it. He leaves everybody you know the world celebrates. It's just it's crazy. It's been 10 long
4:29
years. That's all I'll say. I a lot of the stuff that I've been reading is just like like excoriating
4:36
the guy. Like this is I I mean if I don't know if you happen to read the the GU, you know, the daring fireball thing,
4:43
but uh he's he said this is the the best personnel news at Apple in decades. Uh his decade
4:51
long stint running Apple's software design team has been on the whole terrible and rather than getting better,
4:56
the problems have been getting worse. Whoa. So, usually usually when somebody makes a bunch of controversial changes, it's
5:02
easy to just, you know, pinpoint the blame on the person at top. You know, oh, Apple's software is so buggy. Craig
5:09
Federigi is the head of software. Ah, this is all Craig Federigi's fault. Or, you know,
5:15
what have you, whatever, whatever your personal beef is with Apple at that time. So, you know, oh, Apple's been
5:21
making the Mac less Mac-like over the last 10 years. Hiding controls, making notifications just like these perfect
5:28
white little squares with no buttons or anything on them until you hover the mouse over them, hiding the proxy icons
5:34
from window title bars until you hover and keep your mouse over the title thing for a second and then it appears, you
5:40
know, pushing pushing buttons and controls away. It's easy, you know.
5:45
Yeah, we all attribute that to Allen Dai because Allan D is a head of software. But, you know, is it really his decision? Like it sometimes it's unfair
5:53
to blame these things from the outside because I even know that in as as small of a job as I have, you know, sometimes
6:00
my editors who will remain nameless put things in my articles that I don't really like and yeah, it's still my name
6:05
on the article or that being said, everything that we hear from people with
6:12
connections, every every bit of word that comes through the grape vine that is then seeded to bloggers, everything
6:18
we hear about Allan Dy is negative. Nobody says, "Oh, you know, that wasn't Allen D. You know, Allan Dy tried to
6:25
push back against that decision, but somebody else really wanted Liquid Glass." We don't hear any of that. Even
6:30
about the small things like, "Oh, you know, Allan Dy really does love buttons on notification center banners, but you
6:37
know, he he he just lost that battle." We don't hear things like that. The the picture that is starting to be painted
6:42
is that Johnny IV after Steve Jobs starts to starts to lose interest. He's
6:49
a little a little lost in his work at Apple without Steve Jobs there. You know, he kind of wants to retire, but
6:55
you know, Tim Cook wants to keep him on because he wants to project strength to Apple's investors. It doesn't want to seem like, oh, Steve Jobs is gone and
7:02
now all of Apple's top talent is leaving. You know, they they want to keep the band together as long as they can. And that means like still giving
7:08
Johnny IV a big paycheck to just keep him on the payroll at Apple. uh you know
7:14
he's sort of promoted into the clouds and Alan Dy takes over the reigns from him uh but Johnny IV doesn't really pay
7:22
attention to what he's doing and yeah sure he becomes the next chief of design even though he's not terribly qualified
7:28
to design user interfaces his background is and I kid you not from Kate Spade
7:34
designing handbags so well he came from he was the head of design at at Kate Spade right so I'm
7:40
sure that it had a lot to do with brand identity and stuff like that because he Ogleby before and he was in charge of branding and
7:46
marketing and stuff like that. But but it it it seems to be that like within Apple's design team, uh Alan Dy
7:52
rose to the top and he had his own like click of fashion designers who
7:59
cycles, right? Yeah. Yeah. Fashion fashion designer friends who didn't have a passion for
8:05
computers being computers. They he was designing them to be like This is I think this is kind of unfair. I mean, because I've seen people saying
8:11
that, too, you know, like Grub is Grub is entertaining and it was and and
8:16
opinionated and it's it's it's it's fun to read that, but I mean, like he you
8:21
know, he's he he throws around stuff like, you know, saying that Daly obviously doesn't care about design and
8:27
stuff like that, which I think is clearly and obviously wrong and I think it's unfair to uh to ascribe such
8:33
motivations to people or or even, you know, such failings. I mean what the big
8:38
there's a huge elephant in the room. Everyone's criticized Alan Dy. That's true. There's been nothing but like oh thank god he's gone. Good riddance you
8:45
know bye-bye die. A lot of celebration but no one has mentioned vision OS. Vision OS is astonishing. It's a great
8:52
piece of software interaction design. It's literally next generation and he
8:58
you know I mean he's the guy who's in charge of that. No one's giving him credit for that. I mean it's been a
9:03
Nobody uses a vision pro. Yeah. Right. Exactly. That's that's a big problem. I mean like you know
9:08
Griffin and three other people you know the only people who in the entire world who appreciate it but I mean there's
9:13
been a lot of success as well as a lot of failure too. And you know Liquid Glass I think obviously is not a high
9:19
note to go out on and there's been I mean you know Gruber was saying that he should have got fired just for the very fact that they added a a new setting for
9:26
you to be able to turn it off. Like where's the conviction you know where's the conviction in their ideas? I kind of
9:31
like liquid glass. Um, and I think a lot of it is actually great. You know, it's
9:36
like it's really kind of refreshing. And if you go back and look at the, you know, iOS 18 now, it looks it looks it
9:42
looks almost as anacronistic as the original iPhone with all the skuorphic design, you know, I mean, they've been
9:48
he's moved it forward. So, I think it's unfair that he's getting so much
9:54
um hatred. Uh, and but you know, on the on the other hand, I'm kind of
9:59
encouraged about his replacement, you know, who's been there. To to back up a little bit, you know,
10:05
yeah, the design of Vision OS is great because Vision OS is born out of iPad OS. iPad OS, iOS, and Vision OS are I
10:12
mean, I think iPad OS to the least of the three, but it's very clear that those are content consumption operating
10:18
systems. you know, you're you're you're not there to create, you're not there to edit, you're not there to, you know, do
10:25
do the advanced kind of work that you do on a Mac. Those are those are content consumption platforms where the the
10:31
interface can take a step backward. The interface doesn't have to be, you know, layers of complexity like like the Mac
10:38
is. It's very clear that he's trying to design he tried to design the Mac the same way as well. And it's been nothing
10:46
but bad news. The Mac has made many user interface regressions over the last 10 years.
10:52
Well, I you know I I I find my Mac still quite usable to be honest. And I saw the you know I saw again you know uh people
10:57
complaining about like on the Mac and I don't know to me it looks totally fine cuz I'm not the kind of guy person that like loses their mind if a corner radius
11:06
isn't, you know, exactly uh the same as as the other stuff. Like you know my the
11:11
basic Apple guy point put up a screenshot with all these different um interface windows. you know, their their
11:16
corners don't don't line up. Like, I am never ever in my entire life going to notice that myself. Um, I could give a
11:22
hoot about it. Um, I find that my, you know, and of course, I'm not the most sophisticated user that has ever walked
11:28
the planet, but um, I've been using a Mac for, you know, what, 40 years now. Use it all the day, every day. And I
11:34
find it perfectly perfectly usable, you know, as an ordinary Yeah. as an ordinary. I mean, that's the thing. Alan Allen can
11:40
make a very pretty interface. He can make a perfectly chromulent good enough interface for the mech, but it it it
11:47
it's all of the edge cases you have to design around like the fact that oh, you know, yeah, we should make some of these
11:52
windows more rounded because it makes them more beautiful, but then you have like you very quickly run into the edge
11:58
cases and design is all about designing around edge cases that Alan Dy just ignores constantly because that's not
12:05
the part of the interface that you know that comes up if you just mock up a pretty illustration in Canva or Adobe
12:11
IllusT. and then pass it off to an engineer to implement. That's where you run into all of the problems of, you
12:16
know, well, what happens if you have a really long text label in in a tab bar and then it gets abbreviated or it
12:23
overlaps with the labels next to it. That is what design is all about. And true enough,
12:29
user interface design. Yeah. True enough. True enough. and and and and the point you said but you know there there's a there is a point that
12:34
you said earlier which which you mentioned earlier which is like you know that he's getting all the blame or for for all of these different things but
12:40
he's working with the team there and um you know that that there's there's some responsibility I think for the the for
12:48
the fact that there's a team involved in this you know it's not just Allan die that's leaving it also seems like his close-knit circle
12:56
of of of friends is leaving with him you know it doesn't sound like it was has a
13:01
very cohesive team under his leadership. It was him and his circle of friends which are also leaving to meta with him
13:08
and a lot of the the classically trained user interface designers who were on the design team left under him because they
13:14
didn't feel like their input was being valued. I mean, could you imagine working at Apple for
13:21
10, 15 years and then this guy gets hired and he like doesn't understand the basic concepts of user interface design
13:27
and he just like comes from a fashion background or something and like I mean
13:32
he might be a little frustrating working for in that sort of a situation, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. True enough.
13:38
True enough. Well, I mean of all the companies that need some design inspiration, you know, Meta's right up there. Oh my god. Facebook, you know,
13:44
face I and especially Facebook behind the scenes. Facebook's tools, I it I I don't, you know, the complexity
13:52
is just is mindboggling. I don't think I've ever seen a more complex backend, you know, for for getting stuff done
13:57
like on Facebook, you know, the business suite or whatever it's called. And uh page management is I think it's probably
14:04
the worst I've ever experienced on any platform, including something like, you know, going back to Lotus Notes or or
14:10
stuff like that, which is which is just awful. It's um I mean I can't I cannot stand going into Facebook at all to try
14:17
to get anything done. It's extremely confusing, extremely badly I think, you know, design terrible, terrible,
14:22
terrible. But he's going to be heading up a design studio where they're talking about it's headsets, AR glasses, and
14:27
what was the other thing? Um AI features. Yeah. Well,
14:32
hire hire the hire the design guy to like lead their AI design efforts. I don't know.
14:37
Who said this? Somebody somebody mentioned this that that Facebook I think is looking at Apple as their main competitor for the next decade or so.
14:44
They want to get into consumer devices. They cannot stand the fact that they got locked out of iOS you know with the with
14:49
and uh Cook made all those changes didn't you know with asking apps not to track and so uh and of course Zuckerberg
14:56
tried to launch all kinds of things. They tried to do a Facebook phone. That's why they were pushing the metaverse so hard because they felt like
15:01
they had lost out on the mobile smartphone industry. And so they're they they tried
15:08
to ride the wave of, you know, what they thought would be the next wave, all these VR headsets. That's why they, you know, for all of eight months they were
15:14
really into the metaverse. Yeah. But, you know, this is and they're this is this is what they're going to be doing now, isn't it? They're trying to
15:20
come up with the next generation of consumer devices and they want to own the platform so they don't get locked out like they did when, you know, when
15:25
they don't own the platform any longer. And and Facebook goes through fits and bouts of deciding they care about
15:31
design. So, you know, hiring the the most famous designer in the world. We'll
15:36
see how that how that goes. Yeah. Well, apparently they've got a lot better recently. I haven't tried the meta the glasses. Have you tried those
15:41
Ray-B bands? Have you seen those? I've I've not seen them or used them myself. People like them. I mean, they only have
15:47
like threeh hour battery life and I I guess I haven't actually seen them in the wild. Like I used to see that the uh Google Glass briefly for the you know
15:54
for the for the short period of time that that was a popular product for you know wasn't didn't very long. We saw
15:59
quite a few around here in the Bay Area, but um I haven't seen any of those metaverses in the those meta glasses,
16:05
the Rayban glasses in the wild. I haven't actually seen any of the Snapchat glasses in the wild either. I mean, the thing is about the Meta
16:10
Rayban glasses, you wouldn't know if you seen them in the wild because they just look like regular glasses. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. True enough.
16:17
Yeah. Well, you know, they do have that you can see the lens uh the camera lens, can't you on the front, but if you look carefully enough, I
16:23
guess, but Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, like this is part of a bigger departure, isn't it? I mean like there's been a lot of high-profile
16:30
departures from Apple recently. Um and it's been a mixed bag. You know, some have been celebrated, some haven't. Uh
16:35
this is this is, you know, right on the back of chief operating officer Jeff Williams took his retirement.
16:40
The I chief John Gonaria has his departure. That that might be lious.
16:47
Okay. John Ganderia. J Andrea. Jim and J. Yeah.
16:52
I mean, the weirdest thing and I, you know, I hate to keep going back to Gruber's article, but I found it kind of
16:58
fascinating and interesting to read. And uh he the thing the one of the points that he makes is like Apple didn't boot
17:05
die out. Like he's been sitting there screwing things up for 10 years. And he was just like going to be there for
17:11
another 10 years if if you knowbody if he didn't decide to leave, which I find uh that's kind of an you know, that's an
17:18
indictment of Apple's leadership, right? I mean, yeah. I I honestly think that that might
17:24
be considered one of the one of the stains on Tim Cook's era of Apple because we're we're seeing it repeatedly
17:29
that uh you know, he hired Angela Erenss to not very much success. He he I think
17:35
he was the one of the people who tapped John G and Andrea. Alan Dio was promoted under his direction and was screwing
17:42
things up for so long and he didn't intervene whatsoever. I I I think it might be one of the legacies of the Tim
17:48
Cook era that, you know, one of the things he wasn't good at was choosing the the people that he delegates all of
17:54
this, you know, all of these tasks to. Well, again, I think it's a mixed bag. You know, okay, he's had a few failures,
18:00
but he's also had a ton of successes. Lisa Jackson, Seri, the head of the hardware, uh, you know, the chip effort,
18:05
and there remarkable successes, unbelievable successes in those areas. And um there was an interesting
18:11
interview that I watched a snippet of with um Jensen Huang, the the head of Nvidia, and he says he doesn't like to
18:16
fire people. He like he hardly ever fires anybody. Well, nobody does. Well, not because it's emotionally bad,
18:22
but because he he thinks it's a waste of investment. You know, you've you've invested a lot of time in somebody, and it's much better to torture them to to
18:28
make them better than it is to like to can them against somebody else. I thought it was an interesting perspective and and and and something I
18:34
have some you know I definitely have some sympathy for that because if you do invest you know if you hire someone on
18:39
and if that if his effort I mean obviously he wasn't screwing up from the get-go was he was you know there was
18:45
like okay you look back on a career of 10 years and you say okay there's been a lot of failure there but there's also I think also been a lot of success and
18:51
that um you know maybe that maybe he's of that mindset too where it's like better to try to to try to work with the
18:58
the devil you know than the devil you don't. I mean one of the interesting things I thought that that that uh that
19:04
about Alan D is that he was hired from outside you know like and I think the most a lot of the most successful it
19:11
seems to me although not not again not true in every single case but it does seem to be more successful when they
19:16
promote from within um and people who have been inculcated with the Apple culture and really get it and and um
19:22
this maybe was the mistake that they made was was you know was was handing the reigns to somebody who was from outside Apple and didn't understand the
19:28
culture but then again he was there for 10 years not everything he did touch was a complete disaster and maybe they
19:33
should have you know where's why why isn't Craig Vagari getting any blame for liquid glass you know like why isn't
19:39
like you said you know like the buck has got to stop doesn't the buck stop with Craig Verigi or with Tim Cook
19:45
I mean it's it's really weird talking about you know personnel situations at another company
19:51
I mean every every place you've ever worked has weird weird situations with people right I mean like why is this
19:58
person got this job how did this person possibly get promoted to this. I mean, I remember one time I worked at a newspaper and this they brought in this
20:04
hot shot new editor and he was just like, there's I could tell incompetent, you know, like like couldn't write, couldn't
20:12
like he he he had these pet projects that he was interested in and he he was
20:18
like a blustery guy and and it was just like he had failed down to our place, right? and but now he's the
20:23
editor-inchief and he's making big changes and it's just like oh my god I
20:29
and I mean you sit there and it's like I cannot believe this guy is in charge of everything. Uh it's that kind of a
20:36
horrible horrible feeling working in that kind of situation. You know you just got to keep your head down and hope that they don't decide you're the one
20:42
that uh has been messing everything up and hasn't achieved their amazing goal of whatever you know better sports
20:48
coverage. But, uh, the the news of who they picked to replace him, which which
20:54
by the way, that news came out really fast, right? I mean, how long did Tim Cook know that Dy was on the outs? I
21:00
mean, he must have known for a while. You don't just decide like, you know, Bloomberg writes a story saying, "Oh,
21:06
Allan Dy is leaving." And, you know, 20 minutes later, Tim Cook says, "Oh, and he's going to be replaced by I I mean,
21:12
so this must have been cooking for a while, right? I mean, that's a Well, it made it seem like uh it the
21:17
Bloomberg I can't remember the exact lines in the story, but it it made it seem like it wasn't they they they it
21:23
was it was contradictory, wasn't it? It was kind of confusing the way that Mark German wrote it. He because he said that the Apple leadership had sort of known
21:29
about this for a while, but the announcement caught them by surprise. Oh, so they they knew that he was making
21:37
making tracks, but yeah, I guess. Yeah. Didn't know. Well, I mean, maybe maybe not the announcement.
21:42
Maybe the maybe just the public. Well, I guess you're saying the Well, what what announcement
21:47
Apple had a statement ready to give to Bloomberg, which you know, they they they never provide a statement to Mark German ever, but they they had one
21:54
prepared to give him. Yeah. I wonder how long it's been going on and how long they knew. And, you know, I mean, there's just been so many
22:00
shakeups at Apple lately. It's it's really kind of crazy. I mean, so many people leaving, uh, longtime people.
22:08
Yeah. Yeah. And a whole bunch of that executive team is all approaching retirement age, aren't they? All around the same time, like we mentioned earlier, big rumors of Cook retiring sometime
22:15
next year. Yeah. I think we we said on the show a few weeks ago, you know, around the discussion of Tim Cook leaving that I I
22:22
think I had said, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if in the next few years we see see more executive turnover after Tim Cook. I wasn't expecting it to
22:28
happen, you know, within the same month. Yeah.
22:34
Uh so what you want to talk about the the person who's taking his place, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, the new UI chief
22:39
is a guy called Steve Lame. Steven Lame. Um, and he's a veteran Apple human interface designer. Um, who was part of
22:46
the original iPhone team. He's been there since 1999, which is before Aqua, which I found incredible to think about.
22:51
Um, and it looks like it's hard to tell because there's very, you know, he has no public profile. Um, which is sort of
22:57
true of a lot of Apple stuff is I could only find like two short Q&As he's given and a couple of mentions here and there
23:04
in the press. Um but uh it looks like he came he just you know he joined out of
23:09
school and has been on the human interface uh team which he now heads up
23:15
you know for what is it since 1999. So um well that's 26 years.
23:20
Yeah it's a long time long time. And uh he's you know he's helped shape everything from OS 10 to Vision OS. Uh
23:28
Tim Cook said about him Steve Lame has played a key role in the design of every major Apple interface since 1999. Um,
23:34
and he praise him for his attention to detail and the spirit of creativity and collaboration. Um, I mean to get an idea
23:40
of how much he's worked on, if you go to the Justia database and search for his name, it's 53 pages of patents and
23:47
there's about 10 patents on each page or or something like that. It's crazy. I didn't actually count them up. Couldn't find an easy way to find out the total
23:53
number, but they go back to about 2003 and he's it's like everything every single thing you could think of, you know, like text selection on an iPhone.
23:59
A guy all the way up to like Siri, Apple Watch, all sorts of stuff. like he's had his his fingers on all kinds of things.
24:05
And the one interview he did give uh with Design Milk, he was talking about this is one of the things that I think
24:11
people everyone lost their mind over the Apple Pencil Pro when you when it uh when you the tool selection and the fact
24:18
that it casts a little digital shadow onto the screen when you get close and
24:23
that shadow changes. So if you're using the pencil, it looks like a pencil. If you choose the fountain pen, it it casts
24:29
a shadow of a fountain pen. And this was like I remember people losing their minds over this. Like it was the most
24:34
delightful thing. Somebody had even like found the actual 3D model of the shadow that they use and
24:40
it is way more detailed than it needs to be because it's rendered as like a blurry gray blob on the screen, but then
24:47
you you look at like the model. I don't know how somebody found it in like the resources of the AT package or whatever,
24:53
but like you look at the model that they're using for that and it looks like, you know, if this were if this
24:58
fountain pen were featured in a video game for like the PS5 and it needed to have every single surface like precisely
25:05
mapped, that's the model of fountain pen you would use. But no, that's being used to render like a blurry shadow that most people will honestly barely even notice.
25:11
Isn't that a great sign? You know, like Lewis has mentioned this earlier. Here's a guy who sweats the details. like
25:17
sweats every single detail and this is what we expect from Apple. Yeah. Yeah. And it sound like the other guy
25:22
was just like you know only interested in surface level stuff. So So I mean
25:27
well I hate to say it but you know I he's too wellgroomed. Alan Dy and those designer glasses they really get on my
25:34
nerves. Those designer glasses I just you know it it makes you want to punch him in the face. I hate to say even though I'm not a punch in the face kind
25:40
of person, but like someone mentioned on there was a quite a funny thread on Twitter saying like the best designers I
25:46
know look like they just came out of Costco, you know, for at the weekend
25:51
and just I mean again compare the the way that they talk about it like you you watch the video of Steve Jobs
25:57
introducing Aqua and he he's talking in very plain language about his passion
26:03
that you can't replicate. You can't like you know pre-record this. You can't script this. He's just like, "This is
26:08
what a button looks like. Look at this button. Look at this window." You know, he he imple he had his uh engineers
26:14
implement like a slow motion mode in Mac OS 10 so that he could just show you the anim like the the genie animation as
26:21
like a window minimizes into the dock. And he just like everybody, you know, thousands of people sitting in the audience watching Steve Jobs fiddle
26:27
around with a Mac like minimizing a window and he was doing it over and over again. He was going, "Look at this. Isn't this
26:32
great?" He was super jazzed about it. And it's captivating even even in a 240p video that's been uploaded to YouTube a
26:38
dozen times. You know, that's the only way I've been able to experience that keynote. But it's just captivating the way he he he talks from a place of
26:45
passion because he loves computers and he loves Mac OS 10 and he he loves all of these details. And it seems like uh
26:52
you know, again, we we don't know these people, but it it seems from what we can hear that Steven Lame may be cut from
26:58
the same cloth. Yeah. Yeah. Let's hope so. Let's hope so. I like the fact that he's been there forever and he's like so deep and he's
27:04
worked on every single thing like you know uh it's um you know there's he he's he's
27:10
he's got a lot there's a lot of institutional knowledge in that in that guy's brain. Here's a funny thing though. He has apparently has a
27:16
nickname. He's he's known as Margaret internally. Apparently Steve Jobs in
27:22
meetings whenever there was like um people would lob out questions. Hey Steve, what do you think of this? and then Steve Lameé would answer.
27:28
Apparently Jobs got so frustrated by it that eventually he said, "Okay, that's enough of this." The quote, it came from a New York Times interview with a guy
27:34
called Francisco Tolmasky who left Apple um after uh the iPhone launched on 2007,
27:40
but he he was one of the he worked on the original iPhone team. So he said, quote, "At some point, Steve Jobs got really frustrated with this and said,
27:45
"Guess what? You're Margaret from now on." Uh from from there on, members of the team would always address the
27:50
designer as Margaret. So M Steve Margaret Lame is the new head
27:56
of um head of the design department. Most unfortunate. Uh I wonder if he's
28:02
still called that. I I And if he's going to be called that, hey Margaret, you know, what do you think of this? I doubt it. If he's going to be heading up the
28:08
uh the the next candidate introduction video, his his his by line on the Apple video is Steve quote Margaret Lame.
28:16
I know they do that for Jaws. Greg Jaws J. Shorten it to you know Maggie or Mags or
28:22
something. Marge Margaret Marge Marge Lame that has a good ring to it.
28:28
Yeah. One more thing. So a a former colleague um a guy called Ben Hilac who used to
28:34
work with um Lame and it was also I think uh you know at Apple 10 years ago sort of in the heyday uh he said quote
28:41
Steve Lame is by far the best designer I've ever met or worked with in my entire life. He wrote this on X and he
28:46
literally taught me what design is incredibly exciting for Apple. So I thought that was quite nice. I mean,
28:52
there's all these executive changes, but you know, people are kind of hopeful, aren't they? That that the two the I
28:57
mean, two two maybe the two of the biggest impediments to Apple success uh have now gone.
29:05
Who's the second impediment? Well, John G. Andrea. Yeah, we should touch on that for a second because um
29:12
his replacement uh is I believe the guy who used to work on Google Gemini at
29:18
Google and then he had a brief like five month stint at Microsoft but now he he has John Gian Andrea's job. Mike
29:24
Rockwell is still leading Siri but Amomar Subramana is now Apple's vice
29:29
president of AI reporting to Craig Federigi. He'll be responsible for the foundation models, ML research and AI
29:36
safety. Yeah, more more good news all around. Yeah. I Gemini has leaprogged open air, hasn't it? It's probably isn't it the
29:42
the leading model now neck and neck. Although there was there was an interesting paper that came out this week that Apple I didn't dig into it but
29:49
um uh Apple's got a new uh they put out a paper an academic paper about a new video model that is doesn't use
29:56
dusion. One of the big things is apparently it's editable so it's not um it's it's it's going to it I saw someone
30:04
on Twitter talking about it and saying that this is actually a huge breakthrough. this was actually really really impressive work in the AI area,
30:10
you know, like to totally world class, worldleading. Um I I'm going to dig into it because I think it is interesting,
30:16
you know. So obviously there are people at Apple doing doing, you know, very very very good AI work for sure, even if
30:22
Siri still is hopeless. That's a work in progress. Yeah, don't forget image playground.
30:29
And of course, this is another thing that, you know, people don't that we don't have access to, which is, you know, the internal stuff. You know,
30:34
Apple's been criticized for AI, but of course, I think Apple's work on AI so far has been ex has been has been very
30:40
very good. You know, they're using machine learning and learning algorithms and AI to enhance, you know, regular
30:46
features. They're not putting it out for it, you know, like a chatbot for its own sake. Um, you know, uh, Face ID, what a
30:53
remarkable system. You know, it works almost flawlessly all the time. Has done for years. But it learns how your face
31:00
changes if you grow, you know, a beard or if your head is different. It can work with glasses. I I use it while my
31:06
bicycle when I have a helmet, big dark glasses, uh you know, like half my face is seems to me is covered, but it still
31:13
works really well. Anyway, you know, and of course, it's been across everything that Apple does. Like there's AI on machine learning algorithm, I think, on
31:18
almost every single piece of that software, isn't it, these days? Oh, yeah. I I think I think somebody pointed out on Maston while we were
31:24
watching you know WWDC25 and like the first half of the the keynote once they actually start talking
31:29
about new features almost all of them have a degree of machine learning you know components to them that it you know
31:35
it's integral to a lot of the new features that are being rolled out in in
31:40
a much more subtle way and look at the photos up you know like you I was searching for you know I can't
31:46
remember something to my cat a picture of my cat or something like that actually no it was more sophistic it was more harder than that I was looking
31:52
um oh hell I forget what it was like a car wheel or something like that and it actually brought it up. I couldn't believe it, you know, all the photos in
31:58
my huge photo library of this actual thing that I was looking for. Like that to me it was almost magical. I couldn't
32:03
believe that this thing had that capability and the facial recognition, the automatic tagging, I mean all that stuff that's built into photos, it works
32:09
really really well. It they are great great features done beautifully. Runs locally on your device privacy. Uh so
32:15
anyway, the point I was going to make was about privacy and security. Like you know this next version of Siri is going to have if it works to make it work it
32:21
has to have access to your whole digital life. And of course, you know, you've already seen like there was some stories about all these personal details leaking
32:28
out. People are giving their details to Open AI and to other models and this stuff is is leaking out. You know, Apple
32:34
has is is its whole brand relies on being able to do this safely and
32:39
privately. And I think it's probably a much much harder problem than it looks. Oh yeah. I mean, Microsoft tried
32:45
implementing something akin to personal context in Windows 11. They called it recall. And the uh the the the database
32:54
of information that it builds up about you was basically just stored in plain text in a folder on your computer. Like
33:00
Apple is the only company who I trust to you roll out a feature like this. Plus the verge I think this week did a
33:07
did an investigation the Microsoft co-pilot like they took this Microsoft put out an ad about co-pilot I think a
33:13
few months ago saying this is what it can do. Well and and I remember watching this ad and oh my god it's like amazing. Oh my, this thing is like a truly smart
33:21
personal assistant. It and the ver anyway the version tested out. Apparently, it does almost none of what was claimed in the the sounds.
33:29
Yeah, exactly. It it it was it was, you know, it it looks good on paper, but in reality, it's awful. It was
33:35
hallucinating. Came up with all sorts of wrong stuff. Couldn't, you know, give get the right advice. It was it was like
33:40
absolutely nothing like the way it was advertised. Well, I I mean all the stuff you're talking about that's really great
33:46
at least started before Apple Intelligence, right? And and Apple Intelligence has this, you know, these
33:53
amazing standout apps like Image Playground that sucks and uh you know, I
33:58
mean Siri is is a long-standing problem. What are what are the other tools? I mean, like the writing tools, those work
34:04
okay. There's nothing wrong with those. But but it's kind of table stakes, right? anything can any given thing that
34:10
you go on can say, "Oh, let's let's make that writing more professional or whatever." I mean, it's not a
34:16
turn list into a table. Yeah. It's not a parlor trick anymore. It's just like what software does. So,
34:22
that part of it is fine. And and what you're like stuff you're talking about with like photos and stuff and that that is good and has gotten better. It's like
34:29
spellch check. Like everything has spellch check in it now. That's that's what these AI writing tools are. Everything offers to write something
34:35
better. What's that? What sets Apple strategy apart is that they're only trying to pursue the AI features that people might
34:42
feasibly want to use that that provide genuine utility to people. Image playground aside, I think that's bad and
34:48
never should have been shipped and it's tarnishing the whole reputation of Apple intelligence. But the the natural language search thing, the the fact that
34:55
you can create a a photos, this is a the Apple intelligence feature that literally everybody forgets about. the
35:00
fact that you can, you know, use a prompt in the photos app to generate a memory movie for you. You know, they're
35:07
trying to pursue useful features that people might want to use.
35:12
Yeah. And I, you know, I I I bet if we made a someone made a list of of the stuff that works and the stuff that
35:18
doesn't, I bet the list of the stuff that works is far far far longer than the stuff that of this the list of stuff
35:24
that doesn't. But of course, the list of stuff that doesn't is some of the most the high-profile ones.
35:30
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because everybody wants a Syria that works because everybody has been frustrated by Siri for the last eight
35:37
years. But right, if image playground didn't exist tomorrow. I don't think anybody would shed a tear. Uh you know,
35:45
what's the point of it really? I mean, maybe it'll be like M Apple Maps. Maybe it'll get better over time.
35:51
Will it? I don't know. It just seems, you know. Yeah. I can't defend Dimish Playground at all, but you know, may I'm
35:56
just maybe we can be optimistic that they'll they'll turn into something useful eventually, especially with John.
36:02
What's his face gone? The new guy from Gemini. Let's talk
36:08
about here's another funny thing that's coming back. Uh which is totally totally unexpected. Although maybe it's not
36:15
actually. Um it uh you know Max may have Intel inside again. Why don't you tell
36:21
us about it, Griffin? It's not what you think. In 2020, Apple moved the Mac away
36:26
from Intel CPUs to its own in-house Apple silicon processors that TSMC fabricates for them. Uh, with Intel's
36:34
CPU business struggling, the company has opened its foundry business to external clients and Apple could become one of
36:40
its customers. Based on his latest industry survey, Mingchi Quo in a post on X says that quote, "Visibility on
36:47
Intel becoming an advanced node supplier to Apple has recently improved significantly." What a great quote.
36:54
Yeah. What the hell what the hell is he talking about? What's an What's a node advanced node?
36:59
It's a manufacturing process for basically manufacturing chips like the uh you know the the the three nanometer
37:06
process is you know on a process node made by TSMC. you know, it's it's just
37:11
the industry lingo. Yeah. Previously, Intel designed their own chips and fabricated their own chips and, you
37:16
know, two two sides of the same business that were sort of exclusive. But now with Intel struggling for business,
37:23
they're saying, "Hey, you know, our fabrication side of the business, uh, maybe we'll take some contract vendors,
37:28
you know, we'll build your chip for you in the same way that TSMC does, you know, their entire business." Yeah. Um,
37:34
Apple has supposedly signed an NDA, apparently not a very uh tight one with
37:39
Intel. Based on the scheduled technical progress, Apple expects Intel to start
37:46
fabricating and chipping its low-end M series G CPUs in Q2 or Q3 2027.
37:53
So, probably M6 or M7 processors, which is kind of interesting. Apple wants to
37:59
move the production of these chips to Intel's node as a way to diversify its supply chain. Again, 100% of uh Apple's
38:07
processor supply chain. And much of the world's chips come out of Taiwan
38:12
exclusively. It it's kind of bad for the world that Intel has has fallen by the wayside in the last 10 years. So, this
38:18
is maybe a way of uh giving them a little bit of a boost. There are still several challenges ahead before Intel
38:24
actually starts fabricating low-end Apple Silicon chips. If its process node doesn't match TSMC's efficiency, Apple
38:32
cult could fall back to its longtime partner. This is a little surprising because news overall, not least because
38:39
the the whole reason for Intel falling behind around around 15 years ago when
38:45
you know the the cutting edge nodes were around 14 15 nmters in size around
38:51
around that scale, you know, an order of magnitude bigger than what we have today. Intel invested massive amounts of
38:58
money in this, you know, new manufacturing process to to get them down to like three nanometers, two nanometers. Uh, Intel jumped like dumped
39:06
hundreds of billions of dollars in R&D into developing this process. And then they decided, eh, it's too expensive.
39:12
Let's not actually build that out ourselves. And and that's the reason why TSMC took them over and, you know, Qualcomm and all these other chip
39:19
manufacturers. uh and the reason why Intel got stuck behind with, you know, barely improving the same processes that
39:26
they've had in the past through the 2010s. So to know that Intel is going to
39:31
be then at the cutting edge again such that they can be one of Apple's primary
39:38
manufacturing partners is a bit surprising. like I is this the the the financial boost that they needed to to
39:45
build out that you know manufacturing line that they were never able to before if they're going to be building you know
39:50
Apple doesn't keep M series chips along around for very long they have a new one every year and you know they they might
39:58
you know they keep manufacturing M2s for the Mac Pro but largely they they get
40:04
the chopping block pretty soon they don't have the same long tale of manufacturing life that the A series
40:09
chips have I I think that the most surprising part of this news isn't necessarily that Apple's diversifying to
40:15
Intel again, but the fact that Intel is going to be making their cutting edge M series chips, you know, the the the gold
40:21
standard of the industry. Well, I mean, look at the timeline. It's uh 2027. That's um Q2 or Q3. That's the
40:28
end of 2027. So, two years from now. Um I don't know. Is that long enough to build cutting edge chip fabs? No way, is
40:36
there? I mean, TSMC just built a huge plant outside of Phoenix in Arizona um
40:42
that I had a quick look at. It's enormous, uh building, but even they're having trouble, aren't they, ramping up
40:48
um their uh you know, ability to make these their own chips. I mean, it's
40:54
they're finding it difficult. TSMC is finding it difficult, you know, to make their own chips at the same efficiency
41:00
that they they're able to achieve in Taiwan. And there's been a lot of controversy about that. What is the power supply different?
41:06
What? Uh I I've heard I've heard cultural differences uh between the the Taiwanese
41:11
and United States employees. That's great news, right? But uh abs but the thing that
41:17
surprised me is that Apple hasn't done this before because I know when I wrote that uh that book about Tim Cook, I mean they had a rule that almost every single
41:23
component had to have at least two suppliers. And I think that's been true of like everything that they do, you know,
41:29
screens. Um but and so the chips was was was and of course this is the the most
41:35
perhaps the most important component of all of their devices that they only have one supply. I suppose they didn't they
41:40
didn't uh they didn't look at AMD or um you know Intel I think Motorola makes
41:46
chips, Qualcomm makes chips. There's a lot of I think quite advanced chip manufacturers here in the United States.
41:52
I know Motorola has a big chip plant in in Phoenix as well I believe. Um so I'm surprised they didn't do it
41:58
before. Oh, it does seem like a especially with, you know, when China's going to invade Taiwan next year or whenever.
42:04
Uh, and of course, this all plays to Trump, too, doesn't it? As well, um Trump's um domestic
42:10
uh manufacturing agenda. So, it looks good for, you know, Tim Cook when he's
42:15
handing Trump goldplated bricks. Uh it's going to this is going to help him, isn't it?
42:21
Yeah. I mean, and it it is undeniably good if if more chips are made here, right? I mean, there's no there's no
42:28
downside to that. I I liked Ed's article about this. He wrote an opinion piece, you know, or not a really, it's more of
42:33
an analysis piece, I guess, the real reason uh Apple's, you know, going to be
42:38
using Intel chips again. It's it it's all these things. It's it's the tariffs. It's the, you know, having two different
42:44
suppliers. So now, you know, maybe TSMC can't charge as much because, oh well,
42:49
you don't want to make this one. Well, we'll have them make it. You know, if if Intel can do it. Uh so I I I thought
42:55
that article was kind of fascinating. I mean the whole diversification of the supply chain bringing more manufacturing
43:01
in the United States and uh yeah just having just basically having more options. You don't want to be in a
43:07
situation like you're saying why would why would Apple want to be in a situation where only one company can do something especially if that company is
43:13
in Taiwan right now. Apple doesn't want to be in the position where only one country can do something which is why they're diversifying away
43:19
from China as well. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It's fascinating. Intel. I mean, they were uh
43:24
they ruled the ruse for so long. I mean, they were that So, so I I I don't know the story, but why did they lose their
43:31
their um Oh, I suppose, like you said, they they invested all that money in that advanced processor and then gave it up and now it's coming back to haunt
43:37
him. What a shame, you know, because I know that um Steve Jobs is a huge fan of Intel, wasn't he? He was a massive uh
43:42
fan of Andy Grove. And I think Grove acted as a mentor to um to Jobs in the
43:48
early days. They they got too comfortable at the top. They they stopped being competitive and it ended up biting them,
43:54
right? Well, he well he wrote a book, didn't he? On the paranoid survive. I mean, they were very
43:59
uh very very competitive. Very, very competitive. I guess I lost that. Let's move on. Let's talk about how to find
44:05
your music stats of Apple Music Replay. So, Apple Music Replay came out this week. God, mine is a total mess because
44:11
um kids pollution. Yeah, kid pollution. Right. Exactly. So,
44:17
uh mine was actually horrible. I was actually horrified. Whitney Houston. Oh my god. Um, Brendon Bars.
44:22
How much Adele did you listen to? Uh, I can't remember now, but there was there was there was almost nothing that
44:28
I personally listened to. Um, but yeah. So, why don't we, you know, this is a
44:33
huge thing. I don't really understand why everyone makes a huge deal about this every year, but everyone goes bananas about Apple Music Replay. How do
44:39
you find the How do you find your stats, Griffin? Well, I guess I'll give a uh quick little overview for our audience
44:44
here. If if if this isn't something that you've ever, you know, you see people, you know, sharing their Spotify uh
44:50
Spotify wrapped, that's what it's called, every single year. Uh you might not know if you're an Apple Music subscriber that you have this uh the
44:57
same capability, but uh Apple builds it in. It's called Apple Music uh Replay. Um it's it's right in the the the front
45:05
of the music app if you and on the home tab all through the month of December, but um of course you can find it there
45:10
all year round. It's just usually, you know, buried at the bottom of the screen, but you go there and you'll see
45:16
replay your music story is here. You tap on it. Um they they've changed it now in
45:21
iOS 26 to where you don't have to go to a web browser and sign in through the app and go through these, you know, 10
45:27
different steps. If you've updated to iOS 26, it's right there inside the music app. It's great. You have a uh a
45:33
highlight reel right at the top that'll play like a little it'll make sort of like a Snapchat storyesque
45:40
uh version that you can like it's literally the same Snapchat story user interface uh with the little playback
45:46
lines on top. It gives you all these different stats at each step. You know, I listened for 7,800 minutes. You tap
45:54
through. Oh, your favorite artists, your, you know, month by month. you
45:59
know, th this specific band was was really popular two months in a row. Why in May and June was it the They
46:04
Might Be Giants? I I got really into their John Henry album at that time. Uh you know, your
46:10
favorite song of the year, you know, all the different albums in rotation, your top albums, stuff like that, different
46:16
genres. And then they've got like a little thing where you can share at the end. Uh that's the highlight reel, but
46:21
then they have like detailed stats. But here's the where we start to get into a problem because uh this year I I was
46:29
really into uh listening to the Doctor Who soundtrack which is all written by Murray Gold.
46:36
Uh he's he's been writing the the Doctor Who soundtracks like since the revival in 2005 minus a few years in the middle.
46:43
But inexplicably the artist picture that Apple uses for Murray Gold is not any of his Doctor Who
46:49
work. They don't have an a picture of him at all. They use the album artwork
46:54
for apparently he wrote the soundtrack to Hoodwinkedked 2, an obscure animated
47:00
movie that nobody remembers and wasn't very good. A weird pick. Yeah. Intelligence failing again.
47:05
That's the image that they used for this artist. And so I Yeah, that's disappointing. You don't
47:11
want to share that with anyone. No, actually actually in my in my uh article that I wrote up on Cult of Ma, I
47:16
photoshopped it out because I didn't want people to think that I listened to the soundtrack to Hoodwinkedked 2. You
47:22
know, you go to his album, it's like Doctor Who, Doctor Who, and then like just the one album in the middle and that's the one they included.
47:27
Clear out. What the hell? Anyways, it's funny you should mention that, but I I got obsessed with the um the Doctor
47:33
Who theme for a little while and I was playing it over and over again. The Dia What was that? The Dia Derbaser. Which version of the
47:39
theme? The original. The original one. Sounds amazing. Oh, it does. Yeah. And they did a re they did a revamp,
47:45
didn't they, in about the 70s or 80s. That actually is also great, too. You've hit my wheelhouse here. So, in
47:51
1966, no, in 1967 with Patrick Troutton, they added more sound effects on it. And they they did that again with uh John
47:58
Perwe when I believe was uh you know, your the doctor of your childhood. They
48:03
added more sound effects. Then they added like the uh the the sting at the end like the right sort of in the end
48:08
credits version of it that became really popular and these for most of the Tom Baker era but then in 1981 they had it
48:15
completely rescored using a bunch of synthesizers. That one does that one sounds pretty good too doesn't is that a good one?
48:21
Yeah the the I think uh Howell that's the name of the uh the guy who arranged
48:26
that version of the theme and I really like the 1986 rework of that theme by Dominic Glenn. I'm actually not a big
48:32
fan of most of Murray Gold's Doctor Who themes. I think the the 1986 one might be my favorite.
48:38
Um because my memory of Doctor Who is mostly hiding behind the couch and my brother's terrified
48:43
of the the of the cybermen and all these other monsters are on that show. Uh good stuff. Good stuff.
48:50
I haven't watched it. What's your opinion of the latest doctor? Uh was he any good? Shady Got Well, he was really good. Um
48:57
not very good writing in my opinion the last few seasons. I I think Peter Kapali
49:02
the 12th Doctor is the absolute peak, you know, really one of the best seasons of television, series 10, you know,
49:10
Heavensent, maybe the best hour of television ever written of all time. I I rewatch it a lot. Peter Kapali is my
49:16
favorite. Shoot was pretty good, but um and I think that um most of his episodes were pretty good as well, but I think
49:22
that uh he he was let down by the uh sort of two-part season enders. both
49:30
both had the the ball absolutely dropped there. And I think that sort of, you know, because that's the last thing you see, that'll leave a bad taste in a lot
49:36
of people's mouths. But really, I think a lot of his episodes are pretty good as well. Okay. Anyways, Apple Music Replay.
49:42
Yeah. Uh yeah, you know, you've got your top artists, top songs, top albums. Um they
49:49
have a new feature called Replay All Time that is not just your annual
49:54
replay. It's like a playlist you can add to your library of your top songs of all time since you've been a subscriber to
50:00
Apple Music. Uh, which is a pretty neat feature. I don't know if Spotify has a comparable feature, but um, it's a playlist you can add. It's automatically
50:07
updated as your, uh, music taste changes over time as you, you know, listen to more tracks. But, uh, here we get into
50:14
my second beef with Apple Music Replay compared to Spotify. Uh, Apple Music is
50:19
unique in the sense that you can import your own songs. you because it's
50:25
born out of iTunes. A lot of the songs that I listen to are not registered with
50:30
Apple Music and a lot of the songs that I listen to that should be on Apple Music don't match up. I have a lot of
50:36
Beatles albums that I imported like, you know, 15 years ago, Drifless Pony Club albums that I downloaded and later
50:43
bought properly that are still not correctly matched in Apple Music. So all
50:49
of those albums are aren't given the right amount of representation in my library. The the Beatles are much
50:55
further down on the list than they really should be. You know, the Ohio University marching 110 music that I
51:01
listen to, oh my god, isn't represented at all because it doesn't know that exists. So it's not really representative of my library.
51:09
I see Adele is uh it Adele is popping up on your list. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Uh,
51:15
I don't know if I would recognize an Adele song if I heard it. She has a very unique style.
51:21
You surely would. Would I? Yeah, you must have heard. I mean, she's she's ubiquitous. Uh, course I can't
51:26
think of one now, but um where how why would I hear it
51:32
on the radio that nobody ever listens to? When was the last time you listened to the radio? Never. I I listen to the I listen to the radio,
51:38
the London radio all the time. I see. Yeah. So all those stats are kind
51:45
of cool, but uh it's always what I always find every year it's like oh here's you know one song and it's like
51:52
yeah I listened to it you know 30 times because I was trying to learn how to play it you know it's like it's not
51:57
really I don't really want to hear it anymore. Like this year uh I I played in this this musical and so uh what's it
52:06
called? The the guy who hated musicals or something like that. And so that's like in the top like for I get one of
52:13
those things like in in March you listen to this you know 900 times because I was just trying to learn all cram and learn
52:19
all this music but uh I don't know specific. Yeah. It's not really super uh
52:25
I don't think that's a problem that a lot of people share. Well, I mean, if you're except musician a musician, but uh I mean you scroll
52:34
down to like my my top songs on Apple Music Replay and you know towards the bottom of the list it's like you only listen to you know this song is in your
52:40
top 10 but it only registers as me listening to it like 14 times. I know for sure I listened to some of these
52:45
songs way more than that. I don't know why it's not counting. So, Apple Music Replay is kind of interesting, but not I
52:53
don't know how much stock I put into my results specifically because again, I also do a lot of listening on the Mac app. I don't know. And, you know, with
53:00
how buggy that is, I don't know if anything I listen to actually contributes to that whatsoever. So, who
53:05
knows? But I I'm curious what is your like, you know, top three artists, albums, songs.
53:11
Uh, this year, uh, I believe it was Steely Dan was the number one artist.
53:17
Mhm. Uh, and then I think that stupid guy who who didn't like musicals came up. I
53:23
don't I don't I can't actually remember. And of course, I can't look at my phone right now because I got to using it for
53:28
the webcam, but uh yeah, I don't know. Mine doesn't make any sense because like
53:34
I said, the problem is on my my account is attached to our kitchen home part and which the kids and my wife use. No, I've
53:42
set it up. I was I was just curious if Apple Music Replay is available on the Mac app and I
53:48
I clicked on it and then it opened a link in the web browser. So, this is your replay.
53:54
Yeah, man. Really great job there, Apple. I I constantly irritated by the the
54:00
Apple Music app and, you know, like trying to import songs and stuff like that. Just really hard.
54:07
Never makes sense. It's constantly like like you share a playlist. Oh, well, now we delete everything from the thing because, you know, you try to share it,
54:14
you know, it's the whole DRM aspect of it still drives me mad after all these years.
54:19
Mhm. You know what I also about the the replay thing? I mean, I didn't find the
54:24
presentation of the things to be particularly uh you know, goodlooking. It it looked
54:30
kind of like 1996. Did you think it looked good? It just looked Oh, Alan Dy Alan Dy does it again.
54:37
He probably had his fingers all over this. Even if you just look at the very first thing on there, it says, "Replay
54:43
your music." Okay. Well, the I mean, this is pretty specific, but the fonts are like so close in size if they're not
54:49
exact. It It looks like a sentence. Replay your music. Why not make that word replay bigger?
54:54
It's laid out replay all caps, one line, your capitalized, one line, and then music stories here like lowercase. It it
55:01
it's very strange. It doesn't read as one continuous sentence. Yeah, I did not find it to be an overwhelmingly uh great experience. I
55:09
mean, maybe they had their C team on it this year or something. That sort of like airbrushed, but you know, grainy visual look is is very in
55:16
vogue right now. It's it's it's kind of a trendy thing, but you know, it's all supposed to go in with like, you know, you know, a tall narrow Sarah font,
55:23
which Apple is allergic to. So, they're not really quite committing to the bit. Listen to you nitpickers. I thought it
55:29
was look quite nice. We sweat the details. We sweat the details, right? I thought, "Oh, it's pretty
55:35
good." Where do I look at all those animations? I Oh, they look really good. Maybe Alan I um you know got should be
55:41
it's getting disparaged. I'm curious if this happens to you. So I do this just fairly frequently. I say to
55:46
Apple Music, hey play music by XYZ and
55:52
sometimes it'll play like you know hours and hours of it, right? Other times it'll play like only three songs and it
55:58
starts switching to some other artist that's not even related. I'm like what is going on? What how can those two
56:03
things happen? I mean cuz obviously there's more than three songs by any band that has an album on Apple Music.
56:10
So why will with some artists it'll continuously play that just those artists and in other instances it it
56:17
goes rogue and just starts playing you know John Melanchamp or the Clash or something. It's like I didn't ask for
56:22
that. Isn't that what is that what it's supposed to do? you know, ba you do it based on so it it plays their influences
56:29
and contemporaries and it kind of gives you that I mean I know they have that you know
56:35
radio based on a an artist or whatever you know play Steelely Dan radio that
56:41
there you're asking for it to you know Apple also has I think for every major artist like a playlist of like their
56:47
best work some of those will be like you know hours and hours long I think if you ask the voice assistant to play their
56:53
music that's where it should draw from but clearly it isn't doing that. It It loads up, you know, three top hits and then it goes to their regular infinite
57:00
play similar music thing and then it's just choosing stuff clearly like way outside of their wheelhouse.
57:06
I just can't figure out why that happens. I mean, so many things confuse me.
57:12
There's no I I I hate it when you when you you know, I became obsessed with the small faces um uh that song 10 soldiers.
57:20
So, I was playing it over and over again and uh over and over again. And you know what it's like when you get obsessed
57:25
with a song and you just play it all the time. Absolutely. And then I and then it started by playing the live version which is awful.
57:31
It was just abs horrible. And this is a song that I must have played about 50 times um in short succession. And then
57:40
all of a sudden it's like nope, we're not going to play that version. And my wife was always complaining about that too. You know, she asked for a specific
57:46
song by a specific artist and then it gives you a cover by some other artist or whatever. Um,
57:52
Lander, I see on your Apple Music profile that you're listening to Dr. Seuss's The Grinch, original motion
57:57
picture soundtrack. Oh my god. H
58:02
I I have not honestly listened to that. How does that show up? I I'm looking at your Apple Music
58:08
profile. You have you have two playlists, Apple Watch Music and Reggae. What? How do you see it?
58:14
If you go to the home tab of the music app and then you tap on your icon on the top, that'll take you to your profile.
58:20
Well, how do you see mine? Is it public? Because I'm friends with you on on Apple Music. I'm following you and you have
58:26
your profile public. Oh, you're being stalked. Yeah. Yeah. You actually have quite a quite a lot of followers.
58:32
Do I? Yeah. Oh my god. Simply the best. Tina Turner,
58:38
David Bowie, you know, the Bengals Essentials, BBC Radio 1, and then uh Dr. Seuss is the Grinch,
58:46
the Illumination Entertainment version. Well, that's because um I I I was
58:52
ranting about my wife to my wife about something this morning and so she said to put me to quieten me down, she
58:58
ordered the HomePod to play to play the Grinch that I'm the Grinch, right? So,
59:05
uh links to all of our Apple Music profiles will be in the podcast description. Great news.
59:12
Oh, wow. I didn't even know you could do this. I better clean this up.
59:17
Yeah, the my my my list was like uh it doesn't make any sense. The number one song, the number one artist of the Pointer Sisters and then followed by the
59:24
KF with with with with um I've lost it now, but it was had the KF. I can't remember
59:30
playing any I played one KF song. I think it's all right. That the TARDIS one I think earlier this year.
59:35
What is this doctor? Oh my god. It's the greatest television of all time. That's the deal with it. Wow. It's I'm having flashbacks to when
59:44
I worked at Wired and I had to read all these stories about Doctor Who and I just why do so I try actually I tried I
59:52
tried to to like the show. I just I could never do it. All right, let's talk
59:57
about uh this week's question, which comes from uh Brad via email. And Brad
1:00:03
says, "I really liked your piece on Cultton Mac concerning customizing Mac folder icons, which is already something
1:00:09
I played around with. After hearing you're a graphic designer, I wonder if a quirk that sent off my OCD bothers you
1:00:15
as well. Are there any similar customization options for the generic and seemingly random Safari bookmarked
1:00:22
favorites icons? These drive me nuts. I played around with GitHub software such as Faveman,
1:00:29
but it's so overly complicated and unreliable. Thoughts?
1:00:34
So, uh, he's not terribly specific here, but I I presume he's referring to the, uh, favicons in the bookmarks bar. The
1:00:41
the bookmarks bar, which you can turn on, adds a bunch of row of bookmarks underneath the, uh, sort of between the,
1:00:47
uh, address bar and the tabs and all that and the rest of the browser interface. Um, I used to use the
1:00:52
bookmarks bar, but it must have been around I think Mac OS 10 Yoseite when they they did the first major Johnny
1:00:59
I've redesigned of Mac OS. It uh I I've sort of adopted the philosophy of I want to make the browser as minimal as
1:01:05
possible. Um, like I see a lot of screenshots of other Mac users and they've Safari toolbar is just filled
1:01:11
with like the the buttons from every single extension that they've ever installed on Safari. As soon as I add a
1:01:16
new Safari extension, I customize the toolbar and I take it out cuz I just find it annoying. Like, no, I don't need a vinegar button to be there for every
1:01:24
page that I that I visit. Honestly, sometimes I go through fits where I I even take off the back forward buttons
1:01:31
and I just rely on like the the swiping gestures. Oh my god. I haven't customized my Safari toolbar since well I think like like when they
1:01:38
rolled it out. But actually, I did do that too. I I don't need the new tab button to be
1:01:43
there. I just hit command T. I don't need the tab overview button there cuz even if I wanted to do that, I could do like the swipe gesture on the trackpad.
1:01:50
Uh so that is to say that I don't use the bookmarks bar and so I haven't run
1:01:55
across this particular problem. If this afflicted me because a lot of websites they they don't have um really nice high
1:02:03
resolution favicons to make like beautiful little pictures in the way that Apple wants you to. Um, if this was
1:02:10
a problem I had, what I my first instinct uh as a solution would be to design my
1:02:18
own favicon, set up a URL on my website, and then have it redirect to the website
1:02:24
that I want. Oh my god. So that uh and then I add that bookmark to Safari so that maybe it would pull my
1:02:31
version of the icon from my website and then I click on it and then it takes me that the web to the website I actually want to go to. So if if you happen to
1:02:38
own your own website, maybe somebody could spin this up as like a uh as like a web service that people could could use or subscribe to.
1:02:45
So all of this was like no, there is no really easy way to do this.
1:02:50
No, it is if you if you're you own your own website and uh you you're so inclined, but uh I I haven't tested that
1:02:57
myself. Maybe it'll work. Brad, there's your answer. I'm pretty thanks. You know, I'm pretty sure you're very grateful for us weighing in there.
1:03:04
provide you with a solution. Here's a weekend project. Maybe the listeners know, but I'll bet
1:03:10
the listeners know better than we do that some way to get around this. So, if anyone knows how to do this, please send us a note. Um, and in fact, let's wrap
1:03:17
it up right there. That's I think is enough of this. That's all the cult we have for you this week. Um, if you want
1:03:24
to uh follow along, uh, Lewis is on Twitter at Lewis Wallace. Griffin's on Macedon Griffin Jones. And I write the
1:03:30
cult newsletter every day, which is at newsletters.cult.com. calltomind.com. So, please subscribe to that. It's
1:03:36
actually a good newsletter. Uh so, send us a text link. Uh I mean, good goodness gracious me. Send us a text using the
1:03:43
link at the top of the show notes or in the YouTube comments and ask us a question of the show. Also, you know, give us any uh advice about um book
1:03:50
safari bookmarks. So, that's been the codecast. Thanks very much for listening. We'll see you all next time.
1:03:55
Have a bloody fantastic weekend. Goodbye. [Music]
1:04:02
All right. Great. Does anyone Sorry. Did I wrap it up too fast there? The I I took some things out cuz it seems to
1:04:08
uh stumble you and trip you up every time. Well, the um Yeah, I can't, you know, I
1:04:14
have a detail. I can't tell if that changed or not. I can't have no recollection whatsoever. New episodes of the cast come out every
1:04:20
Thursday night. People already know that. You know, it just comes out when it comes out every week. You know, we don't need to say it,
1:04:26
right? We've been saying this stuff for years. Um All right, cool. So yeah, look at the
1:04:33
time. [Music] That was twoing hours.
1:04:38
My eyes are still blurry. Yeah, I'm feeling a bit weird.
1:04:46
It's the uh it's the hypothermia. Oh god. Day in 1991 when Apple debuted
1:04:53
the click. Wait a minute. What did you say? That what was the
1:04:58
typo? the date that you mentioned in the newsletter. I think it was in the newsletter a few
1:05:03
days ago. It was about the Apple 3 and you said 1991 instead of 1981. Did not go and fix that immediately.
1:05:12
[Music]
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