Can Apple Make Siri a Muse Competitor? | Sharp Tech with Ben Thompson
- Ben sees Apple’s Mac as caught between two incompatible constituencies: mainstream users who value safety and power users who want unrestricted computing. He argues the Mac once served both as a friendly consumer product and a Unix workstation, but Apple’s growing emphasis on permissions and protection means “I just don’t think Apple serves both anymore.”
- AI agents have changed what Ben needs from a computer enough that his long-awaited MacBook Pro may no longer fit. Even with a reported lighter design and OLED touchscreen, he may skip it because “the future for me is denominated by agents”; he finds Linux’s command line especially well-suited to agents.
- Apple’s security model could constrain agents, yet its restrictions address real threats. Software cannot dismiss certain permission dialogs because malware could do the same; the cost is that headless Macs and agents may simply stop working without knowing why. Ben’s verdict on the trade-off: Apple is making the Mac “worse and worse for a hacker or a developer.”
- Ben’s own security failure exposes a paradox in Apple’s paternalism. He accepts responsibility for being hacked after leaving port 5900 open, but says Apple’s insistence on managing security encouraged him to “let my guard down”—a “codependent relationship” unlike Linux, where he knows he remains accountable.
- Apple’s integrated smart-home push is the coherent opposite of do-it-yourself agent computing. Ben moved from skepticism to enthusiasm after reports of Apple-backed LG accessories because fragmented ecosystems produce unreliable experiences and unwanted apps; the viable alternatives are to build everything yourself or let one trusted company deliver “direct from AI to the hardware.”
- Ben says Apple’s scale makes codified culture useful but creates an ossification risk. His Apple University experience taught him how the company sustains its identity, but also how writing down “what makes Apple Apple” can become rigid and turn employees into “a member of the choir.”
- The iPhone Duo discussion paused on international pricing. A listener compared the $2,000 foldable to Uber creating previously nonexistent rides, but Ben corrected his earlier pricing assessment: Apple had raised prices sharply outside the US, and in Taiwan the Duo could cost roughly $400-$500 more than in the US.
1. Apple’s culture compounds at scale—and hardens with it
Ben traced his current skepticism back to Apple University in 2010, when the program was being built around the question of “what makes Apple Apple.” Apple’s “Top 200” was not simply the highest-ranking executives; it could include an obscure individual who mattered because “he understands the entire thing” and carried essential institutional knowledge.
His concern was that writing culture down produces “a certain level of ossification”: principles become doctrine rather than something that changes with the company. He believes Apple University subsequently evolved largely into an HR and training program, useful for “preach[ing] to the troops” at Apple’s vastly expanded scale but inevitably more rigid.
Working there also punctured his identity as an Apple fanboy. A manager’s extravagant enthusiasm for what Ben remembered as a mundane product—possibly a battery charger—revealed how easily admiration became “Apple could do no wrong.” Ben recognized the same tendency in himself, the design-conscious Mac enthusiast who thought he had created or headed a business-school Mac club.
Despite believing he had landed his dream environment, Ben decided before finishing at Apple University that he did not want to return: “There would be no value to me intellectually.” Going to Microsoft meant learning from Apple’s opposite rather than becoming “a member of the choir,” though Andrew noted that not returning to Apple likely cost him financially.
2. AI agents are pulling power users away from Apple’s center
Ben compared his current agent enthusiasm to building PCs in the 1990s: hands-on experimentation has deepened his understanding of what AI can and cannot do. His self-aware joke was that “maybe sometimes the answer is yes” when he asks whether he has AI psychosis—but the practical payoff to his work feels real.
Mark Gurman’s reported lighter MacBook Pro with an OLED touchscreen should be the machine Ben has wanted “for years and years and years.” Yet he may wait rather than buy it, despite continuing to record on a MacBook Pro, own an iPhone, anticipate the Air 2, and rely on deeply established macOS workflows.
The break is functional, not tribal: “The future for me is denominated by agents.” Each new capability makes him want to pursue “10 more things,” revealing software-sized holes throughout his life; he says he has accomplished so many cool things in the last few months that it blows his mind. He also spent significant money on a Linux server while describing headless Macs as a major computing pain point.
Andrew’s framing sharpened the shift: this is not “Apple is doomed,” but a willingness to explore alternatives that Andrew said had been absent for most people over the past 10 or 15 years. Ben still respects Apple’s extraordinary hardware and scale; he simply concludes, “This is not a company for me anymore.”
3. The Mac’s security bargain is becoming hostile to autonomous software
The immediate trigger was Apple’s announcement that users granting an app full disk access would need to take “very explicit” action. Ben answered Andrew’s concern about Apple impairing AI applications and agents in the name of security and control with “100%.” The trend predates agents: Apple has long added permission dialogs and restrictions intended to prevent apps from abusing broad access.
The security logic is legitimate. If software could approve a sensitive permission dialog, malware could click “okay” too; therefore an agent may only perceive that something stopped working without knowing why, while a human may have to intervene at the machine. Ben said Golden Gate brought still more dialogs and made headless operation “a big pain in the rear end.”
A major Golden Gate upgrade also defeated automatic login on restart, forcing physical access or a KVM switch. Ben had avoided automatic updates partly for that reason; separately, he accepts full blame for being hacked after leaving port 5900 open, while arguing that Apple’s “let us take care of it” posture reduced his own vigilance.
The historical Mac occupied an unusual sweet spot: it “just worked” for ordinary buyers while also providing developers a Unix workstation close to the server environment. Apple’s drive to make macOS more like an iPhone or iPad protects normies but degrades that second identity. “It’s not 2004 anymore.”
4. Apple’s smartest counterstrategy is to own the smart-home experience
Andrew embodied the reluctant mainstream customer: he does not want more connected appliances or AI assistants, and his otherwise excellent LG television became better when disconnected from the internet. Constant updates and prompts made its software “a pain in the ass.”
Ben agreed that today’s smart-home ecosystem “stinks”; his collection only partly works together, and his wife cannot stand it. A bespoke system built with custom software and an agent might be excellent, but Andrew reduced that audience to roughly “a tenth of a percent.”
Reports that Apple and LG are developing a doorbell, thermostat, and other accessories changed Ben’s view. If the enthusiast path is “hack everything,” the coherent opposite is “let Apple do everything”—the Microsoft enterprise model in which one vendor may not offer every best-of-breed component, but integration delivers “one throat to choke.”
The fragmented model fails because third parties converge on the lowest common denominator. Consumers tolerate a mediocre phone app; “when it comes to having a bad thermostat, you’re gonna throttle someone.” Ben wants no thermostat app at all: “If there’s an app for these thermostats, they’ve failed.”
His desired interface is Siri acting directly on hardware, with Apple responsible for the complete software experience and privacy posture. Ben said he would trust Apple, if it were in charge of the LG device, not to allow the kind of spying he associates with LG TVs, giving Apple a credible privacy story. The partnership is second-party rather than fully in-house, but Apple selling and standing behind it could preserve the integrated proposition.
5. The iPhone Duo discussion pauses at international pricing
A listener challenged Ben’s preference for one-handed phones, arguing that an iPhone Duo could create new demand through an iPad-like experience in waiting rooms, food courts, children’s baseball games, and even the bathroom—analogous to Uber enabling rides that did not previously occur.
Ben called the email “ridiculous for lots of reasons,” but the preview ends before his form-factor rebuttal. His completed correction was material: he had understated Apple’s price increases. He said prices had risen sharply outside the US, with the Duo in Taiwan perhaps $400-$500 more expensive than in the US; the listener had cited a $3,000 Canadian price.
Full transcript
Hello, and welcome to a free preview of Sharp Tech. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Sharp Tech. I'm Andrew Sharp, and on the other line,
Ben, how are you doing?
A little groggy. Not super sharp, not super clear. The only way to honor your baseball team drinking a lot of beer in the clubhouse is to drink a lot of beer yourself. We'll see how it goes, but good.
Groggy but victorious. Triumphant here on Sharp Tech. You know what I love? I love that there was an entire first-round series played in about 6 days. As somebody who's been through a lot of first-round playoff series that take 2 and a half weeks in the NBA, I like MLB keeping it nice and tight for us.
Well, it is actually the second round, because there was the wild-card round first.
Oh, I don't count that. Whatever. First real playoff series.
No. It's one of the craziest things about the playoffs in baseball: it is over fast. It has to be, because part of the whole thing is that you need to be tested on your pitching core, right? You need to be playing every day. That's part of figuring out whether you have a good team or not.
Ah, sure.
The end result is the games—you're super excited—
Blink and you might miss it, you know?
You're there, and then it's done. My condolences to the Padres. I like that team a lot. We have a good friend who's a big Padres fan. Alas, someone has to lose if the good guys are going to win.
You had to do what you had to do.
You had to do what you had to do.
The Brew Crew taking care of business. Here we go. NLCS on deck.
Speaking of fast, last year we lost four over the Dodgers. It was very ugly. It was over quick.
Talk about blink and you miss it. Yes, indeed. I recall.
We'll see what happens.
Nowhere to go but up from that performance.
That's right.
As for the show, we'll kick things off with a handful of questions on Apple. On Monday, you wrote about news from Apple. Late last week, I believe it was Friday, the company announced, “We will introduce additional controls to ensure that Mac users who genuinely wish to grant an app full disk access can only do so with very explicit user action.”
Of that news, which was sort of ambiguous, you wrote, “To say that I'm nervous about what Apple's solution will entail is a massive understatement.” That was part of a much larger article. We're not going to spend that much time on the article, but as a reader, I was curious: Why specifically are you nervous, and will Apple's decisions actually affect normal people, or just you and other weirdos? What do you think?
It's always funny how you get feedback on what you wrote.
Uh-huh.
With you, it's like, “We're not going to spend much time on that.”
But it's very technical. We're not coding to the metal here on the podcast.
Unfortunately, you can't control me. We're going to be talking about the article.
Great.
1. AI Changes Ben’s Computing
It's been kind of a self-reflective period, not just over the last few weeks but over the last few months, I think, for me and my relationship with computing, AI, agents, and all these sorts of things. The extent to which I am excited and enthused about this sort of stuff, I'm pretty sure it's coming across as me being very excited and very enthused. Are you getting that impression on the podcast?
Yes. I am. Every now and then, I see tweets about guys in their 40s who may have AI psychosis, and I think of you as a friend.
Absolutely. I've been trying to be very self-aware and concerned: Do I have AI psychosis? Maybe sometimes the answer is yes, and you have to be honest with yourself. But it's fun. For sure, it is fun in a way. I've called back to this being like the '90s and building your own PC and understanding how all this stuff works.
I think—this is my current rationalization, my justification—I think it's been very positive for my work because I do feel that the extent to which I understand this stuff is much higher than it was even previously. Fortunately, I feel like a lot of my intuitions I had before were pretty accurate. Now, I think the depth has definitely gotten much greater the more you get into this: understanding the strengths, understanding the weaknesses, what works, what doesn't, what is going to work, what is always going to be a challenge, et cetera.
2. Apple Culture Starts To Ossify
The reason why the Apple angle is particularly interesting, though, is that when I was at Apple University, the biggest challenge that I perceived with the Apple University concept—and I was there right when it first started—was Joel Podolny was there. I think he might still be there. The concept was that we were going to create this sort of program.
Apple famously has this Top 200. It's an annual retreat where the top people in the company go. It's not necessarily the top 200 if you look at the org chart. It's the 200 people who actually matter in terms of building stuff. There might be some random guy who doesn't report to anyone, and you're like, “What's he doing over there?” Actually, he understands the entire thing. It's all in his head.
The idea was: How do you maintain culture? What makes Apple Apple, and how do you keep that going?
My number one chief concern, which I think remains the biggest problem with something like that, is that once you start writing that sort of stuff down, you're going to get a certain level of ossification. It becomes rigid, and you don't change over time.
Predictably, I think Apple University in the ensuing years is still around as a brand name, but it's like an HR program. You could do these cool classes and trainings and stuff like that. I think there is still the “What makes Apple Apple?” presentation, which is fine. Apple is a massive company, and there's real value in that—it's much larger than when I was there. I was there in 2010, and it already felt like, “Man, I can't believe how much bigger we are than a few years ago.” Now it's multiple times the size. There's value in having to preach to the troops: This is what the company is.
The fact that it's rigid and ossifying is just a fact of life when you're as large as that.
The other issue that I had when I was there was that there were a few people, particularly my direct manager, who I thought had drunk just a bit too much Kool-Aid. Apple could do no wrong. Apple came out with some absurd product when I was there. I want to say it was some sort of fancy charger. I don't know. Someone go back to 2010 and see what the most ridiculous product Apple released that year was. This person bought it on the first day and was raving about it.
Okay.
I'm like, “Relax. It's really not that big of a deal.”
Was it a bad product or just a mundane product?
It was just a mundane product.
Okay.
I want to say it was a battery charger or something. I can't remember what it was. That sort of vaguely—I think I remember—
But this manager was all in.
That was sort of pervasive. It was a bit of a wake-up call for me, because I was definitely an Apple fanboy.
I wasn't a lifelong Mac user. I had been a tinkerer, building my own PCs, and I finally got a Mac around 2004, I think it was. I wanted to play with GarageBand. I loved music, and it seemed super approachable and easy. It was so great. The experience was so good. I was sick of dealing with Windows stuff—figuring out whether something worked, dealing with drivers, troubleshooting. It just worked.
All the clichés were there, and layered on top of that, you had this incredible story: Steve Jobs leaving and coming back, beautiful design, and Apple at the top of the world in the 2000s. It was a very easy and attractive train to hop on.
Going to Kellogg Business School, Windows ruled the roost, which it still does. Excel on Windows is still much better than anything else. I think I was the head—I think I created the Mac Club or something like that. How do you actually use a Mac in business school? It was much tougher back then than it is now. We did, like—
Let's work together.
Pool all our—
Right.
…nerd impulses here, sure.
Right. But the Apple nerd was a specific type of nerd. It was like, “No, we’re a nerd that actually cares about design.”
Mm-hmm.
We’re not—we’re making fun of the people obsessed with—
Oh, yeah.
—speeds and—
The Apple nerd was a particularly insufferable brand of nerd way back when.
Absolutely. You know what? I wore it with pride. I remember I went to Apple University, and it was a bit of a wake-up call. I’m glad I did this, because people in business—it’s like this very—
Mm-hmm.
I think it’s filtered down to undergrad now at this point. Everyone’s just thinking about, “What’s my job? What’s my job? What’s my job?” It’s this very sort of dystopian FOMO environment. But before I finished at Apple University, I told someone, “I do not want to come back here to work.”
Wow.
Even though I thought I had my dream job.
Mm-hmm.
Not only was my dream to work at Apple, but I was also doing strategy, all these sorts of things, or at least adjacent to that. I wasn’t actually doing Apple strategy, but I was interacting with Apple executives. We were actually talking, particularly the 4 managers—
Also a pretty good company to join in 2010 if we’re looking backward.
Oh, for sure, yeah. Probably much richer. But—
Cost yourself some money with that decision.
Yeah. Well, the same thing with Microsoft, to be honest.
Yep.
But what bothered me at the time was, I felt this had been an amazing summer. I’d learned very deeply and fundamentally how Apple worked, I think in a very tangible way that augmented things I’d known before. Also, there would be no intellectual value for me in coming back here.
Mm-hmm.
I would worry I was just becoming a member of the choir.
Yeah.
Preaching to the choir is not useful. I actually want to learn new things. I rationalized my going to Microsoft as, above and beyond the fact that they actually gave me a job, which was great, let’s go somewhere totally different, the exact opposite. I think that actually played out and turned out. So, all that to say, that’s a long and distorted story.
No, but an interesting personal history. I’m not mad at it. So where are we today?
3. Agents Change The Mac Equation
I’ve been waiting for years for this touch-screen MacBook Pro.
Mm-hmm.
I actually think touch screens are cool. I was at Microsoft when they were first coming out. They’re surprisingly useful in ways you wouldn’t expect. OLED screens are amazing.
Mm-hmm.
If you’ve seen the Dell XPS, for example—
They’re so amazing that every time I see a new OLED screen, I just want to buy the product. The new iPads, the new iPad mini, the MacBook Pro—I want all of it. So, yes.
And then Mark Gurman comes out and says, “Not only is the long-awaited MacBook Pro with an OLED touch screen coming out, it’s also significantly lighter because they completely reworked it,” all these sorts of things. This has been the computer I’ve been dreaming about for years and years and years, and I don’t think I’m going to buy one.
Yeah.
Maybe I’ll buy one eventually, but I’m going to wait and see. I have a bunch of Mac minis that I’ve accumulated from my channels and things like that. The experience, as I wrote about in that article, of operating a headless Mac mini is so bad.
Mm-hmm.
It’s one of the biggest pain points in my life. Sorry, that overstates it, but in my computing life. I spent a significant amount of money buying a new server that runs Linux.
Will run on Linux, yep.
There’s this whole thing with David Heinemeier Hansson, this whole movement, and I’m like, “Oh, Omarchy Linux.” I don’t know. I can’t remember what it is. I’m not sure if that’s the answer, but what I know is the future for me is denominated by agents.
Mm-hmm.
The level of capability it gives you, the things you can do—for me, every new thing that I can do makes me want to do 10 more things. We talked about the holes in your life, software-sized holes. Once you start seeing them, you see them everywhere, and you can fix them. You can get them done right now. I’m so excited and enthusiastic about it, and I feel a twinge of regret.
Yeah.
I got over my love for Apple in part by being there, in part by writing about them.
Mm-hmm.
When you write about tech, it’s kind of like talking to people who write about sports teams. One of the sad effects is you end up not really being a sports fan.
Demystifies it. Sure, yes.
You kind of end up not really being a sports fan. I think you’ve done a pretty good job. An underrated thing Bill Simmons has done is somehow he’s been in sports media for 30, 40 years, and he’s still—
Mm-hmm.
—is a diehard fan.
A diehard. Yeah.
Because you talk to a lot of people who—you talk to your favorite podcaster who covers your local team, and if you talk to them in person, they don’t really care if they win or lose. It’s—
Totally.
—it’s all about the content.
It’s a real skill, being able to manufacture the enthusiasm year after year, decade after decade, and your Apple enthusiasm has waned over the years.
No, it’s dead completely. I bought a bunch of Macs because I understood macOS very, very well, and my workflows were highly attuned to it. I don’t like messing around with that.
Mm-hmm.
But for years, I’ve been—
Mm-hmm.
—an OS version behind. I dread buying a new computer because it’s such a pain to set up a new one, right? It’s the—
Yeah.
But also, just covering a company, I’m not cheering for any of these companies. I’m trying to analyze them as best that I can.
Mm-hmm.
But deep down in my soul, way down there, if you peel off all the layers, there is an Apple fanboy.
Sure.
This isn’t a company for me anymore.
Yeah.
That doesn’t mean they’re doing anything wrong. It’s just, it’s not you, it’s me.
Fair enough. Well, the thing is, they still make incredible hardware, make it at an unbelievable scale, and deliver it to millions and millions of people—
Right. To be clear—
—all over the world.
We’re recording, and all my stuff’s right up to my MacBook Pro. I have nothing there in front of me.
I know. Everybody on this podcast—
I have an iPhone.
—is using a Mac for everything, yeah.
I can’t wait for the Air 2. And so, just to be clear, this isn’t an “Apple is doomed, I’m throwing up the Air” situation. I’m not doing the—I’m not going Omarchy or whatever, or Linux. I actually love Linux. Once you have an AI agent with Linux, it’s unbelievable.
Yeah.
The command line is perfect. It’s great. So, no, this isn’t about that. It’s more: am I going to buy this new computer? I’m going to think about it a little bit. Maybe I’ll get it.
Sure.
But—
But also, a willingness to explore other options that hasn’t been there for most people over the last 10 or 15 years is interesting and is a shift. I think there’s a dispassionate respect for Apple, but also mounting frustrations with various aspects of being an Apple user.
I will, however, return to my initial question as the host of the podcast. Will Apple’s changes affect me, or just people who are hardcore users like you? I’ve been worried that Apple could restrict access in various ways and degrade what’s possible for various AI applications that we want to use over the next 5 to 10 years. They could do so in the name of security, in the name of protecting data, whatever it might be, all of which would also help Apple maintain control and Apple’s own primacy.
Going back to the very early innings of OpenAI and its hardware experiment with Jony Ive, that was one of the animating concerns that made that idea potentially not crazy. So are we worried about Apple potentially doing that to Macs going forward and changing the way agents operate on our computers?
Yes.
Or is that not really what the issue is? Okay.
4. Apple Locks Down The Mac
No, 100%. They’ve been going down this road for a while—not with agents in mind, just in general. I’ve been complaining about this for a very long time. This isn’t a new complaint. I’ve brought up the headless Mac, these stupid—
Mm-hmm.
—permission dialogues that come up that—
And there’s a reason for them: apps can abuse the access they have. If you brought up a permission dialogue that could be accessed via software, malware could just click “OK” for you. There’s a reason it’s completely separated, such that the agents on my computer just don’t know when things aren’t working. They don’t know why: “Oh, gotta log in.” Yep, there it is.
Yeah.
By the way, Golden Gate is way worse: way more dialogues. It’s a big pain in the rear end. I have an additional complaint. I updated because I wanted to be fully up to date, but if you update a headless Mac—even if you have the permission set so that, on restart, it should automatically log in.
Mm-hmm.
That’s kind of essential because you don’t want to have to go to a login screen for this computer.
On your headless Mac, sure.
Once you update Golden Gate, it does not log in automatically. You have to go in and physically log in or have a KVM switch.
Oh, God. Okay. Yeah.
Which, by the way, is why I didn’t have “Apply Updates Automatically” checked.
Hmm.
Now, I think that doesn’t cover completely new OSes. I think it’s because going to Golden Gate was a major upgrade, but I don’t know for sure. I didn’t want to risk it, so I just checked “Update Security Patches.” The other thing I want to add: it’s my fault I got hacked. I had port 5900 open. That was dumb.
Mm-hmm.
So I take full responsibility. But we’re in this weird middle ground where Apple is so insistent on taking care of security on my behalf—
The nanny state.
I let my guard down.
Yeah.
I let my guard down and trusted they were taking care of it.
Mm-hmm.
When I have another Linux computer, I’m super diligent. I think very carefully about the security there because I know I’m on the hook, right?
Yeah.
There’s this enabling aspect to using Apple’s stuff where they’re so insistent. It’s kind of like a codependent relationship: “Let us take care of it. We will do it. Don’t worry, we got it.”
Mm-hmm.
I’m like, “Okay, fine. I’ll leave the port open. I’m sure you’ll take care of it. You’ll update it.”
Right.
And they’re like, “Right.” And so—
Well, what’s interesting to me as a normie is that it’s inseparable from the Apple value proposition. When you look at how much better Apple computers have worked than PCs—well, than Windows—over the last 20 years, it is a night-and-day experience from what I remember. Maybe Windows has gotten better. I haven’t felt the need to try because Apple just works and is more secure from a virus standpoint and everything else than anything I experienced previously.
Yeah. And I think the brilliant thing about the positioning of the Mac, just to go back to that Polyam article that I cited, is that it was also a Unix workstation. You had the command line. You had full access to the entire tool set. Back in the day, before we got containers and things like that, it was the closest thing you could get to working in the same environment that was up on the server. It was the perfect developer machine.
Yeah.
So they were in this sweet spot of being the perfect developer-hacker machine and also being the best machine for normies.
Mm-hmm.
And what’s happened over the last few years is that they have leaned more and more into—
We must protect the normies.
—the best machine for normies—
Yeah.
—trying to make it more and more like an iPhone or an iPad, and adding in all these protections and permission dialogues and all these sorts of things. It is making it worse and worse for a hacker or a developer—
Mm-hmm.
—or anyone who wants to use it the way I want to use it. And that’s where it’s not you, it’s me.
Yeah.
I don’t want to go down the normie road. I’m so excited about this other road, and I just don’t think Apple serves both anymore.
Mm-hmm.
And I don’t know that it’s possible to serve both anymore. If it’s possible, Apple’s not doing it.
Yeah.
And that’s why it is what it is. It’s not 2004 anymore.
There you go. You mentioned this other news that we had with Apple. Mark Gurman reported that Apple’s upcoming push into smart-home devices will include a doorbell, thermostat, and other accessories developed through an unusual partnership with LG. The products will be part of an ecosystem of devices that work with Apple’s new smart-home hub, as well as an upgraded HomePod mini and a new TV set-top box, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Gurman added on Twitter, “The accessories are meant to outfit Apple’s major new smart-home ecosystem, all with Siri AI at the center.”
As a normie, let me just say that none of that sounds appealing to me. I don’t know whether I’m crazy, but I don’t want a smart home. I don’t want more stuff in my life that’s connected to the internet, more appliances. I don’t want any of these AI assistants. Even the Charms don’t really have that much appeal to me. Am I wrong for feeling that way? Are you excited by the possibilities here? Is there upside that I’m leaving on the table?
I love this approach by Apple.
Okay.
I kind of wish I had known about this before I wrote my article because it really is the counterpoint to what I was trying to express. I think my article comes across as too negative toward Apple.
Mm-hmm.
What I was trying to describe is that the moment when the Mac was great for hackers and great for normie people was a weird moment in time.
Yeah.
The actual expectation is that there are 2 paths for computing. I am so excited about this one path: writing software for everything.
On the frontier, yeah.
And getting a 3D printer, soldering circuit boards, and all the rest. There's so much stuff. The number of ideas I have so vastly outweighs my time to do them. And yet, even then, because of AI, I’ve accomplished so many cool things in the last few months that it blows my mind.
Mm-hmm.
So I’m all the way down this path, and that path doesn’t include Apple products.
Yeah.
That could be because it’s an insecure path, a dangerous path, a risky path, and a fun path. That’s the path I want to go down. That’s not Apple’s value proposition anymore, and that’s okay.
Yeah.
The other path is that the reason to do all this stuff is that a lot of this stuff is actually pretty great.
Mm-hmm.
A lot of the smartphone and smart-home concepts are really good concepts. The reason you don’t want to do it is your assumption that it all sucks and it’s going to—
Yeah. I have an LG television that insists on connecting to the internet, and you finally told me, “Just disconnect it from the internet,” because I just want it to be a TV. I don’t want it to be constantly updating its software and hitting me with all these different prompts. It’s a phenomenal TV.
Oh, that’s my value.
Best TV I’ve ever owned.
Yeah, and that’s my value.
The issue is that the software is a pain in the ass, and it doesn’t need to be a connected device.
Right. And so all those are—right now, the smart-home ecosystem stinks. I have a bunch of stuff. It kind of works together, but it drives my wife up the wall. She can’t stand any of it. I’m totally sympathetic to that. This was my concern about Apple announcing a new home device, and I put in Monday’s article, “Not really excited about this,” because the whole ecosystem stinks.
Mm-hmm.
The only way I think to get the ecosystem to work is that you have to do it yourself. You write all the software, you get your agent working, and then you’ll get this experience that’s bespoke and custom to you, but also super cool, which is not like—
Nobody’s going to do that.
I do it because it’s fun, right?
0.1%, yeah.
Yeah, 100%. And then this announcement drops about all these devices, and I’m like, “Aha, actually really smart.”
Mm.
If there are 2 paths, those 2 paths should be as opposite as they can be, such that if one makes sense, the exact opposite also makes sense. If one path is to hack everything, write your own custom software for everything, and do it all yourself, the other path is to let Apple do everything.
Mm-hmm.
The reason why the smart home stuff stinks is everyone's trying to say, “I'm gonna do the core piece,” like the Google Home thing or the Amazon thing or whatever Apple's gonna propose, and then we're gonna have an ecosystem where developers can plug in and do all their bits and pieces. And the problem is there's a lowest-common-denominator problem here. No one else does it well enough. We tolerate bad apps on our phone. When it comes to having a bad thermostat, you're gonna throttle someone.
Yeah.
Totally.
And so the opposite of wanting to hack everything is trusting one company to do everything. It's like the Microsoft approach to enterprise software. For a lot of businesses, it has always made sense: just buy all the Microsoft stuff.
Mm-hmm.
It might be kind of mediocre. It might not be as good as best of breed, but it all kind of has to work together.
It's interoperable, which has also—
And if it doesn't work—
—been an Apple specialty. Yeah.
If it doesn't work, you know who to blame, right? One throat to choke.
Yeah.
This makes tons of sense for Apple. The opposite path for me is the Apple-does-it-all path, and it doubles down on their commitment to privacy. Like the LG thing—LG TVs spy on you.
Mm-hmm.
I trust that if Apple's in charge of the LG thing, that's not going to happen.
They won't.
They actually have a credible, credible sort of story to tell there. I don't want to integrate third-party software. At the end of the day, I don't want an app for my thermostat. If there's an app for these thermostats, they've failed.
Mm-hmm.
What I want is to tell Siri to turn the temperature down, set XYZ.
Anyway.
This whole middle layer—applications have been this middle layer that is going away for almost everything outside of where they make a ton of sense. If there's an app for your smart device, it's probably gonna suck.
Mm-hmm.
I want direct from AI to the hardware, and you're only going to get that, number one, if you do it yourself, or number two, if one company does it all.
Integrated, yeah.
That's Apple's value proposition. Do it all. Now, this is second-party. They're not making their own thermostat, but I think it's a middle ground that potentially makes sense.
Okay.
Apple's gonna stand behind these, put them in their store, be on the hook for making sure their software works for it. I can see that path. We'll see if it works, but it makes a lot of sense to me.
Rational and coherent. Well, to Apple's credit, going back to you and your Apple nerd club at business school, they do still make elegant products and well-designed products, and so I'm sure this will be cool. I just don't personally feel like I need it, but maybe that's because I just haven't experienced what a good version of this could look like with a smart home. But keeping it moving, another Apple initiative that we have not discussed at all on the podcast.
5. Foldables Unlock New Use Cases
Rahim says, “Hi, guys. Ben recently said he wasn't interested in the iPhone Duo as he mostly uses his iPhone one-handed and that the current form factor suits him well. Isn't the whole point of technology to see what new use cases a new form factor might unlock? With an iPhone Duo, you get an iPad-esque experience in places you've never had it before: waiting rooms, the food court, your kids' baseball games. Yes, even on the can. Is Ben making the same mistake as Aswath Damodaran made with valuing Uber, not accounting for the new rides that would take place now that a convenient service such as Uber existed?
“P.S. If Ben got a Duo and shared his experience, it would help those of us on the fence justify spending the astronomical $2,000 on the iPhone Duo, or $3,000 for those of us in Canada.”
Any thoughts on Rahim's push to get you on the Duo bandwagon?
Yeah. This is a ridiculous email for lots of reasons. Number one, as a note, I should have noted this. I was like, “Oh, Apple didn't raise prices that much.” Apple raised prices like crazy all over the world. So in Taiwan, the iPhone Duo is gonna be like $500 more than it is in the U.S., or $400 more, or something like that. And I think that's the case in lots of places. Number two, this comparison to Uber.
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