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Upgrade

376: The 2021 October Event Draft

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:15   From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 376.

00:00:20   And yes, you guessed it, we're back and we're drafting for the 2021 October Apple Event.

00:00:25   This episode is brought to you by TextExpander from Smile and Instabug.

00:00:30   My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by my co-host and my combatant, Jason Snow. Hi, Jason.

00:00:35   Hi, Myke. I got a text from you the other morning where you said, "I guess we're drafting."

00:00:41   That's how I found out that there was an Apple Event that was announced.

00:00:45   So here we are next Monday. So we're also drafting a day earlier than we usually draft

00:00:51   because Apple's doing their event a day earlier than they normally would.

00:00:55   There's going to be an Apple Event. So I have a #SnailTalk question for you about this.

00:00:59   So the press invitation and that kind of stuff, the artwork is all around this theme of "Unleashed"

00:01:06   is what Apple's saying. What do you think about that? I think that this one's maybe got a little

00:01:10   bit more to it than usual. Right, first, I'd say it sounds a little too much like a Samsung

00:01:16   Event for my taste. Because of the "un"? Yeah, because they do "un," right? Unpacked. Unpacked.

00:01:21   Like, there's the hyperspace kind of thing. I think it's going to be that the it's pro-speed.

00:01:27   It's going to be, you know, if my calculations are correct, you know,

00:01:29   this will be the fastest Mac laptops ever. Hey, Jason, probably the fastest Mac ever.

00:01:33   It could be the fastest Mac ever. My calculations suggest that there are going to be some high,

00:01:39   this is how we have to skew this, some high-end Mac Pro configurations might be faster than it.

00:01:44   But that's about it. And the other obvious one is the rumors of doing magnetic charging

00:01:51   that unleashed where you've got the, you know, you don't have the USB-C leash anymore because

00:01:56   you've got a magnet thing that pops off if it gets dressed and stuff. That's, I think, maybe

00:02:01   the other meaning there. Maybe. Interesting. I was kind of just thinking along the lines of

00:02:08   "Let's show you what we can really do." Right, is Intel the leash in this scenario? Yes.

00:02:16   Or just like in general, right, that they've kind of, for whatever reason, they've been holding back

00:02:23   on the Mac for a while and now they're not anymore. Which I think is clear. I think that's

00:02:28   been clear over the last year or so, you know. The iMac, I think, is an example of this and so

00:02:35   they are unleashed again. So that Snow Talk was from me, by the way. Oh good. Thank you,

00:02:40   listener Myke. No problem. If you would like to send in a Snow Talk question to help us

00:02:44   open an episode of Upgrade, just send out a tweet with the hashtag SnowTalk,

00:02:47   use question mark SnowTalk in the Relay FM members Discord, or have direct access to

00:02:52   our show document like I do, which is why I can type whatever I want in here. It works.

00:02:56   So follow up, we do actually have one bit of follow up before we get to the draft.

00:03:01   We said we'd be reviewing Apple Watches on Monday. Well. That's not going to happen now.

00:03:06   Probably not. Because obviously where we usually move the show, we will be recording and releasing

00:03:12   on Monday after the Apple event. We don't need to move our episode for once, which I'm very thankful

00:03:17   for. Thanks Apple for doing that for us. So we'll probably, I'm expecting, talk about Apple Watches

00:03:25   the week after because I doubt that they'll, like, you know, because obviously there's going to be

00:03:30   hardware, there's going to be something, right? It's unlikely that that will come out or be

00:03:35   available for us to talk about directly the week after. So at least now we'll have a little bit

00:03:40   more time with our Apple Watches, which would be nice. Yeah. So let's do the rules of the draft so

00:03:46   that we have nine-ish rounds with 18 kind of overall picks. They're splitting because it's

00:03:53   this year or this time. Sort of ten this time? Yes. So we're splitting the draft into two main

00:04:01   categories and we're doing this one a little bit differently in a few ways. One is one of the

00:04:07   categories is just MacBook Pro picks. And usually we would do like Mac picks or something like that,

00:04:14   but we're kind of putting all our chips on the table here and making a bold prediction that the

00:04:19   majority of this event will be focused around the MacBook Pro. And because there's so many rumors

00:04:24   and so much that could be added to this MacBook Pro, that we had so many potential picks that we

00:04:30   would choose from that were just focused on that. It's its own category. Yeah. And there will be

00:04:36   five rounds of picks for the MacBook Pro. We then have a bunch of other stuff, you know,

00:04:42   like other Macs, other products, all kinds. And we just lumped all those together into other.

00:04:46   We're going to do four rounds there. And because we've been so focused on color in the show

00:04:54   recently, Jason had the great idea of the mini draft that the colors are. We're going to be

00:05:00   drafting a selection of colors. We're going to choose three colors each from the list that we've

00:05:07   already selected. And whoever gets the most colors that will be put into, I'm assuming the MacBook

00:05:14   Pro, will win one point. There's one point. Just one point at risk, but three picks each.

00:05:22   And it's just a little side bet about what colors the MacBook Pro might be.

00:05:26   Yep. So continuing with the standard rules, winner of the previous draft gets to go

00:05:31   first and that's Jason Snell. Our items are chosen from a predetermined list of choices,

00:05:36   as we've mentioned. We have agreed and also that they must be verifiable on screen and not

00:05:43   ridiculously obvious for us to be able to score the picks. For an item to count, it must be clearly

00:05:49   announced on stage or on a slide during the presentation, verifiable during the keynote

00:05:54   itself. Anything that comes out after does not count. Stephen Hackett will adjudicate in case

00:05:59   of a scoring stalemate between the two of us, but we prefer to score ourselves. No partial points

00:06:05   awarded. The points are awarded on the episode of final and finalized during the scoring segment.

00:06:11   In the case of a tie, there is a tiebreaker question and the loser gets pick of the tiebreaker.

00:06:17   So the overall on that. Results so far this year, I won the first draft of the year in April,

00:06:24   Jason won WWDC in September. So the expectation is here. I have the opportunity to score a tie

00:06:31   for the year probably. And I just want to point out a little statistical note. According to

00:06:37   upgrade.cards, which I guess is the unofficial official website of the upgrade draft. Yep.

00:06:42   All three of our drafts this year were ties settled by the tiebreaker, which is bananas.

00:06:47   Like this is one of those things where I believe Zach's correct, but me and Jason had to really

00:06:52   question each other. Like, is that actually how it went? Um, I trust Zach better than in my own

00:06:57   memory. So, and what that is setting up is if we play our cards right, this one will be a tie

00:07:05   settled by a tiebreaker. You'll win the tiebreaker and we will have tied the entire year, which will

00:07:10   be, I mean, honestly, I want that the most that's what I want. Uh, those scorecards at upgrade.cards.

00:07:17   That's where you can play along, uh, particularly over by wonderful friend of the show, Zach Knox.

00:07:22   There will be a link in the show notes as there always is the interactive scorecard

00:07:26   for you to play along at home on Monday. So tiebreaker, we do event duration. It's a nice

00:07:35   and easy one to select from. Uh, you're going to pick the time and I'm going to pick over

00:07:41   under on that. That's right. And do right down the middle of this time. Okay. 60 minutes.

00:07:47   Is that the thing that you had the problem with? Yeah. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick,

00:07:53   tick, tick. No. What was the, uh, 21, 22, 22, 21, 22. Yep. I was kind of vamping there because

00:08:00   there was something that I just remembered that I wanted to do before the show began,

00:08:04   but forgot, which was to look at the length of some of the previous events recently, because I

00:08:12   know that the last one ran long, but I'm not going to compare it to something like that. So, all

00:08:17   right, let me take a look. So my premise here with picking 60 minutes is that this is going to be a

00:08:22   more focused event and they've done some of those in the past where it's really more like an hour

00:08:27   event instead of an hour and a half or a two hour event and that this will be quick and out. And

00:08:32   what I really want to do is make you have to make a decision between this is a longer than 60 event

00:08:39   or a shorter than 60 event. Cause I feel like both are, both are possible. That's why I picked 60.

00:08:45   I think if I picked more than 60 and left 60 uncovered, I think 60 minutes is the most

00:08:52   likely duration. And one of the beauties of picking the over under or picking the setting,

00:08:57   the over under is that you get the number you set. So I get 60, which I think is the highest

00:09:01   probability. So that's my thought. I don't want, I mean, to people who are like, I should have gone

00:09:07   65, like David in the, in the discord, my rationale there is that I feel like it's going to be 60.

00:09:13   And that if I pick 61 or 65 or 68, Michael just pick the under and I'll lose. So I'm going to

00:09:19   make it harder for Myke. - This sucks.

00:09:21   - Yup. - Every time this is one of those

00:09:25   decisions where every time I feel like, Oh my God says this, I go to say it. And then my God

00:09:30   disagrees with me. - On the other hand.

00:09:33   - I'm going to say, I don't know what I'm going to say. All right. Let me talk through my,

00:09:41   my thought process here. Okay. I'm just going to speak a lot. So my expectation realistically

00:09:47   is that the majority of this event will be Mac book pro could potentially be the only

00:09:54   could be serious announcement. And they might have a couple of other little bits and bobs.

00:09:59   It could be the chip that powers the Mac book pro and that could be literally it.

00:10:03   Or they could, there could be other things, right? There could be a Mac mini, there could be an iMac,

00:10:07   there could be AirPods, you know, who knows what else could be. - A review of like a look over

00:10:12   of Monterey. - Yeah. An extended preview of a new show. Who knows? - Oh, this is, this is rough.

00:10:20   - And also I'll say official unofficial official historian Zach has now pointed out that their

00:10:26   April event was, was 61 minutes long and their November event was 49 minutes long. - This is why

00:10:33   I'm struggling. - Yeah. That's, this is why I said it where I did is that I don't know whether it's

00:10:37   going to be a hour plus or hour minus, but I feel like it's in the ballpark. - And it doesn't help

00:10:44   that like WWDC and the September event were really long this year. Like, and I know they have more to

00:10:50   do, but I, I've did. - This feels to me more like a spring, you know, like that April or November

00:10:56   event are better analogs, which is why I set it at 60 and not at 90. - If I was choosing, I would

00:11:02   have set it at like somewhere between 55 and 65 would have been the number that I would have gone

00:11:07   for like you have. I'm going to say over. - Okay. - And what I think is it's going to be, as you say,

00:11:18   basically on an hour and I'm just going to assume that they won't be 59, right? - Yeah. I think this,

00:11:24   I think it's more likely that this is a 57 or a, or a 63. - Yeah. This, that's, this is the problem.

00:11:30   - I, I literally think that the probability curve peaks at 60 and then slides down both of the other

00:11:35   sides, but because this is... - I'll tell you why I went there with an hour, with just over.

00:11:41   If Apple have done a lot of what we are going to pick and suggest that they may have done,

00:11:48   I think they're going to be pretty proud of it and they will want to

00:11:51   kind of really show it off. And so I think that they might go a bit long on it. - Yeah, I, I get

00:11:58   that. And yet last November was 49 minutes, but April was 61. - What was last November? What did they have?

00:12:04   - Uh, last November was the M1 Max, right? - Yeah, but they did, but like that was just like,

00:12:11   these are the chips. There was nothing else to show on them, you know, and, and this one for, you know,

00:12:18   new design, potentially new screen technology, different ports, all that kind of stuff.

00:12:22   Why don't we find out what we think about what's going to happen? - Let's, let's do it. Let's do it.

00:12:29   - But first I want to thank our first sponsor of this episode and that is TextExpander from our

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00:13:54   and thanks to TextExpander from Smile for their support of this show and Relay FM. All right,

00:13:59   so we are in the MacBook Pro picks. Jason, what is your first round pick?

00:14:04   Oh, it's just gotten so much harder now. Yep. Starting is the problem.

00:14:11   I'm gonna start off with a, what's probably an easy one, which is the much rumored upgrade of

00:14:17   the smaller MacBook Pro model to 14 inches. It's a step we thought that they would take

00:14:24   from late 2019 when they upgraded the 15 to a 16 and yet it hasn't happened yet. I think as it got

00:14:34   caught up in the whole Apple Silicon transition, but doing what they did with the 16 where they

00:14:40   shrink the bezels a lot and make it look a lot more modern and get more screen space in there,

00:14:47   it also differentiates it from that weird 13 inch model that they still got kicking around that's

00:14:51   got the M1 in it. So I'll kick us off with that one. Just an easy one probably, the 14 inch

00:14:59   MacBook Pro. Yeah, because I think with you on this, I think you've got kind of two options

00:15:04   really today because you can't have huge bezels on a modern looking laptop. Like if you're going

00:15:09   to redesign the laptop, which seems like they're going to, you've got to get the bezels down as

00:15:14   much as you can. And so they have two choices, right? You keep it 13 and make the laptop smaller,

00:15:19   or you make the screen bigger and you call it a 14 inch laptop. And I think the best option is

00:15:27   to make the bezels smaller and we'll call it 14 inch, right? Because if you make the laptop

00:15:33   smaller, then now you've got a whole other set of things that you have to deal with, right? Like now

00:15:37   the battery needs to be smaller and what do you do about the speakers and all that kind of stuff.

00:15:42   So I'm with you on this. Uh, this was actually going to be my second pick, uh, was that they

00:15:47   would go to 14. This is what I also want as a customer. I want, I want a 14 inch laptop.

00:15:52   Sure. That'll be, that'll be nice to have more space on the smaller laptop.

00:15:56   Make a big difference. So my first pick is the magnetic charging port is added back to the MacBook

00:16:03   pro line. I mean, I don't know if they will call this magsafe. I don't know if they would, if

00:16:12   they're going to do that, but it's going to be some kind of charger that will charge the laptop

00:16:18   magnetically. I'm just not sure. And I also don't know what it will look like. I'm really kind of

00:16:23   like very intrigued to see what they're going to do with this. Um, the reason I say, I'm not sure.

00:16:30   I mean, magsafe would be the obvious thing, but they don't call the Apple watch charger,

00:16:35   a magsafe charger, and that's magnetic. And they don't call the magnetic plug on the iMac magsafe.

00:16:42   Exactly. And, and I, and I wonder if maybe it's a namespace pollution thing because now,

00:16:48   even if they bring this back magsafe for the iPhone, that's the brand, right? That's like

00:16:54   an important thing. The magnetic, you know, the, the, the charger on the MacBook pro but getting

00:16:59   magnetic is nice, but that's not a brand, you know, and I do not think that you will be able

00:17:05   to charge your laptop via an iPhone's magsafe connector. So I don't, I don't really know what

00:17:11   they will call it. I mean, they may just call it like, it's just the charger and the charger has a

00:17:16   magnetic connection. You know, I don't know how much of a branding it would even get anyway.

00:17:22   I do wonder about the magsafe branding and if they would bring it back because of that

00:17:25   pollution, the fact that it's now an iPhone brand and yes, the iPhone stole it from the Mac,

00:17:30   the Mac had it first, but you know what? The iPhone's got it now. So they do this.

00:17:35   iPhone's taken that one, that belongs to iPhone.

00:17:37   Yeah. So magsafe.

00:17:40   Magsafe. That won't be confusing at all.

00:17:43   It's a magnet. How do they work? Yeah. I, I hope this happens. I'm very excited about this. I have

00:17:50   one of those things that you stick in a USB-C slot that lets you use a magnetic attached cord because

00:17:57   I like that technology a lot and I miss it. And so if they built it back in, that's going to be

00:18:02   great. I'm looking forward to it. I hope it happens, but I wonder what they'll call it. I

00:18:05   really do. We may have a pick later on, which is relating to this, but I just want to talk about

00:18:11   it now just in case we don't get to it. Just to see, I want to know your personal preference.

00:18:15   Would you still want to be able to charge via USB-C? Would you want the option?

00:18:20   Yes. Yeah, me too. Cause I would imagine there would be a speed thing,

00:18:23   but also I would just want it because I do have a lot of USB-C cables all over the place now.

00:18:30   My other argument is there, it's not just a speed thing. It's a docking thing. If you're docking

00:18:35   your laptop attached to like a hub that charges, like the last thing you want to have to do is

00:18:41   go back to two plugs instead of one, because this thing won't charge over the USB-C ports.

00:18:46   That's that. I hadn't thought of that, but that for me now is the exact reason why they must

00:18:50   keep this as a option. Well, the only other solution would be if this plug is a USB-C plug,

00:19:02   a magnetic USB-C, and the other end of it is a USB-C plug so that you could potentially plug

00:19:09   it into a dock. I wouldn't want that. That's it. Cause that just feels like a mess because then I

00:19:15   have to... And then the magnet pops off and you lost your whole dock, which is bad. Which is bad.

00:19:18   Right. Which is very bad. And also then like, you know, asking their business customers to

00:19:23   now replace every single cable. It seems like too much of a mess. That's why I think that at least

00:19:28   one of those will be chargeable. In fact, you have convinced me. Oh, wow. I'm just going to go jump

00:19:35   right ahead and pick it. I'm going to pick, can also charge from USB-C. Great. Because I have a

00:19:41   hard time seeing Apple say, Hey, guess what? More cords. And so I'm going to say that you will be,

00:19:48   you will not have to. In fact, could you imagine a scenario where they make you buy a magnetic

00:19:55   charge plug separately from the regular USB-C? Oh, that's, Oh, I could totally see Apple doing

00:20:02   that where it's just a USB-C cord comes in the box, but you can buy a magnetic charger as an

00:20:07   add on. Oh, but I'm not picking that. I'm just picking that one of those, at least one of those

00:20:11   USB-C ports on it will also be charged. Can also charge actually let's, I mean, for pure rules

00:20:19   lawyering, you know, at least one USB-C port will let you charge. And then if that also means if

00:20:28   there's no magnetic charging, I get that point. So, all right. If that's the way you want to do it,

00:20:33   at least one USB-C port will let you charge. That is the vaguest of vague picks you've created for

00:20:39   yourself there, but it's fine. I can imagine having the MagSafe and then also the USB-C thing

00:20:49   being a kind of example of what Apple will tell the story of this, um, of this laptop of like,

00:20:58   it is new and cool, but for our professional customers, we believe in flexibility. Yeah. So

00:21:05   we'll let you charge how you want. I can imagine that being part of the story of this laptop in

00:21:10   general. Yeah. I think, uh, it will be very interesting to see. Yes. All right. My second pick

00:21:16   touch bar is gone. Touch bar is gone. That was going to be my pick. Yeah. But, but you,

00:21:23   you tricked me. Uh, yes. RIP the touch bar. They didn't look, they've done nothing.

00:21:30   The touch bar has been gone. It's been gone for years, but they just couldn't get rid of it. Like

00:21:35   Apple did not, they just did not. I've never seen, in my memory, I cannot think of something

00:21:42   like this that they've done before where they introduced a hardware feature and then just

00:21:48   pretended that it didn't happen. Right. Like, Hey, look, we did this thing. We're never going

00:21:56   to talk about it again and we're never going to add anything to it. I think that's the most,

00:22:03   the most damning thing about it is that Apple shipped it and never improved it. I know,

00:22:10   you know, there, there were some very, very minor things that were done to it, but I, what I would

00:22:15   say is either Apple believed that it was perfect as it, as is, and never needed to be better,

00:22:21   which it very clearly wasn't because like the OS could have really embraced the touch bar and,

00:22:27   you know, built an API for apps to, to, uh, work globally in the touch bar and stuff like,

00:22:32   which all these third parties like better touch tool and all that, like tried to hack their way

00:22:36   into it. Either Apple thought it was perfect or Apple knew almost immediately that it was a loser.

00:22:45   And they didn't put any more effort into it. And, and in fact, my personal theory is that

00:22:50   the hardware people were really excited about it and the software people thought it was dumb.

00:22:54   And so the software never got better because the software people weren't going to optimize

00:22:58   for the touch bar. And so it just, it just sat there. I also wonder if like it was created and

00:23:04   it was a good idea, but nobody really used it for long enough. Yeah. I, I wonder if that that's the

00:23:10   real story is that they thought people would use it and they didn't. And so they put it off on their

00:23:15   list of things to replace it is telling that it has remained in the lineup for so long. Well,

00:23:22   even it through the, through part of the transition, because there's one, you know,

00:23:26   Apple Silicon laptop with a Dutch bar, I guess though, until you do a chassis redesign, yeah,

00:23:31   you can't get rid of it. Or like you have to redesign the chassis just for that. And that

00:23:36   seems wasteful. Maybe hard to hard to, uh, get rid of it. So I hope they get rid of it. And I'm sorry

00:23:44   to people who like the touch bar, but I think it was a bad idea. I like it. I don't like it enough.

00:23:50   Like I like it when it works. The problem is it doesn't always work for me. And sometimes I hit

00:23:55   it accidentally in a way that I never hit buttons accidentally. That's the damning part of it for

00:24:00   me when I'm using my laptop. I kind of like it. I like it. I like the volume. It's like, it's just

00:24:05   easier for me to grab it. I like it for emoji and stuff like that. But the problem is I also

00:24:12   found out that I've rest some of my fingers in that area and hit the buttons that I don't mean

00:24:19   to hit. And this never happens to me on any other laptop. And so it's, it takes away as much as it

00:24:26   gives, I think. And so it just never really caught on. And I don't think that I'm alone in that.

00:24:31   So I think it's the wrong, I think it's the wrong place for a device like that. Looking,

00:24:37   you know, to have to look down, not only look down on your keyboard, but then look to the top of it

00:24:42   and then reach over there. The way to, the way to solve this and the way to do it properly is

00:24:46   to put a touch screen on a laptop because you don't accidentally touch the screen and then you

00:24:52   have all of that stuff available to you. You know, Windows laptops learned this a long time ago and

00:24:57   it's great. You know, I think a lot of long time Mac people just assume it will be bad. It's good.

00:25:02   I like having the option to touch the screen if I want to. And I hope one day Apple does this.

00:25:08   I don't think they're doing it now. I hope that they do one day. What is your third pick?

00:25:13   MATT ROWE, MD, PhD Oh boy. Let's go with the display.

00:25:21   And I'm going to say the display will be a mini LED display and marketed for some sort of enhanced

00:25:28   dynamic range. Well, the market part is a lot. Well, I mean, marketed for, they will,

00:25:33   they will talk if it's a mini LED display, like the one on the iPad, they will talk about it's

00:25:38   one of its features being extended to dynamic range of some part. I'm not saying it's going to

00:25:43   be called the XDR or something, but I'm going to say that some combination, because they may not

00:25:49   say mini LED. Did they say mini LED about the iPad pro, but they talked about its extended range.

00:25:55   So I think we're going to do that again. Basically. It's on the opportunity. They don't

00:26:01   talk about what the technology is. They did say it was mini LED for the iPad pro. Cause I remember

00:26:05   being surprised about it. I think they'll do it again. I think they'll do some form of that

00:26:09   where we're essentially going to get a version of the iPad pro conversation again. Man, that'd be

00:26:15   so good. Oh my God. If they put a mini LED display on this laptop. Oh my God, Jason,

00:26:20   it's going to be incredible. Yeah. They think it like, again, maybe this might come up later.

00:26:25   If they do this and don't create an external display with mini LED in it, that would be so sad.

00:26:29   Oh, I'm going to use this computer in clam show mode for ergonomics. And now I don't get to see

00:26:36   the nice screen. This is, this is me being sad about my new characters. That's sad, sad, Myke.

00:26:42   This, this character is me when I get the laptop. That's that's the, I would be very,

00:26:47   that would make me sad to know I have this incredible screen and don't get to use it.

00:26:51   Okay. So yes, I'm on board with this and would love it. It was pretty high up on my list too.

00:26:58   I'm going to go, I'm now going to focus back on one of the original rumors for this machine.

00:27:06   And my third pick will be the HDMI port will be added to the MacBook, at least one MacBook Pro.

00:27:13   Oh, that was going to be my next one. So well done. I, I was thinking about this draft

00:27:19   in the context of, uh, listening to ATP last week. And they were talking about like,

00:27:26   literally it was the let's talk about every single thing that's rumored for this. Cause it is

00:27:30   the way they described it. I think accurately is that every dream of every Mac user has been

00:27:35   placed on this update. It's like literally what if they solved all the problems? And I started to

00:27:39   think, you know, maybe they will, but probably they'll disappoint us in some choice or other.

00:27:45   For sure. And I started to think about how do I rank all of the things that have been rumored.

00:27:50   And I think HDMI is a really good choice because it eliminates the need, the most common need,

00:28:04   I think, for a dongle of any laptop, which is every everybody's got an HDMI plug. Every device

00:28:11   has an HDMI plug. This is the, for me, like much more important than putting an SD card slot on

00:28:17   the laptop. Like the rationale of connecting a laptop to an external display and not having to

00:28:26   have it be some weird adapter or anything, but literally just it is the plug that is on every

00:28:35   device. It just, it makes the most sense of all of the rumors of different slots on this thing.

00:28:40   I mean, you know, this has been heavily rumored. There were those apparent schematics that came out

00:28:44   and said that it had it, but nevertheless, like this is, if I was going to, if you were

00:28:49   going to say, Hey Myke, what are they going to put on this thing? Like what port are they going to

00:28:53   add? This is what I would go for first, because as you say, right, these things are used in

00:28:57   presentations all the time. People need to connect to projectors. HDMI is the easy way to do that.

00:29:03   So it makes a lot of sense. It is a very universal connector. And I think a lot of people would get

00:29:10   a lot of use out of it. So HDMI port. Yeah, I think that's a good choice. Fourth round?

00:29:17   Okay. I am going to go with a better webcam. That's what I wanted. Okay. Yep. How is it better?

00:29:26   Well, I'll say it's gotta be two, 10 80 or better. I believe the webcam on these is seven 20 still.

00:29:33   The iMac 24 has a 10 80 webcam like, like my iMac pro, but it has the better image signal processing

00:29:43   and all of that. But I, I, if they have to say it's a better webcam because of the ISP

00:29:50   and that's it, then we've, we've all lost. Yes. Because that is, that is a fallback. In fact,

00:29:59   I think it's kind of weak that they said that the webcam in the 24 inch iMac was 10 80, but it was

00:30:05   the best webcam ever on the Mac. And literally it's the same webcam as the iMac pro, but with

00:30:11   a better image signal processor to make it look better, which is sort of cheating. So,

00:30:16   I think that's the baseline is that it, that this laptop have that webcam essentially a 10 80.

00:30:24   I'd love for this to be more than that. I'll be disappointed if it's not more than that,

00:30:29   but I feel like baseline it's gotta be better. It's gotta be 10 80 or better. Yeah.

00:30:38   Yeah. I look, I remain skeptical. I want them to do it.

00:30:44   It kind of really, for me, it depends on when did they make the decision.

00:30:48   Yeah. I think, I think 10 80 is not asking too much and that's why I have more confidence in

00:30:54   this choice. What I'd like to say is that it's a 4k webcam with a widescreen lens and center stage.

00:31:01   Yeah. That's what it should be. Yes. That is what it should be. And, and if, if they build this

00:31:06   amazing pro system that has all this incredible power and ports and all those things, honestly,

00:31:13   even if it's a, just a 10 80 webcam that I've picked, it's, it's weak. Like they need to put

00:31:21   a much better webcam in their laptops and then all their computers, all their Macs, the Mac webcam

00:31:26   world is very sad right now. And, and I really do think that where they need to go is a fancy new

00:31:34   bit of webcam tech that is higher resolution and wider screen and has center stage as part of it.

00:31:41   But, you know, I I'll take the scraps of better than the old 720.

00:31:49   While we're talking about webcams, I would like to just have a brief sidebar to talk

00:31:53   about something that really frustrates me about Apple's webcams. So the

00:32:02   webcam built into my iMac, when I use it in the studio, right? Flickers because of my overhead

00:32:09   lighting. Oh, and this could be fixed if Apple would let me change the, uh, the camera from like,

00:32:18   I don't know the exact terminology you use 60 Hertz to 50 Hertz with polling rate. I, so I have

00:32:25   to have a Logitech webcam on the top of my iMac because of this, because Logitech allow me in

00:32:32   software to change it from 60 Hertz to 50 Hertz of the anti-flicker. Apple does not allow for

00:32:38   anybody to make this change. I have an app which can do it for any other webcam as well as using

00:32:44   Logitech saying, but the app that I bought doesn't allow me to do anything. And it doesn't seem like

00:32:49   they have the ability to change it. And this is just like one of those things where it's like,

00:32:53   Hey, in America, we don't have this problem, you know, and, and because, you know, power and stuff

00:32:58   is different here, whatever. So it's just a frustration for me. Apple just let me do something

00:33:03   or let developers make this change because I cannot use the good cameras that you put on your

00:33:11   machines, even if you put them on there because people just have to watch this like laser light

00:33:16   show going on whenever I'm on zoom. So I have to put a Logitech camera up there.

00:33:22   Yeah. Well, that's a, that's a little bit of a sidebar, but you're right. That's one of those

00:33:26   places where Apple's lack of giving people options is biting you. And that's another thing they

00:33:34   should do is if they're going to put a webcam up there, they need to be able to let you set

00:33:38   options for the webcam. Anyway. So my fourth pick thicker than the laptop,

00:33:45   at least one laptop is thicker than the one it replaces. So I'm going to go with.

00:33:50   Okay. So I'm really zooming in on the 14 here would be my expectation. Um,

00:33:58   with the thinking that the mini led screen, they will, it will, if they put that on there,

00:34:07   it's going to be a similar thing to the iPad that got the mini led screen in it for whatever reason,

00:34:15   either the screen physically got larger or they put more battery in it or something.

00:34:20   Uh, Ooh, you know what I've just thought about, I was going to say, do you think Apple's going

00:34:24   to stand on stage and say, our laptop is thicker. That was a bad thing for us to put in the list.

00:34:28   So I'm going to undo that. Let's pretend that never happened. And I'm going to say,

00:34:33   I wasn't going to say anything. No, I was actually going to bring it up.

00:34:37   The discord brought it up and I thought I shouldn't have had that in our list. We should

00:34:41   not have had that in our list. I mean, if they showed dimensions, they want those dimensions

00:34:47   are, are if they say it's this wide by this thick or whatever, look how thin it is. And then we say,

00:34:52   wait a second, isn't the old one thinner than that? You would get that point. It is something

00:34:57   that they might disclose, but they're not going to shout that it's thicker. They would disclose

00:35:00   a thickness that would be thicker. Yeah. I don't even think they would give dimensions on,

00:35:04   on stage though. Okay. If there is a stage, I'll go with something a little bit trickier

00:35:10   then because I'm giving myself that out. Uh, promotion display. Okay. Has this,

00:35:16   this is one of those that's really interesting because I'm not sure this has been rumored.

00:35:19   People have suggested it. Well, but that people will suggest anything.

00:35:25   So I am kind of trying to pull one out of the hat here, but if you know, in my thinking is

00:35:33   if they've gone to all this effort and they've created this new mini led screen, higher refresh

00:35:39   rates are the future. Could you not just do it now? Is that what I'm going for? Yes. All right.

00:35:52   All right. The Mac already supports higher refresh rates than Apple screens. So if you have a higher

00:35:57   refresh rate monitor, which I do, the Mac will support it. So this is already there. All Apple

00:36:04   have to do is make a screen that can support it themselves. They already do that with their

00:36:12   mini led technology. They've done the work. Yeah. And they don't even make the screens right there.

00:36:16   Somebody's got a screen and those screens exist. And then yeah, the mini led, there's an argument

00:36:22   to be made that if you're going to upgrade the display, do it right. Like do it now,

00:36:28   dude, now is the time to really upgrade this display. And it's also one of those things,

00:36:32   if they're using the same screen manufacturer, you know, it's like, wouldn't it be harder to

00:36:38   just not do it the way you do it everywhere else? You know, like your chip supports it because it's

00:36:44   the same underlying chip technology, you know, like go for it. Let's just put, let's make a higher,

00:36:51   I don't know if it's 120. They might not go all the way to 120. I don't know if Apple have decided

00:36:56   that promotion means something, but nevertheless, I'm going to go with promotion display.

00:37:01   All right. I can't let this last round pass without going back to the many, many rumored

00:37:09   new ports on these things that are going to solve all our problems by bringing back

00:37:13   or adding all ports that are beloved by fans of ports everywhere. I can't let it go without

00:37:19   picking the SD card slot being added to at least one model, 16 inch. I'm looking at you,

00:37:26   but maybe it's both. You know, it seems counterintuitive and yet I just can see them

00:37:34   saying, we got a lot of feedback from our pro customers that they want support for an SD card

00:37:38   slot. So here it is like, and also I don't think the SD card slot is antithetical to Apple. I think

00:37:44   that Apple understands that people use it. My, my, my iMac pro has an SD card slot on it. I think

00:37:51   they could bring it back to the laptops. And I think honestly, it's probably one of those things

00:37:55   that pros have been yelling at Apple for, for a while now. So I'm going to just put it out there.

00:38:00   What kind of slot is it? Is, you know, I don't know what sort of SD card format, speed, whatever.

00:38:07   I'm just going to say it's an SD card slot. Okay. I don't know what to do now. I have some

00:38:16   boring pics. I have some not so boring pics. You could embrace the excitement of what the

00:38:23   chip's going to be called. Well, this is one of my, I was not confident of, I still think M1X is

00:38:29   the best name for it. And I actually have a theory about the chip where people are like, no, it'll be

00:38:34   like pro and pro max. I don't like that. I don't know if it's got like a 10 core version and a 20

00:38:39   core version, you could start calling it like the M1X 10, the M1X 20, which sounds super cool to me.

00:38:45   So M1X and M1XX. Oh, M1XX. So one of my potential picks is choosing it is, or it isn't called M1X,

00:38:57   but I don't know if I want to wade into that for the draft. I've had that at the top of my list and

00:39:02   I look at it and I'm like, no, I can't choose. Can I ask you now, what would you say? Yes, it is.

00:39:07   I would say yes it is, but my confidence isn't high enough to have picked it. If I was going

00:39:15   to make a pick, my pick would be no, no, it will not be called M1X. You want to add a line to the

00:39:22   draft that's just a straight up will it or won't it. We could do that. I don't think we can add

00:39:28   any more bonus rounds into this draft. All right. It's a little gentleman's, how about this? It's

00:39:35   just a little gentleman's wager on the side for nothing other than just, let's see who was right.

00:39:40   I say it is, you say it isn't. Yeah. I like that. I like that. It's all on the side that we've got.

00:39:45   Yeah. Let's just keep adding to this. All right. So shall I tell you what I'm weighing up?

00:39:50   Yeah. I can't pick any more in this category actually. So you're not giving anything away

00:39:55   to me. The three more that I have are Apple calls its webcam, its quote best ever.

00:39:59   I laugh when you put that in the document.

00:40:05   Higher resolution retina display, but I don't know how much I want to keep betting on this display.

00:40:11   And they would have to talk about it. Although they would, if it was, if it was a higher

00:40:15   resolution, they would talk about it. And if they disclose the resolution and it is higher,

00:40:18   that would get you that point. Anyway, the other one is power brick has an ethernet Jack. Oh man.

00:40:24   Can you imagine like it's on the iMac it's right there. It would be an upsell if they didn't do it.

00:40:31   Like even if it was just on the 16, cause you've already done it now in that idealized world where

00:40:37   you just have a laptop on a desk and there's only one cable coming out of it to have it include the

00:40:42   ethernet. So when you plug in, it's almost like a little mini doc and we know that they are happy

00:40:46   with that concept because they do it with the iMac. Um, but just because they can do it doesn't

00:40:51   necessarily mean they will, but it goes back to what we were talking about when they put it on the

00:40:56   iMac, which is like, would you really do this just for the iMac? Like the iMac already has some ports

00:41:02   on it and I know it's like a thickness thing or whatever, like blah, blah, blah. I get it.

00:41:06   But laptops also have a thickness issue. And it means you've got to have a dongle. And if all

00:41:12   you're doing is connecting to ethernet when you're at a desk with your power cord, you don't need the

00:41:16   dongle because your power cord is the dongle. Right. I could totally see the argument for it,

00:41:20   whether they do it this time or not. I don't know. And that's why I didn't pick it. But I think that

00:41:25   it is entirely plausible that they would do that. So for me, the webcam one maybe seems the most

00:41:32   likely, but it's also the most boring. I would say you should probably specify that as like the

00:41:38   best ever on a Mac. Yeah. That's what I, that, that, yeah. These are all, these are all plausible

00:41:43   choices of, I would say kind of equal plausibility. You know, I would say the problem with the webcam

00:41:50   pick is if all it is is the same webcam that's in the iMac and it has the ISP, it's not the best

00:41:58   ever. It would just be as good. They would have had to have changed to the ISP again, right? If

00:42:03   it's a 1080p and then for, and I don't think they would have necessarily done that. I'm going to go

00:42:08   with the power brick has an ethernet jack. Okay. And I'm going to be sad when Apple 100% calls this

00:42:13   webcam its best ever, but that's boring. It has a boring pick and I don't want to just have a

00:42:19   boring pick for the sake of it. Like, yeah, I think that that's a big risk because it really

00:42:25   requires it to be even better than 1080p. And I don't know if I try, honestly, it makes total

00:42:31   sense that it would be. I have been let down by Apple in terms of its webcams for so long now,

00:42:37   forever, basically that I just don't have a lot of confidence. Cause I could imagine them just as

00:42:44   easily saying, and we put the same fantastic webcam, which is the best we've ever made

00:42:50   from our iMac into this MacBook pro. And that wouldn't be it for me. Right. That's not the

00:42:56   point, but I could imagine them saying that and making it sound as good as it is. Cause I do not

00:43:01   think they're going to go above 1080. I would love it if they did, but I do not think they will.

00:43:05   And I don't think as much as we'd love it. I mean, we don't know we're finished with our

00:43:10   picks now. So it's not going to come up. I don't think this is going to get center stage, even

00:43:13   though it should. I just think it's too, they wouldn't have done it. I think Apple's game on,

00:43:19   on the Mac in terms of webcams has been terrible for a very, very, very long time. And it's really

00:43:24   frustrating, especially since we have now seen what they do on their other devices. Now, one of

00:43:29   these days, it's entirely possible that they're going to have that moment of revelation and maybe

00:43:35   the pandemic did it. And maybe in these Mac book pro systems, we'll see it, or maybe because of the

00:43:41   lead times and all of that, it wasn't ready here. I w I want to be open to the possibility. Cause I

00:43:47   think it's, I think it really is inevitable that Apple is going to put on some max, a wide angle,

00:43:52   high resolution camera that does center stage. I do think it's going to happen. I think that if it,

00:43:56   if it is not going to happen on these systems, it'll probably happen on the big iMac because

00:44:01   iMac is actually the best place for it. And I think the only reason it's not on the 24 is that

00:44:05   the 24 inch iMac predated center stage when they were designing it, even though it came out at the

00:44:12   same time, it predated center stage. So I feel like center stage on the Mac kind of has to happen,

00:44:18   but they have let me down so many times that to pick it in advance and say, this is the day where

00:44:24   Apple's story about webcams changes forever. That's, that's hard to do. I just, they've let

00:44:30   me down too many times. They're there. This is one of those areas where they are way behind the

00:44:33   cutting edge and it's very sad. And the iPad is in front of it. The iPad mini is in front of the

00:44:40   cutting edge on this one. Come on. Okay. Well, there are those MacBook pro picks 10 of them.

00:44:49   - This episode of upgrade is brought to you by Instabug. Building mobile apps presents challenges.

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00:46:12   So now we're going to do the Colorzar draft. So the draft of the Colorzar. Here we go. So

00:46:18   the colors are decrees that a draft be created. And their honor. So we've been talking a lot

00:46:26   recently on the show about Apple's somewhat perplexing choices of colors for their machines

00:46:30   and also in a hope that they have a pro computer, they're redesigning it. Will they add at least

00:46:36   some color to this line? Who can know? We have a selection of colors that we've picked in advance

00:46:42   that range from color options and names of stuff that already exists in Apple's lineup from past

00:46:49   and present, along with some general colors, you know, blue, orange, green, yellow, red, purple,

00:46:54   that kind of thing. Now, you know, and we'll be able to decide. If they call it like Tahoe blue,

00:47:01   or something, it's blue. Okay. And that's why I've gone with that because when it gets to colors,

00:47:07   it gets more complicated. The way we're going to do this is a reminder, we get three picks each,

00:47:13   and whoever gets the most gets the point. One point on offer. And if we tie, then we either

00:47:19   both get it or don't get it, and it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Oh, maybe this should be...

00:47:23   No, okay. I was going to say, maybe we should have a tie breaker, which is the name of the chip.

00:47:29   No. But it's not a color. A chip doesn't even make any sense. No, it doesn't. All right.

00:47:36   We'll just polish this off pretty quick. I pick silver. I think boring. Boring. Bet on boring,

00:47:41   I say. Space gray. Yeah, bet on boring. We're bet on boring. I knew that was going to happen.

00:47:48   I knew it. I knew it. Oh, man. Oh, now it gets hard. I am going to go with... I'm going to go

00:48:00   with starlight. I'm going to go, what if they do starlight? What if they make it starlight?

00:48:03   That's what I'm going to go with. Fun, because I want midnight. Oh. I actually think midnight

00:48:10   is the most likely of their current color options to come to a pro laptop. Because it's dark,

00:48:19   because Apple believes that. It's pro. But it's got a little color to it. I am going to choose

00:48:27   a non-matte black. So we have on our board matte black and non-matte black. So is this space black?

00:48:33   Is it just black? I don't know, but I'm just going to put it out there. Because again, I have a hard

00:48:41   time picking actual colors. I am tripling down. Graphite. Graphite. That's a great choice,

00:48:49   because they might call a really dark gray graphite. Basically, I'm assuming there will be

00:48:54   a dark color laptop, and it's going to be one of those three names. That's what I'm going for.

00:48:59   My next option, by the way, if you would have picked graphite, midnight, or space gray,

00:49:04   was going to be matte black. Yeah. I thought that that's where we were going to go, is I pick

00:49:09   non-matte black and you pick matte black. Yeah, but I don't think it's that likely for that. But

00:49:14   that is what I would have gone with. And if it were going to pick a color, it would be some kind

00:49:18   of blue. Blue. Yeah, agreed. That's colors. So this is the thing. The colors are draft. Oh,

00:49:26   you think to yourself, that's a bunch of boring colors. They're barely even colors. Well, you can

00:49:31   blame Apple for that, I guess. We'll find out. That's right. All right. So let's move into our

00:49:37   other picks round. Final four picks. Everything's on the table. If there is a product, a piece of

00:49:43   software, something to do with a service, it's all in here. It's all to play for. New AirPods.

00:49:49   It's going to happen. All right. Let me know. I pick new AirPods feature, a design inspired by

00:49:54   AirPods Pro. This seems very obvious that they, they, well, they have at some point ship a new

00:50:03   pair of AirPods. You would expect if they've got it available to do, they will want to do it before

00:50:08   the holiday season. If they're going to ship any kind of AirPods, it's going to be the standard,

00:50:14   right? The regular AirPod. I think they're going to do it. And if they're going to do it,

00:50:19   it will have a new design. I definitely think they're going to do it. It's it's why not? Now

00:50:25   is a great time. It's been rumored for a long time. They are great sellers. I'm sure they're

00:50:28   great sellers at the holidays. Um, the design inspired, I guess my question would be, you know,

00:50:34   again, gentlemen's agreement sort of thing. We'll if they don't say it's inspired by the AirPods Pro,

00:50:40   we'll I think probably know it when we see it, if they look like the AirPods Pro or if they don't.

00:50:45   It should be very clear this, this won't be a thing that I think will take any litigation.

00:50:50   Yeah. And if it does, then we'll see if Steven thinks they're inspired by the AirPods Pro.

00:50:54   What I think the main thing here is, is the stems will be smaller.

00:50:59   Yeah. All the, all the rumors indicate that they, I mean, honestly it makes sense, right? They

00:51:04   designed the AirPods and then they designed the AirPods Pro and that's the new AirPods design.

00:51:10   And I imagine that there is some economy of scale, if nothing else from sort of like piggybacking on

00:51:17   that design and using some of the same parts or some of the same methods in order to create

00:51:23   regular AirPods too. So it doesn't surprise me at all. And it's, in fact, it's kind of your standard

00:51:28   Apple trickle down kind of thing, right? Where they introduce something up at the high end and

00:51:32   then later it kind of comes down to other models. It sort of feels like that too. They, they like,

00:51:37   Tim Cook likes to kind of reuse things down, you know, over time. So I think it's a pretty good

00:51:44   choice. Anything goes, ready for mine? Yeah, I'm super, super ready. Mention of a new version

00:51:51   of an Apple Pro app. Okay. So what I mean by this is there will be something maybe enabled by the

00:52:01   software or maybe enabled by the hardware, the new hardware, maybe not. Maybe it's something that is

00:52:08   just something they're rolling in as part of the story. But I feel like for a MacBook Pro event,

00:52:13   they're going to talk about, we have a new version of Final Cut that does this thing, or we have a

00:52:18   new version of Logic that does this thing. And that's all I'm saying here is that they will

00:52:23   mention that there's going to be an update to or a new version of, or there's this feature that we're

00:52:28   adding to Logic or Final Cut or whatever that is part of the story of this. That's it. That's,

00:52:36   that's kind of all I'm saying. We'll see. But they just have to mention it, that there's some,

00:52:42   some new awesome thing in a new version of one of their Pro apps. So if they said such and such

00:52:51   will be updated to support this new feature. Yes. That's enough. Yeah. I think basically what I'm

00:52:58   looking for is they're going to mention a Pro app in the context of some new thing that the Pro app

00:53:04   will now be able to do. Okay. So that as part of rolling out this Pro software, they're going to

00:53:09   call out the Pro apps, a Pro app at least, and say, it does this now. But that's what we're

00:53:13   looking for. It has to be mentioned a Pro app that they already make, and that is going to get some

00:53:20   kind of support for something. For something. And, and yeah, probably related to the hardware,

00:53:26   although they could fake it and it could be like, oh, it's got this amazing other thing that it does.

00:53:31   Like if they, if they say Logic now supports spatial audio, which is something that they

00:53:36   said would happen eventually. But if they say in their event, they go to the trouble of mentioning

00:53:42   that Logic has gotten this new feature, that counts. I just, I'm saying, I want to see a Pro

00:53:46   app call out about something new in a Pro app. Cool. That's cool. That makes sense. I'm going

00:53:51   to go over a bit of stagecraft. We're all going to get to say hello to our friend, John Turnus,

00:53:57   as he will introduce a product during the event. Ah, John Turnus. They've been going to turn us a

00:54:02   lot, right? Like during the good friend, especially since the Apple Silicon transition. Um, I was

00:54:08   thinking about this, like who would do it? And I was like, immediately I thought, oh, JAWS. And I

00:54:11   was like, no, no. Like if I think about this, JAWS does the iPhone, like the iPhone pro,

00:54:17   I think pretty much to my memory, all of the Macs have been introduced, the M1 Macs or the Apple

00:54:24   Silicon Macs have been introduced by John Turnus. They go into that like mid level, uh, that he

00:54:29   seems to occupy, occupy, I should say. And, uh, in Steve Jobs theater, right. There's like that

00:54:34   middle level is all silver and that's where John Turnus lives. At the bottom of the elevator. Yeah.

00:54:39   JAWS lives up at the top of the elevator. JAWS lives outside. Oh, JAWS lives outside. Right.

00:54:45   Right. Cause first time he was, he'd found a way to sneak into the, uh, visit the center.

00:54:51   That's where he was when he introduced the 12 pro and then for the 13 pro they kicked him out and he

00:54:57   was, he was just hanging around outside. That's true. At night. No, at night. You don't have to

00:55:02   go home, but you can't stay here. JAWS. You got to get out. So that's what I'm going with. All

00:55:08   right. I am going to pick, I'm going to go for it. Apple Silicon faster, Apple Silicon Mac mini

00:55:15   introduced. This is my next one too. Oh, good. I don't know how confident I am in it.

00:55:22   Yeah. I don't know either, but I was more confident in it than the other things that we had

00:55:30   on our list. So I picked it. I think this is one of those, just like it was a year ago, you throw

00:55:35   in the Mac mini with the other announcements. Cause right. We were surprised when we got two

00:55:39   laptops and a Mac mini last time. And I feel like that Mac mini is just laying out there and they

00:55:45   want to replace it. They could do it later, but there's like still an Intel Mac mini in their

00:55:49   product line. Like they want it out. They want to get it out. So this would be a way to do it

00:55:53   is they've got this new chip and boom. It's also in the Mac mini. Yeah. So that, that's why I

00:55:58   talked myself into it. Great question for you, not for the draft, but question new design.

00:56:05   I'm going to refer you to my comments about the webcam, which is I've been burned on Mac mini

00:56:10   design for so long. Apple has changed the Mac mini design so infrequently. And there's so much room

00:56:16   in the existing Mac mini design for cooling and things, even for a higher powered processor,

00:56:21   that I, if I had to choose, I would choose not a new design. I would choose it to look exactly

00:56:27   like the existing Intel Mac mini that's got the space gray. And that's it. And I know that's like,

00:56:34   I'm betting on disappointment. So you could imagine like, Hey, we've got this new chip.

00:56:38   It's called M1 Pro. M1 double X. And we're also going to bring it to the Mac mini,

00:56:46   right? Like, is that kind of what you expect they would do? Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm thinking.

00:56:51   And not like there, here's a totally new redesigned Mac mini that is unlike anything you've

00:56:56   seen before. And it's more like a Mac pro and whatever they may yet do that, but that's not

00:57:00   what I'm thinking for this. I'm thinking that they're going to do a, you know, M1X Mac mini

00:57:05   variant that is more powerful and has more ports on the back than the M1 Mac mini. And they're

00:57:12   doing that because they get to clear another Intel Mac off their list. All right. The best I can do

00:57:19   with the draft here is win this draft in time for the year. That's the best I can get out of it.

00:57:24   Right. You're going for glory. Is that what's happening? No, I am deciding I'm going to pull

00:57:30   out into the world what I want the world to give back to me. All right. External display introduced.

00:57:36   This is what I want. I want them to introduce a really nice mini led

00:57:46   affordable display for both the Mac mini and these laptops. The laptops.

00:57:56   That's what I want them to do. Perfect time to do it. Yeah.

00:57:59   My, I want this too. Yeah. My concern about it is that they're not going to do this until they do a

00:58:10   new big iMac. I'm not sure that's logical, but that's just my feeling of like, if they're going

00:58:17   to do a new big iMac that's fancy and has fancy display technology, um, that they might want to

00:58:23   have that display debut on the iMac and not on an external display. But the right time to introduce

00:58:29   an external display is for MacBook Pro users. That is the right time to do it. Mac Pro, I guess,

00:58:35   but like MacBook Pro users, it's the perfect time for them. I mean, they could even not make it

00:58:40   really amazing, but just have like, we have a new baseline display and it's basically the same as

00:58:45   the iMac. They could. I would want more out of it, but at least it would be properly integrated and

00:58:51   stuff. Yeah. Maybe they put a 4k webcam in that. Oh boy, dare to dream. Now you're being unreasonable.

00:59:01   We have put this pic in, uh, Jason amended, I think it makes sense, affordable external

00:59:06   display. We know what we mean here, which is it's not a rev of the Pro Display XDR. It's a new

00:59:11   display. Well, what does that leave me with here? There's lots of options. I mean, there's a universe

00:59:19   of options here. Jason put a lot of potential comedy bits in to this. I did. I did. And I'm

00:59:26   thinking of those. Yeah. I'm going to choose a comedy bit because why not? Jon Stewart comedy

00:59:31   bit. That's my choice. I don't know what might not be very long, but, uh, Jon Stewart comedy bit.

00:59:39   He's got a new show on Apple TV+. It's it's live on air now. Maybe there's a comedy bit.

00:59:43   Mac OS Monterey shipping in October.

00:59:49   I okay. Mac OS Monterey shipping in October. I think there's a good chance of this happening.

00:59:57   Okay. Let's talk timelines. They're going to announce products on the 18th. It's going to be

01:00:02   new Mac book pros. They're going to ship presumably with Mac OS Monterey. They're not going to ship.

01:00:06   I think they have to ship. Oh yeah. I think so. In fact, in fact, something that, um,

01:00:12   we haven't talked about, but they released a new beta of Monterey that has some changes to Safari

01:00:18   in it. And it seems like they're still making changes to Safari. Um, uh, it, it feels really

01:00:25   weird that they're making changes this late, but I'm reminded of those iPhone pro models that I got

01:00:30   that were running iOS 15 and then wanted to update to iOS 15. This is a trick Apple does now as they

01:00:36   put earlier builds that are basically beta builds on as the final, and then they push an update.

01:00:42   Yes. So you, you get it when it ships. So they're probably loaded with a, a build like beta 10,

01:00:48   beta nine, and then we'll update to the final, even though it'll claim to be the final, it won't be.

01:00:54   Um, so the scenario here is they announced it on the 18th. It probably ships on the 29th,

01:01:00   but I think that it also might ship on the fifth. And I think that's the 50 50

01:01:04   about when Monterey will ship is that Monterey will probably ship on like the 27th or the third.

01:01:12   But I think, I think it's more, more likely that it ships in October by the end of the month,

01:01:18   probably like the 27th. So here's why I've gone with this is cause I agree. I don't think you're

01:01:23   going to be like, my feeling is do the event on the 18th products go on sale, you know, like they

01:01:29   were pre-ordered on the end of the week and then shipping the next week and the next week. I just

01:01:34   think it's also possible they'll ship the week after that. I understand. But like, so yes, you

01:01:38   could say you could pre-order them on Friday and they ship on the fifth of November. Well then why

01:01:42   not do the event on the 25th of October? I don't know. There's, I mean, like there's no reason to

01:01:47   have two weeks before the products start to ship when the event dates are completely devoid of any

01:01:56   requirement to move anybody anywhere anymore. You know, I don't know. And then you could have

01:02:00   actually done it on Tuesday the 26th cause they're only doing it on the 19th because Google has the

01:02:05   Pixel event on the 19th. Cause they're only doing it on the 18th. There's no reason why would they,

01:02:09   oh, we picked on Monday for once just for funsies. No, they want to be able to put stuff on pre-order

01:02:15   on Friday cause it's shipping the week after. This is what, this is my thinking. And they would have

01:02:19   ideally wanted to do it on the 19th, but they don't want to compete against Google. I think that's all

01:02:24   perfectly reasonable. I just think there's also a chance that it would be one week later than that.

01:02:27   Sure. But for all of this to happen, Mac OS Monterey has to ship at some point. And so I think

01:02:32   there's enough time for it to, for them to say it comes out by the end of the month or in October or

01:02:38   next week or whatever. Sure. I think that's a reasonable choice. And I know, I know because

01:02:43   I understand that Monterey is buggy. I get that, but sometimes they release buggy operating systems.

01:02:51   That's true. It just happens because they have other things going on. So that's the draft.

01:02:57   That's the draft. I'm pretty excited for Monday. I am too. Cause I feel like there's a lot of,

01:03:01   like, I don't really know what they're going to do. You know, like we got a lot of things that we

01:03:05   think they're going to do, but I don't feel particularly convinced about anything, you know,

01:03:11   so I'm excited about it. Like I have, as is obvious from how we structured this, a pretty high

01:03:16   confidence that MacBook Pro is what we're going to see, but the details, right. We've had a lot

01:03:19   of details leak to the point where it seems like they can't all be true. But if they are,

01:03:25   it's going to be unbelievable. Right. Like imagine if they do all this. And even if they do most of

01:03:30   it and not all of it, it's still kind of pretty amazing. Right. Plus I am very excited about that

01:03:36   new Apple Silicon ship because we have only seen the one, right. We've only seen the M1. So what's

01:03:41   Apple story with the next step in the evolution of Apple Silicon on Mac. I'm very excited to see that

01:03:47   too. Can't wait to see those benchmarks, man. Yeah. Can't wait to see that Jon Stewart comedy bit.

01:03:51   Yeah. Is that going to be on his show at any point? Hey, oh, I haven't seen the second episode

01:03:58   yet. So I don't know. Maybe it's funny. Probably not. If you would like to get the scorecard,

01:04:05   you can go to upgrade.cards. You can find the link in the show notes too. So you can score along with

01:04:09   us on Monday. We will be going live as soon as we can after the event has ended. So once you watch

01:04:16   the event, you can come over to relay.fm/live and tune in, or you can also hang out as well in the

01:04:23   chat in the members discord, which you can get access to. If you sign up for upgrade plus go to

01:04:28   get upgrade plus.com and you can sign up. And even when we do bonus episodes like this one,

01:04:33   you'd still get bonus content. So upgrade plus subscribers, they're going to get even more,

01:04:38   be one of them. And if you are, thank you so much. Also, thanks to Instabug and smile for

01:04:42   the support of the show. Of course, Jason will be publishing as much as he possibly can over

01:04:48   at sixcolors.com and also @jsnell on Twitter, J S N E double L. I am @imike, I M Y K E. And we'll

01:04:55   be back on Monday reviewing Apple's Unleashed event for October 2021. Until then, say goodbye,

01:05:04   Jason Snell. Goodbye, Myke Hurley.

01:05:17   [Music]