Mark Gurman: iPhone Duo has a real manufacturing defect, Apple shakes up M&A leadership to get more aggressive

Speaker 2: here here with us live in the TVP at Ultradome. Welcome back. Thank so much for coming on, Bob. Dude. Great to see you. Grab that controller. I'll grab mine. Have you been playing the new Call of Duty? Are you gaming? No. I I game when I have a chance. Okay. When I have time. There's a lot of work to be done with all the Apple moves.... To be done. They've got

Speaker 9: MacBook Pro this morning. Yes. MacBook Pro yesterday morning. IPad mini Monday morning. Yes.

Speaker 2: What's coming tomorrow? What's coming tomorrow? I don't know. We're cool. I don't know. Maybe more cracked iPhone Duos. Who knows? Well, how how bad is this? I I saw, like, five iPhone Duos today. None of them were cracked. Seems like a little bit like people are trying to crack them.

Speaker 10: Okay. Let's take a step... How

Speaker 1: do you rate the durability test? Let's take a step back. It's like I did everything I I did everything I possibly could to destroy this item. Let's take a step back. No. You

Speaker 9: guys sound like you're owned by Apple right now. Okay? Not. Am not. Not. I not open AI. Am I I not not I I AI.

Speaker 1: Anyways. I like... I I just wanna be really clear. John John is a steel man. He can steel man everything. I like the Apple Vision Pro. Okay? That's insane. Okay. Let's... I'm a big... I'm a big... I'm I'm big... Alright.

Speaker 9: It's my turn. There are people who have done iPhone Duo teardowns. Yep. People have purposely broken their iPhone Duos Yep. Pouring a bag of sand on it Sure. Taking to the beach, dipping it in Diet Coke, whatever. Mhmm. Right? Then there are people who've used their iPhone Duo as normal. And they have run into this issue where the display cracks. The way it works, they're using the phone, and they're opening it, it feels a little tight. And then they keep going, and then boom, there's a big crack. And the cause of this is a manufacturing defect related to one of the components in the hinge where there's this one bar in the hinge that gets stuck under the display and then just punctures the screen and creates that crack. Okay. Now Apple has come out and said a small number of people have had this issue. Mhmm. But for Apple, you know, a small number, that could be tens of thousands of units. We don't know exactly how many units it is. Okay. But there are people facing this issue. This first started cropping up on Twitter Mhmm. Then on Reddit Mhmm. And some of the Apple news forums over the weekend, starting when this came out on Friday. I saw this and I immediately started investigating. I can't do a story based off of people just saying that this happened. Yeah. So what I did is I put a tweet out Sunday night. You guys may have seen it. I said, if anyone has had this iPhone crack issue, shoot me a note. I wake up Monday morning. My inbox is filled with people sending in pictures, videos, stories, proof of receipts, correspondence with Apple support Lots of Genius Bar and authorized reseller paperwork. And so I did a story. Eighteen minutes after I put my story out, Apple finally responded. Okay. Right? They didn't respond until then. I think they know what's up. Feet to the fire. I think they know Feet to the fire. Think they know who people listen to in a post.... Force to abort you. Stand by. So, yeah. It's it's a real issue. And what's bothered me multiple journalists is... On the horizon. Stand by. That's what do. It's not... Feel like I'm at Universal Studios, right, like going through Jurassic Park. There's influencers coming out and making these comments, like, oh, yeah. My iPhone's fine because I haven't purposely broken it. Like, Hi Justine said this. Mhmm. It's completely ridiculous. It almost feels like this is something that Apple wants to say. Mhmm. Like, you're folding it wrong. K? Yeah. But they look really crappy for saying it. Okay. And they're even coming on saying, you know, this is a real issue. You can go to AppleCare and get it Yeah. But here's the problem. You buy this phone. You wait in line twelve hours for it. Yep. You have this crack issue. You go back to the Apple... Hard for me to relate to this. It's on. Right? You go back you go back to the Apple Store you bought it from. Yeah. You're SOL. We have no inventory. Of course. Of course. Of You can't get a report. And these are the most diehard fans because they waited a lot. These are the most diehard fans. So they're pissed off. Okay. In fact, one of my good friends, he hasn't... He bought an iPhone Duo. Mhmm. And his device didn't have the screen crack problem, but it has a broken camera. So from day one Okay. The diagnostic message popped up and said, you replaced the camera on your iPhone Duo with a Put it on him? With a foreign part, with a fake iPhone camera part. And I love my friend. He has no idea how to replace a camera with an iPhone Duo. Okay? So I couldn't vouch for that. He didn't do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This... You open the camera, it just shows black. And so he goes back to the Apple store to try to get it replaced. They have no inventory. Of course. Okay? Of course. And then they tell him, we'll reserve an iPhone Duo for you at the Apple Store, and we'll call you when it comes in. And they've gotten inventory since. There's like these online trackers. You think they've ever called them? Oh, I told him the other day. I'm like, listen, Joe. They're never gonna call you. Yeah. Okay? You're gonna have to just return this thing and buy it on your own. So the process of fixing these issues and getting this resolved for people from the beginning has just been a dumpster fire. Yeah. But they're working through the quirks and hopefully this gets resolved. At least I'm happy that I've had no issues. Yeah. I love the iPhone Duo. I'll tell you that right now. I have Oh, yeah. Okay. This thing this thing is is is... What is that? Is it... Did you have a case on there? What's that matte texture? This is the... Yeah. This is the Apple Duo case. Where's the camera? That's really... You know, we don't wanna do free advertising for that. But anyways, I bought the Folio... You look like you're owned by Apple. Well, yeah. Sure. I got the the Folio the Folio case initially. Okay. Piece of crap. Okay. K? It's a... Wait. And and that's the official Apple case? Official Apple... And what are you on now? It's a different... I'm on the official Apple standard case. Oh, okay. So if you're gonna get the official Apple case, don't get the folio. Okay. The problem is there's so many features. Why do you think you need a case? These things are so durable. Fair point. Fair point. Pretty loose, dude. I bet you won't throw it across the studio right now in front of everyone on live.

Speaker 2: Challenge accepted, dude. I bet you won't do it. You're do it. You're the softest thrower. Yeah. Frisbee. Alright. Right onto the carpet. Right onto the carpet.... Bang for the cracks. Under the carpet. No. No. Don't do it. Don't do it. Oh, did it make it? Believe it. I think it did. I think it survived. It's... It survived. That was a good throw. Eric. You didn't... Oh, no. Come on. What are you guys doing? Tyler, why would you throw his phone like that? Okay. So We're... It's It's good. No no cracks? Yeah. No cracks. Wow. You're good. Yeah. Good. I mean, that is a machine... That that is a product that's been That is fantastic. Going strong for twenty years. Yeah. You know? See?

Speaker 9: Who throws it? I can't I can't believe you can't believe you did that. I'm not doing that with my duo. Anyways, the duo have so many amazing features that use both displays Sure. Such as taking a FaceTime and showing the person on their side. But that flap on the folio, it just covers that up and makes it pretty, you know, cumbersome to use. Okay. Okay. And so I've had great experience with the cheaper Sure. $80 Apple stand case. If get a duo, I highly recommend that. Cool. I also saw Zag has a nice case too. Yeah.

Speaker 1: It's like a clear case with a... What has been your experience on the apps properly getting the iPhone Duo update? Well, yeah. That that was my thing. That was my thing. How did Apple allow this phone to launch without all the most popular apps being, like, at least moderately

Speaker 9: optimized. Well, I'm long enough... I'm around long enough to know you guys are too. This happens every time there's a form factor change. They went from the three GS to the four. Yep. And it's four. This is the biggest But why? Form factor Can't they just call all the developers and say, here's the prompt that you put into your AI agent update it? Apparently, that's funny. Apparently, the SDK for the iPhone two didn't come out until, a week or two before the phone went on sale. Okay. So this was, you know, a pretty tight Okay. So even if you're even if you're best friends with Apple, like, you're Disney plus developer or something and you're close. Don't I know if Disney's a plus, but, like They were updated from day one. But how long have we had Was it, like, Instagram and YouTube? Day one, YouTube, day one. It's been less than a week. Okay. The big stuff's the big stuff's good. I can count on one hand. The number of apps that feel weird? That feel weird at this point. And so the reviews missed the mark Okay. On the iPhone Duo, I would say. Jump the jump They jumped the gun. Yeah. Things are nonissue because you just wait a a week and it's all refreshed. It's pretty much refreshed. It can't be that hard. The reviews focused on a few things. The reviews focused on camera quality, the reviews focused on touch ID, and the reviews focused on the app issues. Mhmm. The app issue is BS. It doesn't exist. Yep. The cameras are not as bad as people seem to think. Mhmm. I've done a lot of FaceTimes on the interior camera, and it's perfectly useful for the for the... For that use case. Yeah. Touch ID has been a complete nonissue for me. Okay. You can enroll up to five fingers, and so I've done multiple fingers twice. Sure. I have... Oh, yeah. Doing twice. Wait. You did there? Yeah. I did there. Oh, you got team. Just it on the side. And so for me, I'm already used to Touch ID after less than a week. Sure. It's a complete nonissue. Okay. The real problem with the iPhone Duo Mhmm. Is there are some software quirks that unfortunately made it through version one point o, and hopefully, they fix these Mhmm. With a software update relatively soon. Unfortunately, the the cadence of software updates is so slow for Apple compared to what you see in the AI world that they need to shake that up. Does it have Apple intelligence yet? Like, can you ask me Yeah. Has... Well, you call it Apple intelligence. I call it... It's an Apple not so intelligent, but Still? You know. I thought they were Gemini in there. I I I like the Gemini model. Like, I ask you the question, like, tell me the history of the Roman Empire, like, Gemini is gonna give me, like, a a essay about that. It's gonna be written clearly. It works. But the damage has been done on the Siri brand. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Then most people are probably just gonna go to Chet GPT or the Gemini app. No. They honestly... They they... The damage has been done to Siri. It's been done to Apple Intelligence. They need they need a new... I don't know why they didn't use Siri AI as a as a sort of fork in the road moment to rebrand their voice assistant to something new. Mhmm. I thought it was really weird. They just tacked AI onto the Siri name. Obviously, Siri is in popular culture, but not for a good way. Yeah. No. It's the punch line. The thing that the reviews missed on the iPhone Duo are the software quirk. So for instance, there's no picture in picture FaceTime when you have the thing opened. Oh. Which means, like, I'm... I wanna be using two apps at once and then I want a box in the corner with the FaceTime of the person I'm videoconferencing. Oh, you can do that on the normal phone. You could do that on the normal phone. Interesting. That's awesome. I believe you can do on the outer screen on this guy. Okay. But for some reason, it's not working on the inner screen right now. Hopefully, it's exactly... Exactly what what you wanna be doing. Well, the other thing... I'm FaceTime, Jordy, I wanna be scrolling reels. Yeah. There you go. Exactly. And then the other thing I do all the time is I'm doing multiple things, and then I get a text come in. Yeah. Maybe it's from you. And I wanna just reply really quickly, because you do pull down the notification. I think that's a great feature. Cool. Has not worked for me on the inner screen. And so they need to fix that bug too. So once they get those bugs resolved, I think they're in good shape. I love to normal do thing now though for Apple. I guess. I would never I would never use a non foldable iPhone at this point. I'm Really? Completely sold on the bigger screen. Okay. I think it's absolutely home run products. And walk me through, like, when are you using the... Yeah. That's that's huge.

Speaker 2: Are you using the outer screen versus the inner screen?

Speaker 9: When am said I probably need a new phone. Yeah. Then I'm not using the outer screen versus the inner screen for quick responses Yeah. Quick interactions, phone calls, what have you. But for the most most of the time, 75% of the time, I'm I'm using the inner screen. Okay. I also think the outer screen is not as bad as some have let on. Sure. I think it's perfectly useful, perfectly usable. And this is coming from someone who would never use an iPhone mini. I think it's totally fine. Interesting. I like the thing. I really do. Okay. But the software quirks need to be fixed, and this hardware issue with the cracked display is a real thing. Yeah. And it's pure gaslighting that I've seen from some trying to blame consumers who spent $2 on this thing Yeah. Who take care of their stuff and blaming them.

Speaker 2: Yeah. It's crazy. So you believe you got lucky. Always right, but I I think sometimes it cuts you. So so you basically believe you're lucky. You're in the 90% or 99% that didn't get the defective Probably 99.9%. Yeah. Realistically. And so you you don't think yours will ever break no matter how, as long as you use it normally. So what we've seen Yeah. And what Apple has also said Yeah. Is that if you're gonna have the issue, it's gonna happen pretty damn quick. Happen quickly. Okay. So I think is a manufacturing Yeah. I think I'm I think I'm in the I'm the clear. I think I'm in the clear. That's great. What about MacBook

Speaker 9: screens? Last time you were here in person, you made fun of me because I had the MacBook Air and Jordan the Pro. Yeah. You said that my screen was not good, and, you know, Jordy picked the right one. And I Well, now both of you have the wrong one. I know. So talk us through what Prolet. What actually happened. Okay. So this morning, they announced the new MacBook Pro. Yeah. And when exactly as we've talked about, exactly as I've expected for the last four years, It's the same as this guy. Yeah. It's a bit lighter. So the one you got there is 4.7 pounds. The new one looks identical, but they reworked the internal, so now it's four pounds. Okay. That's

Speaker 1: actually a pretty significant saving. Like, a 100%. Yeah. That's great. It it feels much lighter. Cool. You know, I've carried it. It feels much lighter. Wait. And and and you were at the event this morning? No. You don't you don't No. They don't really want you around there? I don't know. That's...

Speaker 2: You know, you should send them a request for comment and ask them. Yeah. You know you know, we have a we have a really good Hollywood makeup team. So maybe next time I get the invite, you dress up as me. We'll... We we we will bring in three d scanners. I need to wear, like, shoes with, like, really thick... Yeah, lifts. Maybe stilts. You've got probably, what, three inches on me? So...

Speaker 9: Yeah. I mean... You're six eight? I'm six eight. So... Okay. You've got eight inches on me then. Well

Speaker 1: Yeah. That's fixable. Yeah. That's fixable. You know, the Lakers You might might have to do the limb lengthening surgery to really pull this off. What was that movie? No. Here's what we here's what we do. Here's what we do. We have to we have to all go, and then we'll do a reenactment where I... Oh, like Nathan Fielder? You'll do Turnus. Okay.

Speaker 9: Great. With the full Hollywood makeup. So we'll do a full reenactment here for you. You'll get to be in the audience Yes. Like you're at... It'll feel like you're actually there. Yeah. And we can just we can just do repetitions like that until will be looking out from the stage and he'll be like, what? What's going on? Did you see the Steve Kerr thing No. The other day on Twitter? Did you guys see this? Steve Kerr's coaching the game and all of a sudden he has his doppelganger in the audience. Oh, yeah. What's going on? I'm sure people watching this saw that. That's funny. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2: So

Speaker 9: touchscreen, OLED, which one's a bigger deal? Oh, yeah. Okay. So looks the same, lighter Yep. Couple centimeters thinner. Yep. And then it has three new features, touch, OLED, and the dynamic island. Oh, yeah. Uses the same m five Pro and m five Max chips from the March ones as as expected. There'll be new m seven Pro and m seven Max versions at the tail end of next year. We're looking forward to those as upgrade if you're on an older Yeah. It's a good upgrade. I got one. Yeah. I'm still on an m one max from '20 So that's a big jump. '21. Yeah. Yeah. But I got the base version. I got the m five pro version. I'm not doing hardcore Local inference. Yeah. Well, I am, but not enough local inference that I need a $14,600 version, which is the top end now. 18,000. Yeah. 16 terabytes. 6,000,

Speaker 2: but I wasn't Oh, you ordered one? No. Not yet. But I was just I was just in the spec here, like, what would I actually do? Yeah. What are you getting? Are you gonna get the m five max? Well, here's what's crazy. Take take

Speaker 1: hit him Apple with the bra when he saw the pricing page. So if you want the RAM... So it has 96 gigs of RAM included.

Speaker 2: On which one? On this one. He specced it higher. It starts with like... No. I'm saying... But but wait wait. So 256

Speaker 1: is another $3,600. Oh, you've been way up. 512 is 13,000

Speaker 9: Wait. Are you on the MacBook Pro or the Mac Studio? That's that's gotta be the Oh, this is the Studio? That's gotta be the Studio. Okay. Okay. There's no way... Yeah. Was five... Half a terabyte Yeah. You can't get half a terabyte on MacBook Pro. I think it tops out a $100,100 and But either way, so it's now $14 if you want. $14

Speaker 2: is pretty high. Yeah.

Speaker 9: Interesting. Put out the new Mac Studio today. Yeah. It was, like, north of $22

Speaker 2: Wow. With all the I mean, some people love that for Yeah. Going for instance. Nobody needs it. I'll be honest with you. There's literally nothing you need it It's just marketing. And it's a lot of tokens on a plan with a with a Frontier lab. It's a lot of insights. Sometimes you wanna drive a Ferrari to the grocery store. Sometimes you wanna drive a Ferrari to the... I mean, you did go to Air One today, so maybe you did. Yeah. So if I upgrade, it would not be because of the performance. It would be... Because I did get the MacBook Pro on your recommendation. In March? In March. I recommended that? I think so. There's no way I would have. You just made fun of me for having the Air, which has the LCD screen. I live... I probably...... LED screen. Now I gotta upgrade to the OLED screen. Can we pull up the tape? I must have said something like wait six months and get the touch one. You probably did. Yeah. Anyway. There's no way I didn't. I have one of those at home. I would not upgrade just for the touch.

Speaker 9: Interesting. Well, I think it's...... Sell me on the touch. Oh, I I have no... I'm not gonna sell you on the touch Okay. Because I think that it's going to be little used in the end. Yes. I think people are used to using their Macs with the keyboard and trackpad. Yeah. However, we're in a new generation. Okay. Everyone's growing up now with touch screens. Okay. Had to do it. They had no choice. Sure. It is table stakes. It is spec sheet one zero one. It is expected. They had to do this. Okay. But there's nothing innovative about it. It's just pinch to zoom Yeah. Yeah. Rotate, swipe, etcetera. There's nothing new about it. Spent twenty years gaslighting people about not needing touch screens Yeah. And then they did it. Yeah. And they did nothing to solve the ergonomics problem that they are the ones said that existed. Wait. Yeah. Which is Yeah. Know, you're Let's put it... Let's let's see it. Put your hand on the screen. No. This is what I've this is what I've been testing. I touched it today. Well, how does your forearm feel? Feels better. Oh, yeah. It's a forearm. It's a good workout. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And you're a fit guy. That's a feature for me. Yeah. Yeah. For a lot of people that might be You're gonna be able to see people with the... If they have a huge Popeye style forearm

Speaker 2: Yeah. Then you'll know that's a touch screen. That's a touch screen. You'll be a badge of honor in touch. Badge of honor. Well, I'm looking forward to taking it for a spin. I got the glossy. Okay? So I like the nano matte texture on the iPhone Duo, but I went with the glossy because because I think glossy is better for OLED overall. Yeah. So OLED is a bigger selling point for me because I got an OLED TV. I think it looks great. Yeah. And I could see the OLED being more vibrant. Yeah. And so while I don't think I will be touching it, in fact, I think I will try not to touch my screen ever because I don't want fingerprints

Speaker 9: all over it. I want it to be clean. I think the OLED will look better. So that's the selling point. Yeah. The OLED is the selling point. And the dynamic island is pretty nifty. You know, we're all used to it on our phones and whatnot. When is it gonna finally come to the iPad? You know, I would imagine Well, that is interesting that it's Yeah. Right? Yeah. Please.

Speaker 1: Samsung has been in the news not for the best reason. What did I miss? Smart TV, spy on Smart TV is like, you know, like basically like the most insane, allegedly, the most insane piece of spyware. Is this recent? Because I know LG had this issue recently. Yeah. Yeah. It is... Feels like like I know... Smart TVs. I've I've asked you this like a million times, but like... And I now want a privacy focused TV. And it feels like Apple's the company to do that. But they're still not gonna do it. They're gonna do a home view, which no one ever asked for or needed.

Speaker 9: Has no real purpose. I ordered two. You did?

Speaker 2: Have you gone all in on the ecosystem?

Speaker 1: No. I've not. No. But but my my criticism is like, I would love if Apple was like, we're making a product Yeah. That is replaces all of the technology in your home. It actually is

Speaker 9: Apple. It's gonna do everything from like light switches to shades to security cameras. Well, they have that with HomeKit and they've got the new home... Apple Home collection which is basically a starter kit. You've got the cameras, all the types of cameras you need. LG with, like, the Schneider version. But why are they doing it with LG? That... That's my... That's like... Who would who would... Who would Schneider Electric? Well, I think people... Why not? They make hardware. I think he's preferred... They make cameras. They do it. You're preferring Apple doesn't. Yeah. These these systems are are... One of the big gates to getting people into HomeKit is the cost of the accessories. And if Apple starts coming out with this stuff and self branding it, they're going to be at a very high price point, and they're not gonna be able to get market penetration. You have someone over and they're like feeling like the Apple doorknob that you got. Well, there'll be an Apple camera. There'll be an Apple in home security camera sensor. I don't know if they'll call it a camera, but that's coming. But, you know, working with the third party was the way to do it. LG is a weird weird partner, though. It's just completely random. Like, if you were to list a 100 companies, I would not That's what I'm saying. Like Well, all the other ones are bought. As somebody You can't do Ring. That's Amazon. They can't do Nest. That's Google. Who else would you know about? But but but to me, Apple is at a point where they can no longer innovate.

Speaker 1: So why not just create,

Speaker 9: like, great commodities across the entire... What do you think of Apple's AI efforts?

Speaker 1: I mean, I don't... Like, it's been it's been talked about enough on this show, and I believe over time they can make a great experience. I thought the Google partnership was just in that they've worked together on the browser before, Safari, routing to Google search. It makes sense to set up their... I thought the pain... The most painful thing is, like, right as they're getting around to creating, a competent chatbot, like agents and, like, Instinct came around and Muse came around and now that's what consumers want. Muse is really good. Yeah. And so they... And so... And when will they have that? The funny thing is they're not they're not seeing Muse and being like, oh, this is an exciting new paradigm. They're like, sigh of relief, you know, sigh, like, let me smoke a cigarette because, like, this is gonna take us another three years kind of thing. The problem is is that the... But but but back to my point, it's like, I'd be I'd be happier if Apple was just committed to, like, we make we make hardware, we're gonna make the best version of everything in every category. The TV... Like, I'm sitting here as, like, sort of disappointed as somebody who grew up as an Apple fanboy, who spent my whole childhood in the Mac ecosystem, who would work, like, would would would... Starting when I was, like, probably 12, 13, would be like working my butt off so that I could save up and buy like the best version of every Apple product. And now, I no longer think of them as an innovator, but I think of them as somebody who will make the best version of the home security camera, who will make the best version of like an app that lets me like unlock my gate when I'm having a friend over. Yeah. Right? So realistically, you should be able to go to Dot or Muse or Duet or whatever AI agent is actually great and say,

Speaker 2: how many deer have walked in my backyard in the last month? And it can go and pull the data from Apple's camera or or or adjust the screen time limits on my Apple TV. But but the funny the funny thing about the the home view is, like, I...

Speaker 1: My house, I inherited the smart home system. And I... As I'm getting it set up, it's like the app has, like, 10 reviews in the in the app store. And I'm like... Is it iPhone Duo compatible? Probably not. Probably not. Yeah. And I'm not even gonna say it because it's like a small company that makes this like operating system. But but in looking into what the actual cost of the entire system and all the hardware in the home Mhmm. Which again is a tough thing to sell because you have to sell it in when the home is being built and it's like not easy. But like it would cost me like 6 figures to remove all of it from the house. Yeah. Still worth it. It's still worth it. And and and I'm stuck with this software that's, like, horrible. It's not reliable. And I actually have to use it every single day. Just get a new house. Yeah. Basically. Or no. I'm almost I'm almost to the point of, like, just, like, I guess I got a vibe code, my own smart home operating system. That's funny. It's funny. I saw the home view and I was like, I get that the product is not

Speaker 2: super exciting. Like, it's kinda just an iPad on the wall. I don't really want the one that moves around, but I I could see... Sell me this home view. Sell me could see those not my job. But but I would go.

Speaker 9: I like the idea. Well, I like it for FaceTime. Okay. I like it for FaceTime. Did you get the mobile one? That one doesn't exist yet. Oh, it doesn't exist? Yeah. That'll be next year or the year after. Yeah. That'll be the higher So... That'll be the higher end one. That's like the AI if I Okay. Stupid price version. Oh, I didn't... That one's sort of like the the sort of the the holy grail version. But Okay. Apple's had a big year. Yeah. The MacBook Neo, the iPhone Duo, the Touch MacBook Pro, Obviously, the the the new Apple Watches and AirPods and iPhone eighteens were quite minor, but there were some good stuff. Next year, there'll be some pretty intriguing things too. The smart glasses are the big things for next year. How competitive are those gonna be with the Meta VR glasses, which it show you how get them into gear? Well, there's no new there's no new Apple XR products. So you could say, like, it's speakers you can wear. It's AirPods in a glasses form. It's AirPods for your face. Speakers you can wear. Finally. It's AirPods for your face --... Your with AI. AI communication. AI cameras. You can talk into... Oh, it has cameras too. Okay. Oh, yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. It's a competitive product to the Meta Glasses. Yeah. The big question is do you want an Apple designed glasses or do you want Ray Bans? Ray Bans. Right? Who would you trust with design for glasses? The company that's doing it for the first time or the company that's done it for... I don't know. How many years has Ray Ban been around? Long time. Well Long time. Decades. Yeah. Decades. I'm riding with Luxottica. Luxottica. That was super smart on many... Meta's part to partner with Luxottica because nobody would buy Meta branded glasses.

Speaker 2: No way. Right? I mean, we ran that experiment with Snap.

Speaker 9: Well, sure. But I don't think the Snap issues were because of the Snap brand. I I quite frankly think the Snap brand is a is a trusted brand, whereas the Meta brand in some cases is not trusted. Oh, sure. Sure. Sure. I was just thinking of, like, those original camera glasses from Snap. Oh, everyone wanted those. Yeah. But they didn't actually sell... You didn't wait in line for those as a kid in college? They didn't sell that well because I think that they looked good, like they were designed well, but they just weren't an iconic silhouette, like... What do... What do... What does Apple think about, like, wired hair... AirPods or wired headphones becoming, like, the new thing? I don't think they're gonna go backwards on that. I really don't. I mean, I they're gonna go backwards

Speaker 1: but they still sell the product. What are they, 19? Yeah. It's it's amazing deal when you're looking for me. I have been riding with Wired for years now

Speaker 9: and I still buy them from Apple, but I like that for the price of one pair of AirPods, I can buy like, you know, five or six. Well, you know what's funny is they probably haven't manufactured them for years. Right? They probably had, like, a bunch sitting in a warehouse. And then, like, all of sudden we have to, you know, figure out, where are we building those? How do we do that? And they have to, like, start the lineup again because you're right. Bose has them now. It's become part of the zeitgeist right now that people want, you know, these nostalgic Yeah. Products. And I think it would be a bad look for Apple to just, like Stop selling them. Go nostalgic in that way. Yeah. But I think there's, like, these little, like, tricks, bells and whistles. I think what they should do is make just, like, a much more expensive version of the Mhmm. The wire. Like, just make... Because what I want is like... Great sound quality. Like, it will never happen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It will never never happen. But what I'm saying is they can bring back these little bells and whistles that that, you know, give us some nostalgia. Like, for example, I forgot there's a fourth new feature on this new MacBook Pro. What's that? When you were back in in high school and college, what happened on the back of your MacBook Pro? Light up. Yep. Yeah. So these these new boys have the the light up Apple logo. Why is that happening? Is that because the cost of the laptop and the memory has gone up so much that the relative price of the light up on the back is cheaper now on a relative basis? My... When I saw that Yeah. My immediate speculation was the... Using the tandem OLED panel, so the the thinner panel. Yeah. And the the the brightness benefits. Mhmm. You're able to use the display, the back of the panel as a way to light it up. But we'll see when these things get torn apart what happened here. Sure. I I... It's also possible they just did it like I was saying, is like a nostalgic element. Have people been asking for this for a long time? The glowing Apple logo? No.

Speaker 2: What everyone... People were cheering at the event. They were like super excited. Ridiculous. What everyone was asking for was to bring back MagSafe,

Speaker 9: which they did. Yep. Was to bring back ports, which they did. Yep. And was to return to function over form or at least matching function to form. Sure. If you remember the '26 Mac... 2016 MacBook Pro, they got rid of a lot of the ports. Yep. They got rid of the SD card slot. They got rid of mag settings. That one had the touch bar or no? Yeah. That one had the touch bar. They got rid of the physical function row. Yeah. With this one that you've got, the 2021 MacBook Pro design, they fixed the MacBook Pro. Like, this is the perfect MacBook Pro. Yeah. Yeah. They didn't redesign it completely. But it's boring because it's just at the end of history. It's like the best, and there's nothing you can do. Maybe. Yeah. I mean, I I I really want the 16 inch iPhone Duo. 16 inch iPhone Duo. That would be huge. 7.6 inches is not enough for you? Yeah. I think you could die... You could daily drive this. Just, you know, keep it. Can you imagine? You have a big enough pocket, you could take this Okay. Wagon.

Speaker 1: Ternus have the balls to buy instinct?

Speaker 9: How much would it cost? Over $30,000,000,000. You know what's really interesting? This kinda went under the radar. I broke the news a few weeks ago that they bounced their head of M and A. And Interesting. Put his deputy in charge. And I think there's a couple factors here. Your good friend Eddie Q. Mhmm. Former guest of the show. Former guest of the show. That's what I mean by good friend. Of course. I don't know if you guys are actually boys, but who knows?

Speaker 2: We both like cars. We both like cars.

Speaker 1: He... He's with us.

Speaker 9: You know, at some point, he's gonna retire. Who knows? Three, five years, whatever. He loves his job. He's not going anywhere anywhere soon. He needs to have, like, potential successors in place because services is a big part of of the company. Yeah. And so you've basically now got Oliver Schusser Mhmm. Who's the head of Apple Music, Apple Sports, Apple TV business, a few things. He's there. He's sort of kind of a shoe in. But you never wanna be in sort of a lame duck situation where you only got one successor. And then the Apple services business is so big that it may not be a clean-cut replace Eddie with Oliver. Mhmm. And so you may need two people. And so what they did is they moved Adrian Parika, was the head of M and A, under Eddie Q. And he's running a lot of the business side of services. And so that's one factor why they took M and A away from from Adrian Mhmm. To sort of put him in the services sort of pipeline there as a potential successor. I think more than potential as a successor to EddieQ eventually. The other factor is that Ternus and the hardware engineering guys and the technology guys, they've had gripes for decades that this guy buys no one. Oh, interesting. Right? The the joke... They're like, give us something to work The joke with Apple M and A is they do nothing. Yeah. It's the easiest job in the world. Right? This is how the the hardware guys... Yeah. This is how the hardware guys think of it. You just have an auto responder. Basically. Right? We're interested in buying... And so... They do buy a lot but it's like Small companies. Tiny teams. They're they're like, you can't announce it. We want cool stuff. Yeah. Okay. But it's not like... There's a different version of Apple which is like they're buying Sonos and they're buying Nest and they're Ring and they're Which they should like all these things and like Which they should have. Apple ifying them over time. Yes. They've done nothing. They've done nothing. K? And so I think you have the Eddie thing as as, you know, one reason. I think the other reason is that Ternus wanted a changing the guard on M and A, someone who's gonna sort of, you know, get cracking. Mhmm. And so I don't know if they'll buy Instinct, I but think they have a better chance of buying Instinct than they did. That's actually very interesting. And they did three months ago. It feels like they need some way to insert

Speaker 1: people into the company that can innovate on software.

Speaker 9: That's true. The software side of things right now, think, is the weakest part of Yeah. Yeah. Well, we had an idea for an extension. Yeah. I'm being a little bit too hard on them. Yeah. Just...

Speaker 1: They clearly are... They they make the best devices.

Speaker 9: Yeah. But they don't make the best software. Actually, I take that back. Maybe they do make the best software. It's just not as good as as

Speaker 2: they could. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So... If they wanna if they wanna expand Apple services, have they looked at Apple markets or some sort of like casino game integration on your phone? You know, we did a story on Bloomberg Businessweek

Speaker 9: six months ago or so that said that Apple makes more money from casino games, that type of game Yeah. Than they make on the Mac. What? Because if you think about how much money the App Store makes and what percentage of the App Store is these, like, casino type of games Yeah. It's like...

Speaker 2: It's billions. So they could vertically integrate. Maybe even open... Vertical integrate. I don't think they would go on could even open a physical play. What can they do on the app? Go and play roulette.

Speaker 1: So apps that that operate markets, Apple can't take a cut when you're doing like a stock...

Speaker 9: When you're trading stock. I don't think they can or do. They they don't. Yeah. We know that. Yeah. Yeah. Then it wouldn't... The the whole... All the economics would not work. Yeah. They should. So what casino what casino game... 40% of your retirement in Robinhood because you installed it on that. Can you imagine? Would you be shocked if there was a headline out? Like Apple bans Robin Hood from the App Store because it's not using their payment process. You're not. Right? That's like... That feels like a headline from three years ago. Like a legit headline for three years. But what what what are these casino games that that are not

Speaker 1: tied... They're not like... Because sports betting apps, they're not taking a cut they're not taking a cut of... Well, don't they kick you out and ask for your credit card to load up or take crypto or something? I'll be honest with you guys. No way. Don't use any of these apps. I don't use Polymarket or CallSheet. Well, you're not doing your job. No. I actually... I I I'm... This company makes billions of dollars from casino games and you're like... Keeping my job too. Don't use those things actually. So there you Not even for research. You can't you can't get a $100...... Watch sports. Certainly, that's not a violation of Lakers' I I get angry enough watching the Lakers Okay. K, and get anxious about... If you have money on the line, you'll be open. Don't need to add another

Speaker 2: layer to that. Okay. Well, I appreciate your your your your discipline there.

Speaker 1: Very cool that Apple makes billions from casino games. So... Yeah. Good thing they criticize and say shouldn't exist. Yeah. The digital economy. They get their cut.

Speaker 2: Anyway, the house always wins with Apple. Always wins. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I wish we had more time. Of course. Always. Let's hang out soon. Yes. See you guys. Thank you You for having sold... I think you sold me on the duo. Oh. Really? Okay. You need one now because I see it's a big... Yeah. There's a big big chunk out of this one. Pretty durability testing.... Dude. He's the Whistlin Diesel of technology,

Speaker 1: Jordy Hayes. Let's get a... Can we get a replay on that durability test pulled up especially Tyler's

Speaker 2: throat? I think the replay is tied to the Gong cam specifically. Let me pull up MongoDB. What's the only thing faster than the AI market? Your business on MongoDB. Don't just own the data platform. Don't just don't just build AI. Own the data platform. Production team. It. Chow. The next guest is with us. Let's let's work on getting a a replay. Because we have Zach durability. From Coco Robotics, the cofounder and CEO for his first appearance here on TVBN. Welcome to the show, Zach. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk about with us. How are you doing?