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571: Am I a Legacy Node?

 

00:00:00   From Relay, this is Upgrade. This is episode 571 for July 7th, 2025. This episode is brought

00:00:17   to you by Squarespace, Delete Me, and Oracle. My name is Mike Hurley, and I have the pleasure,

00:00:22   as always, of being joined by Jason Snell. Hi, Jason.

00:00:25   Hi, Mike Hurley. How are you?

00:00:27   I'm good. You know, I'm very happy today. The YouTube viewers will see that I'm wearing

00:00:31   a Rumor Roundup t-shirt today. I love this t-shirt. It's a nice orange t-shirt with the Rumor

00:00:37   Roundup logo on it.

00:00:38   I like the color.

00:00:39   Yeah, it looks good, right? People can buy it themselves. You can go to UpgradeYourWardrobe.com.

00:00:43   We have a small selection of shirts that are always available there, so people can go buy

00:00:48   them. You get Lawyer Up, you get Rumor Roundup, whatever you want. But there's not enough time

00:00:52   for all this. That's no talk question. This one comes in from Sam, who wants to know,

00:00:57   Jason, it's Renaissance Fair season. Have you ever been to one?

00:01:00   Have I ever been to a Renaissance Fair? Yes. I have been one time to a Renaissance Fair.

00:01:09   Okay. How did that go?

00:01:11   I can tell you from my Googling on the subject that it was in the 90s. It was fine. We never went back.

00:01:22   And one of the reasons we never went back, as you will see, I put two links in our show notes about

00:01:29   this, one of which is a link to the Vince Mulroy Wildlife Preserve Wikipedia page, which will explain.

00:01:37   The preserve is partially on the site of the former Renaissance Pleasure Fair, which took place there

00:01:42   from 1971 until 1998. When the fair went bankrupt, Vince Mulroy bought the land, donated part of it to

00:01:49   become the preserve. And the rest of it became the Stone Tree Golf Club. And they also have a bunch of

00:01:54   housing out there. And in fact, so I'm taking this in just a completely different direction. In fact,

00:01:59   over the weekend, Lauren and I went up to Sacramento, went to the art museum, and then went to the baseball

00:02:05   game. The Giants were playing the Sacramento's, which they don't want to be called by the city in

00:02:13   which they play, which I think is a jerk move. So I'm only going to call them by the name of the city

00:02:17   in which they play, the West Sacramento's.

00:02:19   This is some of that beef that I don't understand, but you don't need to explain it.

00:02:24   It's bad sports owners by doing bad things.

00:02:27   They do that.

00:02:28   I all love to the people of the city of Sacramento and no love to the owner of the Sacramento's.

00:02:33   So the journey to Sacramento takes us right past Black Point, where the Renaissance Fair was.

00:02:40   And every time I look off the road there, there's a little kind of like hillside and a little path

00:02:47   going up. And there's houses and a golf course. And I think, oh, there's the Ren Fair, because it

00:02:53   hasn't been the Ren Fair for 25 years. But that's my story. I went one time, and then they shut the

00:02:59   place down and turned it into a golf club.

00:03:01   Okay. Does that any bearing on how good quality the Renaissance Fair was?

00:03:08   Well, we never know how much I liked it, because it's now further away. And I went one time.

00:03:16   Ah.

00:03:17   Why have I never gone back? Is it because I didn't like it or didn't like it enough? Or is it because

00:03:22   they moved it further away?

00:03:23   No one, only, you know, only future historians can speculate about that.

00:03:30   If you'd like to send in a question of your own to help us open a future episode of the

00:03:33   show, just go to upgradefeedback.com and send in your own Snell Talk.

00:03:37   We have some follow-up. Many people wrote in to recommend Hyperjuice Chargers for traveling

00:03:44   chargers. We spoke about this a little bit in Ask Upgrade last week.

00:03:46   Yeah.

00:03:47   For a few reasons. One, they have a lot of options, including one that goes to 145 watts, which

00:03:51   is bananas. But the main thing that it seems that people like about the Hyperjuice Chargers

00:03:56   is you can, they have an adapter for like one of those figure eight kind of barrel plug things.

00:04:03   Yeah.

00:04:04   So you can essentially have a long cable that comes off of the socket. So you can plug that

00:04:09   in wherever, and then you can move the, like the power brick, I guess, wherever you want. So

00:04:14   people seem to like that.

00:04:17   It's fine. I have one of their products. The reason I have one of their products is because

00:04:22   I bought one of their other products and it was recalled.

00:04:25   They all get recalled though, to be honest.

00:04:27   And they got recalled and I got some credit to buy a different product from them. And the

00:04:32   credit was priced so that I had to spend more money to buy a different product from them

00:04:36   or I just ate the money. And I did end up buying more product from them. So anyway, I don't

00:04:41   know if I'm going to be able to endorse Hyperjuice, but I really liked that charger that got recalled.

00:04:48   It did get really hot.

00:04:49   I mean, that's probably why. I mean, it's like, you know, Anchor products always getting recalled.

00:04:54   Like this is, this is part of, I have so many issues around charging technology and like

00:04:59   my fear of it all. And this is part of why.

00:05:01   I should, uh, uh, uh, tell you this. Um, my, so I bought actually the wire cutter speaking product

00:05:09   recalls. I bought, uh, uh, media, uh, um, air conditioner a few years ago, a window unit.

00:05:18   And it's the, like the U shaped one. Why it was the wire cutter pick for ages. It may still be,

00:05:23   um, because our houses here in Marin County traditionally not had air conditioning and we had enough misery in

00:05:30   our house that I finally decided to buy one and put it in the window in the summertime in the living

00:05:35   room. So we'd have at least one room on a hot day. That would be fine. Um, it has, it has been

00:05:41   replaced, right? We now have redone our roof and put in a heat pump that does heat and air conditioning.

00:05:48   And so it's been double replaced because first off the house doesn't get as hot as it used to

00:05:52   at all because of the, uh, uh, the, the insulation that is the new roof. Amazing difference. Uh, amazing.

00:06:02   Like it used to get so much warmer in here. Um, and then there's AC if we want it. So I had this thing

00:06:08   and I'm like, I'm going to have to sell it or donate it, or I'm going to have to do something

00:06:14   with it. Great news, everybody. It got recalled because it had allowed moisture to collect and

00:06:24   grow dangerous mold or something. Nice. It's my favorite thing in an air conditioner.

00:06:29   So the good news is I, uh, I didn't have to sell it. The bad news is I do have to take

00:06:35   it to the dump basically. Oh, but they paid, but they paid me for it. Oh, they don't want

00:06:40   it back. They're just like, here's the money. They don't want it back. They said, they said

00:06:43   you could ship it back. Uh, and, and there's a whole thing, a rigmarole about shipping this

00:06:49   heavy thing back. They said, or just cut off the power cord and take a picture of it, which

00:06:54   is what I did. So, uh, so I got my money back. I could, did they give you a full refund?

00:07:00   Uh, I would have to look up what it costs, but basically, yeah. I don't understand how

00:07:04   when these things happen, these companies don't just go out of business. Well, they've got

00:07:08   other products and apparently have done pretty well. Uh, they'll also do a replacement, right?

00:07:12   But I'm not interested in that because I actually don't want the thing anymore. Um, so I hate the

00:07:17   waste of it, but at the same time, it's a faulty, it's a faulty thing. It must be insurance

00:07:21   or something. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know exactly what happened here, but, um, it got, uh, it

00:07:28   got removed. So Medea, uh, friendship ended with Medea. Right. Whole home air conditioning

00:07:35   is my new best friend. Is, is Daikin the makers of my air conditioner, which is also they, and

00:07:41   nobody's ever heard of them. And they're now the name of the Houston Astros ballpark. So

00:07:45   everybody will know who the random company, the Japanese, uh, uh, heat pump company that makes

00:07:51   my heating and air conditioning. I also, speaking of which, um, Medea, not great home kit support.

00:07:58   I think I had to have a plugin for that. Uh, and, uh, Daikin, uh, also not great home kit

00:08:05   support. And I have to have a, uh, a home bridge plugin for that as well, unfortunately, but it

00:08:09   is great. So that's, that's the thing. So anyway, uh, let's hear it for product recalls.

00:08:16   Uh, after the WWDC keynote, we had someone ask us, uh, why didn't we hear anything about

00:08:22   Pixelmator anywhere now that they're owned by Apple? Uh, well, the app just got its first

00:08:27   update in its post-acquisition era to support image playgrounds and writing tools. Um, very

00:08:33   much an Apple app now, if you needed any, if you needed any proof, uh, very much an Apple

00:08:39   app. Nice. Nice. Support the, support our APIs, please. Yes. Pixelmator team. I mean, this

00:08:45   also really feels to me like, you know, we were talking about this, like proof that it

00:08:51   may be as part of the, like, I work organization because like pages and numbers and stuff always

00:08:58   get at, they always get these kinds of features added. Yeah. Right. And this feels like the

00:09:03   kind of thing you would do to pages, numbers, keynote, et cetera. Structurally, I don't know

00:09:09   if it's with that group or if it's with the, uh, you know, the group that does logic and

00:09:14   final cut.

00:09:15   Yeah. I don't know. But, but, uh, same rules. Maybe they're all the same

00:09:19   group. Basically. So weird, you know, separate apps, separate apps group. I don't know. But

00:09:24   it's like, you know, they have, they probably have guidelines for those applications about

00:09:26   the things that they need to support and Pixelmator appears at least because I don't even know where

00:09:32   you'd put writing tools in Pixelmator. What they all have in common is that they're downloadable

00:09:37   and not, uh, part of system updates, right? Yeah. Which is what makes them different from like the

00:09:41   Photos app, which is in the OS. Uh, Apple has joined threads. Uh, there is now an Apple account,

00:09:48   uh, on threads. There had previously been a bunch of service-based accounts. So music, news, podcasts,

00:09:54   and stuff, but now they have a main brand account. They haven't posted anything. Uh, but this is making

00:10:00   news. People are wondering if Apple are finally going to be abandoning X or lessening their presence

00:10:06   on X. Uh, I reckon my take on this, uh, is that this is in anticipation of ads on threads and that Apple

00:10:16   wants to be an ad buyer on threads. That's, that's what I reckon is going on. It makes sense. That makes sense.

00:10:20   I don't, for whatever reason, they still want to post sold on X and I don't, I don't see it changing. Um,

00:10:29   because it hasn't after all this time. You still using threads? Yes, I am. Uh, I post to it. Um,

00:10:38   it's actually the network where I have the largest following of all the text place social networks. I think just

00:10:42   because it's attached to my Instagram. Um, I use threads as kind of like, uh, for what it is, which is purely

00:10:52   algorithmic. Like I get a lot of F1 news on threads, for example, because like they know I like F1. And

00:10:58   so I get a lot out there, but, um, blue sky is, is, is my favorite, uh, of these kind of networks at the

00:11:05   moment. Cause it's, it's giving me the main crossover of all of the people that I want to follow, uh, from

00:11:10   my tech world, gaming world and general kind of world. Yeah. Blue sky is the one that I'm using the

00:11:15   most. I'm not using threads at all at this point. Um, blue sky, uh, has a serviceable number of sports

00:11:22   writers, which is my biggest problem with completely dropping X is that all the, you know, big media

00:11:29   sports writers and people are posting on there, but a bunch of them are on blue sky now. So I have a

00:11:34   sports list on blue sky, which is great. And then Mastodon is where all my tech people are. And that's

00:11:38   great too. But, um, I just think it's funny that we have this, all these conversations about threads

00:11:43   and all that. And I'm just, and they've, they've added some things and delayed some things in terms

00:11:48   of Fediverse sharing all that. And it's like, I'm, I'm kind of, I kind of just don't care.

00:11:52   It seems successful enough, but it's like, yeah. Also I just have, you know, it's like, oh boy,

00:11:58   um, back in the arms of Facebook, which I've been running away from for all these years. So I'm not,

00:12:04   not, I'm just not interested.

00:12:07   Yeah. The tenor and tone on Facebook shifted again. It kind of felt like it was like shifting

00:12:11   a little bit, right? Like, oh, are they actually caught? No, no, they're not. You know, like it

00:12:17   was like, Hey, hang on a minute. No, they're not. Uh, a U S federal judge has rejected Apple's attempt

00:12:23   to have the department of justice's lawsuit dismissed. So that's going to be continuing. So

00:12:28   we have that in our future. Uh, and unsurprisingly, Apple has appealed the 500 million euro fine that

00:12:34   they received from the EU over DMA anti-steering stuff. Um, this is a quote from an Apple spokesperson

00:12:41   today. We filed our appeal because we believe the European commissioners decision and their

00:12:45   unprecedented fine go far beyond what the law requires. As our appeal will show the EC is

00:12:51   mandating how we run our store and forcing business terms, which are confusing for developers and bad

00:12:56   for users. We implemented this to avoid punitive daily fines and we'll share facts with the court.

00:13:02   I wanted to include this because I thought this quote was interesting because it gives a little

00:13:06   bit of context to what we're talking about last week, which is those new confusing rules. Apple say

00:13:11   there are those confusing because that's what the European commission wants them to do. And also the

00:13:16   only reason they made that change is so they weren't going to continue getting the daily fines.

00:13:20   I have two thoughts about this. One is that classic line. I'm just here. So I won't get fined. Um,

00:13:26   and also I love it when Apple explains why their terms are confusing, which is so they cannot,

00:13:32   which is either depending on your view, because the EC made, made it confusing or because Apple wanted to

00:13:38   make it confusing. So they can complain, look, we're forced to make it confusing. One of those.

00:13:43   I still think my, I think it's in the middle, which is if you implement the rules to the exact letter of

00:13:52   the legal language that they are written in from the European commission, you can make a set of rules

00:13:58   that are very confusing. If you took the spirit of the rule, you could maybe make something less

00:14:03   confusing. Uh, that's what, that's my read on it anyway. Um, so there we go. And F1 has now grossed

00:14:11   $293 million, uh, as of last week, um, over the weekend, sorry. So it's doing the job. Like I'm

00:14:19   not going to keep giving updates on this, but like, we've had the full kind of like big holiday weekend

00:14:23   and like week or whatever up to this point. Uh, yeah. From when it came out to now, it's like a week

00:14:29   and change. Um, and it's doing great. So congratulations. Yeah. Congratulations. You did it,

00:14:38   but it's good though. Right. Cause it means that they're not going to implode Apple TV.

00:14:41   Like this is now like they found, they have now found that it is possible for them to make a movie

00:14:48   and put it in theaters and make money on that movie. Now, is it enough money? No, but they don't also

00:14:55   have to spend like 250 to $300 million on every movie. Like they don't actually all need that.

00:15:01   this movie did, but you could maybe spend $150 million on a movie, market it really well and

00:15:08   make back your money faster. Right? Like maybe there's, there is the proof now that this could

00:15:13   be done. Yeah. I mean, I feel like all it really proves is that Apple is not the kiss of death to

00:15:17   a movie in theaters that it can make money, generate revenue and be a success. I'm not sure that this is

00:15:23   the business they should be in. No, actually, do you know what it is showing? I mean,

00:15:27   this isn't unique. It's showing that when they actually put a real marketing effort behind a

00:15:32   movie, they can get people to go see that movie. Like, because the other movies that they've had,

00:15:37   they have not put a big market marketing spend behind them and they've not given them proper runs

00:15:42   in theaters or whatever. Right. It's like limited run or like, Hey, here's some ads on a bus. It's like,

00:15:47   no, they went full court press, like everything, everything possible as a normal movie studio would

00:15:53   do. Right. That if you think you've got a movie that can make money, you market it to its, to the

00:15:57   nth degree. And they did that. And they said, man, Warner Brothers, right? Because Warner Brothers is

00:16:01   doing the theatrical distribution, but they, they, they did that and, and working as a partner. And yeah,

00:16:06   it, it, I feel like it doesn't prove that this is the right strategy, but it does prove that,

00:16:10   like I said, Apple is not incapable of doing this. I don't know if that's a great lesson to be

00:16:16   learned, but it's a lesson we can take away from this.

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00:18:11   and all of Relay. So let's talk a little bit more about the A18 Pro MacBook rumor.

00:18:19   You wrote a really good piece on six colors where you were kind of expanding on some of the things that

00:18:26   we spoke about, but I think the thing that is pertinent for discussion today is you did some benchmarks.

00:18:31   Well, I mean, I took existing benchmark numbers and put them together. It was that moment of realization.

00:18:37   So we talked about this last week. This is the Ming-Chi Kuo report that's been sort of backed up by some

00:18:41   other people spelunking in code that there is an A18 Pro powered MacBook on the way, a low-cost MacBook,

00:18:47   and how I felt like this was very much... In fact, the piece I wrote is specifically just parroting the title

00:18:54   of the piece I wrote in late 2023, which was called About That Low-Cost MacBook Rumor.

00:19:00   And now it's about that A18 Pro MacBook rumor because it's the same story as that DigiTimes report from late 2023,

00:19:07   I think, where everybody's like, oh, they're going to make a Chromebook killer.

00:19:10   And I thought at the time, this feels more like the M1 Air at Walmart to me.

00:19:16   And I still feel that way. And it seems like the M1 Air at Walmart has been around for a while

00:19:22   and is still out there at 649 that people are like, oh, that is kind of an interesting model for Apple

00:19:28   that gets Apple a much lower-priced computer.

00:19:31   And I have lots of questions that I don't have answers for, but I wonder about the production line of chips, right?

00:19:39   I wonder, can you keep making that M1?

00:19:45   Or is that on... I honestly don't know.

00:19:47   I don't know if at some point the volume is so low that the production line is not worth keeping.

00:19:52   And if TSMC and Apple are like, I don't know.

00:19:55   And then meanwhile, and this was my thought process here, because I talked about it with you,

00:19:59   I talked about it on MacBreak. I spent a lot of time talking about it and realized I hadn't written a word about it.

00:20:02   And I thought, what's an interesting angle here is, is this suitable, right?

00:20:08   Like, that's the big question. It's like a phone chip in a Mac, right?

00:20:11   And I know, Mike, this is us having our Macs discussion again, right?

00:20:15   A phone chip in a Mac, what?

00:20:18   Yeah, that's funny.

00:20:19   And now here we are again with a phone chip in a Mac.

00:20:22   But no, we mean like this year's last fall's phone chip in a Mac.

00:20:27   It's literally the chip that's in my iPhone 16 Pro, right here, that I'm holding in my hand.

00:20:33   And how does that work?

00:20:36   So I went to the numbers.

00:20:37   I went to my numbers spreadsheet that I keep with...

00:20:42   So when I like reviewed the MacBook Air M4 and I found the A18 Pro Geekbench numbers and I plugged them in to a version of that same chart.

00:20:50   So you can look at the performance of the MacBook Air M1234 and then the A18 Pro.

00:20:57   And I suspected it would be slightly faster than the M1.

00:21:05   And that's basically it.

00:21:07   So the core, the M4 A18 core, CPU core, is a lot faster, right?

00:21:15   It's like 50% almost, 40% more fast than the M1 core.

00:21:22   Because over four generations, the base CPU core has gotten faster.

00:21:27   But obviously, M series chips have more cores and more CPU and GPU.

00:21:35   But still, an A18 Pro is almost exactly the same multi-core performance as in an iPhone, which has no cooling like a MacBook Air, right?

00:21:50   Yep.

00:21:51   Almost exactly the same performance.

00:21:52   And the Geekbench Metal score, which is the GPU score, also almost exactly the same.

00:21:58   They're both slightly, in sort of general, this set of test numbers, and test numbers can vary a little bit.

00:22:03   They're slightly faster.

00:22:05   But I would say they're the same.

00:22:07   And a single core performance, which in many cases is the most important, because it's a single burst of activity, especially on a low-end computer.

00:22:14   Like, it's just, I need to do a bunch of work.

00:22:18   This core can do it and then report back.

00:22:21   It's faster.

00:22:22   So, certainly, it's not a compromise from the M1 to put a phone chip.

00:22:28   And what that says to me is, one, they could totally do this.

00:22:31   And probably get some benefits in terms of shutting down the M1 production line, in terms of the volume that they're making the A18 Pro chip for this year's phones and maybe even for future phones down the road.

00:22:47   And it also says to me, it makes this product continue to be viable, because once they do this, they can probably just keep putting in other phone chips over time.

00:22:59   Yeah, because this was the thing that I was really hung up on last time.

00:23:02   It's like, why not just use a Mac chip in a Mac and use the phone chips in the phones?

00:23:08   And this has answered my question, which is that for single-core use, which, as you say, is like, realistically for this computer, the majority of its work will be single-core work.

00:23:19   It's actually, it's faster than the M3, even.

00:23:22   Yeah, for single-core.

00:23:26   And certainly, if you even it out, because the other ones, it's slower than the M2, right?

00:23:31   But if you even it all out, and you think about the M1, which they're still selling, and again, we would all argue is great, this one does the job.

00:23:44   And I think what I came back to, and I think I mentioned in the piece, I keep thinking of the fact that I think Apple Silicon is just so good that they built a base model chip, and it's so good.

00:23:58   And we said that all in 2000.

00:23:59   Five years later, it's still so good.

00:24:02   So good, in fact, that I think it's very clear that Apple's cheapest Mac, cheapest Mac laptop, anyway, is not, it used to be the bare minimum, right?

00:24:15   They would ship what they considered the bare minimum.

00:24:17   And the one time that I think they went below it was with that, the MacBook, the 12-inch MacBook, which was really slow, and it had some serious issues.

00:24:25   But I think today, that $9.99 Air is way more than sufficient for regular people.

00:24:34   Like, it's overpowered, honestly, in some ways.

00:24:37   And if that's true, then there's an inefficiency in the market that Apple could probably address.

00:24:41   And what is a very Tim Cook thing, I would say, is they've been experimenting by addressing it with an old system sold through a weird channel.

00:24:51   But, like, that thing's still chugging.

00:24:53   And I would not, I mean, I think the $9.99 M4 Air is a great deal.

00:24:58   It is one of the best values ever in the Mac.

00:25:01   But if somebody said, I can't spend $1,000 on a computer, but I went to Walmart and there was a Mac for $6.49, I'd say, yeah, get it.

00:25:09   It's fine.

00:25:10   For what, I would ask them what they were going to use it for and all that.

00:25:12   But, like, it's fine.

00:25:14   It's fine.

00:25:15   Our, I can break this here exclusively, Mike.

00:25:18   Our video version on YouTube, which is mostly processed in the cloud, but it's edited and all of that by our video expert, Jamie.

00:25:27   She does that all on an M1 Air.

00:25:31   Yep.

00:25:31   It's fine.

00:25:33   Very capable computer.

00:25:34   Yeah.

00:25:35   We've got a couple of pieces of follow-up written in to us about this chip.

00:25:40   One was from an anonymous person who says, as I've mentioned before, I used to be a chip designer.

00:25:45   So, we'll take this person at their word.

00:25:47   Yeah, I think I know who, I mean, I think I know which anonymous person this is.

00:25:51   Yeah.

00:25:51   Regarding the MacBook of an A18 Pro, I believe Jason is spot on.

00:25:56   The only detail that I wanted to add is I think the 3nm A18 Pro has about a 15% smaller die size than the 5nm M1.

00:26:04   It's possible that even though the 3nm process is more expensive than the 5nm process, the effective cost of an A18 Pro may be very close to that of the base M1.

00:26:15   Very interesting.

00:26:16   I think that's efficiencies and scale, right?

00:26:19   Yeah.

00:26:19   You put in the invisible to us cost of production lines going up and down.

00:26:24   And I do believe, I mean, this is Tim Cook's Apple, right?

00:26:27   I believe strongly that Apple and TSMC are constantly having conversations about optimizing the production line, right?

00:26:35   Because no one else uses these chips.

00:26:38   Apple and TSMC have to work out when they shut a line down, when they stop producing a processor.

00:26:43   We were talking about being surprised that the M3 was introduced in some new products.

00:26:48   And one of the pieces of speculation I gave at the time was we don't even know if they're still making it or if they just have a bunch and they know how many of that product they sell.

00:26:57   And when they run out, they'll have another product ready to go.

00:27:00   And they're going to just use the M3 until it's gone.

00:27:02   Like, we don't know.

00:27:03   And we don't know about the M1.

00:27:05   They may know exactly how many M1 MacBook Airs they're going to sell and how many they've got in a box.

00:27:10   And when that is over, that deal at Walmart has ended.

00:27:14   And they may also know that's going to happen.

00:27:16   And so they've been working in the background because they liked how that went, which I really do think is what's going on here, to take it wide.

00:27:23   I don't think that the A18 MacBook, if it exists, will be a Walmart exclusive, right?

00:27:28   I think that'll be available.

00:27:29   Now, it may or may not be available on Apple's website.

00:27:32   My guess is it will be.

00:27:34   But it's also possible.

00:27:35   Depends on the effort they put in.

00:27:36   It's also possible, though, that they will use it as a channel product, right?

00:27:41   And they're like, if you're going to come to Apple.com, we want you buying a $999 MacBook Air, not a $700 MacBook.

00:27:50   But it might show up on Amazon and Walmart and be in partners and all that, Target.

00:27:54   Or maybe it is everywhere.

00:27:56   And I think that that is whatever.

00:27:59   Like, whatever they're going to do there.

00:28:00   And so, yeah, I'm sure they're looking at the chip costs.

00:28:04   It probably uses less battery.

00:28:06   Like, there's lots of things going on here.

00:28:10   But I think it's, I think it's, I love that a person who actually knows what they're talking about said I was right.

00:28:15   So that's great.

00:28:16   Thank you.

00:28:16   That's nice.

00:28:16   And Vibead wrote in to say, another thing that could add legitimacy to the rumor is macOS 27, so that's next year,

00:28:24   is slated to drop support for Rosetta 2, which uses hardware accelerators on the M-series chips for x86 translation.

00:28:31   Removing support for Rosetta 2 means that the A18 MacBook is not decontented compared to the M-series MacBooks running the same operating system.

00:28:40   I had a couple people point out that Rosetta 2 is going to be a problem.

00:28:42   I'm not sure whether it means that Rosetta 2 wouldn't work on this or that it wouldn't work well on this.

00:28:48   But regardless, if it's a $700 laptop that doesn't support Intel apps or support them well, if you need that, buy the $1,000 laptop.

00:29:01   Like, I just don't think it's an issue.

00:29:03   I agree with you.

00:29:05   I think the transition has been successful, and I feel like the only apps that are left with Intel being the primary,

00:29:15   like being the architecture underneath, they're pretty specialist would be my expectation, right?

00:29:20   I would feel like most apps that most people would use have moved over to Apple Silicon.

00:29:29   But it was interesting, right?

00:29:31   It's like, yes, this would actually be a decent time to do it because Apple is moving away from Rosetta 2.

00:29:38   And this is the long game that Apple plays with chip transitions, which is, this is the hammer, but it comes five years later.

00:29:52   It's hard to say, okay, we'll give you Intel compatibility for a year, but then everybody has to switch.

00:29:58   All the developers are like, but we have these code bases and people rely on blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:30:03   So they're like, all right, we'll give you five years, but, you know, five plus years.

00:30:10   But when they come to us now and say next year, no more Rosetta, the arguments don't hold water, I feel like.

00:30:19   They're like, but, but, but, it's like you had five years.

00:30:22   I think you had five years kind of blows a lot of this stuff out of the water.

00:30:24   You've had five years.

00:30:25   And, and, and that Intel Mac apps now have reached the point where as of next year, um, more than a year away from when they ship, like it's reached the point where you're going to need to stay back on Tahoe.

00:30:38   If you want to run that.

00:30:41   And like, because you're basically choosing, you're like, I have to step off the software cycle because I have old software that I need to run.

00:30:48   Well, that's always the way it, it, it, it's not always this visible.

00:30:52   It was visible with a 32 bit apps.

00:30:54   It's visible with Intel apps, but like this happens all the time where people stay back because there's a key app that is not updated for the new thing.

00:31:00   And that's just, that's life.

00:31:02   But I don't think it's that big of a deal, especially for the lowest cost product.

00:31:06   I'm going to just, uh, correct something slightly.

00:31:08   And I said, MacOS 27 is the last year to support it.

00:31:12   It would be dropped from 27 to 28.

00:31:14   Won't have it.

00:31:16   MacOS 27 is the last version to support it.

00:31:19   Yeah.

00:31:19   So, I mean, the, the hammer is going to come down at a point where, I mean, this is the, this is the best transition.

00:31:25   The best transition is where you, you, uh, get to the point where the transition happens and nobody cares anymore.

00:31:31   That's the best one.

00:31:33   And that feels like this is going to be, it's going to go so long that by the time we get there, it's not really going to matter.

00:31:38   Yep.

00:31:41   So after a week of letting the news, uh, kind of sink in on this, uh, why don't we look towards the summer of fun and build what we think is the perfect MacBook?

00:31:52   All right.

00:31:53   Now, I know that ATP.

00:31:55   They did a draft.

00:31:57   They had a round robin draft where they made what they thought was like a terrible MacBook.

00:32:01   I think realistically is what they were going for.

00:32:03   I'm not sure that was the right format.

00:32:04   So let's not do that.

00:32:05   Even though like we're happy for them to draft things.

00:32:08   I'm always happy when other tech podcasts draft things because it shows our, our, uh, in influence and, uh, benevolence, frankly.

00:32:15   We're, we're fine.

00:32:17   We're fine podcast format innovators over here.

00:32:20   That's right.

00:32:20   We are amused in fact, not, not amused.

00:32:24   We are in fact amused.

00:32:25   So let's build, yeah, let's build this thing.

00:32:27   So I have a few areas that I want to talk about.

00:32:29   I want to start with kind of like design and color and materials.

00:32:32   So kind of like the way this thing is built and looks, I will start the bidding at essentially the MacBook, the plastic MacBook, but in color.

00:32:43   That's where I will start the bidding of kind of design for this thing.

00:32:47   So my question is going to be cost.

00:32:50   Yeah.

00:32:50   And my second question is going to be environmental.

00:32:53   I don't think Apple wants to make a plastic computer.

00:32:56   I just don't.

00:32:58   I see, I see it.

00:32:59   Um, I would also argue that at this point, the aluminum laptop is Apple's biggest product thing on the Mac.

00:33:06   Then let's just do aluminum and color then.

00:33:08   So my, my questions are going to, and color is easy, right?

00:33:11   I mean, despite, despite what we see from Apple.

00:33:15   I don't know.

00:33:16   Color is actually easy because you anodize that stuff and that's it, right?

00:33:19   Um, you, you, I mean, I, iPod mini, um, we, we know, we know you can do it.

00:33:27   And, and the iMac, right?

00:33:28   The, the current iMac is like this.

00:33:30   So colors on aluminum are not a problem and they can do aluminum.

00:33:34   So my, my questions are, first off, what we know is every time you do a new production line and you do a new design, the price goes up, right?

00:33:43   The cost to manufacture goes up and then over years, it comes down, but there's an initial cost and you kind of amortize it.

00:33:51   And then the, the components go down over time.

00:33:53   So I don't know enough about this to say, like, for example, is there an older, um, design that they've got that's cheaper?

00:34:05   Like, you know, an older MacBook air design even, but what I keep coming back to is just that this project should be.

00:34:16   How do we tweak the M1 air, which is that classic MacBook air design?

00:34:22   How do we tweak the M1 air entirely, not just the chassis, the whole thing to be, um, future proof, right?

00:34:34   To be able to go into the future as a, as a modern computer, because if I, my guess is if they want this to be cheap,

00:34:43   what they want to do is keep as much of the M1 air production line as possible, because if they throw it away, we all want to see a brand new computer.

00:34:50   We all want to see a plastic MacBook or a, or, or something like the 12 inch MacBook design.

00:34:55   But I, my gut feeling is that doing a new design and a new production line adds so much more expense that they're not going to be able to hit their price point.

00:35:07   And if you want, if this is all about hitting a price point, that's, that's like sort of, at least like the M1 air is at Walmart.

00:35:15   The answer is to convert your M1 air production line.

00:35:19   And that probably means keeping the case of the M1 air more or less.

00:35:26   I think it, I mean, this is a terrible point to make.

00:35:31   It depends.

00:35:31   Uh, like if they're going to put this on apple.com, which I think they will, I don't know if they will want to use the M1 air design.

00:35:42   Like, and if we're going by your logic, why not?

00:35:47   And you want to make like as efficient as you can from production standpoint.

00:35:51   Why not use the M2 chassis?

00:35:53   Well, okay.

00:35:55   So that's a good point.

00:35:56   So my question is, is the M2 chassis, um, more or less expensive to build than the M1 and talk about production lines.

00:36:06   Is it easier to keep the, to do a decontented M234 MacBook air and, and that production line than to keep the M1 air running?

00:36:17   And, and I don't know the answer to that question.

00:36:19   I don't know if there are fundamental things about the M2 airs aluminum that make it, that make it more expensive than the M1 is to manufacture.

00:36:31   Um, and, and I, I'm not worried about Apple saying, oh no, it's on apple.com.

00:36:38   I'm not, I'm not worried about that because it's gonna be cheap and probably anodized into some fun, you know, put an asterisk next to fun colors.

00:36:46   Um, great.

00:36:48   But, um, I think in the end it comes down to what's the cheapest thing to make.

00:36:53   And if it's cheaper to leave, to use the M234 air production line to make these things, and they're basically a variant in the existing MacBook air design, they could do that.

00:37:03   I actually would be more worried that it looks like a MacBook air, a current MacBook air from Apple than that.

00:37:10   It looks like the old design because if it's the old design, you can tell it's not the current MacBook air.

00:37:16   It's a different product and, um, you know, and we don't know anything about the, uh, we'll, we'll, we'll get to the rest of the computer here.

00:37:22   Right.

00:37:23   But, but, um, just for the, for the kind of physical design of it, you know, I would probably look, if I were inside at Apple, the answer would be, what's the cheapest way for us to make this product.

00:37:33   Right.

00:37:34   And that's probably an existing design.

00:37:36   But that depends.

00:37:36   I see where you're coming from with that, but like, it's not what they do with the SE.

00:37:43   I know the SE went up in price, but like, if, if you are confident that you will make, like, if you can project out the money you're going to make on this thing over the next 10 years, maybe you do spend a little bit of money in the tool to create a new thing.

00:37:56   Maybe.

00:37:58   I mean, you risk, you risk having it cost more than you want, which is a question, right?

00:38:03   Like maybe they don't want to sell a 649 computer, right?

00:38:05   Like maybe there's no way for them to make anything, but that M1 at 649 and they're, they're blowing out the last of their parts for that.

00:38:12   And then it'll be gone.

00:38:13   And that they, they, they're okay with 799 instead of 649.

00:38:17   That's a big leap.

00:38:17   But Apple is, if any company is capable of making that leap.

00:38:21   Also, you mentioned the, the, I mean, not the SE, but think about the iPhone 16E.

00:38:25   The 16E is based on a modern design.

00:38:28   Yeah.

00:38:29   It's not based on an old design.

00:38:31   It's based on a modern design that's, that's been given a little bit of a twist.

00:38:35   It would really surprise me if they released a new computer that looked exactly like the M1 MacBook Air.

00:38:41   I would, I would be surprised about that because also they, well, I mean, and this also actually undoes my point about basing on the M2 as well.

00:38:49   Like, I don't think they want people to think this product is a MacBook Air, right?

00:38:55   That it is a MacBook.

00:38:56   I agree.

00:38:58   And so then would basing on either of the Air chassis make that a problem?

00:39:04   If it looks like a MacBook Air, you know?

00:39:09   So look, if, if I had my druthers, I would say make a new aluminum design that is reminiscent of the M4 Air, 234 Air, but is a little bit different.

00:39:24   That would be if I had my druthers.

00:39:26   If I'm looking at spreadsheets at Apple and the answer is make some minor modifications to the M1 Air design and keep selling it as MacBook because the MacBook Air looks different now.

00:39:37   You could get away with that.

00:39:38   We haven't even talked about the, the thing that's hanging over this product, which is, do you just call it a MacBook Air?

00:39:47   I don't think so.

00:39:48   And say the MacBook Air starts at $799.

00:39:50   I wouldn't do that either because I think then more people will buy it and you don't really want MacBook Air users to buy it.

00:39:57   There's a serious bifurcation if that's the situation, right?

00:40:00   Yeah.

00:40:00   Like this is a quite different computer that it will be specced quite differently.

00:40:05   Like it's not going to have the same ports, right?

00:40:08   They're not going to be the same.

00:40:09   Whether, you know, I don't know how many they're going to put on it, but they're not going to be Thunderbolt, right?

00:40:14   There'll be USB-C.

00:40:15   Sure.

00:40:16   The screen, who knows what that will be?

00:40:18   The webcam, who knows what that will be?

00:40:20   We got to talk about all of that because I think that's interesting.

00:40:22   But yes, I agree.

00:40:24   I think this should be a separate product.

00:40:27   And I think if it's going to be a separate product, it should probably look different.

00:40:31   Now, you could have it look kind of like the MacBook Air, but be a little different.

00:40:36   Or you could have it look like the M1.

00:40:38   Or again, look, if the M1 Air product line could be retasked relatively inexpensively to

00:40:45   assemble something that was similar, like the old 12-inch MacBook design, because you could

00:40:51   use that enclosure.

00:40:52   It's small, but it's got the big frame.

00:40:55   Can you fit that 13-inch display, whatever it is, in there with a different, you know,

00:41:01   the way screens look now, or does it not fit?

00:41:04   I don't know.

00:41:05   The rumors are that this is a 13.

00:41:07   Even screen size is squishy.

00:41:08   Could you do that?

00:41:10   But in the end, I feel like Apple's going to make the most price expedient decision going

00:41:15   forward.

00:41:16   Let's talk about some of the other bits in it, because I don't think we can come to a

00:41:20   consensus in this.

00:41:21   I think we all want color, though.

00:41:22   Yes, for sure.

00:41:24   How much we can agree on.

00:41:24   Webcam, ports, battery screen, the bits that go inside.

00:41:30   So color.

00:41:31   The rumor is that it's going to be colorful.

00:41:35   If they do polycarbonate, that's easy to do.

00:41:38   But I feel like Apple's stock and trade at this point is aluminum and anodizing aluminum.

00:41:44   So maybe, you know, in the end, if you want a colorful Mac laptop, you're going to have

00:41:49   to get one with a phone processor inside of it.

00:41:51   But it's also a differentiator.

00:41:53   If the MacBook Air, which I would argue shouldn't have dark colors, but if the MacBook Air has

00:41:57   dark colors and the MacBook has bright colors, regardless of what it looks like, it will be

00:42:05   a differentiator that this is a very different kind of computer.

00:42:07   It'll still come in silver, though.

00:42:10   Come on.

00:42:11   Yeah.

00:42:13   But maybe we'll get some iMac colors in there.

00:42:14   Who knows?

00:42:15   But on the other bits.

00:42:16   I mean, less battery makes it lighter.

00:42:21   I think you could argue that they've...

00:42:27   Look, for those of us who use our computers all the time, as heavy users of them, on battery,

00:42:32   like having all this battery life on Apple Silicon is great.

00:42:38   But for a cheap laptop, you could cut battery and still have pretty good battery life.

00:42:44   And this is a phone chip, so you probably have even better battery life.

00:42:47   It's probably more efficient than the M chips.

00:42:50   So you could make the battery physically smaller and keep a similar amount of battery life time.

00:42:54   Keep a decent amount of quoted battery life, 15 hours or something, 14 hours, and dramatically

00:43:00   reduce the actual size of the battery, which also dramatically reduces your weight.

00:43:05   Yeah.

00:43:05   Which is good.

00:43:06   Yeah.

00:43:07   So I think that's a given.

00:43:09   Webcam, you know, I think it's a question of margins again.

00:43:16   They seem to have gone to this new webcam that's in the new models.

00:43:22   It wouldn't be surprising if they kept the old MacBook Air M1 webcam, though.

00:43:30   It wouldn't surprise me.

00:43:33   Or if they went to the kind of lower quality center stage webcam.

00:43:38   This is absolutely, in my mind, a place where they cheap out on, like they would cheap out on the webcam.

00:43:43   They've been cheap webcamming for ages and only recently have made their webcams better.

00:43:47   So why wouldn't they just say, look, the point here is not to have the really nice webcam we put in other things.

00:43:54   So I think, yeah, I think that front, that facing camera is just going to be bad.

00:44:00   They won't call it bad.

00:44:02   They'll call it the one that customers love.

00:44:04   Yeah.

00:44:05   Customers love their webcams.

00:44:07   What about the port situation?

00:44:08   What do you think we're going to end up with or could end up with on a product like this?

00:44:13   I mean, it kind of comes down to what the A18 Pro supports.

00:44:20   Yeah.

00:44:21   I would like to say two.

00:44:23   Yeah.

00:44:24   If it can do two, we know it can do one.

00:44:27   Yeah.

00:44:27   If it can only do one, then I think it's one plus MagSafe.

00:44:33   I think it has to be.

00:44:35   But I think that they're not going to do one and it's your charger.

00:44:39   I do, however, think that it's going to, again, everything, not knowing the prices, we can't play the prices right here, right?

00:44:50   But that's what I want to know is how expensive it is to put MagSafe on a computer and put a MagSafe cable in the box versus some other approach where you just do one USB-C or two USB-Cs.

00:45:06   And that's an open question for me because whatever is cheaper, I would say, is what they're going to do.

00:45:11   But I do feel like one port, no other way to charge, it's rough.

00:45:18   They could do it.

00:45:19   They've done it before.

00:45:20   They could do it, but that's rough.

00:45:22   Yeah, but that was such a death now in that computer amongst all the other things, right?

00:45:27   Yeah.

00:45:27   It's not a good experience to have just one port on your computer.

00:45:32   It's a very bad experience.

00:45:33   And they have an option right there and it's called MagSafe, right?

00:45:38   And I would be really surprised if they were like, hey, you have one USB-C port and that's the whole thing.

00:45:46   And again, the question is, what's the cost of that?

00:45:48   And is the cost of the fact that defrayed by the fact that they've been shipping it for a while on the M2 so they can put it in?

00:45:54   It's relatively inexpensive for them or not.

00:45:57   To me, that would be the only reason not to put it in.

00:45:59   I just, I don't think it's beyond them to release a 649 laptop with one port, but the M1 Air has two.

00:46:09   Because I see what you're saying about that, right?

00:46:12   But then I think a lot of the questions that I have about the makeup of this computer come back to, well, then why do it at all, right?

00:46:24   Like, if you're going to make it worse than the M1 Air in some respects, why even do this?

00:46:32   Well, I mean, one of the reasons why might be that they can't make the M1 Air anymore.

00:46:36   And so they're going to move on, but they like being down there.

00:46:41   And they may not be at 649, but maybe they're down there at 700 or 800.

00:46:46   It's going to be less than the Air.

00:46:47   But I agree with you.

00:46:49   I think that that would be the argument is, let's try not to make it appreciably worse.

00:46:53   And then the question for me becomes, is it two USB-C ports or is it a USB-C port in MagSafe?

00:47:02   And I think that comes down to price, but I think it also comes down to what that chip is capable of.

00:47:07   If the chip is not capable of, and I just don't know enough about USB-C and the implementation on that chip, the A18, to know if it's capable of two.

00:47:18   If it's capable of two, though, it would be very easy to just do two USB-C, just like the M1 Air, and you charge on one of them, and there's no MagSafe.

00:47:26   I think that, so Zoe in the discourse making a good point, which is that the battery life now is better than it was with the MacBook, the 12-inch MacBook.

00:47:36   But the thing is, I think there's a story around every product, right?

00:47:40   And it will become so easy for the story to be like, oh, you can't even charge and plug anything in, even if you wouldn't do it.

00:47:47   And I think you lose the story of the computer so fast with points like that.

00:47:52   And you end up making people question whether this computer would work for them in a way that you don't really want them to be asking that question.

00:48:01   And I think if you say to people, you can charge it and plug in peripherals via USB-C, you've kind of removed that point from people's minds.

00:48:12   I don't think that a lot of customers in this area are like, but can I plug two things in?

00:48:18   No, you just have an option to plug something in by USB-C while you're charging your computer.

00:48:23   I think that is just an easy story to tell rather than like the story they tried to tell last time, which didn't work for various reasons, but it also just didn't work on the face of it before people had used it, right?

00:48:36   It's a complicated story to tell.

00:48:39   But I can see a simple answer here where it's two USB-C, charge via USB-C.

00:48:49   Yeah.

00:48:49   And this came up on ATP last week, and I think it's a really interesting point.

00:48:56   And I think it's not, again, not beyond Apple, which is no charger in the box.

00:49:01   Like an iPhone, charge via the USB-C that you've got, no charger in the box.

00:49:06   If they go USB-C only, then don't put a charger in the box.

00:49:09   Well, if they do MagSafe, they still don't have to put charger in the box.

00:49:12   They just put the cable in the box.

00:49:14   Yeah, but yes, the cable, yeah, yeah, for sure.

00:49:16   Yeah, no charger in the box.

00:49:17   I don't think there's a charger in the box for this product, no matter what they do.

00:49:20   Yeah, no, I just think it's fascinating.

00:49:23   What an idea.

00:49:23   But yeah, that's one way you bring the price down.

00:49:25   It's just you don't include stuff like the charger, and they already do that on other devices.

00:49:30   You bring the price down in so many ways, like so many imperceptible ways to the consumer.

00:49:37   And I know many people notice, but obviously you've not made the thing, right, which is like a whole separate process.

00:49:44   You've got to put them in the box.

00:49:46   That's a separate process.

00:49:47   You make the box smaller, which is cheaper.

00:49:49   Then they are easier and cheaper to ship because they take up less physical space because the boxes are smaller.

00:49:56   And they're lighter because there's less battery, and the weight makes them easier to ship as well.

00:50:00   Yeah.

00:50:00   Well, it depends on how you do it, actually.

00:50:02   So if you put it on a plane, that's the problem.

00:50:04   Put it on a boat, it doesn't matter.

00:50:06   Like boats is not about weight.

00:50:08   Boats are purely about physical space.

00:50:11   About capacity, volume.

00:50:13   Yeah.

00:50:13   The other thing, I don't know if I mentioned this here last week, but the other thing that struck me just as a drive-by is I don't know what the TSMC factory in Arizona is going to be able to produce.

00:50:28   But it strikes me that, you know, it's not going to be leading-edge chips.

00:50:32   Is this the kind of thing that ends up getting some chips that are produced in the U.S. and possibly assembled in the U.S. for non-profit margin reasons, right, for tariff and politics reasons?

00:50:45   I don't think – I feel like a laptop is complicated enough that probably not, but who knows about that?

00:50:53   So I just want to throw that out there.

00:50:55   Yeah, they put a Mac Pro together.

00:50:55   You know what I mean?

00:50:56   Because this is a – it's made with trailing-edge stuff, right?

00:50:59   This is not going to be a cutting-edge product.

00:51:01   I realize that the A18 Pro is actually made with the newest 3-nanometer process from TSMC, but, you know, today's cutting-edge process is tomorrow's legacy node.

00:51:12   That's just how it works.

00:51:13   That's how my granddad taught me and his granddad taught him.

00:51:17   You could put that on a tea towel and, like, hang it over your oven.

00:51:20   That's right.

00:51:21   That's right.

00:51:22   It's just – I mean, it's a memento mori.

00:51:24   You could put it anywhere and just say today's cutting-edge is tomorrow's legacy node, and people will be very confused.

00:51:30   And also sad.

00:51:31   You know, people will feel sad.

00:51:32   I'm like, am I a legacy node?

00:51:34   Yes.

00:51:35   I don't really feel like we've come to any decisions on this product.

00:51:37   We've had a good conversation.

00:51:38   Last point is price.

00:51:40   For me, $700 is the ceiling for this product, I think.

00:51:46   Yeah.

00:51:48   I mean, we say that.

00:51:49   We say that.

00:51:51   And the 6E was – or the 16E was more than we thought it would be.

00:51:56   Yeah.

00:51:56   16E was more than we thought it would be.

00:51:58   Yeah.

00:51:59   I am going to say I would like to see it – you said – so you said $799?

00:52:08   So $700, so $699.

00:52:10   Oh, $699.

00:52:11   Wow.

00:52:12   In my gut, that's the right price.

00:52:13   Okay.

00:52:17   So what you're saying is you'd like it to be $300 cheaper than the MacBook Air.

00:52:21   Yeah.

00:52:21   Which is unrealistic, I know.

00:52:24   It will be like $800.

00:52:26   I'm going to say $200 cheaper than the MacBook Air.

00:52:29   Yeah.

00:52:29   So what is that, $799?

00:52:30   $799.

00:52:31   Which I will say –

00:52:32   I'd love to see it at $749 or $699, but then I have to do the Jason thing of saying

00:52:38   that's what you wanted, and it won't be that.

00:52:42   It would be more expensive than that.

00:52:43   $799 actually is also really good.

00:52:47   I think.

00:52:47   For Apple in laptops?

00:52:48   If it's a brand new computer from Apple that looks nice, right?

00:52:51   That's important.

00:52:52   Yeah.

00:52:52   It's going to look good.

00:52:53   Yes.

00:52:53   It's got some decent features in it.

00:52:55   $799.

00:52:57   That is the counterargument to more severely decontenting it and turning it into an M1 Air,

00:53:03   is that I think – could Apple make a $649 or $700 laptop?

00:53:09   Yes, they could.

00:53:11   But what's the goal here?

00:53:13   Is the goal to go all the way down to $649?

00:53:17   Or is the goal to just create some space under the MacBook Air to fulfill a market that you

00:53:23   maybe weren't serving and now you can and still make your profit margin?

00:53:27   Yeah.

00:53:28   And if that's the goal, putting a laptop at $799 is pretty good for Apple.

00:53:37   Taking it out of the context of, but people want it to be at $649.

00:53:40   It's like, I get that.

00:53:41   People want it to be $400, but it's Apple.

00:53:45   So if the whole SE and 16E have taught us anything, it's probably that Apple's willing to go down,

00:53:55   but their willingness to go down in price is not what we think it is.

00:53:59   And if they're going to go – honestly, I could even argue if they're going to go to the trouble of making a new product,

00:54:03   a new product is not going to cost what the remaindered product at Walmart costs.

00:54:08   Of course not.

00:54:09   They're not going to do it.

00:54:10   It's going to be $749 or $799.

00:54:12   And I think that's – I think I would say $799 is the most likely price,

00:54:16   or the way I've been phrasing it is, $200 less than the MacBook Air,

00:54:20   because we don't know if Apple's going to raise prices, because that's a great mystery as well.

00:54:24   And in fact, I think that's one of the reasons why this product might exist,

00:54:27   is it allows Apple to keep a laptop sub $1,000 if they end up having to, due to tariffs,

00:54:34   raise a lot of their product prices.

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00:57:08   Rumor Roundup time.

00:57:09   Yeehaw!

00:57:10   Mark Gurman is reporting that Apple is talking to both OpenAI and Anthropic

00:57:15   about being the back-end LLM for a new Siri,

00:57:18   potentially abandoning their own efforts.

00:57:20   I'm going to give you a couple of quotes from Mark's piece.

00:57:22   Apple has spoken with both companies about using their LLM models for Siri.

00:57:27   Rockwell and Federighi don't see the need for Apple to rely on their own models,

00:57:31   which they currently consider inferior,

00:57:33   when it can partner with third parties instead.

00:57:35   And Apple believes that running the models on its own chips housed in Apple-controlled cloud servers,

00:57:42   rather than relying on third-party infrastructure,

00:57:44   will better safeguard user privacy.

00:57:48   part of what we've been talking about is leadership coming in and saying,

00:57:55   we don't have any sacred cows and we can choose the right decisions for Apple products

00:58:02   and the feeling like that the Siri team was not delivering

00:58:05   and that they need to deliver.

00:58:08   And if delivering means going to an outside source, then so be it.

00:58:12   A lot of speculation about what this means for the people working on LLMs inside of Apple.

00:58:18   And I think, like, Apple has a challenge because LLM engineers are hot

00:58:25   and they have to try and retain their talent.

00:58:28   And if they feel like they are trapped, they're going to go somewhere else, right?

00:58:33   But I'm going to be a little contrary to some opinions on this one.

00:58:39   And I'm going to say, there's a way to do this where you can inspire the people who are working for you.

00:58:46   And the way to do this is to say,

00:58:48   we're talking to OpenAI and Anthropic because right now they produce better results than we do.

00:58:57   But we want, we, you have our, you internal people have our full support.

00:59:04   And once our models are what they can be, which is great, we'll use them instead.

00:59:11   But right now we're behind.

00:59:15   And what you're doing is you're saying, look, you know how Apple works.

00:59:20   We want to own this, but we are behind.

00:59:25   And so the product comes first.

00:59:28   We got to get the product good.

00:59:29   And what you're doing is catching up.

00:59:34   And that's not your fault.

00:59:36   It's the fault of prior management, you know, throw them under the bus.

00:59:40   And when, you know, we're, when you are able to catch up and we believe in you, right?

00:59:46   All that.

00:59:46   Yeah.

00:59:47   Of course, we're going to use our own models because we want to use our own models.

00:59:51   You could also say they are making a general model.

00:59:54   And we have proven that what we're great at is making some specific models for Apple for specific tasks.

01:00:02   And that's what we want you to focus on.

01:00:04   Not the general model, which you could even, you know, downplay it and say, it's not the mission critical model.

01:00:09   Everybody's got one.

01:00:10   We want these very specific models.

01:00:12   So there are ways to do this where you pump them up.

01:00:15   Now, if they don't believe you, if they, if they don't believe that they're ever going to catch up, that they're good enough, or if they think that they are good enough and they're not, you don't, you don't want those people working for you.

01:00:29   Honestly, you don't want those people working for you.

01:00:32   If they, if they don't think that Apple can have a better model, uh, if they think they should just go somewhere else, you, you want, you, you actually don't want them around because, because I don't think this story is necessarily, oh, Apple has a bunch of brilliant people and they've got, they got mismanaged.

01:00:48   I think it's also possible that Apple doesn't have people who are up to the task and the way as a manager, I mean, you need to hire and you need to find good people and you need to empower your best people to do their best work, right?

01:00:58   That's what you need to do.

01:00:59   But part of that has to be, um, we're not going to let our product suffer because you guys are behind.

01:01:09   Don't, don't sacrifice the user experience because, I mean, this is mean, but because you're trying to make a bunch of people feel better about themselves.

01:01:16   Like that's, you're kind of weighing a billion against a thousand at that point, you know, like it was what you're saying, right?

01:01:25   Like if the team isn't producing the work and that's the reason, right?

01:01:29   That like they could, and they have the facilities, but it's not being done.

01:01:32   We don't know that's the case, but it could be the case.

01:01:35   Uh, then you can't just be like, oh, well, we'll just keep waiting for you.

01:01:40   Yeah.

01:01:40   Yeah.

01:01:41   In the meantime.

01:01:42   But yeah, just, I think, I mean, again, there are ways you think of it and there are ways you phrase it to your employees in order to motivate them.

01:01:49   But what, what I would say is it feels to me like the lesson of the last six months in terms of the changes that they've made at the top of the software and machine learning hierarchies is that.

01:02:05   Uh, yeah, Apple's products are paramount and hurting, hurting the feelings of the people working on the models or shipping inferior models because we don't want to hurt their feelings or because they're from Apple and making our product inferior because of that is not acceptable.

01:02:31   Right.

01:02:31   And that's how it should be.

01:02:32   If you're, if you're a manager at Apple and you're like, well, we could ship this Siri, which doesn't work and it's going to take us another two years or, and maybe it'll work or maybe it won't, or we could integrate with a third party and ship this Siri next year and it's going to be good.

01:02:46   Yeah.

01:02:47   You can't make that first decision.

01:02:50   You can't, you can't do it.

01:02:52   You can't say the cook, the Tim cook doctrine that people like to talk about is not Apple should own its own key technologies, even if it makes their products bad.

01:03:02   That's not it.

01:03:03   That's not how it works.

01:03:05   And I know Apple maps is an example.

01:03:07   People card out there.

01:03:07   There are some very specific reasons why that happened, but suffice it to say, Apple maps shipping was not viewed as a victory by Apple because it wasn't good enough.

01:03:15   It's the, at least pretext that they used to get rid of Scott Forstall.

01:03:18   Like it was a, it was not viewed as a victory.

01:03:21   It was viewed as a mistake moment.

01:03:23   This is, and I think, and I think somebody on a podcast last week referred to it as the reverse Apple maps.

01:03:29   I think that was me.

01:03:30   That's yeah.

01:03:31   Was that you?

01:03:32   That's the way to think of this is the, the old reverse Apple maps, which is we need a thing for now.

01:03:38   So bring it in because it's good.

01:03:40   It doesn't have to be a lifelong commitment.

01:03:43   Although I will also say there's another way to spin this, which is those guys are good at this one thing.

01:03:49   We'll work with them on that thing.

01:03:51   And then we're going to focus on the models that make the iPhone and the Mac and the iPad unique and build those.

01:03:57   There are other ways to approach this.

01:03:59   And I think Rockwell, especially who was put in charge of Siri, we know the story there, right?

01:04:05   We know the story that Rockwell was very frustrated because he thought, I think rightly, that voice control would be a great asset for the Vision Pro.

01:04:13   That was, that was Federico who said reverse Apple maps.

01:04:16   Oh, was it Federico?

01:04:18   Okay.

01:04:18   I mean, you can take credit.

01:04:19   It's, it's fine.

01:04:20   I'll take credit for connected, but it wasn't me that said it.

01:04:23   So Rockwell went through this.

01:04:27   Rockwell felt like the Vision Pro was a worse product because he got let down by the Siri team.

01:04:34   Right.

01:04:35   Bottom line.

01:04:35   And now he's in charge of Siri, which is quite a statement.

01:04:38   Right.

01:04:38   But it, it speaks to the idea that in the end, the quality of the product you ship matters, not where the technology comes from.

01:04:49   And your message internally is, of course, we don't want to be using open air, but like, seriously, if there's anybody inside the, the group who is like, but ours is just as good as theirs.

01:05:00   You just got to, you, you got to tell them, no, it's not, it's not acceptable.

01:05:04   And if you don't like that, go away.

01:05:05   Right.

01:05:05   Like literally it's not acceptable.

01:05:08   If there's anybody that diluted and that's my fear is that there are people in the group that have been told that they're doing good work.

01:05:14   And if they're not doing good work, they need to be told that, uh, that's where Apple is on, on this point.

01:05:19   Or maybe the work's good, but it's not good enough fast enough.

01:05:22   Right.

01:05:23   Like we're making great progress, but we're not ready to replace Siri next year from this progress.

01:05:29   Right.

01:05:29   That's right.

01:05:29   So, so like, again, as soon we're hard, part of the pitches, as soon as we can do this ourselves, let's do it ourselves, but we can't do it ourselves now.

01:05:36   Part of, so you make a management change.

01:05:38   One of the things you're going to hear is, but I was told we were going to do it this way.

01:05:41   This is what we were just doing, what we were told.

01:05:43   And it's like, well, that's fine, but you're being told something different now.

01:05:46   Right.

01:05:47   And like, I'm not going to blame you, but you know, you can make excuses, but in the end, it's very clear where we need to go.

01:05:55   And, you know, when you get there, we'll be here.

01:05:58   We want, and we want, I think one of the great advantages of being a manager in this situation is of course, Apple wants to build its own thing.

01:06:05   But we've been unable to, and anybody who thinks that we, we were able to is wrong.

01:06:10   And, uh, we need to make that a goal, but in the meantime, we're going to be pragmatic and we're going to use partners.

01:06:16   And also to say, you know, Apple's, the iPhone is a place that everybody wants to be.

01:06:24   It's super important.

01:06:25   And all of these companies are, are, are competing with Google who owns their own smartphone platform.

01:06:30   So Apple's actually in an advantageous point here where these other companies would really like to partner with Apple about this stuff.

01:06:39   So it gives Apple an advantage to make their product better now.

01:06:43   And the only real fear is that Apple will become beholden to them and will be unable to catch up with them.

01:06:51   And I mean, that's bad in so many ways, but you have to bet on your ability to catch up with them.

01:06:56   If you're an Apple manager, you have to bet on that.

01:07:00   So DigiTimes is reporting from its supply chain sources that Apple is moving the folding iPhone to prototyping stage with a launch looking schedule for 2026.

01:07:10   If this kind of, uh, usual flow kind of, uh, bears out from where they go from like prototyping to engineering sample, et cetera.

01:07:19   At the same time, they have reportedly paused work on a folding iPad.

01:07:23   Apparently they're facing manufacturing difficulties and presumably are putting their focus into the iPhone.

01:07:30   Um, they've also seems, it seems to suggest, uh, or at least the DigiTimes rumor states that the expense and also demand of a product like this could see to it being deprioritized.

01:07:42   I wonder if maybe like if you ship a folding iPhone and it's successful, maybe you make a folding iPad more desirable, right?

01:07:50   That like the iPad is too expensive, but maybe people would see the benefit.

01:07:55   Uh, but also if you can ship a folding iPhone in 2026, go full steam ahead on that.

01:08:01   You should do that.

01:08:02   Also, this is the product that we couldn't understand.

01:08:05   The right.

01:08:06   This is the, what, what is this is the giant foldable iPad that can be like a laptop or is it a foldable Mac book or what?

01:08:13   With, and, and, and we, we didn't understand it.

01:08:18   And that's always a red flag.

01:08:19   I mean, cause maybe they've got an amazing vision for it, but it's also possible that they're experimenting with technology.

01:08:24   Yeah.

01:08:25   That might be possible and not actually solving a problem of a product that needs to exist.

01:08:30   Yeah.

01:08:30   So put that one on hold.

01:08:31   The folding iPhone makes sense to me in a way that the folding iPad never did.

01:08:36   Yeah.

01:08:38   I mean, the folding iPhone is just an easy pitch, right?

01:08:41   You just, you understand what that means.

01:08:43   It's like iPhone turns into iPad.

01:08:45   iPad mini.

01:08:46   Yeah.

01:08:46   But what, what are you just like, iPad turns into big, like 10, 11 inch iPad turns into 13 inch iPad.

01:08:52   You know what I mean?

01:08:53   Like, it's like, I don't, you put it on a stand or like it, it, it's a very weird.

01:08:57   Yeah.

01:08:58   Very weird.

01:08:58   I will, I will say iPadOS 26 makes more sense for me now of why you might want to have a bigger screen than like iPadOS 18 did.

01:09:10   You know what I mean?

01:09:11   Like we're in a world now where I could see that having a bigger iPad screen is nicer.

01:09:16   It's still not enough on the face of it for the reason.

01:09:21   Bloomberg is reporting that Foxconn has recalled engineers and technicians from their facilities in India back to China.

01:09:28   Apparently this has been going on slowly for the last two months with now 300 people leaving the India site.

01:09:35   At this time, it's mostly support staff that remain at Foxconn from the people that were brought in.

01:09:41   I think from the people that aren't from India.

01:09:43   So I think they said in the article that there are people from Taiwan that are like support staff at Foxconn that remain in India,

01:09:49   but it no longer, or there are fewer and fewer like engineers and technicians.

01:09:54   Nobody from Apple or Foxconn is commenting on why this is occurring.

01:09:58   But it presumably leaves Apple in a tough spot on their plan for manufacturing the iPhone 17 for America in India, which was the plan.

01:10:05   This seems like it might not be possible now.

01:10:08   Hmm.

01:10:09   Yeah.

01:10:12   I don't know what to say other than that the Chinese government has a lot of say.

01:10:18   Yep.

01:10:18   And the article says that basically the Chinese government has told the Indian government that they're doing this and it's just happening.

01:10:25   Like, they're just bringing them home.

01:10:27   And like notification was given between the two governments, but none of the companies involved are talking.

01:10:31   So why this is happening?

01:10:36   There are many reasons that it could be happening.

01:10:38   This to me feels like that kind of like a house of cards style stuff that you just don't see.

01:10:47   Like there are conversations happening between behind closed doors between all these countries.

01:10:54   And it's like, you just don't know.

01:10:56   Like, you see what's happening on the front of it, but why it's happening?

01:10:59   Who knows?

01:11:00   Who knows?

01:11:01   And Mai Jin Bu has shared some new renders of the iPhone 17 Pro based information they've gathered from the supply chain.

01:11:09   I want to get a vibe check from us both on how we feel about what is considered to be about as state of the art as iPhone 17 renders are.

01:11:21   So what we have essentially is a two-tone look.

01:11:24   So it's an all-aluminum phone, is where the rumors are, with a glass portion on the back.

01:11:29   This gives a two-tone look, but also allows for like charging and antennas and all that kind of stuff to work through the glass.

01:11:37   And a camera bar, which essentially extends the camera portion, the camera bump, all the way across the top of the phone.

01:11:48   It keeps the cameras essentially in the same place, but just moves the flash and the LIDAR sensor all the way to the right and the microphone.

01:11:56   What are your, how do you feel about this?

01:12:00   Also, the new thing is the Apple logo has been shifted down.

01:12:04   So it is now centered in the new glass panel, which occupies about two-thirds of the phone, rather than it being centered in the middle of the iPhone as it currently is.

01:12:13   I don't know.

01:12:16   I mean, having the bump go all the way across is good in the sense that it means that the phone will be more stable when you lay it down, because it will have sort of like a tall part and a short part.

01:12:28   And it also might be a nice kind of ledge for holding the phone, too, like depending on how, where you hold your phone.

01:12:34   Could be.

01:12:34   That might feel pretty nice.

01:12:36   Could be.

01:12:36   Beyond that, I don't, I don't know if I have an opinion about this at all.

01:12:41   I love the two-tone.

01:12:42   I just think it looks fresh.

01:12:44   That's probably one of the main reasons they're doing it.

01:12:47   I'm a little bit perplexed about going to aluminium, honestly.

01:12:53   It's like, we made such a big deal out of titanium, and now we're moving back to aluminium.

01:12:57   And I hope that that doesn't result in a heavier phone because of it.

01:13:02   That would be a bit of a bummer to me if the phone became heavier.

01:13:05   I wouldn't like that.

01:13:06   And I think it might, actually.

01:13:07   I don't know, actually, whether glass or aluminium is heavier.

01:13:11   Like, I just don't know the answer to that.

01:13:12   Probably glass, actually.

01:13:13   So maybe it'll be fine.

01:13:15   But I like that this phone's going to look pretty different, especially to somebody who

01:13:21   doesn't use a case, which is me, right?

01:13:22   I like that this is, this phone, I like that this phone will have some visual flair to it,

01:13:28   Jason.

01:13:28   That's what I'm excited about.

01:13:29   Like, make it feel a bit new and fresh and still intrigued about the, I feel like I'm going

01:13:35   to have a real complicated buying process with the iPhone line because I'm really intrigued

01:13:41   about the iPhone 17 Air, right?

01:13:43   Like, what that's actually going to be.

01:13:45   I think that's going to be quite an intriguing phone.

01:13:47   But it's like, am I able to deal with whatever trade-offs they're going to give us?

01:13:53   Which, that's going to be the interesting thing to work out.

01:13:55   But I'll say I like the look of this.

01:13:57   I think this looks fun.

01:13:58   Yeah.

01:13:59   I mean, I don't, I'm not opposed to it.

01:14:02   I think, again, it's going to come, I'm just, my response is muted by like, okay, it's

01:14:06   two-tone, but it's going to be two-tone gray versus two-tone, not slightly, not gray.

01:14:10   That's my concern about it, is a little contrast back there could be really interesting.

01:14:13   But will it be?

01:14:14   We'll see.

01:14:15   Yeah, that's a good point.

01:14:16   Again, it's like, if you gave us the kind of contrast we got on the iMac, right, that could

01:14:21   be real fun.

01:14:22   But we don't, I don't know what you're going to give me.

01:14:25   Maybe we'll get a nice blue or something, you know?

01:14:28   Maybe we'll get that.

01:14:29   Maybe so.

01:14:30   I hope so.

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01:15:41   It's time for some Ask Upgrade questions to finish out today's show.

01:15:47   Andy wrote in and says,

01:15:50   How do iPhone-only apps behave with the new windowing system on iPad?

01:15:54   I'm hoping they maintain an iPhone screen ratio similar to iPhone mirroring.

01:15:59   That's what they do.

01:16:00   They just show up as an iPhone shape.

01:16:02   And you can have multiple of them on the screen at the same time.

01:16:05   That's right.

01:16:05   They're just windows.

01:16:06   It's fantastic.

01:16:07   You know what this fixes with the iPad?

01:16:10   It fixes all of the social media apps that won't make an iPad version.

01:16:14   You can now just use the iPhone version, and it looks good.

01:16:17   And you can use it like an iPad app, essentially.

01:16:19   This is just one of the many fantastic features that's in iPadOS 26,

01:16:25   is that you can use iPhone apps more realistically.

01:16:28   Yeah, it's good.

01:16:30   Good stuff.

01:16:31   Matthew says,

01:16:32   Is there any concern about Liquid Glass's high GPU requirements cutting off older devices?

01:16:39   Apple usually keeps devices supported longer than most companies,

01:16:43   and that was a huge draw for many people I know, myself included.

01:16:47   And I assume that, you know, Apple has made the cutoffs specifically thinking about the GPU issues involved.

01:16:57   And worst case scenario, they will scale it down where you'll just get less

01:17:02   because there's a phone that can't support it.

01:17:05   If they don't like it, they'll either optimize it or they'll turn it off for some models.

01:17:09   And I just don't think it's going to be a big deal.

01:17:10   So Stephen has an iPhone XS running 26.

01:17:16   That's the lowest phone.

01:17:18   Like, that's where it cuts off.

01:17:19   And I was asking him about it.

01:17:21   And he says, he's obviously on the beta, says it runs fine, but you can tell you're at the edge, basically.

01:17:28   Right?

01:17:29   Like, it runs, but it is more noticeable that it's running kind of thing.

01:17:35   You know, I'm kind of putting words in his mouth.

01:17:37   It was what we were talking about.

01:17:39   And I just think it's worth noting that his phone came out seven years ago.

01:17:42   Right.

01:17:43   And, like, I just don't think that's bad, honestly.

01:17:47   I think seven years is a really, really long time for a phone upgrade.

01:17:54   And that if that is your kind of maximum cycle, I think that's totally fine.

01:18:01   And I really don't need everybody to write in and tell me about their, like, uncle, Bob, who's been using a phone for 10 years.

01:18:07   Because he can still use it.

01:18:09   You know what I mean?

01:18:09   He can still use it.

01:18:10   He's not taking it away from you.

01:18:11   He's not taking it away from you.

01:18:11   He can still use it to get murdered.

01:18:12   But, like, I just think, realistically, the person that is using a phone that's 10 years old is maybe not that fussed about, like, being on the most recent version of iOS 26.

01:18:23   Yeah.

01:18:24   Like, you know, and I, look, I understand that there are, but, like, I just think that you could get yourself into an older phone.

01:18:32   Like, you don't even need to buy the newest phone, and you would get a decent deal on it.

01:18:36   And I just think seven years is, like, a really long time, and I think perfectly fine.

01:18:41   I was thinking, not to step on a philosophical landmine here, but I was thinking about this the other day, that there's this whole debate about, like, subscribing to things versus buying things.

01:18:57   And there are people who don't want to hear this, but I'm just going to say it.

01:19:01   Everything is a subscription.

01:19:03   Everything.

01:19:04   Everything.

01:19:05   Like, ah, I don't subscribe.

01:19:07   I don't lease a car.

01:19:09   I buy a car.

01:19:10   Well, okay.

01:19:11   But how long do you have that car divided by what you paid for it, and, you know, you can subtract out what you sell it back for, is what you paid.

01:19:20   You just paid up front, but you paid for it over years.

01:19:23   You know what it is up front, but you paid for it, and then you have to pay for maintenance.

01:19:26   You buy a house.

01:19:27   Hey, I bought a house.

01:19:27   You still got to pay property taxes on it.

01:19:30   Well, and you probably have a mortgage.

01:19:31   Yeah.

01:19:33   Yeah, I'm sure.

01:19:35   I mean, this is just what it is, and technology has always been like this.

01:19:40   It is all, look, it's me.

01:19:42   I learned to use a computer back in the old days.

01:19:47   It's always been this way, because there's always a new thing, and there's always a new OS, and there's always a new version, and if you're somebody who would say, yeah, but, you know, now there's security updates that you only get for two years and all that.

01:19:57   It's like, well, that's true, but it's always been like, well, that's true, but it's always been the case that if you're somebody who decides to pull up stakes and just kind of go off on your own with an old computer and old software and use it forever, you can do it.

01:20:13   But most people don't do that, because that's just not how it works, because the companies that make the products still need your money, and that's just the reality of it.

01:20:21   So I agree with you, as long as a five- or six-year-old iPhone that's supported doesn't, like, become unusably slow because of liquid glass, I don't think it's a big deal.

01:20:32   And I would, again, I would argue that the most likely scenario in that case, and something that Apple has done in the past, is certain effects are disabled on older models in order for them to run smoothly.

01:20:42   That's it.

01:20:43   And I think it's fine.

01:20:44   I can think if they target within five years, I think it's fine, like, realistically.

01:20:48   I think for the whole way that the vast majority of people are using their phones.

01:20:52   And also, we come back to this thing that, like, over and over again, we all have our anecdotal stuff, but Apple knows this more than anybody else, right?

01:20:59   And, like, they want people using their operating system, and so they know what the cycles are for the vast majority of their customers, and they target to that.

01:21:07   Matthew asks, do you think Apple will go with 26 for their hardware this year?

01:21:13   I want them to, but I don't think they will.

01:21:18   I don't think they will, but I agree.

01:21:20   I would love it if this fall we got the brand new iPhone 26 Pro running iOS 26 using the amazing new A26 processor.

01:21:31   So that was Andy wrote, and he said, should Apple change the processor numbers?

01:21:35   I'll say, at least do the processors.

01:21:37   If you don't want to do the iPhone for whatever reason, you don't want to do that.

01:21:40   Having these two-digit numbers where it's three different ones and moving to 26 for the OS's doesn't change the fact that you've got an A18 chip in an iPhone 16, which is too close.

01:21:54   It's just don't.

01:21:55   At least with the hardware.

01:21:57   The only product that is numbered like this is the iPhone.

01:22:00   Yeah.

01:22:02   So I just have to remember one number, and the rest of them are calendar year.

01:22:05   But, I mean, I think I should get rid of the number from the iPhone anyway, but if you're going to keep the numbering, you should just move them all.

01:22:12   Move them all to calendar year.

01:22:14   It would be bananas to me to have done it on the OS's and not do anything else.

01:22:21   It's like, why are we doing it all then?

01:22:23   Like, why are we doing it all?

01:22:25   Yeah.

01:22:25   If we're not going to...

01:22:27   The point of it is standardizing, but then you did not standardize the rest.

01:22:30   You just left it to be whatever you want it to be.

01:22:33   Yeah.

01:22:35   And Thomas asks, if macOS is working towards touch support, do you think it could show up before the MacBook Pros go to OLED, or do you think they would likely wait and roll them out together?

01:22:46   There's no point in doing touch support unless Apple is shipping a brand new design that's got a touchscreen in it, and the existing MacBook Pros aren't going to get a touchscreen because they wouldn't add that until they change the display.

01:22:59   Yeah, I think I'm agreeing with you by saying, I think the next big update to the MacBook Pro, which I think is within the next couple of years, will get a touchscreen, and it will also be OLED.

01:23:11   That's what I think will happen.

01:23:12   It may be next fall, I think is the rumor, fall of 26.

01:23:16   And so that would be my guess, is that they'll announce macOS 27, and then when they roll these products out, there'll be some new touch APIs that just get added with 27.1, and that'll be that.

01:23:37   And by the way, because people are already writing it, you don't need to make macOS touch-friendly, you don't.

01:23:41   You don't need to do it, because you could just have it for scrolling and pinching and zooming.

01:23:45   Like, you don't need to make every button touchable, because the trackpad is right there.

01:23:51   So, like, you're just, it's for a combo method, because then the user will understand very quickly that the button isn't good to touch, right?

01:24:00   Also, I have remote-controlled a Mac with a screen scaled down on an iPad with my finger, and it worked fine.

01:24:08   And the iPad's got a menu bar now that you can do by touch, and it's fine, too.

01:24:13   Like, it's fine.

01:24:15   It's not going to be a big deal.

01:24:16   But at least with the iPad, there are certain elements that you have to tap to enlarge them, and then you can tap them again, right?

01:24:21   And I don't want to see them do that to macOS, and I don't think they need to.

01:24:24   I really don't.

01:24:25   I don't think they need to.

01:24:27   But my experience with using a touchscreen Chromebook, absolutely most of what I did was scroll or reach out and tap a thing.

01:24:36   And the truth is that even those of us who use keyboards and trackpads all the time and grew up using those kinds of pointing devices, even our brains have been rewritten where you see something on the screen and you want to touch it.

01:24:49   So I would be happy to have that.

01:24:52   And I do that on my iPad all the time.

01:24:54   Like, when the keyboard and trackpad are connected to my iPad, I still touch the screen.

01:24:58   I don't do it as much, but I still do, and it's fine.

01:25:00   So I just, yeah, I think it will happen at one go.

01:25:05   I think there will be new touchscreen MacBook Pros with support for touch in macOS, and that will happen simultaneously.

01:25:13   Which would be great.

01:25:15   Yeah, sure.

01:25:17   If you would like to send in any questions, you know, for Ask, Upgrade, or just any follow-up or feedback, you can go to upgradefeedback.com and you can send in your questions to us there.

01:25:27   Thank you to our members who support us directly with Upgrade+.

01:25:31   This week, we're going to discuss how I influenced Jason about some happy fruit.

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01:25:44   If you want to watch this show, just go to YouTube and search for Upgrade Podcast and you'll find us.

01:25:48   Thank you to our sponsors, that is Oracle, Delete Me, and Squarespace for their support of this week's episode.

01:25:54   But most of all, thank you for listening.

01:25:56   Until then, next time, I should say, goodbye, Jason Snow.

01:26:00   Until then, next time, Mike Hurley.

01:26:03   Until then, whenever there may be, goodbye.

01:26:05   Goodbye.