What brought this to mind for me was reading this warning from Ukrainian deputy commander Maksym Zhorin. 
The West, he said, must urgently prepare. “Create serious defence systems that could counteract Russia because it will undoubtedly open its mouth and try to swallow the rest of Europe,” he warned. — Maksym Zhorin Deputy Commander 3rd Assault Brigade 4/6/2024

Now, I’m aware that he has every reason to embellish any threat from Russia to bolster his pleas for help from the West. But it’s not just the Ukrainians warning about Russia. There are other parties from all over the world ringing the same bell. 
So what is Europe doing while the wolf prowls outside their door? Why they’re attacking America with anti-trust lawsuits of course. The United States of America is the first nation they would turn to for aid should their union fall under peril. Yeah, it makes no sense.
And I might forgive Europe if they actually had good cause to file an anti-trust lawsuit. But this is such a blatant money grab by European companies such as Spotify that it’s plain to see that this is not about protecting their consumers. It’s about another rich European company using corrupt politicians to attack a rival. And this isn’t just about Apple, the EU also suing Google and who knows how many other companies. We almost need to invent a new word to describe governments which operate at the behest of the highest corporate bidder.
Imagine the outrage by Europeans if Elon Musk sued BMW, Audi, and Mercedes Benz to force them to offer subscription services by Tesla in THEIR cars? They would castigate the audacity of someone to think that they had any right to force open someone else’s product line for their own gain. And they’d be right.
At this point some may bring up the fact that Apple is being sued in the United States as well. But it’s an entirely different thing when an American company is sued by the American government. The suit is just a frivolous election year stunt and it will eventually fail but at least it’s within the family as it should be. Kind of like, a brother may insult his sister, but he doesn’t want to hear anyone else in school to do it.
So if Europe is intent on bitting the hand which feeds it. Then I say, LET RUSSIA HAVE EUROPE. When Europe inevitably comes begging the United States to defend them against outside forces, the US should say “No”.  Why should Americans have to expend any effort to defend a union which repeatedly attacks us?
 If Europe makes their bed. Let them lie in it.

In the weeks leading up to the Vision Pro launch, the stories were all about “Who wants this?” or “Will people actually want to wear these big clunky things?”. Tech journalists were all primed to declare the Vision Pro dead on arrival due to an underwhelming experience that was uncomfortable.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. After tech journalists actually got to use the Vision Pro they saw what all the hype was about. Apple blew their minds with a virtual reality experience that was unmatched by anyone else in the AR/VR world. And the operating system had design sophistication that was truly futuristic and had a wow factor that left them speechless. The Vision Pro was for real and it was most certainly NOT underwhelming.

Tech journalists saw right away that this product was going to appeal to people so much that it was only a matter of time before it hit critical mass. Regardless of how big or clunky it was today, they could see that this is where the future is going to be. So all the tech coverage shifted away from “underwhelming dud”  to “will addicting the masses to alternate reality be bad for society?”. 

Now, there are think pieces everywhere pontificating on the ramifications of avoiding the real world. They are reminiscent of 1950’s parents lamenting the rise of Elvis Presley moving his hips to rot the minds of American teenagers.

Another negative slant that I’ve seen is discussing the low sales numbers or high return rate of the Vision Pro. However, I’d argue that Apple fully expected this to be the case and the Vision Pro is performing right about where they want. Apple priced this device at $3,500+ for a reason. Yes, it’s expensive to manufacture but that’s not all.

I don’t think Apple wants this product to hit critical mass yet. They are still in the process of figuring out how best to sell and service this market. And software is still deep in development for the Vision Pro.  I would liken the Vision Pro’s 2024 to a restaurant which is staging a soft opening to a limited number of customers while they work the kinks out prior to the big Grand Opening.

In hindsight, the launch of the Vision Pro will be hailed as a pivotal point in human technological advancement. Prior to the 21st century, technology was about moving people or packages from point A to point B as quickly as possible. The railroad, the automobile, and the airplane tamed the planet and were mankind’s crowning achievement until the end of the 20th century. 
But we’ve entered a new era. One in which bringing the world to you is more important than bringing you to the world. It’s cheaper and much…much more efficient. And connecting people who are not nearby has much more social change potential than the automobile or airplane could ever achieve.

Yes, the Vision Pro is big and heavy and unwieldy with a wired battery. But even now, you can see it’s a glimpse into the future of mankind. And it’s more exciting than anything I’ve see yet in my lifetime.

Oh, and did you hear this week that Apple announced that they’re cancelling their Apple Car project? Yeah, I’d say that Apple is fully on board with the idea that bringing the world to you is where the 21st century is going to be.​

​If there is anything I’ve learned about tech in the past 30 years it is that people always appreciate larger screens. I remember back in the early 2000’s how everyone wanted those 42” Plasma TVs because it made their 32” TV seem so small. And now 70” TVs are everywhere. It’s the same story with watches, phones, and tablets. Bigger screens are always better. 

​And it’s not just a frivolous desire either. As a Fortune 500 financial professional I’ve long been interested in any kind of work efficiency study I could find. And I remember some studies which compared the impact of CPU upgrades, additional RAM memory, and larger monitors. The winner of these studies was larger monitors. Which didn’t seem to be the obvious outcome to a lot of people. But the ability to see more data on the screen at once prevented having to search for data or scroll. Sure they might’ve only been saving a few seconds at a time. But it’s better to save 10 seconds 50 times per day than it is to save 60 seconds 5 times per day.   
 
So it really shouldn’t surprise me that there’s a whole slew of tech reporters that can’t see the value proposition of something like Apple’s Vision Pro. These were the same guys who said that the iPad was unnecessary or that the first large phones from Samsung were hideous monstrosities. 
 
But Apple’s Vision Pro will make a 16” MacBook Pro feel like an Apple Watch screen. You will have access to so much more information all at once. That is information that you won’t have to scroll or hunt for. Your productivity will be supercharged as you reduce the total count of your data hunting times. 
 
Sure, you could try to replicate something like that in the real world but you run into all kinds of constraints. For starters, I’m not aware of any 100” monitors. And can you imagine the size of the desk you’d need to mount three of those? What about glare from lights or the windows? Plus, it certainly wouldn’t be portable. Apple’s Vision Pro doesn’t have to deal with any of those issues. 
 
For creative professionals, the Vision Pro will allow them to minimize the amount of their time which is spent on non-creative data hunting. And I’m guessing the boost in productivity will convert a lot of skeptical unbelievers. 
 
But the Vision Pro goes way beyond just work efficiency. Technology in the 21st century is all about this: It brings the world to you. You can connect with people in new ways, access data from all over the globe, or see things that are too far to travel too. 
 
Which is almost the opposite of technology in the 20th century which was all about taking you to the world. The railroad, the automobile, and the airplane was all about transporting packages and people to far flung regions. Which is why I don’t consider Tesla to be a true high-tech company of the future. They are basically refining the horse drawn wagon. 
 
But Apple’s Vision Pro is about to make a massive leap in portable computing. In today’s world, everyone experiences the internet through a 5” screen which fits in their pocket. So we’re about to make a jump from that 5” screen to 3D entire field of view. It seems almost impossible to imagine. Apple is taking us one huge step closer to the Star Trek Next Generations Holodeck level of experience. And I say that is the right direction. 

​I’m completely in love with my HomePods. Nothing else in my home makes me feel like I’m in the future which I dreamed of as a kid more than my HomePods. Yeah, the sound is amazing from my full-sized HomePods but it goes way beyond the rich sound and deep bass. 

​I have HomePods in most rooms of my house and I love to play music which is perfectly sync’d to every corner. And not just for music, I can do the same thing for TV shows or YouTube videos. It still makes me smile when I walk up the stairs with a load of laundry and I can hear every word of my show at the top of the stairs on another HomePod. And who needs a remote any more? You can just say into the air “Hey Siri, pause” and your wish becomes your TVs command. Brilliant. 
 
But this is all great when the HomePods are working without any hiccups. And that would be about 80% of the time. That other 20% though. Is bad. Some HomePods will inexplicably stop working. Other times the audio just drops everywhere for no reason. Or I get the dreaded “There’s a problem with Apple Music” error. 
 
The more you use your HomePods, the more these errors will become apparent to you. So perhaps I have a skewed perception which is more negative than most people who simply play a song now and then. But I’m adding items to my grocery list, curating my music playlists, replying to text messages and on and on. I don’t think there’s an hour of my day that isn’t without some interaction with one of my nine HomePods. 
 
But what seems the most surprising thing to me is that HomePod software doesn’t seem much better today than it was maybe two or three years ago. It might even be worse. That is the troubling part. If Apple hadn’t introduced new products recently like the 2nd generation HomePod I would be worried that Apple was going to give up on the whole product line. Because in my corporate business experience, it is product lines which are marked for death which are allowed to whither on the vine and not warrant expensive coding attention. 
 
So what is going on with the HomePod? I don’t think Apple wants to kill this foothold they have in home automation. But yet, they don’t seem to pay much attention to making this line work better. 

Video has become the preeminent mode of communication in our time. What was once mainly a form of entertainment has now become how most people get their news, learn how to do things, or rant about social issues. No, reading will never go away. But that has transitioned to become the 2nd line of deeper study. If we discover something on video, and subsequently want to do a deeper study about that subject, THEN we go read about it. ​

​So is it no surprise that people want video on their Apple Watches? I know that I do. In fact, I already watch video’s on my Apple Watch almost every day. Developer Hugo Mason has done what the mighty YouTube seemingly cannot. He created the WatchTube app to empower Apple Watch users everywhere to get their daily fix of YouTube videos. I’ve been using it for over a year now and it’s awesome. 
 
At this point, everyone is thinking “Who would want to watch video on their tiny little Apple Watch screen?”. Oh but you’d be surprised how good it is. A lot of what is on YouTube is just somebody talking into the camera. Those videos are perfect for the watch because you can see the person just fine and listen to the video podcast as you go about your day. 

​And no headphones necessary! You start a video and the audio will play through your Apple Watch speaker. This is very unlike any audio app from Apple like Music or Podcasts which only allow you to listen via headphones. 
 
One of the great things about running is that it gives you time to consume media that you might otherwise be too busy to watch. So I’ll often start a long YouTube video when I head out for a run and listen via my AirPods. Or short videos I’ll watch in the bathroom if I don’t have my iPhone on me. Yeah, TMI. 
 
But all is not entirely well in the world of WatchTube. The developer has been having server problems which he says are beyond his control. As a result, service is getting interrupted for the app users at times. It’s a great app. It’s a shame that it can’t be a better app experience with high uptime. 
 
Which brings me to my point. People like video on their wrist. It’s time that YouTube and/or Apple takes notice and addresses this growing market. There needs to be better support for video app developers or better apps.

​Europeans often bristle at the idea of American Exceptionalism. They will indignantly ask what is better about “The American Way”.  Well, they just made the case for us. The European Union has been relentlessly attacking American tech companies in the past few years. They do it under the guise of “helping the consumer” but nothing could be further from the truth.

The latest example of the EU’s hubris is manipulating Apple to accept the RCS messaging system. Were Apple customers clamoring for this? No.  Were specific corporations with billion dollar investments at stake asking for this? Yes. 
 
Front Page Tech has done a great job of exposing the dark side of what the EU is doing. Check out John’s latest video about one specific benefactor of the EU’s meddling in business. 
 
Just like with opening up the iOS AppStore, most attacks on Apple are from behind-the-scenes corporations who want a piece of Apple’s large and profitable market. A market that Apple has invested billions of dollars into cultivating and protecting. And Apple still does it’s best to give these customers the best experience possible. Does that mean not allowing various options which Apple thinks would be hurting customer security and safety? Often that is a yes. 
 
There is a murky connection between the EU and various corporations. It appears to all that corporate CEO’s are pulling the strings of EU politicians to introduce bills which favor their corporation. That fact that the EU consistently shows that it has allowed itself to be used as a battering ram for the highest bidder is disgusting. Apple isn’t the only target. It’s only one of the most high profile. 
 
God Bless America

Back before Apple launched their streaming video service, I was quite skeptical that it was the right move. Apple was a laggard in the streaming video space and I didn’t think that they had the time to build a market from scratch. I thought that they needed to purchase an established player to make up for lost ground. ​

​Well, I was wrong. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the quality of TV shows and movies coming from Apple. The service has quickly risen to be among my favorite places to go for entertainment. Something like Netflix may have more good shows overall but Apple TV+, by far, has a better ratio of good to bad shows.
 
In hindsight, maybe I should’ve seen this coming. Apple has the most important ingredient when it comes to building an entertainment empire. Money. And lots of it. They hired the best talent that they could get their hands on and it shows. 
 
Also, perhaps I underestimated the power of incumbency. The Apple TV+ app is on every iPhone and iPad by default. So as much as I hate it when developers complain about Apple’s unfair advantage in having preloaded apps. There could be something to this argument. You have to out of your way to download Paramount+ or Peacock. But Apple TV+ is already there just waiting for you to sign up for that subscription. 
 
But in the end. It’s the excellent TV shows which is the clincher.  I could go on and on with my favorite shows. I loved Ted Lasso, Severance, Silo, Mosquito Coast, Mythic Quest, Acapulco, and Loot. And so many more. In fact, Apple TV+ is the service where I have to scroll the least to find something good to watch. Netflix has a lot of good entertainment, but you have to wade through a ton of garbage to find it. 
 
So Apple surprised me. They didn’t buy a big video giant and they still managed to carve out a respectable niche of the video streaming business. Now could they still buy Disney? Perhaps. But it wouldn’t be out of necessity. 

After rocking the latest iPhone 15 Pro Max and Apple Watch Ultra 2 I can say definitively that the Apple Watch steals the show. The new iPhone is a great upgrade. Coming from the 13 Pro Max the camera upgrades and action button are a joy to behold. But I interact with my Apple Watch many more times during the day than I ever do with my iPhone. Not more minutes, but more interactions. ​

​The speed improvements on the new Apple Watch is what really stands out. I’ve been annoyed at how slow the Apple Watch is for years now. Stock prices would load slowly, web pages loaded at a glacial pace, and Maps was borderline unusable.  I couldn’t believe how many times I heard Apple podcasters say “I’ve never thought the Apple Watch Ultra was slow”. To which I burst out laughing. Show me someone who didn’t think the Ultra 1 was slow and I’ll show you someone who uses their iPhone for EVERYTHING and only looks at their Apple Watch for the time and notifications.  
 
I’m finally able to use my Apple Watch to visit web pages with some reasonable speed. So at this point many of you may be thinking why would I want to surf the web on a tiny screen less than 2”? Fair point. But there are times when I don’t have my iPhone on me while I’m walking in the house and I think of something that I want to check on the web. I have investments in Gold so I like to keep an eye on that. I use the Apple Watch app uBrowser which has a preset for www.goldprice.org.  
 
On the Ultra 1, when I would hit one of my stock price complications to see one of my investments, the stock app would open to that stock instantly. HOWEVER, the stock price was old. This is something most people don’t realize who say that the Ultra 1 wasn’t slow. The slow processor took 30 – 90 seconds to update to the current price. On the Ultra 2, these stock prices update within about 5 seconds. I love that!
 
I love to listen to  YouTube videos on my Apple Watch when I go out walking without my iPhone. I simply cue up the WatchTube app on my watch. On the Ultra 1, everything was laggy. But with the Ultra 2, it’s as fast and responsive as my 15 Pro Max. A lot of those videos are simply someone talking into the camera and you don’t really need to see the screen much. But if something interesting coms up, I can point my wrist and see it. And that new bright screen is amazing! Videos on screen in the sun look awesome! 
 
I also do a lot of waking and hiking. And when I’m wearing my gym shorts on a hot day I often don’t want my iPhone with me. Especially since the big and heavy 13 Pro Max was way too bouncy in my shorts. Periodically, I need to check my location on the trails if I get a little disoriented, on the Ultra 1 it was infuriating to stare at the little updating circle just turn and turn. But with the new Ultra 2, you get your location lickety split. 
 
And then there’s Siri. The Ultra 2 made all of my dreams come true. I had written a couple weeks ago how I use Siri all the time while out running without my iPhone. And yes, even with my high expectations the new chip in the Ultra 2 has met them. Not only is it way faster, which I expected. But it’s also more accurate, which was a delightful surprise. 
 
The new hand-free double tap way of interacting with the Apple Watch is another potential game changer. However, I haven’t used that yet so I can’t comment on it. But that alone may make the Ultra 2 worth bypassing the Ultra 1 which isn’t getting this upgrade. But even without that feature, I’d say bypass the Ultra 1 is you were thinking of getting one on discount. The processor on that watch is just way too old and slow. 
 
As I say all of the time. How big of an impact new features have on your life is combination of frequency and size. A new feature may be huge but maybe you only use it once a month. Or a feature could be fairly small but maybe you use it 5 times a day. They both add up to a big impact. The new Apple Watch is full of small improvements that I use multiple times per day. So my delight factor with the new Apple Watch Ultra 2 is quite high on a daily basis. 

Apple did it again. Before the announcement of the new Apple Watch features I was fairly certain that I probably would NOT upgrade my Apple Watch this year. But I promptly placed my pre-order for my Apple Watch Ultra 2 after walking into the reality distortion field. ​

​Yeah, I’m the guy who constantly harps at how much the Ultra sucks. And I mean every word. But here’s the thing. It’s the only Apple Watch with a battery capacity that can keep up with my usage patterns. And despite all of my gripes about the Ultra, I am pretty happy with the battery life. 
 
So why am I upgrading to the new Ultra 2? I can answer that question with one word, Siri. I have had a long love affair with Siri and the second I heard that the new Apple Watches were making the shift to on-board Siri, I knew that I had to upgrade. This is a major upgrade for the Apple Watch that seems to be little understood by most Apple Watch users. Siri is about to become much faster and more reliable. 
 
So why do I use Siri so much on my Apple Watch? Mainly because I like to workout and go for walks without my iPhone. When I’m out running I use Siri for everything. She replies to iMessages that I receive. She’ll fast-forward 2 minutes past a podcast commercial spot. She’ll add milk to my grocery list. She’ll setup a reminder for later that night to call a friend. And on and on I could go. She does all of this while I’m running and never have to stop. I love it.
 
But as much as I appreciate Siri on my Apple Watch, I have always been cognizant of the fact that she’s slower on the my Apple Watch than she is on my iPhone. I never really knew why. I always thought that it was due to the down-clocked processor in the Apple Watch. It never really occurred to me that every time I trigger Siri for a simple command while out on the trails that my Apple Watch had to relay that command via a cell tower to know what to do. 
 
But the new on-board Siri built into the new Apple Watch SiP (system in package) is going to change everything. Now if I tell Siri to rewind 30 seconds so that I can re-listen to a segment of a podcast it can get to work immediately. No need to establish a connection with a server hundreds of miles away.
But that’s not all. On top of the on-board Siri, the Apple Watch is also getting a performance boost with the first processor upgrade in years. 
 
Is this new speed going to be worth another $799? Considering that this is going to be something that I will benefit from every day, multiple times per day. Yes. This is unlike a camera improvement that I might benefit from once a month. 

​Cult of Mac is reporting that Apple has warned the UK that it would rather shut down iMessage and FaceTime services to their country rather than weaken security and allow government snooping. To which I say “Bravo!”. Here is an excerpt:

​The U.K. government has proposed an update to the Investigatory Powers Act that Apple and other tech companies strongly oppose because it they argue it would substantially weaken the security of their messaging applications.
The updated act would allow the government to require security features in the apps be disabled immediately and without informing users.
Apple reportedly warned that it’ll disable iMessage and FaceTime in the UK before it’ll comply with the law. – Ed Hardy, Cult of Mac
 
I think the age of the iPhone working the same globally is going to be coming to an end fairly soon. Apple is already under attack from all directions for everything from power ports to Appstore guidelines. 
 
But what many governments seem oblivious to is that all companies have their non-negotiable hard lines. For Apple, it’s giving governments backdoors into customer data. Can you imagine if the police or security organizations could simply read anyone’s iMessages? That is way too much power for imperfect people. 
 
And for those who think this is all conspiracy thinking, remember this? The FBI dossier used by the US court system to approve surveillance on the Trump campaign, was made up by the Hillary Clinton campaign. We already have dishonest politicians abusing government authority to wiretap phones. Thank God that they can’t pry into our phones. 

​If you’re thinking about buying an Apple Watch Ultra DON’T DO IT. This is by far the worst Apple Watch ever made by Apple. 

​For starters, it’s downright ugly as delivered from Apple. The titanium finish looks like the cheaper aluminum watches. And the hideous orange accents on the Actio Button and crown only make it look worse. There is one color that I almost never wear and that’s orange. I don’t want to see it on my Apple Watch. Sure, nobody else is ever going to notice, but the problem is that every time I look at the time I notice. And that’s all that matters. 
 
I was able to make lemonade out of lemons by spending countless hours polishing that Titanium finish until it had a mirror like finish similar to the other stainless steel Apple watches. And I used my Dremel to rub out the orange color on the action button. Let me tell you, Titanium is a very hard metal. It was not easy. 
 
I couldn’t get the orange off of the crown though because it’s in a recessed groove. But now, after refinishing the watch, the best thing about my Ultra is the appearance. No thanks to Apple. 
 
My biggest gripe by far about the Ultra though is the crown. It’s just not very usable compared to the earlier watches. Part of the problem is the humongous crown guard around it. That means you can only turn the crown from the top. And guess what happens when you press down on the top? You guessed it, it rubs against your skin. Which makes it difficult to turn. Gone are the days of effortlessly scrolling with the crown like on the Series 7. I sometimes have to lift the watch with my thumb in order to turn the crown. 
 
At this point someone might ask “Why do you wear your Ultra so tight that the crown rubs against your skin”. Ah! Glad you asked! That would be because the Ultra is so freakin’ heavy it flops around a lot more than the older watches. To compensate for that extra movement, I tend to wear the watch a little more snug. But yeah, that results in the crown becoming almost unusable. You can’t have everything I guess. 
 
Last is the Action Button. It triggers way too many accidental pushes. Why? Because that darned crown is not only hard to turn but it’s also hard to push. Yes, I’m back to griping about that darned crown guard. It makes it harder to do push the crown by feel alone. So you naturally want to squeeze the watch with opposing fingers. And guess where your thumb wants to push? Yeah, on the lower left side where the action button sits. <<< sigh >>>
 
I still think that the idea of the action button is sublime. I like pressing it to quickly get to my stop watch without having to do any extra taps. However, the button idea isn’t working. You know what would be even better? A ForceTouch ANYWHERE on the screen. Not only would it be way easier but it would never accidentally happen. It would be easier because the screen is about 10x larger than the action button. 
 
The ONLY reason I could see for getting this large clunky watch is for the battery life. Which is pretty good and the only reason I’ve kept the watch. I’m a heavy duty watch user. I’m doing 3 workouts a day and Bluetooth streaming music and podcasts all from my Apple Watch. I work from home so I don’t even know where my iPhone is half the day. My Apple Watch is my main workhorse during most of the day. My Series 7 was regularly getting down to 5 – 10% battery life by the end of my day if not outright dying. But not my Ultra, it’s usually still above 50% at bed time. That’s a huge improvement. 
 
So if you don’t need the battery life steer clear of the Apple Watch Ultra. The Series 8 Apple Watch is a much more useable watch. It’s lighter, more attractive, easier to use the crown, and doesn’t suffer from accidental pushes of the Action Button. 

​I don’t understand why the Apple blogosphere makes such a big deal about whether the iPhone charges through Lightning or USB-C. I think most regular people have migrated from using lightning to using wireless charge pads. I know I’ve bypassed USB-C and prefer MagSafe charging and actually find my iPad’s use of USB-C to be annoying. 

But if there is any area in Apple’s ecosystem where charging does deserve criticism, it is with the Apple Watch. When the Apple Watch first came out in 2015, the wireless magnetic cables were not bad. They allowed you to never have to plug in a lightning cable. This helped make the watch more waterproof and more attractive. 
 
But with the rise of Qi and MagSafe charging, those proprietary Apple Watch magnetic cables are now looking more like an obstruction. I have those Qi and MagSafe chargers all over my house and car. But if my watch unexpectedly goes dead, I have to go up to my bedroom and look for the one watch charger in my house. What a pain. 

I’m always saying that features make a big impact in two different ways. Either it makes a huge difference infrequently or it makes a small difference on a frequent basis. Being able to charge my Apple Watch on the same chargers as I use for my iPhone and AirPods is something that is going to be useful on a daily basis. 
 
We aren’t too far from the unveiling of the Series 9 or next Ultra Apple Watch. High on my wish list is that I’ll be able to throw my next Apple Watch on whatever charging pad I have handy. No, it’s not a flashy feature, but it would be so appreciated.  

Elon Musk recently made the crazy statement that it’s likely “X could become 50% of the worlds financial system”. Long time Tesla watchers know better than to take this seriously since we’ve seen this same show played over and over. You have to keep in mind how Musk operates. ​

​In 2019 when Tesla was weeks away from bankruptcy, Musk said that people could earn money while taking a nap because their Tesla could operate as a robotaxi. Or when Musk was trying to convince Tesla shareholders to approve the acquisition of SolarCity he stood on stage and unveiled a beautiful small solar tile that looked like a regular shingle . No, neither of these exist and never will. They were lies to raise money from investors. 
 
So forgive me for rolling my eyes when Musk makes another grandiose promise for the future. Especially when it’s coming from a platform that is already behind everyone else and has a relatively small user base. Apple has never stated any desire to become the everything anything. And yet, they’ve made a pretty good start at doing exactly that. 
 
When it comes to money, you need to offer the public a rock solid platform that is fully encrypted and not open to snooping. Apple has that with iMessage. But wait that’s not all. Apple already has person to person currency transfers via Apple Pay. And after they established that, they started offering credit card services and now even savings accounts. Twitter, or X, has yet to accomplish any of this. 
 
And everything Musk does is always half-assed. It’s never high quality. But it’s one thing to deliver glitchy cars with crooked body panels, it’s another thing to screw up people’s banks accounts. You don’t mess with people’s money. And Musk being Musk, always forces his people to choose quick and easy routes which lead to lower quality. 
 
And before anyone tries to use Tesla as an example of how Musk muscled his way into playing with the big boys of an unwelcoming industry. Try again. Because Tesla’s market share in the auto industry is tiny. And you could make the case that Tesla only exists due to the government subsidies it receives. And Consumer Reports still ranks Tesla as among the worst fit & finish of all cars produced and terrible customer service. You could also make a strong case that people hold their noses and buy a glitchy  Tesla only because of the Supercharger system which helps alleviate range anxiety. But Tesla is losing this valuable moat that help protect their EV market share in the past. 
 
I’m not trying to make the case that Apple is on the way to becoming the global financial superpower through which 50% of all commerce flows. I’m simply trying to contrast how far behind X is and how unlikely Musk’s fantasies will ever come true. They are already behind companies other tech behemoths. And judging by their shrinking user base and advertising roster, they’re losing more clout by the day. 

​The Apple AirPods are a product that has delighted me right from the beginning back in 2017. And it was never about the sound quality. Apple did what Apple has always done well. They thought about the little friction points that get in the way of enjoying their products even more and they tried to minimize them. 

​watchOS 10 has been out as a beta release for about a month now and one thing about it ruins the entire experience for me. The loss of quickly swiping back and forth between your watch faces. Why would Apple do this?

​I hate to gripe about this because overall watchOS 10 is a hugely positive upgrade. I love how beautiful the new music and weather screens look. I also appreciate how you can now see what the time stamp is in your podcast when listening. Every app is better now than it was in watchOS 9. 
 
But the loss of being able to swipe back and forth between my watch faces is something that I feel every day. Now, you have to long press on a watch face to be able to swipe to a new watch face. I hate the new method. It takes too long. 
 
I group my complications into specific watch faces. For instance, I have a certain set of complications which I use during my workday and a different group I use in the evening. Instead of going to the home screen to scroll through all of my apps. I was accustomed to swiping right or left to push the desired complication. I can no longer quickly do that. 
 
I literally thought that this must’ve been a temporary bug when I first downloaded watchOS 10. But with the 3rditeration already out, it seems like this was a design decision for the future. Although, I can’t figure out why they would drop this feature. 
 
Could Apple be intending to use the swipe left and right for a different feature in the future? So maybe they are trying to get people out of the habit of using it move between screens ahead of time. 
 
Whatever the reason, It better be really important. Because many of use swiped back and forth between faces all day long. And losing that ability is painful. Apple please bring it back!
 

​I’ve been quite surprised at how the tech media is covering Apple’s recently announced VisionPro. There seems to be an overwhelming focus on the fit, weight, and comfort of the device. Everyone’s griping about the hardware.

​I agree that these are all normally extremely important aspects of a new device. But the VisionPro isn’t really much more than a glorified test mule going on sale. Starting at $3,500, the vast majority of Apple fans will never buy one. The hardware aspects of the VisionPro don’t really matter at this point since it’s only going to be used by a small core of Apple super fans. 
 
What is important is Apple’s vision of the operating system. And that seems brilliantly designed. The way that Apple connected their existing products like the Mac and iPad Pro so as to allow for seamless back and forth. The way that you can still see people who come up to you. The way that your work appears as floating monitors which you can zoom in or out of. I could go on and on. But the point is that Apple seems to have thought of everything before they’ve even launched the device. There is a huge amount of thought that seems to have gone into safety and security. How long have they been working on this? 
 
I’m not as concerned about how heavy the VisionPro is or how comfortable the straps are just yet. That’s because as technology evolves, it’s going to inevitably get smaller and lighter. If there’s one thing that Apple has always been good about, it’s about making things smaller and lighter. I’m guessing that the VisionPro will eventually get to the point of being not much different from wearing safety glasses. And if you walk into any manufacturing plant in the world, you’ll see everyone on the plant floor wearing safety glasses because they have no choice. 
 
The first iteration of VisionPro will come and go. And probably won’t be missed. But the operating system is here to stay. And will probably be copied by everyone else. It’s going to change how all devices are used, not just Apple’s. 

Ever since Apple’s Vision Pro was announced there have been complaints about it that make absolutely no sense. In fact, many of the complaints sound like the same kind of thing you could say about headphones. ​

​The main complaint I’ve heard is that you are cutting out group experiences. Of course you are cutting out group experiences! In fact, if you’re on a crowded airplane, that is the whole point. You want to enjoy your content without disturbing anyone around you. That could apply while you travel or at home late at night so as not to bother your housemates. 
 
The fact that you CAN’T have group experiences doesn’t mean the product will be a failure. If that was true, the whole headphone category wouldn’t exist. Can you share music with your family while listening through your AirPods Max? No. It’s because you only use headphones in certain situations. It will be the same with the Vision Pro. It’s a parallel paradigm only for your eyes. 
 
The people complaining about how the Vision Pro excludes other people would’ve probably complained decades ago when headphones were invented. They would’ve said that headphones will never succeed because you can’t enjoy music at a party with your friends. But they would’ve been dreadfully wrong. The problem would’ve been that they were misunderstanding the times and places in which headphones would be useful. And now they are making that mistake with the Vision Pro. 
 
 
 

I was seriously impressed by the unveiling of Apple’s new Vision Pro AR/VR headset. It looks to be a high quality and well thought out device. Basically the opposite of anything Tesla would ever make. ​

​I think you could boil down the Vision Pro’s whole value proposition to a single sentence that Tim Cook uttered. He said “You are no longer limited by your external displays”. It hit me right then that the Vision Pro is basically AirPods for your eyes. 
 
AirPods have exploded in popularity because they give you both high quality music and a myriad of intelligent assistance features to make your life easier. To paraphrase Tim Cook, “You are no longer limited by your external speaker system”. You can’t take your Hi-Fi speaker system with you out on a run or to the office. But you can take your AirPods with you due to their convenient size and unobtrusive nature. You can listen to your music nice and loud and it won’t disturb the people around you. Plus, they can read you your text messages or add items to your grocery list. 
 
The new Vision Pro takes the AirPods value proposition to a whole new level. But it’s for your eyes. Instead of replacing external speakers, it will replace external displays. AR is like transparency mode and VR is parallel to noise cancellation. And you can take them with you when you leave the house. That is huge. 

Apple even leaned into the Vision Pro is AirPods for your eyes in the way that they designed the dial. On AirPods Max, the dial controls how loud your music is. On Vision Pro, the dial controls how immersive your displays are. 
 
Before Covid, I used to travel for my job as a financial analyst about one trip per month. I can’t tell you how handy it would’ve been to have dual 40” monitors while sitting in an airplane seat. But that would’ve been no more doable than lugging gigantic speakers around. External sound and vision devices are great in your home but not portable. Until now. 
 
Just like AirPods liberated your ears, the new Vision Pro is about to liberate our eyes. Productivity is going to soar and entertainment will become way, way better. For all the talk Tesla does about changing the world, they actually do very little to change anything. Apple on the other hand, they are truly changing the way we live and work. They are the ones changing the world. 

​Apple watchers love those 2 or 3 times per year when Apples unveils their new software or hardware products. But in my book, the WWDC keynote is the best of them all.

​Sure the fall iPhone event gets all the glory. But it’s getting more and more rare for Apple to keep anything about the new iPhone a secret any more.  The WWDC event however, still has a track record of really surprising Apple lovers. And it’s the unexpected surprises that really make the events so worth it. We were all so surprised when Apple unveiled Swift or iPad Monitor support amongst may other surprises. 
 
Apple is able to keep software under wraps because it cuts out the supply chain leaks. I’m hoping to see some big announcements for iPadOS and watchOS. The iPad still has a lot of multi-tasking opportunity to be unveiled to catch up to the Mac. And the Apple Watch hasn’t really changed much in years. But rumors say that this is the year that Apple will make some significant changes to how watchOS works. 
 
We know that WWDC is going to be software focused and that hardware announcements are never guaranteed. But this year sounds like it’s going to be special. The chatter about Apple’s new AR/VR headset is at a fever pitch. This would be an entire new product line from Apple and that doesn’t happen very often. 
 
My thoughts on the headset is that this is the inevitable road to the future. I’ve written about how wearing glasses makes a lot more sense than carrying a little screen in your hand.  And people always want larger screens but struggle with how to comfortably carry these screens around with them. Virtual screens in your glasses solves this problem. 
 
As of this writing we only have 2 more days to see what Apple has been working on the past year. And it’s the stuff which we don’t even know about that will probably get the biggest headlines. So let the show begin!

​The one situation where subscriptions make sense is when you are dealing with relatively expensive software that many people can’t afford to buy. The Final Cut Pro video editing software just introduced as coming to the iPad Pro on May 23rd fits that bill nicely. It used to cost over $300 to purchase that software outright for your Mac. 
 
If you’re a teenager working a part-time job while pursuing YouTube stardom that price tag might’ve been a real downer. But $5 per month? That’s smack dab right in impulse purchase territory. Even those Taco Bell paychecks could cover that level of monthly commitment. The yearly commitment of $60 is still well below the full price of $300+. 
 
The subscriptions that everyone loves to hate are the ones where the yearly commitment is well above the old outright purchase price. Like a weather app that used to cost $5 is now $2 per month. So the app essentially goes from $5 to $12 per year. People know a huge price increase when they see one. These are the developers that give the whole paradigm a bad name. 
 
If you’ve been reading my blog for many years you could be forgiven for thinking that I’m simply against subscription pricing. But I’m not. They make sense in a particular situation. And Apple just hit that nail squarely on the head by making Final Cut Pro attainable to many people who maybe couldn’t afford it before. That’s a job well done. 

I was at a dinner party recently where the topic of conversation switched to how everyone at the table uses YouTube to learn how to do various house or automotive DIY projects. It was quite amazing to hear all the various examples of projects that everyone had undertaken using nothing but YouTube as their teacher. ​

​It got me thinking about how YouTube ended up with such a wide breadth of videos. For instance, lets say that you want to replace the brake pads on your car on your own. You’d save hundreds of dollars vs going to an automotive shop. YouTube not only has brake pad instructional videos. They have them for any commonly sold car. Chances are that you could find a video that will tell you exactly every nut or bolt that you need to touch. Now that is what I call excellent service. 
 
So what drives such a huge supply of videos on every subject imaginable? Self-Interest. All the YouTube creators are trying to make videos that will stand out from the crowd. So if there are already videos on doing brake pads for Honda Accords or BMW 3-Series cars, they look for a niche that hasn’t been covered yet. Are there no Hyundai videos yet? Great! Let’s do some Hyundai videos!
 
Everyone is motivated to serve their fellow man by self-interest. And the higher quality work you do, the more views you get. It’s a beautiful system that illustrates how capitalism as a whole is supposed to work. 
 
The opposite of capitalism is state-mandated communism. In the communist model, the government could realize that there should be a database of instructional videos for the good of the people. So maybe they enact a law that says everyone needs to contribute one video per year to the database in order to use it. The videos would probably be low quality and they would be the bare minimum to meet the requirements. People would not be motivated by self-interest but by government compulsion. Big difference. 
 
Capitalism is all about serving your fellow man and money is the measure of how much service you’ve rendered. It’s a beautiful system that doesn’t deserve most of the arrows shot at it by critics. Here is a video which I try to post once per year on my blog by one of my all time favorite intellectuals, the late Walter Williams. 

​I said don’t believe it. This is just a pandemic pull forward of orders that would’ve been spread over the next few years. 
 
So what are we starting to see now? Right on schedule I might add. Yup, Mac sales are way down. Everyone that would’ve bought a Mac in Q1 of 2023 has already purchased a Mac. 
 
I told you so. And I was the only one. I’ve been forecasting and budgeting unit sales for Fortune 500 companies for decades. I wasn’t surprised one bit by the 40% decline in Q1 volumes for the Mac. I expected it. 
 
The Mac continues to be a relatively insignificant product line that doesn’t warrant a great deal of attention from Apple. And from what I can see, that is why Apple is basically “iPadifying” the Mac. The innards are getting manufactured more and more like iPads and the software is drifting more towards iPadOS. 
 
It’s in Apple’s best interests to reduce whatever resources the Mac product line requires. The volume is too low to justify the same level of attention as the iPhone or iOS. And that means more cross pollination with the iPad in the future on components and software. 

​In short, buying something from a store and then returning it even if there is nothing wrong with it is unethical. It is like walking into a restaurant and breaking a window for no good reason. You are destroying the property of a business. Any retailer which receives a returned product has material which needs to be destroyed, gifted to charity, or sold at a steep loss. 
 
I know this to be true because I’ve accounted for the loss on returns at multiple Fortune 500 level companies. 
 
But I’m not going to get into all the detail again. You can read my diatribe from 2017 here.
 
I bring this subject up again to say that “I told you so”. Amazon is finally trying to get a grip on the high cost of returns and is starting to institute a return fee. This is only the beginning. 

Here is an excerpt from the Axios article linked above:

​But I firmly believe that if people only returned items when it was warranted, Amazon’s fee would never have been introduced. It is widespread abuse by people who use free returns as a free rental program. A few people can be absorbed. But if this trend grows, it threatens overall profitability and needs to be stopped. 
 
That is why I’m passionate about this subject. Abuse by a minority of the market ends up hurting the honest customers too. Everyone pays for their returns via higher prices. And now everyone suffers if the free return policies start to go away. 

​I’ve been harping for years that the Apple Watch is the spiritual successor to the iPod Nano. Here is my most recent diatribe.
 
The Apple Watch Should be the iPods Successor
 
With the iPhone Pro Max now larger and heavier than ever, it’s only getting worse as a portable music player. The Apple Watch SHOULD be the perfect portable music device based on its size and always on you availability. 
 
So what’s the problem? Getting music and podcasts on/off the Apple Watch is a royal pain. And I’m not exaggerating. It is so difficult that even if you know what you’re doing it’s going to be whole event that you need to schedule. Don’t even think about adding a quick song to your Apple Watch’s storage just before leaving your house. It won’t be quick. 
 
The biggest problem is that you can only “sync” music onto your Apple Watch by placing it on its charging stand and opening the Apple Watch app. You can’t scroll through your library and simply tap songs to download. I have no idea why this still isn’t an available feature. 
 
But maybe if there are big changes coming to the Apple Watch this is finally going to be fixed! Especially now that all the low-hanging fruit in the health and fitness domain has already been incorporated into the Apple Watch. It’s time that the music player finally gets some love.