30:00

saying, could I get that without you covering

30:02

over my instrument cluster, the customer cluster that

30:04

I liked with an

30:06

iPhone UI that I don't particularly like and

30:09

also have no control over? Because yeah, the

30:11

automakers can customize this and pick stuff. But

30:13

it's not like the user gets to design

30:15

their own instrument cluster with this. They have

30:17

the same limited options that probably even more

30:19

limited options than the built-in systems offer. Because

30:21

again, built-in systems usually offer two

30:23

or three different instrument clusters on these fancy cars. And you

30:26

could pick which one you like. Yeah,

30:28

I think I like CarPlay. I mean, I

30:31

obviously don't usually have it in the movie. But I

30:33

like CarPlay the way it is now,

30:35

mostly in a window. Like

30:39

in some cases, CarPlay is the entire

30:41

display of certain displays. But most car

30:43

makers will let CarPlay take up most

30:46

of the display when you're using it. But then

30:48

we'll have some kind of little area off to

30:50

the side or below it or something that has

30:52

their toolbar buttons that will switch it back over

30:54

to their interface. And you still have to use

30:56

their interface most of the

30:58

controls of the car. And then you switch

31:00

back to CarPlay when you want to look at your music

31:02

player or your navigation. CarPlay already

31:04

also has support for the secondary

31:07

display. So if you want to

31:09

have something like, for instance, if you're doing navigation

31:11

and you want to have a CarPlay display in

31:13

the dashboard cluster during navigation, you

31:15

can already do that with the existing version of

31:17

CarPlay, the CarPlay, the old version. That

31:20

was like a 1.5. I added that. So

31:22

CarPlay, the way it is

31:24

now, display-wise and integration-wise, already

31:27

offers what I think I

31:30

actually want as a customer. I want

31:32

CarPlay to be contained. I don't

31:34

want it to take over everything because, like John was

31:36

saying, I actually like car controls

31:38

when they are well-designed. I like car UIs

31:40

when they are well-designed. That is not the

31:42

common case, but it does happen. And

31:46

I just want more automakers to adopt

31:48

CarPlay the way it is. And I

31:50

hope, because a lot

31:53

of these technological details and

31:55

implementation details, more stuff running

31:57

on the car, the audio

31:59

being- buffer differently, not using Bluetooth,

32:01

stuff like that. A lot of

32:03

those things would actually be great improvements to

32:05

the system we already have. And

32:07

again, I hope that by

32:10

Apple trying to reach much further

32:13

design-wise, I hope this doesn't preclude

32:15

the automakers from adopting the technological

32:17

advancements that they're trying to get

32:20

done as well. I

32:22

hope we can actually have good carplay with

32:26

modern innovation and modern architecture behind it

32:29

in a way that the car makers can

32:31

swallow design-wise. And I don't know if

32:33

Apple's gonna be able to do that. Yeah,

32:35

yeah. It's kind of, I

32:38

don't know. I get where Apple's

32:40

going here, but I'm really struggling to figure

32:42

out who they think this is for. Because

32:44

again, if I'm an auto manufacturer, uh-uh, no

32:47

thank you. And it's just, I

32:50

can't think of a better way to verbalize this. And I

32:52

think I'm being a little bit, probably more than a little

32:54

bit dramatic, but it's kind of like Apple Hubris. Like of

32:56

course the car makers wanna come to us and help us,

32:59

have us help them design their stuff. Why wouldn't they do

33:01

that? And not just help them design it, but you're like,

33:03

and of course they would want our branding to be part

33:05

of their car because our branding is great. Wouldn't they want

33:07

to have some representation

33:09

of Apple inside their cars? Right,

33:12

exactly. Why? I mean, like

33:14

I think the most optimistic scenario is kind of the

33:16

same reason people use Apple TVs. Like, oh, I got

33:18

a smart TV, but the interface on the smart TV

33:20

sucks. And Apple TV is so much better. So I'm

33:22

gonna ignore my smart TVs built-in interface and I'm just

33:25

gonna use the Apple TV. And

33:27

first I would say that's a choice of people who buy

33:29

an Apple TV make. But second,

33:31

I think the degree to

33:35

which smart televisions

33:37

built-in experiences are

33:39

co-branded with the TV is much lower than

33:41

the degree to which the

33:44

infotainment on especially fancy

33:46

modern cars is blended with the car. Like if

33:48

you look at the instrument cluster on a

33:51

BMW or an

33:53

Audi or a Volvo or a Polestar, one of

33:56

these expensive cars, you

33:58

can just look at the instrument cluster without seeing

34:00

anything. else and you know what kind of car

34:02

it's in. They really heavily brand that and the

34:04

good ones that do like their controls on like

34:07

the other touch screens, you know, whether the climate

34:09

controls are there or adjusting the seats or the

34:11

360 camera or whatever, those things are so heavily

34:13

branded. Like, I mean, look at Rivian doing like

34:16

the cell shaded 3d model

34:18

of your car and the woods and everything that

34:20

is so different than what it looks like, like

34:22

in an Ionic five versus what it looks like

34:24

in a Volkswagen, like it's

34:26

so heavily branded. Now, if you hate, if you hate

34:28

your cars interface as a consumer, I can say, oh,

34:30

thank God, my car is interface. I hated. But when

34:32

I get in with my phone, it erases all that

34:34

and replaces it with the phone. You I can see

34:37

some people wanting to do that. But

34:39

I think I think

34:41

people buy cars based

34:44

on the whole car. If someone hated, you

34:47

know, I can't stand I'm an example. If

34:49

you really don't want climate controls

34:51

on a touchscreen, you're not going to buy a car with

34:53

climate controls on the touchscreen, right? You're choosing

34:55

based on what's in the car. In

34:57

an Apple world, they're like, what if you didn't have to

34:59

do that? What if if you were just happy with the

35:02

way our we paint overall those screens with our stuff and

35:04

you never had to see your credit built in system as

35:06

long as you like our system, you can buy any car.

35:09

I think that's their pitch for the appeal. But again, I

35:11

think people holistically buy cars

35:14

and that branding is part of like if you buy

35:16

some, you know, fancy like electric

35:19

Hellcat or the the

35:21

e-ray Corvette or whatever you want the cool

35:23

Corvette logo and startup animation and like the

35:25

gauges and like whatever, you know, you know,

35:28

especially if they do the homages to like

35:30

the old Corvette instrument clusters on the new

35:32

one with screen that like that's

35:35

when you're buying a Corvette. People who buy Corvettes want that

35:37

they don't want I'm going to buy a Corvette and then

35:39

I want it to look like my iPhone. They

35:41

don't want they want a Corvette. So this I'm

35:44

a car person. Maybe I did not represent it of

35:47

the audience. But I think we'll have

35:49

to wait until this is actually implemented to see

35:51

what the non non tech nerd,

35:53

non car nerd public thinks of it. But

35:55

right now it hasn't been rolled out in

35:57

the cars, which I think is reflective of

35:59

of what the auto industry thinks of it.

36:01

Yeah, I was going to say, that's a long way for a train

36:03

or car that ain't coming. All

36:06

right, there is some big news that

36:08

dropped sometime in the last week or two. I

36:10

forget exactly when it was. Apparently,

36:13

it was leaked to the

36:15

Financial Times, if I'm not mistaken, and then formally

36:17

stated a few days later, the

36:20

European Commission has found Apple in breach

36:22

of the, what is it, digital market

36:24

sack, the DMA? There you go. And

36:27

so reading from a press release

36:29

from the European Commission, the

36:31

European Commission has informed Apple of its

36:33

preliminary view that its app store rules

36:35

are in breach of the Digital Markets

36:37

Act, or DMA, as they prevent app

36:39

developers from freely steering customers to alternative

36:41

channels for offers and content. In addition,

36:43

the Commission opened a new non-compliance procedure

36:45

against Apple over concerns that its new

36:47

contractual requirements for third party app developers

36:49

in app stores, including Apple's new core

36:53

technology fee, fall short of ensuring

36:55

effective compliance with Apple's obligations under

36:57

the DMA. In

36:59

parallel, the Commission will continue undertaking preliminary investigative

37:02

steps outside of the scope of the present

37:04

investigation, in particular with respect to the checks

37:06

and reviews put in place by Apple to

37:08

validate apps and alternative app stores to be

37:11

side loaded. Got to love the efficiency of

37:13

government, right? So all these things we've talked

37:15

about on the show, their

37:18

anti-steering rules, whether Apple's complying core technology fee

37:20

makes it unattractive for people to be in

37:22

alternative app stores. And most recently, oh, they

37:25

rejected UTM from notarization

37:27

because they felt like it for

37:30

third party app stores, not for the app store. They said,

37:32

actually, we don't want that to be in any apps. We don't want

37:35

that in our app store, and also we don't want that to be

37:37

in any third party app stores. Why? Because

37:39

we said so. So they have

37:41

separate investigations into all these. And this

37:43

announcement was just for the anti-steering thing

37:45

of how easy is it for people

37:47

to tell somebody in an app, hey,

37:49

you can get a better deal if you go to our website.

37:52

It's $10 here, but on our website, it's $5. And

37:54

Apple's like, no, you can't tell them the price. If you link

37:56

it, you got to do it this special way or whatever. So

37:59

that's what they found them in breach of. And they say, and

38:01

just so you know, we're still looking to those other things like

38:03

the core technology fee and most recently, now

38:05

I give them a pass on the UTM thing because that

38:07

happened recently, but the core technology fee was there from day

38:09

one. Why is it that they can't like figure

38:12

out all the different ways that Apple

38:14

is non-compliant and tell them at once, but no,

38:16

these are all separate investigations and everything takes a

38:18

long time. But anyway, if you're wondering

38:21

if the European Commission thinks that Apple is following

38:23

the rules of the MA, and at least the

38:25

anti-steering thing, the answer is no, they think Apple

38:27

is not correctly following the rules. And

38:31

that seems like it shouldn't be a surprise

38:33

to anybody. I mean, including Apple,

38:35

but I'm sure it is a surprise to them. Well, so here's

38:37

the thing. When none of us are

38:39

lawyers, we're certainly not European lawyers, right? I

38:42

think I've read most of the DMA. I've

38:45

said it before, I think the

38:49

DMA has written in such a way that

38:51

it opened the door for Apple to

38:54

do something like this and to plausibly

38:56

argue that they are compliant. Like whatever

38:58

the European wants, the European

39:00

Commission wants, it could have been more explicit about it,

39:03

right? Instead of just kind of hinting

39:05

in the direction of we want competition or whatever.

39:07

And in some ways it's like,

39:09

well, they're not gonna tell you exactly how to do it.

39:11

Like you don't want them to pin it down entirely, that's

39:13

not how laws work. But in other ways, it's like, I

39:15

kind of say

39:18

Apple was acting in good faith, which I don't entirely think

39:20

they are, but if they were, and

39:22

they were trying to be compliant,

39:25

they would still have a lot of questions. And

39:27

I don't know how much back-channel communication happens, but

39:30

if they were acting in good faith, I would hope Apple could say to

39:32

the European Commission, we're thinking of doing X, Y, and Z. Does that seem

39:34

good to you? And I don't know if the European

39:36

Commission is being like the App Store and saying, we can't tell

39:38

you anything. Just wait till you show us what you have, and

39:40

then we'll tell you about it nine months later, right? Which

39:43

is frustrating because it's not, like

39:46

Gruber complains about this because he's super against the

39:48

European Commission stuff, where he's like, are they saying

39:50

that Apple can't make any money? There's

39:52

nothing in the DMA that says Apple is not

39:54

allowed to make a profit on phones or the

39:56

App Store, anything like that, right? But

39:59

Apple might have... a question of like, okay, well, if

40:01

we, if the core technology fee is going to be

40:03

found to be non-compliant, like, what

40:05

can we do? And I mean, my answer would be

40:07

like, you can't make it so that

40:09

there's no way for anyone to make a more

40:11

attractive option. Because one thing that is clear in

40:13

the DMA is they want more competition. And competition

40:16

doesn't mean Apple, you set the rules, so nobody

40:18

can ever be better than you. Like,

40:20

that's clear. That's why I think their compliance is

40:23

obviously, you know, in, in

40:26

bad faith, right? But okay,

40:28

so say I accept that. How

40:31

much competition? Should people be

40:33

allowed to undercut us by 100%

40:37

1000% like how, how unattractive can we

40:39

make it? Right? Can we charge people

40:41

anything or can we charge people nothing? Because if the

40:43

answer is we can charge people nothing, put that in

40:45

the damn DMA and say, Oh, and by the way,

40:47

people need to be able to sell things in third

40:49

party app stores without Apple having any say what's the

40:51

on what's there with a very narrowly defined exceptions and

40:53

also without giving Apple any money, but they didn't write

40:55

that they just didn't write that into the law as

40:57

far as anything that I could see. Now maybe I'm

40:59

not a lawyer and I missed it into staring me

41:02

in the face is using language that I don't understand.

41:04

But it's I

41:08

feel like this DMA couldn't be

41:10

written to be more specific. But I am glad

41:12

that Apple was found non compliance because I think

41:14

what they did is clearly

41:16

not achieving

41:18

the the thing that is

41:21

stated in the DMA, which is like we want more

41:23

competition, we want a more open market.

41:25

And so, you know, you think you're

41:27

complying with this by making sure you

41:30

have made and market that is not

41:32

open. And we're going to ding you for that. Yeah,

41:35

I think there's there's no way to

41:37

look at Apple's compliance plan and and

41:40

say, this is what Europe intended, as

41:43

john said, we are

41:45

not experts in European law and the dynamics of

41:47

how they write the laws and how they enforce

41:49

them and everything. We do

41:51

know a bit about Apple and a bit about the

41:54

App Store and a bit about that kind of stuff.

41:56

And it is very clear that the intention of

41:58

the DMA and of of allowing

42:01

different app distribution channels that

42:04

Apple does not financially control with

42:07

arbitrary terms. That was

42:09

the intention. Apple should allow people

42:12

who are not them to distribute software on

42:14

their platform without burdensome economic

42:16

terms that are dictated by Apple.

42:19

That's clearly the intention of the law. Without terms

42:21

that make it unattractive.

42:25

That's the main thing. There can be

42:27

terms and there can be caveats and they have to

42:29

prove it for security or whatever. But you can't make

42:31

the terms such that nobody

42:33

would ever want to do this. It's

42:36

like price fixing. It's like, oh, you can compete with

42:38

me, but you can't sell any products for any cheaper

42:40

than I sell. That's not actually what they're doing, but

42:42

effectively it's saying, oh, you're just going to have to

42:44

pay us anyway. So we're going to try to make

42:47

it so that you running the store doesn't,

42:49

you don't come out ahead. The people selling it in the store don't

42:51

come out ahead because they got to pay us for all those installs

42:53

for $0.50 or whatever the core technology fee.

42:56

People running the stores don't come out ahead. Nobody,

42:58

if you join into the system, you're

43:01

going to look over at us and say, why are you

43:04

doing this? This is basically the same as the Apple system.

43:07

And that's not competition. And so Apple found

43:09

a way to do that and they think,

43:11

oh, we're complying with the law.

43:14

And they're going to argue, because Apple has a chance

43:16

to argue about this. Look, we're totally in compliance. You

43:18

should have written a better law, but

43:20

I'm not sure that's going to work out for them. No.

43:23

Obviously, Europe is saying we need

43:26

people to be able to compete in

43:28

this giant marketplace that is a huge

43:30

part of commerce. And I think that's

43:32

very defensible. You

43:34

look back at history, you see things like

43:36

the railroads and the telephone companies. There's

43:39

a reason why we tend to

43:41

promote freer, less

43:43

burdensome competition, even

43:45

on a private company's assets, once it becomes

43:48

a huge part of commerce that starts to

43:50

be able to affect lots of other businesses,

43:52

especially in anti-competitive ways. And there

43:55

is no question that Apple

43:57

has reached that size with the iOS

43:59

platform. with the App Store, it

44:01

is that important in the entire

44:03

economy. It matters a lot.

44:06

So whether they should be regulated,

44:08

I think that question is answered. I

44:10

think the answer is yes, of course they should be regulated.

44:12

And again, I mean, I'm not gonna go too far into

44:14

this, this time, I say it all the time, but this

44:17

was 100% on Apple

44:19

for effectively provoking governments to

44:21

regulate them with obviously

44:23

blatantly anti-competitive behavior. And

44:26

again, I, you know,

44:28

I'm kind of down on Tim Cook's strategy. I

44:31

wonder what the heck he was thinking all

44:33

these years of latent anti-competitive

44:36

behavior, literally provoking governments to

44:38

regulate him. What did

44:40

he expect to happen here? And this is a theme that

44:42

we'll come back to in a little bit, but Apple

44:45

definitely should have seen this coming. They

44:48

rolled the dice. They said, you know what,

44:50

we're gonna keep doing 100%

44:52

of what we're doing. We're even gonna tighten the screws over

44:54

the last few years. What could

44:56

possibly go wrong? This, this is what could

44:59

go wrong. So I am cheering

45:01

on the EU for this part of the DMA.

45:03

I don't love the entire law. It's a big

45:05

law and there's some weird stuff in it. But

45:08

the part about ensuring

45:10

freer competition for

45:12

a giant app marketplace that is a keystone

45:15

of modern commerce and business in so many

45:17

ways in so many parts of life, I

45:19

think that is 100% on point. Some

45:22

of the details we can quibble over, but the idea

45:24

of that is on point. And you don't have to

45:26

just look at Europe. Look, Japan's now doing the same

45:28

thing. It's only a matter of time before more countries

45:30

around the world start doing this. And what

45:34

we're gonna end up with is this

45:36

incredibly fragmented app store policy where Apple

45:38

is going to not give an inch

45:40

anywhere they're not required to. And

45:43

instead, they're just gonna have like nine

45:46

different rules of where you are

45:48

in the world and what kind of regional variations

45:50

are necessary. And they're gonna keep just

45:53

being absolute turds about it all when if

45:56

they would have just eased up a little bit

45:58

in a few areas that. actually wouldn't have

46:00

cost them that much. They could

46:02

have avoided all of this and continued to

46:05

have one app store for the whole world,

46:07

basically, and have relatively few variations between them.

46:10

And they invited this. So you know

46:12

what? If the EU is

46:14

gonna drag them through courts and everything forever,

46:16

good. They need

46:18

it. They're not doing it themselves, so someone has

46:21

to do it. They're burning so

46:23

much time and energy on this too, because it's like if

46:25

you can see the writing on the wall, like you mentioned

46:27

Japan and other countries doing similar things, and maybe Apple thinks

46:29

the US will never do it or whatever. But for

46:32

the European stuff, quibbling about like, oh, they didn't

46:34

write the law specifically enough, and what do they

46:36

even want, and it's so weird. In the end,

46:39

Apple has very limited ability

46:41

to control what

46:44

European governments do. They

46:46

have a system of government, and they

46:49

apply laws to things that are sold in

46:52

the EU. And I guess

46:54

Apple can lobby the EU, like any other big company can

46:56

lobby them, but I feel like Apple's ability to lobby the

46:58

EU as a

47:00

US company is stronger than their ability to

47:02

lobby the EU, and they also don't seem

47:04

to be particularly good at lobbying

47:06

for their, for what

47:08

they want, right? But Apple

47:11

is essentially powerless. They're not part of the European government. I

47:13

mean, they're not powerless, because they have tons of money, but

47:15

you know what I mean? In the end, let's

47:18

say Apple wins in their appeal, and

47:20

some judge in Europe says or whatever,

47:22

well, technically Apple did comply with how

47:24

the law is written. The EU

47:26

will just write a new law. Apple

47:29

can't win this. It's the same

47:31

thing with the battles with China. It's like you can

47:33

either do what the Chinese government wants you to do

47:35

and push back as much as you can, or you

47:38

could just not be in China. So many companies aren't,

47:40

right? And it's obviously complicated for

47:42

Apple because of the manufacturing or whatever, but those are

47:44

your choices. One of your choices is not, let's

47:47

change what the Chinese government wants. Apple's

47:50

ability to do that despite all their

47:52

money and everything is extremely limited. So

47:54

I'm not, Apple is just burning time

47:57

and energy and implementing these

47:59

things to try to... to get away with as much as they

48:01

can get away with. And in the end, the EU

48:03

can just say, OK, well, we made a mistake

48:05

in the law. We'll write it and we'll make

48:08

it stronger. And let's just go around and around.

48:10

As opposed to Apple acknowledging what, surely Apple also

48:12

understands what they're trying to get

48:14

at, increase competition, and just say, let's do this

48:16

once. Let's do it well. Let's do it globally,

48:18

as we've discussed in past episodes. Imagine if they

48:20

just said, look, we see the writing on the

48:23

wall. Everybody's going to want something more open. Let's

48:25

just do something that we think is open enough

48:27

that will satisfy all government requirements present and future.

48:29

Let's do it once. Let's apply

48:31

it to the whole world. Let's avoid fragmentation. Let's move

48:34

on with our actual business. But no, they're not

48:36

doing that. They're going to fight tooth and nail.

48:38

Every single one of these things comply as little as

48:40

possible, fight it in courts. And it's just it's wasting

48:42

time and energy. It's making their platform more complicated,

48:45

as we'll see when we get to the next thing.

48:47

Although we do have some quotes here from the various

48:49

parties to see how they're positioning themselves on the eve

48:51

of this, or just after this preliminary

48:54

finding on one of multiple things they're

48:56

being investigated on. Apple

48:58

spokesperson Peter Adjumeyan, who was talking to the

49:01

Verge, throughout the past several months, Apple's made

49:03

a number of changes to comply with the

49:05

DMA in response to feedback from developers and

49:08

the European Commission. As we

49:10

have done routinely, we will continue to listen and engage with

49:12

the European Commission. So that's their

49:14

way of saying, we're talking to them, or

49:16

whatever. That's their way of saying F-U. And

49:19

they will continue to listen to them and engage them. See,

49:21

here's the thing. There is some meaning

49:24

of the minds on this, because the

49:26

DMA is written with some acknowledgment

49:28

that we can't just be the

49:30

Wild West, which is why there are carve outs for,

49:32

OK, Apple should have the gate

49:34

keeper. It's not just Apple, but gatekeepers should have

49:36

the ability to reject things for

49:39

security reasons from even being in third

49:41

party stores. The EU

49:43

is not like, you just let everybody do

49:45

anything. It's like the PC of the 80s.

49:48

They're not doing that. And Apple, to

49:51

its credit, is trying to

49:53

provide lots of security stop gaps

49:56

while also allowing things, like the

49:58

browser kit thing. Third

50:00

party browser and we wonder that as safe as

50:02

way a possible as possible Ideally

50:05

all the browser engines go through the same

50:07

restrictions Safari and it's not currently the case

50:09

But browser kit is basically built around what

50:12

they already did for Safari, right? So the

50:14

two parties aren't so far apart that like

50:16

one wants completely Everything open free-for-all

50:18

and the other one wants everything locked down. They

50:21

they agree with each other that Certain

50:23

things need to be done carefully. But like everything

50:25

else They're like apples like how little can we

50:28

get away with how unattractive can we make third-party

50:30

app stores? How little disruption to our existing business

50:32

and business can we make like well? We'll try

50:34

to comply in a way that no one will

50:36

ever take us up on any of these offers

50:38

or only a few people Would but like in

50:40

the end it just be like a footnote and

50:43

it won't actually change anything Right, or maybe like

50:45

as we'll get through in a second. Maybe we

50:47

make things worse and people like boy we we

50:50

We thought we would like some third-party competition But now that we've

50:52

seen it we're going running back to the app store because it's

50:54

so much better there because of the way Apple said everything up

50:57

then Margarethe this vestiger. I hope I have

50:59

that right. I forgot to brush up on

51:01

it I apologize, but anyways She

51:04

said the balls now in the gatekeepers court

51:06

They have to convince us that the measures

51:08

they take will achieve full compliance with the

51:10

DMA and where this is not the case

51:12

We will intervene We are

51:14

concerned that Apple designated its new business model

51:16

to discourage app developers and end users from

51:18

taking advantage of the opportunities Afforded to them

51:21

by the DMA the letter of the DMA

51:23

is clear gatekeepers have to allow

51:25

for alternative app stores to establish themselves in

51:27

their platforms and for Consumers to be fully

51:29

informed about the offers available to them so

51:31

that they can freely choose where they want

51:33

to source their apps And

51:36

at what conditions? The

51:38

DMA is not clear anyone she says right is

51:40

it here like gatekeepers have to allow for turn

51:42

out of app stores Apple say yeah We did

51:44

that to establish themselves on their platforms. Yeah, we

51:46

allow turn of app stores to be established on

51:49

our platforms Consumers to be fully informed okay there.

51:51

They're gonna say not fully informed They're informed through

51:53

a narrow aperture that Apple defines and which is

51:55

why they're not compliant and so they

51:57

can freely choose and an apple Like yeah,

51:59

they can freely choose choose. It's the details

52:01

like, Oh, we allow third party

52:03

app stores. We just don't want to make

52:05

them any more impossible to be many more

52:07

attractive than ours by applying financial burdens and

52:09

even her summary. She doesn't even say not

52:11

like that. I know you did

52:13

alternative app stores, but no one wants to do them because

52:16

they cost so much money and suck so much. So

52:18

change that, but she doesn't. And

52:21

by the way, that us that Casey read

52:23

and emphasize they have to convince us that

52:25

italic us was in her thing. I didn't

52:27

add that emphasis. She italicized it. They have

52:29

to convince us that the measures they take

52:31

will fee, achieve full compliance over

52:34

the next, you know, 12 months

52:36

or whatever. Like every one of these things, there's like a

52:38

nine to 12 month horizon. I'm like, okay, then Apple gets

52:40

to challenge it and they have a hearing and they do

52:43

a thing. And then like

52:45

people think it's going to be like, Oh, we

52:47

pass the law and Apple did a thing, but

52:49

they're not compliant. Now they get fined. No, that's

52:51

not how any of this works. It's so long

52:53

between the passing of this law to the point

52:55

where Apple could potentially get those huge fines that

52:59

yeah, presumably something

53:01

will be worked out, but this is just going

53:03

to drag on for so long. Yeah. And, and

53:06

because the root of the problem is the

53:08

DMA, I guess that, you know, the

53:10

EU way of doing this is not

53:13

going to specify too firmly what

53:15

they really intend, which is there

53:18

can't be any fees like that. I think that's, that's

53:20

obviously what they intend. I mean, I don't know if

53:22

they say there can't be any, but there have, you

53:24

have to be able to undercut the app store. Like

53:26

they, they, I don't know how they would phrase that,

53:28

but like, like it's not

53:30

competition. If your competitors can never be better

53:32

than you, right? Of course. It's just right.

53:34

And the other, the other one is free

53:36

for all. Like there's no, like

53:39

there's no rules. The competitors can be, you know, they can,

53:41

they can, if they have enough funding, they could do loss

53:43

leaders and say, everything is free. We'll pay you to use

53:45

our app store, like, or whatever, you know, like there's competition

53:48

is complicated because we all want competition,

53:50

but there's such a thing as unfair

53:52

competition. Again, like there are laws in

53:54

our country about like, you know,

53:57

I think there are laws about like undercutting.

53:59

your competition by giving away stuff for free until all

54:01

your competitors are out of business. I know it's a

54:04

common thing that VC funding does these days, but I

54:06

think there are actually laws in the books in certain

54:09

industries where you're essentially not allowed to do that. I'll just

54:11

take a giant war chest of money and put all your

54:13

competitors out of business by giving away milk for free until

54:15

they're all out of business and you buy them all up

54:17

and then you start charging twice as much for milk or

54:19

something. That's what pharmaceutical companies do.

54:25

There are anti-patterns to too much competition, but we're at

54:27

the other end of that spectrum right now. We're

54:30

at the no competition and then competition

54:32

in name only where it's not real competition.

54:36

Trying to find that balance is tricky. You can't

54:39

just say Apple, you can't charge anybody any money.

54:41

I think that actually might be their intention. They

54:44

won't say it because I think

54:46

that's legally a little bit tougher

54:48

to argue, but I think that

54:50

what they're clearly intending is

54:52

for it to be like distribution on the Mac and

54:54

Windows of just like, yeah, you should just be able

54:57

to install things for free if you want to. I

54:59

think that's clearly the intent, but they won't come out and

55:02

say it. Yeah, they didn't say it. Also, they do have

55:04

the carve out explicitly in the thing where Apple gets to

55:06

approve for security purposes and private APIs and stuff. Right,

55:08

which they're also doing in a

55:10

somewhat BSE way. Exactly, but the fact that that

55:12

carve out's there, it's like they don't actually want

55:15

it to be like the Mac. You don't need

55:17

to do that on the Mac. You can just

55:19

distribute unsigned stuff and right-click it and open it.

55:24

And so the question, like, again, I'm not going to say, well, what is

55:26

Apple supposed to do? They can't tell what they want. Like Apple

55:29

clearly knows that they don't want this. Like

55:31

it is a question of like how

55:33

open should we be? And maybe you could

55:36

argue, say this is Apple's best play. Put

55:38

out the most restrictive thing possible, get slapped

55:40

for it, back it off. How

55:42

do you like it now? As opposed to, you know,

55:44

if your goal is to do as little as possible,

55:46

start from a position of doing almost nothing, like almost

55:49

allowing no competition and then back it off slowly. I just

55:51

think it's going to be a waste of their time and

55:53

energy and they should have come up with something that everyone

55:55

on luckers would have considered reasonable and put

55:57

that out and then see what the U.S. And if they put out

55:59

something. that was reasonable, like nominal

56:02

fees to be a third party

56:04

app store, minimal oversight, the

56:07

possibility of financially being way cheaper than

56:09

Apple. Right. And they said to

56:11

the EU, that's competition, right? And the EU came

56:13

back and said, actually, no, we had $0 in

56:16

mind. Like you were saying, Marco, like actually, that is the

56:18

thing that they wanted to say, but couldn't, that would be

56:20

kind of crappy if the EU, because if you want to

56:22

say, like in, they're making the law, like this is not

56:24

a negotiation, like the EU 100% makes the rules

56:28

and Apple can either choose to follow them or not be

56:30

in the EU. And they didn't say,

56:32

yeah, you can't charge anybody anything to have

56:34

a third party app store. Yeah,

56:36

but but it does like, I think

56:39

the whatever, whatever the political

56:41

will and backing to get

56:43

regulations like this through legislatures,

56:47

wherever that comes from, I think

56:49

when people are trying to argue for these

56:51

laws or these regulations, I think what they

56:53

have in mind is free

56:56

distribution like PCs and Macs. That's what people

56:58

are imagining. Now, obviously, again, like legally, it's

57:00

hard to require that there's legally, there's a

57:03

whole bunch of snags to

57:05

that, of course, because you're trying to legislate how

57:07

a public how a private company operates and makes

57:09

money. And that's, that's obviously very tricky. I mean,

57:11

are there snacks that because the EU does that

57:13

all the time? I mean, and we just put

57:16

100% tariffs on Chinese EVs, right? So like, that's,

57:19

they can, I don't, again, I don't know the political

57:21

situation there. You could be right that to get this

57:23

passed, they couldn't be that explicit because people would be

57:25

against it. But as it was written, it overwhelmingly passed.

57:27

So I wonder how much of leeway there is to

57:29

come out and say what they really want. My

57:32

point is like, when these laws,

57:34

you know, the Japan thing, the

57:37

the weird dating app thing in the Netherlands, and

57:39

then you know, obviously the big one, the DMA,

57:42

when these are passed,

57:44

I think what people have in mind is

57:47

free distribution, just like Max and PCs. And

57:49

what Apple has done

57:52

very well at is twisting and

57:55

distorting the public discussion to remember

57:58

the very first time that Tim

58:00

Cook was on the stand, I think, in the Epic trial. I think

58:02

this is where this came out. And the very first time that he

58:05

presented this, it was, look, I

58:07

don't have a lot of faith in Tim

58:09

Cook's long term strategy, but this was a good move from

58:12

his point of view. I hated it, but from his point of

58:14

view, this was a good move. When he

58:16

mentioned something on the lines of like,

58:19

well, the in-app purchase fee is just the most

58:21

straightforward way for us to collect our commission. How

58:24

else would we collect our commission? When

58:26

he said that, we all were like,

58:28

what? Because what

58:30

that told us was Apple

58:33

believes it is entitled to collect their

58:36

commission, a commission, regardless of

58:38

how the money is flowing, regardless of

58:40

what it's being purchased through. And

58:42

Apple has successfully controlled

58:44

the public narrative that

58:47

all of us are talking about. Since then, that was what, two

58:49

years ago? All of us have been talking

58:51

since then as if it's inevitable that,

58:53

yes, of course, Apple is going to collect a

58:55

fee for everything sold. And

58:58

we have totally bought into their fairly

59:01

brazen framing of this.

59:03

We also have everybody talking about how Apple

59:05

has to monetize their IP somehow. Why

59:09

would anybody make software for a platform if

59:11

Apple can't monetize their IP? Why would Apple

59:13

continue to invest in the iPhone if

59:16

they can't monetize their IP? Some people

59:18

have bought into this. I certainly haven't

59:20

bought into it. I don't think you have, but

59:22

some people have. But I'm saying, when

59:24

we're talking about this, I think it's important for everyone

59:26

out there to realize that entire

59:28

framing of this being this inevitable

59:30

thing that, of course, Apple has

59:32

to collect their commission so

59:35

that they can justify working on the iPhone,

59:37

that is 1,000% BS. And

59:40

Apple has done a great job of controlling

59:42

that message and getting us all to talk

59:45

about it. But that's obviously not what people

59:47

want when they create these regulations. What people

59:49

want is Mac and PC like free distribution.

59:51

Yes, with security controls if need be on

59:54

some broad strokes, but

59:56

that's what people want. Apple

59:59

is the one. who is refusing to give it up, and

1:00:01

that's why this is gonna take forever, as John was saying,

1:00:03

because the EU is basically saying we

1:00:05

would like no barriers, please, and Apple is basically

1:00:07

saying we'd like all the barriers, please, and it's

1:00:09

just gonna take a long time to work this

1:00:11

out, because neither of them is

1:00:14

real, actually, the European Commission is

1:00:16

not really being very clear about what they want. Apple's being

1:00:18

very clear about what they want. Apple's

1:00:20

very clear about we deserve everything, and

1:00:22

we're gonna give up nothing, and

1:00:25

we're gonna see how that goes. And so this

1:00:27

is gonna keep going on forever, but don't

1:00:32

buy into Apple's framing too much when talking

1:00:34

about this, because that came

1:00:36

out of nowhere two years ago. That was not

1:00:38

what anybody was ever thinking, and I mean,

1:00:41

just to rehash everything, they

1:00:44

have plenty of reason to invest in the iPhone

1:00:46

to maintain iOS and their developer tools without collecting

1:00:48

a fee on every single app that transacts through

1:00:50

it. I mean, the reason that the premise plays

1:00:52

so well in America is it's so American, it's

1:00:54

like you're gonna tell a company how they can

1:00:56

make money, you're gonna tell them they can't make

1:00:58

money, and in a particular way, that's not fair. They should

1:01:00

be able to do what they want and let the market decide. So

1:01:04

the premise Tim Cook was offering was like, unchangeable

1:01:08

premise, we have to make money. All we're arguing about

1:01:10

is how we can do that, and in-app purchases is

1:01:12

the best way, and we can try other ways or

1:01:14

whatever, but it's like I reject your premise, right? You

1:01:17

don't need it, right? But in the

1:01:19

same way, the premise of US

1:01:22

business is like well, a company should be able to

1:01:24

make money however they want, and if they pick a

1:01:26

lousy way that people don't like, people won't buy from

1:01:28

them. The premise of the DMA, as you stated before,

1:01:31

is that Apple has power

1:01:33

in a market that's super important and they have

1:01:35

too much power, and so the government needs to

1:01:37

step in to tell companies what

1:01:39

to do. What you could do when you

1:01:41

were a small company, now suddenly we're saying

1:01:43

because you sell phones and because you're this

1:01:45

big and because you're successful and because phones

1:01:47

are so important, we

1:01:49

are saying new rules apply to you. That's exactly what

1:01:51

the DMA is. We don't really have anything like that

1:01:54

in the US quite yet, but exactly, and there's various

1:01:56

DOJ cases, but anyway, we

1:01:58

talked about it in past episodes, but the...

1:02:00

The DMA, that's the premise of the DMA.

1:02:02

The premise is, you specifically

1:02:04

gatekeepers, new rules apply to you. But the

1:02:06

American mind rebels at the idea of a

1:02:08

government telling companies how they can make money.

1:02:10

And so people, you know, and Grimmer is

1:02:12

just so incredulous. You're telling them that they

1:02:15

can't make money the way they want to

1:02:17

from their phone? And it's like, yes, because

1:02:19

specifically, like he even says like the Japan

1:02:21

thing, like, oh, imagine if the Japanese game

1:02:23

console makers, we should tell them, oh, well

1:02:25

guess what? You know, you have

1:02:27

to allow third party apps on your PlayStation or

1:02:29

whatever. Game consoles are not as

1:02:32

important as phones. Like that's what it comes

1:02:34

down to. The premise of these cases is

1:02:36

it's not like every company that's like this.

1:02:38

It's technological gatekeepers for platforms that are so

1:02:41

important to all of life and commerce that

1:02:43

these rules apply to them. And gaming is

1:02:45

big, but so far right now, I'm going

1:02:47

to say game consoles are not as important

1:02:50

to the life and economy of a country

1:02:52

as cell phones. That's the

1:02:54

determination made by many of these laws

1:02:57

and lawsuits, and I agree with that determination.

1:02:59

Game consoles aren't as important. They're

1:03:01

more important than they used to be, and they are

1:03:04

important, and maybe something could be looked at there, but

1:03:06

if I had to say which is more important, it's

1:03:08

the cell phone. It's no contest. It's just so much

1:03:10

more important. And so yeah, these

1:03:12

people are passing laws specifically targeting gatekeepers for

1:03:14

platforms that are super important in our life,

1:03:16

and it can seem unfair. Again, you know,

1:03:19

why do the game consoles get away with

1:03:21

it? Because they're less important. Maybe someday they'll

1:03:23

come for the game consoles. Where do you

1:03:25

draw the line? How do you decide when

1:03:27

somebody is too powerful? We talked about this

1:03:29

before. When do you have a monopoly? What

1:03:31

percentage is required? When is there too little

1:03:33

competition? These are all complicated questions, but the

1:03:36

premise of all of these things is Apple,

1:03:39

new rules apply to you and

1:03:41

Microsoft and Google and

1:03:43

all these things because of exactly what you make and

1:03:45

how important you are and how much power you have,

1:03:47

and some people just don't

1:03:49

accept that premise. And the same way we don't accept

1:03:51

Tim Cook's premise that he just has to make money,

1:03:53

some people don't accept the premise of the DMA, and

1:03:57

so they're never gonna be happy with what the DMA

1:03:59

does. No details about nobody. negotiation of the

1:04:01

DMA, no compliance malicious or otherwise

1:04:03

is going to be satisfying because

1:04:05

they disagree with the premise that

1:04:07

Apple deserves to be regulated and so do

1:04:09

other companies like it. Right. So

1:04:13

all this is going on and around

1:04:15

the same time, give or take a few

1:04:17

days, actually, I think it

1:04:19

was a few days before the EU's announcement,

1:04:21

but nevertheless, one way or another, it's

1:04:24

around the same time. Apple has

1:04:26

declared that it may delay some of

1:04:28

its AI features and others in the

1:04:30

EU because of the DMA. Ooh, Nelly.

1:04:33

All right. So reading from Verge. Oh,

1:04:35

this one over like a lead bullet.

1:04:38

Reading from the Verge, Apple says upcoming

1:04:40

features like its Apple intelligence generative AI

1:04:43

tools, iPhone mirroring, and SharePlay screen sharing

1:04:45

may not be available in the EU

1:04:47

this year. So now quoting

1:04:49

Apple, two weeks ago, Apple unveiled hundreds of

1:04:51

new features that we are excited to bring

1:04:53

to our users around the world. We

1:04:56

are highly motivated to make these technologies

1:04:58

available to all users. However,

1:05:01

due to the regulatory

1:05:03

uncertainties brought about by

1:05:05

the Digital Markets Act

1:05:07

or DMA, we do

1:05:09

not believe that we will be able to roll

1:05:11

out three of these features, iPhone mirroring, SharePlay screen

1:05:13

sharing enhancements and Apple intelligence to our

1:05:16

EU users this year. Specifically,

1:05:18

we are concerned that the interoperability requirements

1:05:20

of the DMA force us to compromise

1:05:22

the integrity of our products in ways

1:05:24

that risk user privacy and data security.

1:05:26

We are committed to collaborating with the

1:05:28

European commission in an attempt to find

1:05:30

a solution that would enable us to

1:05:32

deliver these features to our EU customers

1:05:34

without compromising their safety. So

1:05:37

this is one of the aspects of the DMA

1:05:39

that is

1:05:41

either the DMA overreaching or us

1:05:44

not understanding what the DMA wants. The

1:05:46

idea is... Porcanolus dos. Yeah. Or all

1:05:49

those integrations that Apple has where there's

1:05:51

some feature that, I mean, this is

1:05:53

in the DOJ case. Apple Watch only works

1:05:55

with Apple, iPhone, and this iPhone mirroring thing

1:05:57

between Macs and iPhones only work with Apple.

1:06:00

with iPhones, not Android phones. Any feature that

1:06:02

you can imagine Apple rolling out, there's

1:06:06

some interpretation

1:06:08

of the DMA, and again, maybe it's

1:06:10

straightforward interpretation of a lawyer, that says,

1:06:12

hey, if you add a feature, you

1:06:14

can't confine that feature to only first-party

1:06:16

stuff. Those features need to be extensible

1:06:19

by third parties and pluggable on day

1:06:21

one. And as anyone who's

1:06:23

familiar with Apple's platform

1:06:26

knows, that's

1:06:28

not the way they do things. Sometimes

1:06:30

they roll out first party only for

1:06:33

years and years and

1:06:35

never allow third parties access. Sometimes they do a

1:06:37

third party one five years later, 10 years

1:06:40

later, right? Think of all the features we have.

1:06:42

How long did we got third party keyboards? How

1:06:44

long until apps were allowed to run in the

1:06:46

background that were on Apple's apps? On the Mac,

1:06:48

on iPhone, and iPad, all these platforms, they

1:06:52

don't always make it extensible by third

1:06:54

parties ever, and doing it on day

1:06:56

one is rare. So

1:06:58

if the DMA really does require

1:07:01

every gatekeeper to implement

1:07:03

every feature such that it is extensible

1:07:06

and open to third parties on day

1:07:08

one, I think that is a technologically

1:07:10

ill-considered requirement. And

1:07:13

Apple would be justified in saying, we just can't

1:07:15

roll out these new features because it

1:07:17

seems like they are

1:07:20

not going to be compliant with the

1:07:22

law. Now, interestingly, they weren't so hesitant to

1:07:24

roll out all the other things that we

1:07:26

said that we also agreed were probably not

1:07:28

compliant, like the core technology fee and all

1:07:31

the rules for alternative app stores. Somehow they

1:07:33

didn't, they're, they're worried about whether those would

1:07:35

be compliant, did not stop them from deploying

1:07:37

those. But these ones, Apple says, you

1:07:39

know what, we're afraid we might not be compliant. So

1:07:41

it's best that we don't roll these out. I

1:07:44

don't know if they're compliant. If they're not

1:07:46

compliant, the DMA in this respect is

1:07:48

bad and needs to be changed because you

1:07:50

can't require technology companies to only launch something

1:07:52

when it's ready for the world to extend

1:07:54

it. That is too high a bar. It's

1:07:56

not the right way to make technology. You

1:07:58

can put a time. am I on it,

1:08:00

say it has to be extensible within five years. There

1:08:02

are other things you could do to be

1:08:04

more reasonable out of this. But I would also say that

1:08:07

like, look, yeah, Apple's an important platform,

1:08:09

cell phones, Gatekeeper cell phones, Android, Google, whatever. Those

1:08:11

are super important platforms. They're important to the economy,

1:08:13

all that stuff, right? It

1:08:15

doesn't mean that you need to require them to

1:08:18

be open

1:08:20

in every respect. What's the most important way they need

1:08:22

to be open? You need to

1:08:24

be able to get apps from somewhere else. Does

1:08:26

every single aspect of that platform also need to

1:08:29

be open? Every feature, every thing that you can

1:08:31

do on it, every single minute thing, SharePlay, iPhone,

1:08:33

does every single thing need to be open to

1:08:35

third parties at all time? How about you wait

1:08:38

to see if iPhone mirroring is a lever that

1:08:40

Apple uses to dominate the industry before you decide

1:08:42

that that needs to be opened up? Because we

1:08:44

know the App Store is, right? So yeah, address

1:08:46

the App Store and the law. But

1:08:49

you can't make an open-ended thing that says

1:08:51

every little feature you add has to be

1:08:53

open from day one. It's pointless, it's counterproductive,

1:08:56

and in the end, does

1:08:58

it matter? If iPhone mirroring only works with

1:09:00

iPhones, probably not to the degree

1:09:02

that there should be a law addressing it. So

1:09:04

I really hope that the DMA actually doesn't try

1:09:07

to say everything in the

1:09:09

OS open from day one. And

1:09:11

again, even if it did say that, Apple should probably just launch

1:09:13

these features anyway, but that's not why they're holding

1:09:16

them back. They're holding them back. To kind

1:09:18

of show the world, we think this

1:09:20

law is crappy, and we're

1:09:22

going to demonstrate that by holding back goodies

1:09:24

that we're probably gonna hold back anyway because

1:09:26

Apple Intelligence is only supposed to be launching

1:09:28

in English in the fall anyway, and I

1:09:30

guess they could launch it in English in

1:09:32

Europe because lots of people speak English there,

1:09:34

but this is part them making a statement

1:09:37

about their interpretation of the DMA, and

1:09:40

part sort of active defiance to show the consequences. And

1:09:42

it's like, hey, Apple could just pull out of the

1:09:44

EU and not sell phones there. That is the ultimate

1:09:46

break-up move here. That's the Brexit. We need to come

1:09:48

up with a Brexit-like term for Apple pulling out of

1:09:50

the EU. I don't have a good one off the

1:09:52

top of my head, but I'm sure by next week

1:09:54

we'll have lots of suggestions. We'll

1:09:57

have to exit because it begins with an E. like

1:10:00

an apple thing like Britain exit Brexit you

1:10:02

know you exit I don't know if they

1:10:04

core the apple no

1:10:07

anyway well we'll see what we can when I workshop it

1:10:09

this is that's lurking

1:10:11

out the end of this disagreement but this

1:10:13

move by Apple of just you know again

1:10:15

maybe they weren't gonna roll us out anyway

1:10:17

like but either way this is a this

1:10:19

is a positioning move like we don't know

1:10:21

whether they're doing something they weren't gonna do

1:10:23

maybe this is just putting words around something

1:10:25

that was gonna happen anyway but

1:10:27

yeah this is an

1:10:30

escalate let's say I would call this an escalation well

1:10:33

the thing of it is is that I feel

1:10:35

like I can I

1:10:38

was gonna say squint but I'm not even

1:10:40

sure it requires me squinting I

1:10:42

can look at the DMA and

1:10:44

look at particularly the mirroring and

1:10:46

share play screens sharing stuff and

1:10:49

I can see an interpretation a

1:10:51

legitimate honest you know no

1:10:54

BS interpretation that wow this

1:10:56

may not fly with the

1:10:58

DMA maybe we should hold on to this

1:11:01

and I can legitimately argue that

1:11:03

that that is a real concern

1:11:05

but they didn't have that same concern about all

1:11:07

the other stuff they rolled out that you could

1:11:10

have the same exact statement about wow this may

1:11:12

not comply maybe we should hold it back I

1:11:14

think because these are additive

1:11:17

things that involve interoperability between

1:11:19

devices right and leaving

1:11:22

aside the nuance of these particular selections the

1:11:24

broader point I'm trying to make is that

1:11:26

I feel like

1:11:28

we have and

1:11:30

we the three of us have talked about this a lot Apple

1:11:33

has not really

1:11:35

read the room both in a micro level

1:11:37

and a macro level and a micro level

1:11:39

they haven't really read the room that look

1:11:42

the EU is not gonna like this man like

1:11:44

they are not gonna take this lying down and

1:11:46

be like oh you know what we messed up

1:11:48

yeah we screwed this all up this that's our

1:11:50

bad our bad that that's on me my bed

1:11:53

that's not what's gonna happen and on a macro

1:11:55

level it's fascinating to me what Marco said because

1:11:57

I had the exact same reaction Marco said a

1:11:59

minute a minute ago, this went over like a

1:12:01

lead balloon. And I think that's broadly accurate. I

1:12:03

think most people had that same reaction and it

1:12:05

took me thinking about it a little bit and

1:12:08

I'm actually not so grumpy about this anymore, but

1:12:10

I certainly was at first. And what's fascinating to

1:12:12

me is everyone

1:12:14

seems to broadly speaking, everyone

1:12:17

seems to assume ill intent

1:12:20

from Apple, right? Like they're doing this just

1:12:22

to hold up a middle finger to the,

1:12:24

to the European commission and say, well, nah,

1:12:26

nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, you can't have

1:12:28

cool stuff. And that very well may

1:12:31

be true for the record. I don't

1:12:33

know, but it's kind

1:12:35

of funny in an unfortunate

1:12:37

that because Apple has been

1:12:39

so belligerently stubborn about so

1:12:41

much. And I think Marco was saying this

1:12:44

as well earlier, they've been so stubborn about

1:12:46

so much in heaven, given a friggin inch.

1:12:48

And so because of that, everyone is just

1:12:50

like, well, this is Apple being a dick

1:12:52

again, news at 11, like same as it

1:12:54

ever was. And that's the thing that kind

1:12:56

of bums me out as, as someone who

1:12:58

I consider, I mean, I consider myself a

1:13:00

fan of the company to the degree that

1:13:02

anyone can be a fan of a company

1:13:06

and this bums me out. It's as we've

1:13:08

said many different times on the show over

1:13:10

the years, you know, all of a sudden

1:13:12

I'm looking around and, or maybe Apple should

1:13:14

be looking around and asking, are we the

1:13:17

baddies? Because this is baddie behavior. Like I,

1:13:19

if, if this is them thumbing their, their

1:13:21

nose at the European commission, it's just gross.

1:13:23

And I, and I can't, I

1:13:25

can't get past and I know I'm repeating what

1:13:27

Marco said before and what we've said many times

1:13:29

on the show, I can't get past. This

1:13:32

is an own goal. Apple

1:13:34

knew this was coming. They, they could

1:13:36

tell it was coming. Anyone with three

1:13:38

brain cells that followed this could tell

1:13:41

this was going to happen and that

1:13:43

the laws are going to change and

1:13:45

they're going to change because Apple is

1:13:47

greedy and they're entitled and they just

1:13:49

wouldn't give an inch and now

1:13:52

they screwed around and now they're finding out. I

1:13:54

think both sides of this are correct. Like

1:13:58

two things can be simultaneously true. Apple's

1:14:01

actually probably correct that

1:14:03

these features, you

1:14:06

could see why they actually might be

1:14:08

against the interop requirements of the DMA,

1:14:10

which are terrible largely. Like you

1:14:13

can see why, like yes, Apple is

1:14:15

probably correct to

1:14:18

cite this as a problem with the

1:14:20

DMA with these things in particular. Like

1:14:22

that's probably technically correct,

1:14:24

but also saying

1:14:26

this and doing this and having to face

1:14:28

this dilemma at all is a

1:14:30

direct result of their blatant anti-competitive behavior

1:14:33

over time. So none

1:14:36

of this would have happened if not for that.

1:14:38

Well, that's debatable. I mean, you could say that

1:14:40

no matter what Apple would have done, something like

1:14:42

the DMA would have passed anyway. There's no amount

1:14:44

of opening up preemptively that Apple could have done.

1:14:46

I still think they should have done it because

1:14:48

you don't know that you couldn't have prevented. This

1:14:50

is the question everyone has. Could Apple have done

1:14:52

anything to prevent it? And I think we all

1:14:54

agree, it was worth finding

1:14:57

out. Try something, right? Instead

1:14:59

of doing nothing, right? And again, I

1:15:01

want to remind people, Apple

1:15:03

did loosen the App Store rules from

1:15:05

30% to 15, the small business program.

1:15:07

Like stuff like that was like arguably

1:15:09

Apple's reaction to seeing the writing

1:15:11

on the wall. Obviously it was very slight,

1:15:15

very limited, not at all. Anything

1:15:17

close to something that would have

1:15:19

preempted action, clearly, right? But

1:15:21

there is still, I'm willing to entertain the idea

1:15:23

that there is really nothing Apple could have done,

1:15:25

but I just would have liked to see them

1:15:28

try. Show me there's nothing you could have done

1:15:30

by giving a big good faith effort to self-regulate

1:15:32

to head off regulation. Maybe you

1:15:34

would have failed, but they didn't even make an

1:15:37

effort. And so I think that's what we're arguing. And I'm

1:15:39

not 100% convinced that they

1:15:41

could have prevented something like this, but they

1:15:43

should have tried because I think their odds

1:15:45

were okay. Like it wasn't impossible, right? It was,

1:15:47

you know, there's probably something they could have

1:15:49

done. And even if they didn't head

1:15:51

it off, even if they did some good faith thing that

1:15:54

really opened it up and made new worldwide rules, that

1:15:56

they thought would be compliant, but up something like

1:15:59

DMA passed anyway, and it turns out they're not

1:16:01

quite in compliance. compliance, then you're tweaking an existing

1:16:03

worldwide system to comply. You're probably closer to a

1:16:05

meeting of the minds about this, as opposed to

1:16:08

now, where they're just so far apart and it's

1:16:10

so adversarial. And even for

1:16:12

this, I think if

1:16:14

you really want to demonstrate, again,

1:16:17

if Apple's and the popular interpretation of

1:16:19

the DMA is such that these interoperables

1:16:21

really would forbid iPhone mirroring and SharePlay

1:16:23

stuff and Apple intelligence, ship

1:16:27

the features, have the EU strike them down,

1:16:29

and then throw up your hands and go,

1:16:31

see everybody? That's how dumb

1:16:33

the DMA is. It doesn't allow us to ship

1:16:35

iPhone mirroring. iPhone mirroring is not a giant lever

1:16:37

of power that we use to dominate the industry.

1:16:39

It's a tiny feature that benefits people. If

1:16:42

stuff like iPhone mirroring is just allowed, that's

1:16:44

why the DMA is dumb. But they didn't

1:16:46

allow that to happen. They shouldn't have shipped

1:16:48

it and got the complaints about it

1:16:50

and had the evidence. Instead, now they're holding it back saying,

1:16:52

we think this might not be compliant. And of course, the

1:16:55

EC is not going to come out and say, Apple's

1:16:58

wrong. It would have been compliant. Or Apple's right. It wouldn't have

1:17:00

been. The EC is happening like the App Store. It's like, if

1:17:02

you don't submit the app, we're not going to tell you whether

1:17:04

it's compliant or not. So they've lost

1:17:07

the opportunity to show that the DMA

1:17:09

is dumb. And on

1:17:11

the flip side, the EC, I guess, doesn't

1:17:13

have the opportunity to show the DMA isn't dumb

1:17:15

by saying, hey, ship iPhone mirroring. We weren't going

1:17:17

to strike that down. We're reasonable people here. I

1:17:21

don't know if iPhone mirroring is compliant with the

1:17:23

DMA or not. Either does Apple. I'm not sure

1:17:25

if the EC knows. Maybe

1:17:27

they need nine months to investigate to find it. I

1:17:30

think Apple knows that that

1:17:33

is probably something. They're

1:17:36

looking for holes to poke in the

1:17:38

DMA because they don't like the whole

1:17:40

thing. They're looking for reasons. They're looking

1:17:42

for ways to make it look overbearing

1:17:44

and ridiculous. And the main difference here

1:17:46

is that with this

1:17:49

move, for the first time, they're

1:17:51

not just attacking policies.

1:17:53

With this move, they're attacking their own

1:17:55

customers. And that is, I think,

1:17:58

again, one of the things I

1:18:00

question the strategy here. Is anyone

1:18:03

strategizing over there like maybe they

1:18:05

may be thinking that Europe is filled with Americans

1:18:07

who are going to be like, hey, the government

1:18:09

stopping us from getting a cool Apple features where

1:18:11

it seems like a lot of people in the

1:18:13

EU are going to say, hey, Apple is being

1:18:15

a jerk about this law that we all agreed

1:18:17

on. Yeah, it turns out Europeans largely like the

1:18:19

way Europe does things. Exactly. Right. It's like if

1:18:22

Europe was filled with Texans, it would be a

1:18:24

different story. But it's not. And

1:18:26

so I don't know if they're misreading that room again. I

1:18:28

don't have a finger on the pulse of what Europe is

1:18:30

like, but just look, the DMA

1:18:33

passed overwhelmingly. The

1:18:35

EU likes regulation. Just look at all the

1:18:37

laws around like cheeses in Italy and stuff.

1:18:39

And it's just like they they

1:18:41

like the way things work there. All right. They

1:18:43

vote for these people. Right. So I don't know

1:18:45

how this is going to work out, but just

1:18:49

I do think if this if this is

1:18:51

the deal with the DMA, like Apple can

1:18:53

no longer do business effectively in Europe because,

1:18:56

again, I think it's not reasonable to require every

1:18:58

single feature added to all of their gatekeeping platforms

1:19:00

to be open with the third parties from day

1:19:02

one is technologically not feasible. So the DMA is

1:19:04

asking for that. It needs to

1:19:07

be changed or Apple just needs to leave because

1:19:09

otherwise people in Europe are going to get features

1:19:11

like three years after the rest of the world

1:19:13

gets them. And that's if Apple decides to stay

1:19:15

in the market and put in an effort to

1:19:17

actually comply, because that's like that's the best case,

1:19:19

the roadmap. Like you roll out the feature and

1:19:22

then you tweak the feature and then maybe open

1:19:24

it up to third parties and then the next

1:19:26

year, the third party integration actually works well. Right.

1:19:29

And that's not Apple being a jerk. That's just

1:19:31

the way technology works. It's it's not it's not reasonable

1:19:33

to require this. The app store is the important thing

1:19:35

to regulate on the phone. Share

1:19:38

play is not. Right. But but it

1:19:40

was there. It was their behavior with the app store

1:19:42

that in spot that that generated a whole bunch of

1:19:44

political will to do a lot like this in the

1:19:46

first place that happened to also include other things. I

1:19:48

mean, yeah. And again, it's not it's

1:19:51

not clear to me that Shareplay they wanted to

1:19:53

wrap up Shareplay in this. Like maybe they they're

1:19:55

like, oh, no, we totally understand. Like Shareplay is

1:19:57

not what we're after or whatever, but. I

1:20:00

don't know. They're looking for reason to discredit

1:20:02

it, but again, I just I have to

1:20:04

wonder how many battles

1:20:06

is Apple willing to fight at once? Like they have

1:20:08

a lot of lawyers. They're doing

1:20:10

battle with everyone there. They're fighting

1:20:13

on so many fronts and they seem to

1:20:15

just provoke more of them to keep coming.

1:20:18

And now they've involved some a pretty decently

1:20:20

sized chunk of their own customers as one

1:20:22

of the fronts in these battles. Why

1:20:26

is this worth it? Because again,

1:20:28

what we're talking about is not

1:20:30

all services revenue. First

1:20:32

of all, a huge chunk of it is Google. So

1:20:34

set them at a site for now. What we're talking

1:20:36

about is not even all app

1:20:38

store revenue. We are

1:20:41

talking about giving people the option

1:20:44

to not use app store purchasing

1:20:46

and commissions for apps that

1:20:49

are largely not using the app store purchase system

1:20:51

in the first place. Things like Spotify,

1:20:53

Netflix, HBO, Macs, like that's kind of what

1:20:55

we're talking about here. We're

1:20:58

talking about allowing these apps to

1:21:01

like link out and use their own stores

1:21:03

or to use their own purchase systems that

1:21:05

already mostly aren't using an app purchase. And

1:21:08

that's not where Apple makes most of its money. They

1:21:11

make most of their money with games. So

1:21:13

we're not even talking about a huge chunk

1:21:15

of app store revenue that would just disappear

1:21:18

overnight. Apple is engaging

1:21:20

in all these different battles all around

1:21:22

the world, including in their own country

1:21:24

now with the DOJ lawsuit, which touches

1:21:26

on some of these things. They're opening

1:21:28

up all these fronts of war and battling

1:21:31

and literally causing problems

1:21:33

for their core product attributes like

1:21:35

integration in the EU now and

1:21:37

possibly the DOJ lawsuit that those

1:21:39

both have integration components. They

1:21:42

are causing substantial threats to really

1:21:44

important parts of how their products

1:21:46

are designed and how they work

1:21:49

in pretty large markets around the world

1:21:51

in order to save some tiny percentage

1:21:54

of app store revenue that to me

1:21:56

again. I have

1:21:58

yet to see I was trying to. think, what

1:22:01

are Tim Cook's long-term strategy

1:22:03

successes? I can't

1:22:05

think of many of those. I

1:22:07

honestly do not think Tim Cook

1:22:10

as a leader has good long-term

1:22:12

strategy in some pretty key critical

1:22:14

areas to leading this company. And

1:22:16

honestly, it's time for new leadership.

1:22:18

We've seen the limits of the Tim

1:22:20

Cook apple. We've seen he's really good

1:22:22

at making money, and he's a

1:22:25

little spotty in some of the really

1:22:27

important product details, and a little bit

1:22:29

short-sighted with some of these regulation

1:22:32

and app store details. We've

1:22:34

seen the limits of Tim Cook's apple.

1:22:36

I'm ready to see something else. This

1:22:38

is bad leadership and bad strategy at

1:22:40

the top. This wouldn't be

1:22:43

an Apple DMA rant if

1:22:45

Marco wasn't ready to fire some people

1:22:47

at Apple. All right,

1:22:50

let's do at least a little bit of Ask ATP.

1:22:52

It's been a busy season for us, so we've unfortunately

1:22:54

put it on the back burner. Bring it around. Some

1:22:57

fellow by the name of Todd Vaziri, I wonder who

1:22:59

he is, writes, an ATP 589 used

1:23:01

Mark Gurman's rumor bullet points as a

1:23:03

conversation starter. Rumors are great at sparking

1:23:06

conversation and debate, but I wonder if

1:23:08

anyone has ever revisited Gurman's rumors post-event

1:23:10

to validate the rumors themselves. It seems

1:23:12

like no one cares if the rumors

1:23:14

are actually based on fact and bear

1:23:16

fruit, since the rumors help create quote,

1:23:18

unquote, content and discourse that's good

1:23:20

enough for some. But when rumors that ultimately

1:23:22

go nowhere are given full faith, I feel

1:23:25

like we are all wasting outrage or interest.

1:23:27

Not to mention, if a rumor doesn't come

1:23:30

true, the rumor monger can claim that Apple

1:23:32

changed its plans and claim no responsibility. I

1:23:35

feel like my gut says that Gurman

1:23:37

is over 50%, but

1:23:41

I've never actually done any mathematics or

1:23:43

anything to see if that's true. Back

1:23:45

in the early days before you guys

1:23:47

were Apple fans in the, god,

1:23:50

I hope I'm going to get this right, macOS

1:23:52

Rumors. I know you're like, don't you mean

1:23:54

MacRumors? No, I'm pretty sure I mean macosrumors.com.

1:23:56

Anyway, there was a lot of websites that

1:23:58

had Apple rumors. A

1:24:01

lot of the some of those websites just flat

1:24:03

made up stuff, right? Some

1:24:05

of those websites would publish things that

1:24:07

were sent to them anonymous anonymously that

1:24:10

the sender is made up And

1:24:12

it was a very exciting time to be Apple because

1:24:14

every possible thing that you could think would be like

1:24:16

whoa Look at this look at that and back in

1:24:18

that time I thought to myself a

1:24:20

kind of like Todd here It would be great if there

1:24:23

was like a meta website that kept track of all the

1:24:25

things that were on all the rumors websites And then rated

1:24:27

them on accuracy accuracy and there are websites currently that do

1:24:29

that I wish I could remember the URLs probably will have

1:24:31

them fall up next week if anyone cares But there are

1:24:33

websites to do that, but it turns out that activity is

1:24:35

not that exciting because very quickly You

1:24:38

kind of get a feel for what kind of

1:24:41

things will people publish like will this site publish

1:24:43

anything that's sent to them anonymously or will the

1:24:45

site only publish things from Sources

1:24:47

that they that they have some reason to

1:24:49

believe are actual real sources not just like

1:24:51

an anonymous email that comes to you or

1:24:53

whatever Mark Gurman is One

1:24:57

of those people who publishes things from

1:24:59

sources? And I

1:25:01

mean the main thing against him is that the

1:25:04

information that he the source information that he gets is usually

1:25:06

Buried in a giant pile of words a lot of which

1:25:08

are just his opinion on things and it's like yeah Yeah,

1:25:10

yeah, what did you what did your sources tell you and

1:25:12

the reason we care what his sources tell us is because

1:25:15

His hit rate for things that are

1:25:17

sourced that he says definitively Very

1:25:20

close to when they're actually going to

1:25:22

happen and even sometimes distantly is very

1:25:24

good. He has real sources He

1:25:26

doesn't have people making things up. He's not

1:25:29

guessing and being lucky He

1:25:31

has actual sources or maybe just one source But

1:25:33

whatever it is when he publishes

1:25:35

information without any qualifiers and says something definitively

1:25:37

It's like a week before the keynote. You

1:25:40

can basically take that to the bank Rare

1:25:43

misses like the Apple watch and everything or whatever

1:25:46

But the reason we go back to

1:25:48

that and talk about it as if it's a real thing

1:25:50

is because like well It is a week before WRC and

1:25:52

Gurman says no hardware Wwc we just take that at face

1:25:54

value at this point because when he says

1:25:57

that definitively a week for Wwc guess what? No

1:25:59

hardware W. There's And

1:26:01

if he starts being wrong about that, he said no

1:26:03

hardware and it was a huge hardware thing Then we're

1:26:05

gonna look at scans as we as I think the

1:26:07

Apple watch rumor with the flat sides It never occurred

1:26:09

We look a little bit of scans of that not

1:26:11

a hundred percent But he has real

1:26:13

sources as opposed to Mac OS rumors back in the

1:26:15

day Which I'm pretty sure had no real sources and

1:26:17

just published anything that was seen it sounded cool and

1:26:19

occasionally got things right just because Of you know, dumb

1:26:21

luck and occasionally got real leaks But most of the

1:26:24

time just made up stuff in the end,

1:26:26

this is mostly like entertainment or whatever, but I think on this

1:26:28

show We if something

1:26:30

is a rumor that's like we

1:26:32

have no idea about the sourcing or whatever We will

1:26:34

say as much but when we say

1:26:36

it looks like no hardware WWDC because German said it

1:26:39

That's based on past performance that

1:26:43

You know that he's been pretty accurate about things like

1:26:45

that farther out like oh the new Apple watch is

1:26:47

gonna have different straps Like remember when we talked about

1:26:49

ages ago? We were always framing that as like it's

1:26:51

so far away who knows if that's gonna happen He

1:26:54

might have a source that just like even then it's

1:26:56

like source. Okay. Well, so they were They were working

1:26:58

on an idea for a new strap on Apple watch

1:27:00

things and he got a source rumor to say that

1:27:03

That doesn't mean and German doesn't say definitively the

1:27:05

next Apple watch will have different straps He's just

1:27:07

saying this is a thing Apple's working on and

1:27:10

it probably is but you have to take that

1:27:12

for what it is Which is Apple works on

1:27:14

a lot of stuff. Not everything ships. Sometimes they

1:27:16

decide to do something different or whatever That's

1:27:19

different than when he comes out and

1:27:21

says here are the features here are the things here's what's gonna

1:27:23

be in the keynote Here's what's not gonna be in the keynote

1:27:26

again, especially as the D gets closer So I

1:27:29

agree that just getting outraged on stuff that

1:27:31

are just rumors is pointless but I hope

1:27:33

mostly on this show we either

1:27:35

talk about you rumors as a jumping-off point to like

1:27:37

imagine if they did this or whatever or we

1:27:41

take as Close to

1:27:43

fact things that come from

1:27:45

sources that are usually right very close to

1:27:47

the date when they're gonna happen Yeah,

1:27:49

and different rumor sources have different areas

1:27:52

of strengths I would say like for

1:27:54

instance when we hear from Ming Chi

1:27:56

Kuo about a new display size or

1:27:58

a new display panel that

1:28:00

could be used for an Apple product. That's

1:28:03

usually pretty good because Ming-Chu Kuo is well sourced

1:28:05

in the supply chain for displays, and we know

1:28:07

that. But we don't know what product that's going

1:28:09

to be in. Right, exactly. And very often he

1:28:11

will definitively say this is going to be in

1:28:13

a new laptop, and it turns out it's in

1:28:15

an iPad or something, right? Because that's not something

1:28:17

you would know if you just have sources at

1:28:19

the display manufacturer. Right, and sometimes you can derive

1:28:22

it. Like if it's some giant 30-inch 8K panel,

1:28:25

that's probably for a studio display, not like

1:28:28

a MacBook, but there

1:28:30

are some things that it's more vague. But

1:28:32

yeah, we know when Ming-Chu Kuo reports pretty

1:28:34

definitive display-sized stuff, especially when it's something like

1:28:36

an iPhone, we know it's probably correct. Or

1:28:39

like the OLED iPad. We were talking about

1:28:41

the OLED iPad as if we were sure

1:28:43

it was a thing for months and months

1:28:46

and months because there are just so many

1:28:48

sources in the display supply chain for so

1:28:50

long saying iPad-sized OLEDs,

1:28:52

iPad-sized OLEDs, dual-layer iPad-sized OLEDs.

1:28:55

It's not just one source. It's tons of them come

1:28:57

in, and it's eventually we just start talking about it

1:28:59

as if it's fact. And

1:29:02

maybe that's just experience and knowing. It

1:29:05

looks like there's going to be OLED

1:29:07

iPads with dual-layer screens, and there was.

1:29:09

And every time that happens, it reinforces

1:29:11

our instincts of when something, like where

1:29:14

there's smoke, there's fire, versus just a

1:29:16

fanciful idea of I think they're looking

1:29:18

at different ways to attach watch straps.

1:29:20

Right, exactly. And we know Mark

1:29:22

Erman has limits too. Mark

1:29:24

Erman oftentimes will miss the

1:29:26

marketing side of

1:29:29

something or the story or the

1:29:31

software details

1:29:34

of certain things. But he's

1:29:36

really good at hardware. Mark

1:29:38

Erman usually knows what

1:29:40

hardware is coming. He knows usually

1:29:42

some pretty good hardware details. And

1:29:45

he's actually getting seemingly better sources

1:29:47

over time. And so

1:29:49

we pay attention to that. We notice

1:29:51

that. But we don't treat rumors as

1:29:54

absolute facts. But usually,

1:29:56

we also see the patterns. We

1:29:58

know that if there's pretty. strong

1:30:00

rumors about some new iPhone display

1:30:03

size from Ming-Chi Kuo and then

1:30:05

you know a few months later Mark Gurman reports a

1:30:08

few more details about an iPhone of that size and

1:30:10

and we know that's a plausible size and it's

1:30:12

bigger than the existing ones and so like we

1:30:15

know that's that's probably true just because we've seen

1:30:17

the patterns before we know roughly how this goes

1:30:19

we've been doing this for a long time and

1:30:21

so we you know we're not

1:30:23

going to report on things on the show we're talking

1:30:25

about them as if they're facts if they seem really

1:30:27

far-fetched or at least we'll tell you

1:30:30

why we think it's far-fetched if everyone else is talking about it

1:30:32

we feel like we need to but

1:30:35

you know it's all most of it

1:30:37

is just kind of like gut feeling putting in

1:30:39

context like this sounds plausible

1:30:41

from from this source that is

1:30:43

usually good in this area versus

1:30:47

this thing from some rando account on Twitter that

1:30:49

no one's ever heard of before is probably wrong

1:30:52

and sometimes you don't even need rumors like

1:30:54

for example we talked about on past episodes

1:30:57

OLED screens are coming to MacBooks I

1:30:59

don't even think there's a rumor of

1:31:02

that but it's like duh right unless

1:31:04

some better technology comes along eventually the

1:31:07

screen cool screens they just put on the iPads

1:31:09

should be coming to MacBooks now what we'll end

1:31:11

up reporting on is say this rumor it says

1:31:13

oh it turns out they can't use the tandem

1:31:15

OLEDs in MacBooks because someone under the supply chain

1:31:17

says they use too much power they get too

1:31:19

hot or something like that that's a

1:31:21

rumor we report on but in the absence of any

1:31:23

rumors we're just like well we assume these displays will

1:31:25

come to the MacBooks now we wait to see does

1:31:29

the rumor mill support that and say oh here's

1:31:31

the schedule for the MacBook Air with a dual

1:31:33

air OLED display right here's when we think it's

1:31:35

coming out 2025 2026 and they'll keep updating that

1:31:37

date when they get it whatever or are

1:31:40

we looking for rumors it says Apple changed their mind they're

1:31:42

not using a micro LED on the watch for example like

1:31:44

they did all this investment in micro LED they were gonna

1:31:46

use it on the watch and they said actually we're not

1:31:48

we've bailed out of that we sold the company or whatever

1:31:51

those are things worth reporting on but even the absence of

1:31:53

reporting you can look ahead and you can kind of see

1:31:56

where the very often where the tech is going

1:31:58

what is going to be technologically possible. Look at

1:32:00

the products. Apple's introduced. Look at what technologies they

1:32:02

would probably want to use in the rest of

1:32:04

their line and see how that goes. And then

1:32:06

obviously this is the easy stuff like, hey, you

1:32:08

know, Apple has an M4. There's probably

1:32:10

going to be a more powerful than M4

1:32:12

chip, which historically speaking will probably be an M4 Pro

1:32:14

and M4 Max. And maybe there'll be an Ultra. Maybe

1:32:17

there'll be an Extreme. You don't need rumors to tell

1:32:19

you that the M4 is coming to the Mac line.

1:32:21

Like you just don't need any. And all we do is look

1:32:23

at the rumors and say, OK, it looks like this is coming

1:32:26

in this year and this is coming in this month or whatever

1:32:28

to sort of lay out where they're coming. But no one is

1:32:30

debating like someone said the M4 is coming to the MacBook Pro.

1:32:33

I'm not sure about that. No, we're pretty sure. All

1:32:35

right. Thank you to our members who were

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the exclusive sponsor of this episode. We are

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The ATP over time segment. This is

1:32:53

a bonus topic that we do every

1:32:55

week just for members. And this

1:32:57

week it's going to be about Apple

1:32:59

allegedly planning thinner devices, seemingly across

1:33:02

the whole product line. Yes.

1:33:04

Speaking of German rumors, we were talking

1:33:06

about this Apple thinner device rumor, which

1:33:09

seems plausible and I think is some interesting

1:33:11

implications. We talked about that in overtime this

1:33:14

week. So you can join to hear it

1:33:16

ATP. FM slash join. Thank you

1:33:18

so much. And we'll talk to you next week. Now the

1:33:21

show is over. They

1:33:26

didn't even mean to begin

1:33:28

because it was accidental. Oh,

1:33:31

it was accidental. John

1:33:34

didn't do any research. Marco

1:33:36

and Casey wouldn't let him

1:33:38

because it was accidental. It

1:33:42

was accidental. And

1:33:44

you can find the show notes

1:33:46

at ATP. And

1:33:50

if you're into mass, you

1:33:52

can follow them at

1:33:54

C A S E Y

1:33:57

L I S S. So that's

1:33:59

Casey. M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M

1:34:03

Anti-Marco-Armen S-I-R-A-C

1:34:08

USAC-Recusa It's

1:34:10

accidental It's

1:34:13

accidental They didn't mean

1:34:15

to Accidental Accidental

1:34:18

Tech broadcast So long

1:34:25

So what's going on with Aaron's car? Any updates

1:34:27

there? Yes, I have updates So

1:34:30

we got a call from

1:34:32

the adjusters saying, Hey, I'm at Volvo Can

1:34:35

you explain to me what the hell happened one more time? Like, because

1:34:37

we had never spoken to the adjuster before And I was

1:34:39

like, I can, but why don't I put my wife on

1:34:41

the phone She was the one who's there, blah, blah, blah

1:34:43

So she does the whole song and dance about

1:34:46

what had happened, et cetera, et cetera That

1:34:48

same evening, the adjuster calls again We

1:34:50

are about to go to dinner He

1:34:53

says, OK, I

1:34:55

have looked into the situation And

1:34:57

we're going to total the car Oh,

1:34:59

my God Because the car

1:35:01

is worth not that much

1:35:04

more than it would cost to repair it

1:35:07

So we're going to total the car That

1:35:09

means that now we have

1:35:11

to buy a car under duress Because

1:35:14

Aaron can't drive my car, doesn't think

1:35:16

she can And she

1:35:19

did get a loaner from our

1:35:21

local Volvo dealer It is a

1:35:24

piece of trash, but it's a piece of trash that will get

1:35:26

her from A to B As long as A to B is

1:35:28

pretty close to home So we

1:35:30

are very thankful for this piece of trash

1:35:32

But it is not a long-term sustainable solution

1:35:36

And service has been phenomenal Like, if

1:35:38

you live in the Richmond area or anywhere

1:35:40

near it And you want to get your

1:35:42

car serviced by somebody who seems

1:35:45

to really care Go to Volvo Richmond, they're

1:35:47

very good But

1:35:50

that being said, we still need to solve

1:35:52

this problem And what we're

1:35:54

currently thinking is replacing the XC90 with another

1:35:56

XC90 Which I could understand and

1:35:58

argue that that's a dumb terrible decision, but

1:36:00

I really believe in my heart a few things and

1:36:03

we'll talk about why. But first of all, I really

1:36:05

think that this is the best car for Aaron. I

1:36:07

really, really, really do. And number

1:36:10

two, I really think it

1:36:12

was a one in a trillion bad

1:36:15

unlucky break. I really, really do think it's not

1:36:17

one in a trillion because somebody wrote in to

1:36:19

say that this happened to two of their other

1:36:21

Volvo. So I'm going to say it's, yeah, but

1:36:24

they were wildly different generations. Right. But let's say

1:36:26

it's, it's a three and a 9 billion. Okay.

1:36:28

Fair enough. I mean, it definitely seems like it

1:36:30

is not, it is not that

1:36:32

rare. Like the fact that we, I think

1:36:34

I believe you heard from multiple people who

1:36:36

say something similar happened to them with a

1:36:39

Volvo in particular. So it could be like

1:36:41

a just a design flaw of some of

1:36:43

their engines. Is there not enough shielding on

1:36:45

the bottom of the car or something or

1:36:47

whatever? It's still, still super rare, I would

1:36:49

imagine. Yeah. But like, I think it might

1:36:51

give me pause to own one out of

1:36:53

warranty ever. But yeah, it's a, whatever that

1:36:55

effect is. Like if he had had a

1:36:57

Volkswagen and given the same story, we would

1:37:00

have heard from the Volkswagen people who it

1:37:02

happened to. So maybe this happens to three

1:37:04

out of every, you know, 9 billion of

1:37:06

every car manufacturer. It's difficult to draw conclusions

1:37:08

from because we're, it's not, it's not a

1:37:10

random selection. It's self selecting because we talked

1:37:12

about Volvo's. We hear from the Volvo people

1:37:14

this happened to. So I

1:37:16

think the jury's still out of that. So

1:37:18

I assume is, is there no chance of

1:37:21

getting you into something electric here? ATP

1:37:25

dot FM slash join. I

1:37:29

know it's more money. It's also a

1:37:31

lot nicer. It's also no gas. It also

1:37:33

can't have that problem. Recur harder to find

1:37:35

with car play. Sometimes that's very true. Let's

1:37:38

put that. I believe there's something called the

1:37:40

Volvo EX 90. Okay. So let's

1:37:42

put that. Poll star and there's a, hold

1:37:45

on, just hold on, put that in the parking lot

1:37:47

ding for a second and make sure I come back

1:37:49

to that because there is an answer for that. But,

1:37:52

but let me, let me put that aside for a

1:37:54

moment. So we look at the local Volvo deal and what

1:37:56

we're looking for is something around like a 2021 XC 90. car

1:38:00

was not driven that much so it only had like 42, 43,000 miles

1:38:02

on it so we want something with

1:38:04

something with fewer than 40,000 miles and

1:38:07

we want something that doesn't really give up any

1:38:09

of the options we had before which basically if

1:38:11

you speak Volvo amounts to the climate package which

1:38:13

gives you like rear heated seats which I think

1:38:15

the kids are really going to want even though

1:38:17

we don't have winter here and it gives you

1:38:19

a few other things I forget well a heated

1:38:22

wheel which Aaron really really liked and

1:38:24

the advanced package as I think what they

1:38:26

call it which among other things gives you a heads

1:38:28

up display which Aaron has become completely addicted to and

1:38:30

honestly I would too if I were her so

1:38:34

anyways so to find that car has been

1:38:36

challenging used is what we think

1:38:38

we want to do we could I mean

1:38:41

potentially buy new but we're talking I mean these

1:38:43

cars are now $70,000 new and I

1:38:47

genuinely think they're great cars and I could even make

1:38:49

an argument they're worth $70,000 but I

1:38:51

don't particularly want to spend $70,000 on a car right this minute so we

1:38:53

didn't think

1:38:57

that we really wanted to go that route so

1:38:59

okay that was Monday Tuesday

1:39:01

I say to her alright you know let's

1:39:03

go to the place I often

1:39:05

mention on the show these days let's go

1:39:07

to Carmax because Carmax is a used car

1:39:09

retailer and they all sell anything right and

1:39:12

you can bounce between several different cars all

1:39:14

in the same dealership and see and just

1:39:16

sit in them if not drive them and

1:39:18

see what you think so I or

1:39:21

the four of us went to Carmax and

1:39:23

we sat in and looked at an Atlas

1:39:25

of Volkswagen Atlas a Audi Q7

1:39:27

which I actually really liked but Aaron was

1:39:29

not that keen on a Kia

1:39:32

Telluride which is extraordinarily well reviewed and

1:39:34

I know a couple people with them

1:39:36

and they love them but

1:39:39

Aaron didn't care for it the Mazda CX-9

1:39:41

which was mostly because we had such good

1:39:43

luck with her Mazda years years ago and

1:39:45

that didn't impress either of us and

1:39:48

the Jeep Grand Cherokee which I know

1:39:50

you two are gonna snicker but honestly

1:39:52

is a relatively upmarket three-row car that

1:39:55

feels to me like it's 13 miles

1:39:57

long like suburban but there's the

1:40:00

current ones are huge. I don't know what year you were

1:40:02

looking at. We were looking at basically the brand new ones

1:40:04

because we wanted a three row. Are they meaningfully bigger than

1:40:06

the XC 90? I haven't

1:40:08

looked it up, but I feel like they are

1:40:10

exactly. It may not be bigger, but it looks

1:40:13

bigger. I bet it's not. It

1:40:15

may not be. I genuinely don't know. And I'm not going

1:40:17

to look it up while I'm talking, but it looks way

1:40:19

bigger. Um, and what was really great

1:40:21

about the Carmax experience was we walked in, you know,

1:40:23

and there's a little like greeter person and they said,

1:40:26

okay, you know, what can I help you with? And

1:40:28

I said, Oh, I want to look at these cars.

1:40:30

And of course, because it's me, I have model

1:40:32

names and stock numbers written down and the lady

1:40:34

looks at it and says, you're a nightmare customer.

1:40:37

Oh, I am the worst. It gets

1:40:39

worse because I had a different experience today. Um, but

1:40:42

she says, okay, this one's over there. That one's over there.

1:40:44

That one's over there. That one's over there. Just, you know,

1:40:46

let us know if you have questions. In other words, get

1:40:49

out of my hair. Well, but it was said with a

1:40:51

smile. And so I'm like, what's it?

1:40:54

Are they, are they open? Like, what

1:40:56

do I need someone to go with me? And just, no, no, no,

1:40:59

no, they're all open. Just go to town. What

1:41:01

really? Like that's, that's not how this usually works.

1:41:03

And to be honest, uh, I really enjoyed the

1:41:06

Carmax experience because I didn't have to talk to

1:41:08

anyone. And so, and so it was really great.

1:41:10

We just walked around a grant and we're going

1:41:12

through heat wave here. So it was like over

1:41:14

a hundred degrees. I want to say it's like

1:41:16

35 and stupid units. Um,

1:41:19

it's over a hundred degrees, you know, it's 8 million percent humidity and

1:41:21

we're all drenched as we're looking at these cars, but you know, you

1:41:24

do what you do. Um, and

1:41:26

so we looked at them all and the only one

1:41:28

that was really in the running was a grand Cherokee,

1:41:30

but not enough that she was like, yeah, I want

1:41:32

to test drive that it was, it's huge. It's, it's

1:41:34

not really my cup of tea, but it's not my

1:41:36

car. And if she was more enthusiastic about

1:41:38

it, I definitely would have said, all right, let's go, you

1:41:40

know, let's go try it. But, um,

1:41:42

none of this really revved her engine and they

1:41:45

had a couple of XC nineties, but they weren't

1:41:47

exactly what we wanted either. So

1:41:49

I had my eyes on, and this

1:41:51

is coming obliquely back to what you

1:41:53

were talking about, Marco. I had my

1:41:55

eyes on a T eight Volvo. So

1:41:58

there's three different. of

1:42:00

Volvo in this generation. There's the T5, which

1:42:02

was a, I believe it was turbocharged only

1:42:05

instead of turbo and supercharged like Aaron's was.

1:42:07

And it did not have a third row

1:42:09

of seats. It just had, you know, empty

1:42:11

space there. There's a T6, which Aaron had,

1:42:13

which again, super and turbocharged. And then there's

1:42:16

the T8, which depending on the generation or

1:42:18

depending on the year, I should say it

1:42:20

was either the T6 with a small electric

1:42:22

motor for the, I believe it was the

1:42:24

rear wheels or it, I

1:42:27

think in later years it was a turbocharged

1:42:29

only motor with a

1:42:32

slightly larger electric

1:42:34

motor for the rear wheels. And

1:42:36

what's great about this, what I find super appealing

1:42:38

about this is that

1:42:40

you can, like some of these, you know,

1:42:42

quasi hybrids, you can, well, it's a, first

1:42:44

of all, it's a plugin hybrid. I didn't

1:42:47

specify that, but beyond that you can go

1:42:49

something like 20 miles pure electric. And

1:42:51

part of the way that Aaron had a seven year

1:42:53

old car that only had 40,000 miles on it is

1:42:56

that most of the time we're

1:42:58

driving or she's driving, I should say five

1:43:01

miles, 10 miles, you know, maybe

1:43:04

20 in a day, maybe. And so

1:43:06

on paper, well, first of all, on paper, a full

1:43:08

electric car is the correct answer. And I promise we're

1:43:10

coming back to this market. But, but apparently the

1:43:14

EX 90 is not actually out yet. That's correct.

1:43:17

And that's, that's, that's where I'm meandering toward.

1:43:19

You're still talking about the XC 90 here

1:43:21

with the trim levels, T8 and stuff, right?

1:43:23

That's correct. Yep. Yeah. Cause the X, it's,

1:43:25

it's, it's still available now with a plugin

1:43:27

hybrid option for like, you know, 30 miles

1:43:29

of range. Exactly. Right. Exactly. And you know,

1:43:31

the new ones, the new plugin hybrids are

1:43:33

like 75, $80,000. It's

1:43:36

just like, Oh, whether or not we

1:43:39

could afford that, which I don't know, but I

1:43:41

don't think I want to pay that, you know, like even if we could afford

1:43:43

it, I don't think I want to pay that kind of money. So

1:43:46

anyways, it vulnerable Volvo of Fredericksburg,

1:43:48

they had a T8 that had,

1:43:51

I think it's 30,000 ish miles and was optioned the

1:43:53

way we want. And I've been going back and forth

1:43:55

with them over email and they wouldn't come down to

1:43:57

exactly the price we wanted. And I, wanted

1:44:00

to go see it because we had never driven a

1:44:02

T8 before. So we went up there today

1:44:05

and we took it for a ride. And first

1:44:07

of all, it wasn't in as quite as good

1:44:09

condition as I like. And, and I know it's

1:44:11

a used car. It's not going to be perfect.

1:44:14

I don't expect it to be perfect. This is

1:44:16

where I'm becoming a total pain in the butt

1:44:18

client or customer. I don't want, I know it

1:44:20

won't be perfect, but we kept, we keep our

1:44:22

cars really nice. And you know, this one had

1:44:24

enough dings and dents and whatnot that, that it

1:44:27

wasn't, it wasn't quite up to snuff.

1:44:29

But the thing that was a real bummer. And if

1:44:31

you're at a, if you work at a car dealership, take

1:44:33

note of this for me, if, if, if, for nothing else,

1:44:36

this thing has a battery, right? It's a

1:44:38

small battery, but it's a battery. Nevertheless, in

1:44:41

order for this to really show us

1:44:43

the differences between Aaron's T6 and the

1:44:46

T8, that battery needs to be what

1:44:49

charged. I'll give you one

1:44:51

guess if that battery was charged when we took

1:44:53

it out for a spin. It's just like when

1:44:55

I tried to drive the, uh, the Wrangler plug-in

1:44:57

hybrid. I feel like the car dealerships are not

1:44:59

equipped to keep all the plug-in hybrids plugged in

1:45:01

like I from I'm assuming electric car dealerships are

1:45:04

cause you know, you kind of need that in

1:45:06

the electric cars, but the hybrids are sold by,

1:45:08

you know, gas car companies and they're just on

1:45:10

the same on the lot in the parking spots.

1:45:12

Yeah, that's a shame. It's a, it's

1:45:14

a total shame because I went into this thinking, this is

1:45:16

it. I, I mean, I had her old plates

1:45:18

in my car. I had our insurance information for

1:45:20

the old car. Like I had a checkbook in

1:45:22

the car. Like I was ready to rock. And

1:45:24

I didn't know if they were going to come

1:45:27

down to the price we wanted, but leaving that

1:45:29

aside, I thought, you know what,

1:45:31

there's a better than 50% chance we will leave

1:45:33

the house with one car return with two cars. And

1:45:36

we took it around the block and Aaron keeps saying

1:45:38

to me, this feels the same as my car. And

1:45:40

it's not that I didn't believe her, but I was

1:45:42

like, it

1:45:44

should feel different because in that application,

1:45:46

it's her engine plus

1:45:48

another like 70 horsepower or something

1:45:51

like that from the pure electric motor.

1:45:53

And so driving around in

1:45:56

pure electric mode, it felt

1:45:58

like a doggy, you know, a slow, version of

1:46:00

her car, which I think

1:46:02

makes sense, you know, because it's not a strong

1:46:04

electric motor. Real like battery electric cars like the

1:46:06

Rivian are stupid fast. This is different than that,

1:46:09

right? It's a little teeny electric motor and it's

1:46:11

enough to get you around town and do the

1:46:13

sorts of things. That's the things that Aaron needs

1:46:15

to do, but it's not going

1:46:17

to, you know, blow your hair back until

1:46:20

you have the gasoline motor involved as well.

1:46:22

And then this thing is like a 400

1:46:24

horsepower car or something like that. No granted.

1:46:27

It weighs as much as a house, but

1:46:29

Aaron's car, her old car, her now totaled

1:46:31

car, uh, that was, that

1:46:34

would keep up with my golf R like

1:46:36

it was surprisingly quick. And

1:46:38

in theory, I would have assumed this one

1:46:40

would actually be faster than my car. And

1:46:42

because the battery was fricking dead, it

1:46:44

just really was not that impressive. And I went

1:46:46

there thinking she's going to like

1:46:49

it. And I'm going to frigging love

1:46:51

it. Cause I love fast SUVs. They're

1:46:53

stupid. They're dumb and they make zero

1:46:55

sense. And I love them. It

1:46:57

feels like you're violating the laws of physics. Like it's why is

1:46:59

this thing so fast? Exactly.

1:47:03

So anyways, so we weren't impressed by that.

1:47:05

And they had a couple other options.

1:47:07

Um, they were the least sleazy car salespeople

1:47:09

I've ever worked with. So I really appreciated

1:47:12

that. But we, you know, they let

1:47:14

us drive away without anything. And I mean, I

1:47:16

don't think there was much they could have done

1:47:18

to put us in anything short of letting us

1:47:20

effectively steal a car, but I, I,

1:47:23

I didn't, I have no answers. And so

1:47:25

I asked both Richmond Volvo and Fredericksburg Volvo,

1:47:27

the same question I asked them, okay, what's

1:47:30

the story with the ex 90? The ex

1:47:32

90 is basically a full battery electric version

1:47:34

of Aaron's car. I mean, I'm sure there's

1:47:36

differences here and there, but in spirit, it's

1:47:39

a full battery electric version of Aaron's car.

1:47:41

I'm still unconvinced that I want our

1:47:44

workhorse to be a full battery electric

1:47:46

vehicle because we do long trips. And

1:47:48

I don't, I'm sure. Well, so here's

1:47:50

the thing I'm optimizing for, I'm optimizing

1:47:52

for like one to two trips a

1:47:55

year, which I intellectually know is dumb.

1:47:57

It's so easy. I haven't really gotten.

1:47:59

and past that and i recognize full-on

1:48:01

i recognize that i'm kind of being

1:48:03

an idiot about this you are but

1:48:06

nevertheless uh... the

1:48:08

x ninety both dealers independently said it they

1:48:10

are just rolling off the lines now and

1:48:12

i think the richmond dealers that i've never

1:48:14

even seen one and i believe the frederick

1:48:16

perk dealer said we've seen one but we

1:48:18

have no idea when we're getting and it

1:48:21

could be months i

1:48:23

don't think that we have months to

1:48:25

play with and with regard to

1:48:27

other battery electric vehicles even leaving aside the fact

1:48:29

that i'm not entirely convinced that's right fit for

1:48:31

us the only other decent option

1:48:33

is the uh... was a key a e

1:48:36

v nine i'm

1:48:39

not sure i love the look of at all

1:48:41

in aaron is very not sold on an electric

1:48:44

vehicle for her i think both of us agree

1:48:46

that my next car should be an electric car

1:48:48

of some sort i

1:48:50

don't think that it's time

1:48:52

for aaron quite yet uh... so anyway

1:48:54

so i don't really have any good

1:48:56

answers with regard to a battery electric

1:48:59

and i mean i would love

1:49:01

to put in our one s i really would

1:49:03

i would probably even hold my nose about car

1:49:05

play but you would certainly if

1:49:08

you certainly they are way

1:49:10

more expensive than i want and it doesn't

1:49:12

look like there's a robust enough and or

1:49:14

really great what i should say is cheap

1:49:16

enough used market to get to

1:49:18

the price point that i'm looking to to

1:49:20

get to know there is not yet and

1:49:22

so all of that to say i

1:49:25

really thought today we're gonna take care of business it was

1:49:28

gonna get done we're gonna buy that t eight life was

1:49:30

gonna be good and now i

1:49:32

don't know what to do because there

1:49:35

are enough used x c nineties broadly

1:49:37

speaking in the area none

1:49:40

of them or really just that exactly

1:49:43

what we want and i'm not sure what

1:49:45

to do i don't really want to

1:49:47

buy new because it's way more money that we need

1:49:50

to spend and i'm not snooty enough that i need

1:49:52

a nor she that we need

1:49:54

a new car like we don't want

1:49:56

or need to do that but i'm

1:49:58

having trouble finding that you know corn

1:50:00

of something that I think is priced

1:50:02

reasonably, not to say it's a steal,

1:50:04

but reasonably and not beat

1:50:06

to hell, not with a trillion miles on it

1:50:08

and option the way we want. And so now

1:50:10

I'm kind of like back at, you know, the

1:50:13

back at square one and I genuinely don't know

1:50:15

what we're going to do. The plan is still

1:50:17

to go with an XC 90 of some sort

1:50:19

of we, but we might have to just wait

1:50:21

it out for a while or I don't,

1:50:23

I don't know what we're going to do. I

1:50:26

mean, yeah, like the problem is like you have, you're under time pressure

1:50:28

like that, like, exactly. There's, there's really

1:50:30

no, like when you, when you

1:50:32

have time pressure and

1:50:34

you're really picky with a whole bunch of stuff, like

1:50:37

something has to give like you. And

1:50:39

so you, you don't get to make the

1:50:41

ideal choice. You have to compromise on something

1:50:43

or just get incredibly lucky with

1:50:46

what you find, but that seems like that

1:50:48

didn't happen. So, you know, the question is

1:50:50

just which of these various things that you're

1:50:52

going to, you know, not be very happy

1:50:54

about which, which compromise are you willing to

1:50:56

take first? Yeah. And that's

1:50:58

the thing. And the only, the only

1:51:00

thing that is working on our side

1:51:02

a little bit is that

1:51:04

we're going away for a couple of weeks

1:51:06

next month. And so we

1:51:08

really need to make it like three more weeks

1:51:10

and then we disappear for two and then we

1:51:12

can kind of reset and start over. Yeah, but

1:51:14

that means so, so your wife's going to have

1:51:16

no car for five weeks. Like that's, that's

1:51:19

a bit much. She could presumably rock the loaner

1:51:21

from Volvo for some or all of that. And

1:51:23

if they need it back, which we've told them

1:51:26

many times, like, look, the moment you

1:51:28

guys want this back, tell us and we will

1:51:30

have it back immediately. It's such

1:51:32

a piece of trash. This car is so bad, but

1:51:34

I don't think they, I don't think they're going to

1:51:36

want it back anytime soon, but it's still, it's not

1:51:38

a fair or appropriate for us to hold onto this

1:51:40

for, you know, two months or whatever.

1:51:43

So I genuinely don't know

1:51:45

what we're going to do. I mean, maybe we rent

1:51:47

a car for a couple of weeks to give us

1:51:49

a little more time, but that's not cheap or free,

1:51:51

you know, or anything like that. So I

1:51:54

don't know. I'm genuinely at a loss of

1:51:56

what I mean. Honestly, I think your best

1:51:58

bet is. First

1:52:00

of all, like you have to

1:52:02

also consider that Erin's the customer, not you. And

1:52:06

so, and she got this

1:52:08

ridiculously bad luck thing happen. I

1:52:11

think your best bet is

1:52:13

to get her back into an XC90 in

1:52:15

whatever form that needs to take. Like I would stop looking

1:52:17

at other vehicles that, if that's the one she really likes

1:52:20

and she really wants, figure out how to

1:52:22

get an XC90. Is her

1:52:24

mind closed to non-SUVs? I think

1:52:26

so. I will accept

1:52:28

any kind of input, but we

1:52:31

do use the capacity of the

1:52:33

XC90 enough that I don't think she would do a

1:52:36

sedan. And there are no sedans that exist in this

1:52:38

country anyway. I just put it in our Slack, a

1:52:42

2020 S60 plug-in hybrid for $35,000. I

1:52:48

mean, that looks like a nice car,

1:52:50

but that's a much smaller total cargo

1:52:53

volume. Exactly. All right, well, you've

1:52:55

got two small children. They would fit in this

1:52:57

car. It's really nice. It's a plug-in hybrid. One

1:52:59

of the things we talked about, because we ended

1:53:01

up having to rent a minivan to get to

1:53:03

the beach and back, right? And I got to

1:53:05

admit this Chrysler Pacifica, which actually, by the way,

1:53:07

was delivered to us from enterprise rental with 36

1:53:09

miles on it. It

1:53:11

just so happened we were the first people to rent it. And

1:53:16

I don't want to own a minivan for a

1:53:19

few reasons, but I will be the

1:53:21

first to tell you, and she would agree. On

1:53:23

paper, that is 100% the correct answer.

1:53:27

Honestly, everyone I've ever heard from who

1:53:29

owns a minivan, they all say they're

1:53:32

amazing. Like, you just have to get

1:53:34

over the fact that you own a

1:53:36

minivan, but once you get

1:53:38

over that, people love them. They

1:53:41

are really good in a lot of ways. And

1:53:43

if what you're looking for is a large

1:53:46

amount of passenger and cargo volume and

1:53:50

have it be roughly that

1:53:52

kind of size and shape, higher

1:53:55

seating position, big volume, fits

1:53:57

a bunch of kids' stuff, there's a

1:53:59

reason minivans are so popular and

1:54:01

have been for so long. They're

1:54:03

incredibly practical and people generally

1:54:05

love them who have them. And actually, come to

1:54:08

think of it, well first of all, yes, everything

1:54:10

you just said. Second of all, when we go

1:54:12

on these beach trips, and it's getting better and

1:54:14

better with each year as the kids get bigger

1:54:17

and require less stuff and whatever, but we take

1:54:19

Penny with us and so that's a little bit

1:54:21

of added cargo in and of itself,

1:54:23

but when we go on these beach trips, we typically will

1:54:25

put a toolie or whatever you call it, one of those

1:54:27

cargo carriers on the roof of Aaron's car and

1:54:30

we still feel this thing

1:54:32

just freaking full. That's a

1:54:34

lot. What are you bringing on your vacation with

1:54:36

your two, with your two small children and you

1:54:38

have the giant car and you need to have

1:54:40

a roof thing. Yeah, John, we do this every

1:54:42

year. I don't have time for it right now.

1:54:44

We can, we can pick her about this another

1:54:46

time. Are you bringing like a, like a gas

1:54:48

grill with you? No. Can we push on this

1:54:50

a little bit? Like that

1:54:52

does seem excessive. We can come back to

1:54:55

this if you want, but I'm supposed to

1:54:57

say we have a toolie or however you

1:54:59

pronounce it and, and, and the car is

1:55:01

chock full, right? Well, this minivan, I am freaking

1:55:03

out because it doesn't have any roof rails or

1:55:05

anything like that. I am telling Aaron, I say

1:55:07

to her, there's no freaking way we're going to

1:55:09

fit everything. We're going to have to cut some

1:55:11

stuff and she was like, first of all, good

1:55:13

fit everything. Second of all, if we can't, we'll

1:55:15

just leave some stuff behind. It'll be fine. Yeah.

1:55:18

I think it sounds like you might benefit

1:55:20

from cutting some stuff. Well, okay.

1:55:22

There, there is that, but nevertheless, uh,

1:55:24

we start packing the minivan and it

1:55:26

turns out that under the middle row,

1:55:29

like under the, the floorboard in the

1:55:31

middle row, there's these like freaking

1:55:33

cavernous gullies. I genuinely don't know

1:55:35

if this minivan was all wheel drive or not.

1:55:37

I want to say it wasn't, but either way,

1:55:39

there's these cavernous gullies under the kids seats or

1:55:41

under their feet. I should say we

1:55:44

filled those with a bunch of stuff. Then

1:55:46

the back, it was like two thirds

1:55:48

fall. It was amazing. It

1:55:50

was amazing how cavernous this thing was. It was incredible.

1:55:53

And it also had wireless carplay, which we only

1:55:55

used briefly, but actually in this

1:55:57

is a Chrysler, mind you. which

1:56:00

I don't personally consider a terribly fancy

1:56:02

brand, even though I think they might

1:56:04

think they are. But anyways, the wireless

1:56:06

carplay was very good, like very

1:56:09

low latency. The screen was very high resolution compared

1:56:11

to either of our cars. It looked like retina.

1:56:13

I mean, it wasn't literally, but it looked that

1:56:15

way. Um, it was

1:56:17

very impressed or impressive. Um,

1:56:20

but anyway, so we, you know, we rented

1:56:22

this minivan for the beach and that worked

1:56:24

out really nicely. And we talked about, should

1:56:26

we get a minivan or alternatively, should we

1:56:28

get a sedan and then just understand we're

1:56:30

going to rent minivans to go to the beach every year. And

1:56:33

what we concluded was we do use that

1:56:35

space in the XC 90 often enough

1:56:38

to justify something large. But I mean,

1:56:40

John, your question is not unreasonable. It

1:56:42

really, really, really isn't. Um,

1:56:44

but I think ultimately to come

1:56:47

back to what Marco was saying, she

1:56:49

had this thing that she loved ripped

1:56:51

away from her by incredibly crummy luck. It's not

1:56:53

like she got in an accident that was her

1:56:56

fault or something like that. She didn't get in

1:56:58

an accident at all by any reasonable definition. It's

1:57:00

just, she had catastrophic engine failure. Uh,

1:57:02

and so I think I'm pretty convinced

1:57:04

and I think she is too that

1:57:06

an XC 90 is the right answer. So we are no longer

1:57:08

cross shopping. I forget which one of you was asking that question,

1:57:10

but we're no longer cross shopping. We, we did it just so

1:57:12

we could check it off the list. We're not going to do

1:57:14

that anymore. Um, but

1:57:17

the question I keep asking myself

1:57:19

is I do not want to spend new car

1:57:21

money on

1:57:25

a new car for her or for anyone

1:57:27

really. It's not her specifically, but the

1:57:29

more I think about it, the more I'm wondering

1:57:32

if maybe I just need to bite the bullet

1:57:34

and find her the exact

1:57:36

car that she wants because a she deserves

1:57:38

it. She's an angel. That's what that is.

1:57:41

That is the correct answer. And B if

1:57:43

I can't put my fingers on, if I can't put

1:57:46

my hands on a used one that she really, really

1:57:48

likes, then why wouldn't we

1:57:50

get a new one? Now I think I,

1:57:52

I think I'm more on board with this

1:57:54

idea than she is. She is unquestionably the,

1:57:56

the, the more frugal of the two

1:57:58

of us or the more more financially

1:58:01

responsible of the two of us. So

1:58:03

I think it might, even if I'm convinced, I don't know

1:58:05

if I could convince her, but

1:58:09

it's where I'm starting to lean at this

1:58:12

point because I just can't find exactly what

1:58:14

we want. What about leasing, by the way?

1:58:17

If you want to soften the burden a little bit

1:58:19

up front, like leasing could be an option. And I

1:58:21

would also caution you that like, I

1:58:24

would maybe not want to own a Volvo

1:58:26

outside of warranty and leasing fixes that problem

1:58:28

as well. Yeah, I'm kind of

1:58:30

allergic to leasing, but what I haven't mentioned is

1:58:32

both the dealers told us, and I don't remember

1:58:35

the specific incentive, but I don't know if it's

1:58:37

like a government thing or a Volvo thing, but

1:58:39

apparently if you lease, they're offering like $7,500 off

1:58:41

right now or something

1:58:43

like that, like an absurd amount of money. That's the same amount

1:58:45

of dollars as the EV tax credit thing, isn't it? See, that's

1:58:47

what I thought, but I don't

1:58:50

know how that would apply to these cars unless

1:58:52

it's only- Maybe they're just matching the government thing.

1:58:54

That could be, a very- Automakers

1:58:56

use lease incentives all the time to like boost

1:58:58

their quarterly numbers. Take advantage, very

1:59:01

frequently in the auto business, a

1:59:04

lease special is often like the best

1:59:06

deal on a new car that's available

1:59:08

anywhere, because they do kind of bet

1:59:10

against their own future selves to boost

1:59:12

the short-term gain. So as

1:59:14

a customer, if what you want is available with a

1:59:17

heavily discounted lease special, that's often

1:59:20

worth considering. Yeah, and so

1:59:22

even though I find leases to

1:59:24

be, how do you pronounce the word? Anathema, is that

1:59:26

right? Is that what I'm looking for? I

1:59:29

find it disgusting to lease. Like it's just not

1:59:31

my jam, but I shouldn't say

1:59:33

disgusting, it's just not for me. But

1:59:35

that being said, if you're offering me $75 friggin' $75

1:59:38

friggin' dollars off, I'll

1:59:40

carry a lease for at least a few months until

1:59:42

I can pay it off or whatever the case may

1:59:44

be. That's not how that works. Well, according

1:59:47

to Volvo, they said, you just got to lease it

1:59:49

in the last like three months or something like that,

1:59:51

and then you can buy yourself out of it or whatever.

1:59:54

I've never leased before, so I'd have to talk to them more

1:59:56

about it if we get serious. But

1:59:59

either way... Um, it's,

2:00:01

it, it's between that and I

2:00:04

think most Volvo dealers or maybe Volvo corporate

2:00:06

offers like a, you know, Oh, you've previously

2:00:08

owned a Volvo, we'll give you a thousand

2:00:10

bucks to buy another one. Then we're Costco

2:00:12

members and they do like negotiations with these

2:00:14

different car manufacturers. And so I think we

2:00:16

get a thousand dollars off from that. So

2:00:18

suddenly we're looking at like $9,500 off potentially,

2:00:20

uh, on, on a brand new Volvo. And

2:00:22

suddenly the $70,000 Volvo is $60,000, which is

2:00:24

quite a bit more than I wanted to

2:00:28

spend still, but

2:00:30

nevertheless, it's at least

2:00:33

makes this sort of thing approachable or a possibility,

2:00:35

I guess I should say. Can I convince

2:00:37

you to use the $10,000 savings

2:00:40

to get the plug-in hybrid version? At least I

2:00:42

would really, really, really consider it because again, leaving

2:00:45

aside the fact that it makes the car kind

2:00:47

of fast. What I

2:00:49

cannot stress enough is how appealing it is

2:00:51

to me that we could have, even though

2:00:53

I don't really love plug-in hybrids in general,

2:00:55

I think in this application, it actually is

2:00:58

exactly the right answer because we have the

2:01:00

infinite range, estrus dagger, double dagger for when

2:01:02

we go on whatever trip we need to

2:01:04

go on. But for all the

2:01:06

around town piddly stuff, she can just go pure

2:01:08

electric and it'd be fine. Yeah.

2:01:11

Plug-in hybrids are very popular for good reason.

2:01:13

Like they're, they are extremely

2:01:15

compatible with current American

2:01:18

usage and priorities and fears.

2:01:21

Like they're very compatible with that. People

2:01:23

want to dip their toe in electric. They

2:01:26

think for those two trips a year that you

2:01:28

take that somehow it's

2:01:30

never going to be possible to charge an electric

2:01:33

car on the highway. So they think they need

2:01:35

gas. So

2:01:37

this is a way for you to try

2:01:39

out electric, realize that you like it better,

2:01:42

and then for the next vehicle after this

2:01:44

that your family purchases, you'll go actual electric.

2:01:46

But that's the correct step now is to

2:01:49

take the plug-in hybrid now and begin

2:01:52

that transition in a comfortable way

2:01:55

that won't push anybody outside their comfort zone. Now

2:01:57

the problem with the hybrids is they have twice as much crap to

2:01:59

go wrong. like, and historically speaking, the reliability

2:02:01

of hybrids has not been as good as

2:02:03

internal combustion or EVs. They're

2:02:06

better now as the newer designs have less stuff

2:02:08

in them. But there's no getting around

2:02:10

the fact that there's more stuff than an EV, and

2:02:13

there's more stuff than an internal combustion engine,

2:02:15

because it's got both. Maybe

2:02:17

not a concern, obviously. If you're

2:02:19

not going to own the car that long, you

2:02:21

probably don't care, and it'll probably be fine. But

2:02:23

do keep that in mind. Yeah, it's something worth

2:02:26

it. But also keep in mind that for all

2:02:28

those electric-only local miles, that serpentine belt is not

2:02:30

going to be turning. Well,

2:02:33

it depends on the hybrid drive trains.

2:02:36

They're very different from manufacturer to manufacturer,

2:02:38

and that's not necessarily the case. So

2:02:41

I don't know where the belt is, where

2:02:43

the engine is facing on these hybrids. There's

2:02:45

so many potential options of how to do

2:02:48

hybrid drives, and many of them are

2:02:50

very different than the internal combustion engines in the

2:02:52

same model. So you can look into that. But

2:02:55

honestly, I just think that maybe the goal is

2:02:57

just to keep the pebbles out. Like, whatever's going

2:02:59

on with the belts, maybe it's going to put

2:03:01

the pebbles in. Yeah, well, we'll work on

2:03:03

that for next time. But no, this

2:03:05

is not a longitudinal. What's

2:03:08

the opposite of that? A sideways mount. What's the word

2:03:10

I'm looking for? The engine's mounted

2:03:12

like your cars are. Transverse? Thank you,

2:03:14

yes. Transverse is longitudinal? Yeah,

2:03:17

yeah, yeah. It's a transverse-mounted engine, so

2:03:19

the belt is on the passenger side on

2:03:21

an American car. But

2:03:24

yeah, I mean, we'll see what happens. It's

2:03:27

just tough, because we try

2:03:30

to be financially prudent. We try to have

2:03:32

an oh-crap fund like I think any reasonable

2:03:35

adult should at least try to do. But

2:03:38

I mean, there are not a lot of people who

2:03:40

have a $70,000 oh-crap fund, you know what I mean? And

2:03:43

so it's just obviously, we're not going

2:03:46

to pay cash for this. But it's just still, it's

2:03:48

like, oh, there's so much money that I was not

2:03:50

planning on spending. And

2:03:53

so that's just tough. Consider the insurance

2:03:55

is giving you a hefty discount. Right,

2:03:57

exactly. And so we're all these very.

2:04:00

incentives and everything and you know, owning

2:04:04

a car is always a massive money hole.

2:04:06

There's no way to own a car that

2:04:08

you don't lose money. It's just a question

2:04:10

of when you lose the money and sometimes

2:04:12

it's not within your control, sometimes it is.

2:04:14

So it's just when and how this money

2:04:16

gets burned. So it's, you

2:04:19

know, this was obviously, you couldn't have planned for

2:04:21

this, but you are car owners

2:04:23

and you like giant nice cars and so like

2:04:25

this is, you're going to burn this money at

2:04:27

some point, you just have to do it, you

2:04:30

know, at a time than you weren't necessarily expecting.