Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 354. Today's show is brought to you by Memberful,

00:00:15 ◼   ► Pingdom, and Public Sector Future from Microsoft. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Jason Snell. Hi Jason Snell.

00:00:22 ◼   ► From my garage, I'm Jason Snell. Hi Myke Hurley.

00:00:26 ◼   ► Hi, I have a #Snellkatalk question for you from Arjun. What's it called?

00:00:30 ◼   ► A Snellkatalk. Snellkatalk?

00:00:32 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm changing it up today. It's #Snellkatalk.

00:00:35 ◼   ► From Arjun. Okkate.

00:00:37 ◼   ► Who asks, "When walking outside in the rain, where do you keep your iPhone?

00:00:41 ◼   ► Trousal pocket inside your coat underneath an iPhone-sized umbrella? What do you do?"

00:00:46 ◼   ► Well, this has got to be for you and not me because it doesn't rain in California anymore.

00:00:50 ◼   ► We don't have that anymore. In fact, this question came in and I thought,

00:00:54 ◼   ► "Oh man, imagine that it rained." Ok.

00:00:57 ◼   ► When it's raining, if I'm outside, it so seldom rains, I would, I just put it in my pocket.

00:01:02 ◼   ► I mean, I just put it in my pocket. And modern iPhones are all kind of waterproof-ish anyway,

00:01:08 ◼   ► and it's in my pocket. And so yeah, it's in my pocket. That's it.

00:01:10 ◼   ► I feel like the two of us don't really worry about that because we are both professed to take the phone in the shower, people.

00:01:18 ◼   ► Right? I feel like at that point, that's way more water than any rainfall would put on the phone.

00:01:24 ◼   ► The problem with taking the phone in the shower is that the touchscreen stops working properly.

00:01:28 ◼   ► But if all you're doing is using it as a speaker because you don't have your speaker

00:01:32 ◼   ► or your speaker has a dead battery or something, then it doesn't matter.

00:01:36 ◼   ► So yeah, in the rain, it doesn't worry me.

00:01:37 ◼   ► The biggest issue is if a water drop gets into the speaker because then it sounds like your phone's on the water.

00:01:42 ◼   ► It doesn't happen very often, but it happens just enough that it can be frustrating.

00:01:46 ◼   ► As a place where there is rain, I mean, I'm more concerned about keeping myself dry than I am the phone.

00:01:53 ◼   ► So like I have an umbrella, right? So then the phone benefits from my umbrella-ness.

00:01:57 ◼   ► Or if you've got a raincoat, then if it's long enough to go over your pocket, then your phone is protected in the pocket.

00:02:04 ◼   ► Even with a raincoat, I will always want to have an umbrella.

00:02:07 ◼   ► I don't like getting the water on me even if I have a coat.

00:02:10 ◼   ► Mmm, interesting.

00:02:11 ◼   ► Because the raincoat doesn't protect your trousers or your shoes or any of that.

00:02:15 ◼   ► No, it doesn't. It's true. I will take an umbrella, but not as often.

00:02:19 ◼   ► I think maybe the difference is that when I'm out, if I'm walking the dog or something like that, I don't bring an umbrella.

00:02:25 ◼   ► And that's mostly if I'm out in the rain.

00:02:28 ◼   ► It used to be I had to go to work and I had to commute and I had to go places in the rain.

00:02:32 ◼   ► But now I don't have to go places in the rain. Plus, there's no rain.

00:02:36 ◼   ► But yes, if I was walking to the bus stop or something like that, I would have a raincoat on and I would have an umbrella.

00:02:41 ◼   ► It's true. It's true. But my phone would still just be in my pocket.

00:02:44 ◼   ► So, we actually have an action-packed show today, so I'm probably not going to end this rain discussion here.

00:02:49 ◼   ► If you would like to help us open an episode of Upgrade, just send out a tweet with the hashtag #snowtalk

00:02:54 ◼   ► and yours may be included in the future.

00:02:57 ◼   ► WWDC draft next week.

00:02:59 ◼   ► I can't believe we actually know when a draft is going to happen, but we know.

00:03:03 ◼   ► Yeah, it's hard to believe that WWDC is in two weeks and that our draft is next week.

00:03:07 ◼   ► And it is hard to believe, because we've been so...it's been a year, basically,

00:03:11 ◼   ► to have enough notice that we can do a draft without it being an emergency draft.

00:03:17 ◼   ► And we can plan it and we can do it with a full week to go.

00:03:19 ◼   ► So, next week.

00:03:21 ◼   ► The problem now, Myke, is that we're going to have to imagine all the possibilities for operating system revisions.

00:03:29 ◼   ► This is the hardest.

00:03:30 ◼   ► And it's one of the harder drafts to do, yeah.

00:03:32 ◼   ► It is the hardest, because, you know, even if we go on the rumors, which we will,

00:03:37 ◼   ► there's always stuff in the software which is going to be a surprise.

00:03:42 ◼   ► I would say, I mean, maybe, you know, maybe I'm tempting fate here,

00:03:46 ◼   ► but I'm surprised about the lack of information or leaks that have come out leading up to this point.

00:03:55 ◼   ► You know, being so close.

00:03:57 ◼   ► That's okay.

00:03:57 ◼   ► Mark Gurman will have a story on, like, Thursday that will reveal everything and ruin many of our draft picks.

00:04:03 ◼   ► So, there's that to look forward to.

00:04:06 ◼   ► But we have to come up with a whole set of stuff for ourselves,

00:04:09 ◼   ► which we and Jason are working on over the next week.

00:04:12 ◼   ► You already created the thing.

00:04:13 ◼   ► So, a bunch of Upgradients have sent me in a note about something called eARC, Jason.

00:04:19 ◼   ► This is something new for the Apple TV.

00:04:21 ◼   ► So, with Apple TV and eARC, if you have all of the right gear,

00:04:26 ◼   ► so if you have HomePods and a TV that supports eARC,

00:04:30 ◼   ► you can now have your HomePods operate as the audio output for anything connected to your television.

00:04:37 ◼   ► So, if you had PlayStation and Xbox or any, like, maybe you had something audio related, you go into the TV,

00:04:44 ◼   ► and then it will be able to stream that out to your HomePods.

00:04:47 ◼   ► Now, this is only the original HomePod, not the HomePod mini, which is funny to me.

00:04:54 ◼   ► I have gotten this set up and I've been playing around with it.

00:05:00 ◼   ► I haven't really had a ton of experience with it yet because I only got it set up yesterday,

00:05:04 ◼   ► so I'll say more about it in the future.

00:05:07 ◼   ► I'm also going to be talking about -- because we don't have time for it in this episode.

00:05:09 ◼   ► We're going to be talking about the Apple TV and connected this week.

00:05:12 ◼   ► So, if you want to hear about my thoughts about the Apple TV and the remote,

00:05:15 ◼   ► I'll be talking about connected.

00:05:17 ◼   ► But this eARC thing is intriguing because it is a new feature for a product that no longer exists,

00:05:22 ◼   ► which is the HomePod.

00:05:23 ◼   ► -Well, and the argument and something that you've mentioned before is if you really like the idea

00:05:28 ◼   ► of using a pair of HomePods as your speakers for Apple TV,

00:05:32 ◼   ► the problem is if you have another device, you can't do this.

00:05:36 ◼   ► And now with eARC, you can do it.

00:05:38 ◼   ► You can route everything into the TV, and then the TV returns down the HDMI cable,

00:05:43 ◼   ► returns to the Apple TV, the audio signal, which then it sends out.

00:05:49 ◼   ► -It's kind of wild.

00:05:50 ◼   ► So, if I was using my PlayStation, I still use the Apple TV remote to turn the volume up or down,

00:05:55 ◼   ► but I don't get any indication on screen about the volume level

00:05:59 ◼   ► because they don't work together like that.

00:06:02 ◼   ► It's really intriguing.

00:06:03 ◼   ► The thing that also intrigues me about this is they label it as a beta feature.

00:06:08 ◼   ► So, look, if you wanted any kind of indication that Apple's not out of this game

00:06:14 ◼   ► of home theater stuff, this is it.

00:06:17 ◼   ► Like, I genuinely think that this is a feature which all but confirms

00:06:22 ◼   ► that they're working on something to replace the HomePod.

00:06:26 ◼   ► -I agree.

00:06:27 ◼   ► I feel like, look, it's possible that this is just a last vestige of work on the old HomePod,

00:06:36 ◼   ► assuming it was gonna be a hit.

00:06:38 ◼   ► But it feels to me more like this is yet another clue that Apple has a new home strategy

00:06:44 ◼   ► that has a bunch of different pieces,

00:06:45 ◼   ► and one of them has something to do with a home theater kind of thing,

00:06:49 ◼   ► whether it's a new big HomePod or revision to HomePod mini

00:06:55 ◼   ► or a soundbar that runs some version of tvOS.

00:06:59 ◼   ► Like, there are lots of options here, but the idea that you might have --

00:07:03 ◼   ► You know, my wild idea about an Apple TV soundbar,

00:07:07 ◼   ► like, when you add eARC to the Apple TV,

00:07:10 ◼   ► it's like you are almost completely there now, right?

00:07:14 ◼   ► Like, it's really interesting.

00:07:16 ◼   ► So, something's going on, I think.

00:07:18 ◼   ► And although it is possible that this is all just the vestiges of a strategy

00:07:22 ◼   ► that basically they've gone in a new direction now and killed the HomePod, I don't know.

00:07:27 ◼   ► I think it's more likely that there's something else going on in the background.

00:07:32 ◼   ► -We'd like to thank everybody that has enjoyed and sent us in comments

00:07:35 ◼   ► about the membership bonus special that we put out last Friday.

00:07:39 ◼   ► I also want to thank everyone who signed up for Upgrade Plus to get it.

00:07:42 ◼   ► If you haven't yet and you want to enjoy our RPG special,

00:07:46 ◼   ► if you go to getupgradeplus.com, you can sign up.

00:07:49 ◼   ► And not only will you get the RPG special with myself and Jason and Gray

00:07:53 ◼   ► and Tony Centolaro, our wonderful game master,

00:07:56 ◼   ► you'll also get access to our Upgrade Plus feed,

00:07:59 ◼   ► which includes longer episodes of Upgrade every single week with no ads.

00:08:02 ◼   ► This is a great deal.

00:08:04 ◼   ► Go to getupgradeplus.com, and thank you to everybody that has.

00:08:07 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:08:08 ◼   ► So, Apple released a press release last week about some new accessibility features

00:08:13 ◼   ► that they've added to various pieces of the OS and their support system and stuff.

00:08:18 ◼   ► I just want to go through some of these really quickly,

00:08:20 ◼   ► and then there's one that I want to touch on a little bit more.

00:08:22 ◼   ► So, the first is Sign Time, which is just a fantastic name,

00:08:27 ◼   ► which is AppleCare support via sign language

00:08:30 ◼   ► in a variety of different territories and languages.

00:08:32 ◼   ► Sign Time is just so good.

00:08:35 ◼   ► iPadOS is going to be supporting eye tracking via third-party devices.

00:08:41 ◼   ► There will be enhancements to VoiceOver to help describe what's happening in images.

00:08:45 ◼   ► So, you could use VoiceOver, and it can tell you, like, in this image,

00:08:48 ◼   ► this person's doing this.

00:08:49 ◼   ► Like, it can describe what people are doing.

00:08:52 ◼   ► There's support for new bi-directional hearing aids,

00:08:55 ◼   ► hearing aids that have microphones in them so people could take calls and stuff.

00:08:58 ◼   ► They're adding background sounds, like white noise type stuff to the OS.

00:09:03 ◼   ► By the way, these OS enhancements, these are coming, quote, "later in the year."

00:09:07 ◼   ► They're clearly iOS 15 things.

00:09:09 ◼   ► The big one, though, is AssistiveTouch for the Apple Watch.

00:09:12 ◼   ► So, in our show notes, there's a link to Apple's press release.

00:09:15 ◼   ► You have to go to watch this video.

00:09:17 ◼   ► It's amazing.

00:09:18 ◼   ► So, if you turn on this feature, you will be able to,

00:09:22 ◼   ► with a few different physical interactions with your hands,

00:09:28 ◼   ► to operate the UI.

00:09:29 ◼   ► So, the two main ones are clenching, so you clench your fist

00:09:32 ◼   ► or pinch your fingers together.

00:09:34 ◼   ► If you clench your fist twice, it will, like, enable this VoiceOver mode,

00:09:38 ◼   ► and then you can use pinching your fingers and clenching

00:09:41 ◼   ► to scroll through UI buttons and press them.

00:09:44 ◼   ► It's unbelievable.

00:09:47 ◼   ► -Yeah, it's really impressive.

00:09:49 ◼   ► It's like AssistiveTouch on the phone,

00:09:53 ◼   ► except it's using, you know, gestures, very broad gestures

00:10:01 ◼   ► to drive the Apple Watch.

00:10:03 ◼   ► It's a pretty wild demo, and it's like, "How does it do it?"

00:10:08 ◼   ► And I think the answer is it's got some very interesting,

00:10:10 ◼   ► clever training about the motions that the Apple Watch senses

00:10:16 ◼   ► that it's interpreting, but it's pretty remarkable.

00:10:20 ◼   ► For somebody who -- Basically, the idea here is,

00:10:23 ◼   ► if you're unable to manipulate the little touch screen

00:10:25 ◼   ► on the Apple Watch

00:10:26 ◼   ► because you can't make those movements or gestures,

00:10:29 ◼   ► you can now use these larger hand gestures,

00:10:33 ◼   ► essentially, to do the same thing.

00:10:35 ◼   ► But, again, this is one of those features that --

00:10:38 ◼   ► Like, this is one of the great things

00:10:39 ◼   ► about a lot of Apple's accessibility stuff.

00:10:41 ◼   ► We've spoken about this in the past.

00:10:43 ◼   ► Anybody can take advantage of the power

00:10:45 ◼   ► that these things unlock, you know?

00:10:47 ◼   ► So, and I think that's super cool,

00:10:49 ◼   ► because they make these things so powerful.

00:10:51 ◼   ► Like, anybody can use this,

00:10:52 ◼   ► and you can have it do wonderful things for you.

00:10:55 ◼   ► And there's also an on-screen pointer, as well,

00:10:57 ◼   ► which, using your wrist --

00:10:58 ◼   ► I just think it's incredibly clever

00:11:00 ◼   ► that they're able to use the sensors in the Apple Watch.

00:11:03 ◼   ► Just the idea of you moving your fingers,

00:11:07 ◼   ► being detectable by the Apple Watch -- so cool.

00:11:10 ◼   ► So they announced all of this to coincide

00:11:12 ◼   ► with Accessibility Awareness Day, which was last week.

00:11:15 ◼   ► It feels like, though, some of these features,

00:11:17 ◼   ► especially the Assistive Touch one,

00:11:20 ◼   ► could have been a big moment in the WWDC keynote.

00:11:23 ◼   ► And I expect that this is a symptom of a packed keynote,

00:11:27 ◼   ► so maybe they wanted to make sure

00:11:28 ◼   ► that these features really got noticed properly.

00:11:31 ◼   ► -I think there's probably some truth to that,

00:11:33 ◼   ► although I think whenever you're rolling out

00:11:35 ◼   ► all your operating systems,

00:11:36 ◼   ► the keynote's always gonna be packed.

00:11:38 ◼   ► I don't think it actually tells us much,

00:11:39 ◼   ► because obviously they can fill a keynote many times over,

00:11:44 ◼   ► and that's why there'll be a State of the Union,

00:11:45 ◼   ► and there'll be all sorts of tidbits that we don't even see,

00:11:49 ◼   ► but they drop in other sessions.

00:11:51 ◼   ► I think what Apple has learned --

00:11:52 ◼   ► and this is a new Apple thing,

00:11:55 ◼   ► relatively, from the last few years --

00:11:57 ◼   ► is that there are other venues that are good

00:12:01 ◼   ► to make certain PR announcements, and they get more pickup.

00:12:03 ◼   ► And this is a great example

00:12:05 ◼   ► where because of Accessibility Awareness Day,

00:12:07 ◼   ► Apple is able to pull these features forward out of iOS 15

00:12:12 ◼   ► and get them noticed on Accessibility Awareness Day.

00:12:16 ◼   ► So it allows Apple to say,

00:12:18 ◼   ► "Look at our great new accessibility features.

00:12:20 ◼   ► They get covered at a level that would probably not get covered

00:12:23 ◼   ► if it was just part of a developer keynote."

00:12:26 ◼   ► The other example I was thinking of is World Emoji Day,

00:12:29 ◼   ► where they use that.

00:12:32 ◼   ► In journalism, we often will call that a news peg.

00:12:35 ◼   ► The idea is you want an angle, and it can't just be like,

00:12:38 ◼   ► "Today, Apple just decided to show you

00:12:40 ◼   ► a feature from the future."

00:12:41 ◼   ► That's not that interesting.

00:12:42 ◼   ► But if they can say, "Oh, it's World Emoji Day,"

00:12:45 ◼   ► that gives us an excuse to do a press release

00:12:48 ◼   ► about all the emoji that are coming in the future to iOS.

00:12:53 ◼   ► And Accessibility Awareness Day gives them something to hang

00:12:56 ◼   ► a story about Apple's support for accessibility.

00:12:59 ◼   ► So I think that Apple likes doing this, and you're right.

00:13:01 ◼   ► They can afford to do it

00:13:03 ◼   ► because it's not as if the keynote isn't going to be packed.

00:13:05 ◼   ► And if they still want to mention it in the keynote,

00:13:07 ◼   ► they can now mention it and have it be kind of an aside,

00:13:10 ◼   ► which is, plus we've got all these amazing

00:13:11 ◼   ► accessibility features that we announced two weeks ago.

00:13:13 ◼   ► So I don't think it's evidence of anything

00:13:16 ◼   ► other than the fact that, sure,

00:13:17 ◼   ► the WWDC keynote will be packed as usual.

00:13:21 ◼   ► But I like it. I actually really like the idea

00:13:23 ◼   ► that Apple doesn't feel like they need to hold

00:13:25 ◼   ► all of their future announcements

00:13:27 ◼   ► until the one moment at one time

00:13:29 ◼   ► when they roll out a developer beta.

00:13:33 ◼   ► -If you want to know more about these kinds of features,

00:13:36 ◼   ► you should check out Parallel here on Relay FM.

00:13:38 ◼   ► So it's hosted by Shadi Brisbane.

00:13:40 ◼   ► Shadi's going to do a better job of talking about

00:13:42 ◼   ► all of this stuff than we will.

00:13:43 ◼   ► So you can go check it out.

00:13:44 ◼   ► Let's set relay.fm/parallel.

00:13:46 ◼   ► -Yep. -Jason, you have some upstream

00:13:49 ◼   ► news that you'd like to share with your gradients.

00:13:51 ◼   ► -I do. I do. I want to give you the upstream update.

00:13:55 ◼   ► A couple of stories this week that I thought

00:13:58 ◼   ► were interesting enough for us to mention,

00:13:59 ◼   ► even though we've got such a packed show.

00:14:01 ◼   ► One of them is there was a "New York Times" story

00:14:03 ◼   ► about Netflix doing this trilogy of films called "Fear Street."

00:14:10 ◼   ► And I just thought it was really funny

00:14:12 ◼   ► because they're selling it as if it's a new idea,

00:14:15 ◼   ► which is they made three movies,

00:14:18 ◼   ► and they're going to release one of them every week

00:14:20 ◼   ► for three Fridays in a row.

00:14:22 ◼   ► It's like binge-watching, but for movies.

00:14:26 ◼   ► And I thought to myself, "How is this any different

00:14:29 ◼   ► from anything else that Netflix does?"

00:14:32 ◼   ► Other than the fact that it's a weekly release

00:14:33 ◼   ► instead of just dropping them all at once,

00:14:35 ◼   ► but, like, at what point is movies just TV?

00:14:38 ◼   ► Like, what makes these movies?

00:14:40 ◼   ► What makes them movies?

00:14:42 ◼   ► It seems to me like three episodes

00:14:44 ◼   ► of a three-episode TV series.

00:14:46 ◼   ► They're made, I would imagine,

00:14:49 ◼   ► the same way that TV shows are made.

00:14:52 ◼   ► I just thought it was really funny that Netflix is like,

00:14:54 ◼   ► "Oh, get this, everybody.

00:14:56 ◼   ► We're going to release this thing weekly."

00:14:59 ◼   ► And everybody's like, "Uh, yeah, that's what TV has done forever

00:15:02 ◼   ► until you came along, Netflix."

00:15:04 ◼   ► -Why not, like, six one-hour --

00:15:06 ◼   ► Like, why three movies?

00:15:07 ◼   ► -Well, apparently, it's set in three different settings.

00:15:10 ◼   ► And so they're interconnected,

00:15:12 ◼   ► but they're set in three different settings,

00:15:13 ◼   ► which I would say, great, that's three episodes.

00:15:16 ◼   ► We call those episodes of a TV show.

00:15:19 ◼   ► But I just -- I point this out --

00:15:22 ◼   ► I mean, I can see the arguments either way.

00:15:23 ◼   ► It's fine.

00:15:24 ◼   ► I just think it's really funny

00:15:26 ◼   ► because the definitions of movies and TV

00:15:29 ◼   ► have become so blurred because of streaming

00:15:31 ◼   ► and because of the way things get made

00:15:33 ◼   ► and the way things get released.

00:15:34 ◼   ► And it just tickled me, the idea that Netflix is sort of like,

00:15:38 ◼   ► "Oh, we've invented something brand-new.

00:15:40 ◼   ► It's weekly releases of new content on our platform."

00:15:44 ◼   ► Like, that's not new at all.

00:15:49 ◼   ► But they've decided that this is a movie, which it's not, right?

00:15:51 ◼   ► It's -- Or is it -- I don't know.

00:15:55 ◼   ► I think it's very funny that this is just --

00:15:57 ◼   ► It's literally -- We're releasing three

00:15:59 ◼   ► two-hour things on a weekly basis.

00:16:02 ◼   ► And it's kind of a stunt, but also, at the same time,

00:16:05 ◼   ► like, it's entirely based on marketing.

00:16:07 ◼   ► Like, they could do this.

00:16:08 ◼   ► They could have released it all on a binge.

00:16:09 ◼   ► They could have released it all across,

00:16:11 ◼   ► you know, six episodes and called it episodes.

00:16:13 ◼   ► They just decided to market it as three movies.

00:16:15 ◼   ► And it's from a long series of books,

00:16:18 ◼   ► so they could do this more.

00:16:20 ◼   ► I guess they could order more episodes of whatever this is.

00:16:22 ◼   ► I'm also curious about how it looks

00:16:23 ◼   ► in the Netflix interface, right?

00:16:26 ◼   ► Have they created a new, like, Fear Street movie series index?

00:16:32 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, it isn't a TV series.

00:16:33 ◼   ► It's a movie series."

00:16:35 ◼   ► Look at movie one, movie two, and movie three of,

00:16:39 ◼   ► I don't know, release one?

00:16:42 ◼   ► Can we rename seasons and episodes

00:16:43 ◼   ► to sound more movie-like?

00:16:47 ◼   ► Ah, okay, so that's that one.

00:16:50 ◼   ► Netflix, it's gonna Netflix.

00:16:53 ◼   ► There's a story that made me laugh

00:16:56 ◼   ► that I wanted to mention,

00:16:57 ◼   ► which we've been talking here about the plus,

00:16:59 ◼   ► the rise of the plus, so many plus services.

00:17:02 ◼   ► A bunch of streaming services offer ad tiers,

00:17:05 ◼   ► where you pay less and you get ads.

00:17:09 ◼   ► So Paramount Plus does this. Peacock does this.

00:17:12 ◼   ► A lot of the especially traditional

00:17:15 ◼   ► entertainment companies that have,

00:17:17 ◼   ► I think what we were talking about with Peacock Plus

00:17:19 ◼   ► was they've got ad salespeople, right?

00:17:23 ◼   ► And like, well, what do the ad salespeople have to do?

00:17:26 ◼   ► And they're like, "No, no, no, it's okay.

00:17:28 ◼   ► We're gonna have an ad version of our service,

00:17:31 ◼   ► and we'll make money. We'll have more viewers.

00:17:33 ◼   ► They'll pay us a little bit less, but we'll make money

00:17:35 ◼   ► because we'll sell ads and show them the ads."

00:17:39 ◼   ► But WarnerMedia hadn't done that, and HBO famously,

00:17:43 ◼   ► you know, is an ad-free kind of service.

00:17:45 ◼   ► But now they've announced ad-supported tier of HBO Max,

00:17:50 ◼   ► which I don't know what we call that.

00:17:54 ◼   ► Is there, you have a name?

00:17:55 ◼   ► - We were joking around about like HBO Max minus,

00:18:01 ◼   ► plus HBO Max minuscule, Max small, right?

00:18:08 ◼   ► - HBO min.

00:18:11 ◼   ► - Min Max.

00:18:13 ◼   ► - There you go.

00:18:14 ◼   ► - Anyway, for $10 a month, which is cheaper

00:18:17 ◼   ► than the $15 a month for no ads,

00:18:19 ◼   ► you will be able to get a version with ads.

00:18:21 ◼   ► And it's more complicated than that

00:18:23 ◼   ► 'cause like HBO shows don't have ad breaks in them,

00:18:25 ◼   ► so how will they do it?

00:18:26 ◼   ► And the answer seems to be that you'll get the HBO shows

00:18:29 ◼   ► with no ads.

00:18:29 ◼   ► Maybe there'll be a pre-roll ad or a post-roll ad

00:18:31 ◼   ► or something like that,

00:18:32 ◼   ► but like they're not gonna be ad breaks in HBO shows.

00:18:34 ◼   ► But all their other stuff that they do,

00:18:36 ◼   ► they're gonna be able to start sticking ads in there.

00:18:39 ◼   ► And you know, the load of streaming ads is not as great

00:18:42 ◼   ► as the load of ads on broadcast TV or anything like that.

00:18:45 ◼   ► And in fact, the head of ad sales,

00:18:47 ◼   ► because of course the head of ad sales is quoted here,

00:18:50 ◼   ► says it will have the lightest ad load in the industry.

00:18:53 ◼   ► So it's not a lot of ads,

00:18:55 ◼   ► but they are going to basically cut you a deal

00:18:57 ◼   ► where if you spend $5 a month less,

00:19:00 ◼   ► you will get access to HBO Max, but you will see some ads.

00:19:03 ◼   ► So HBO Max minus coming soon.

00:19:10 ◼   ► And then one more item,

00:19:15 ◼   ► which is what we predicted sort of has come true.

00:19:19 ◼   ► MGM looks like maybe finally getting snapped up

00:19:24 ◼   ► by a tech giant, reports that Amazon may buy MGM.

00:19:29 ◼   ► And MGM, you know, what it has, it's a studio,

00:19:34 ◼   ► it's got some things that it owns.

00:19:36 ◼   ► The classic MGM films all got sold off a long time ago,

00:19:39 ◼   ► but it does have a film library.

00:19:41 ◼   ► It has James Bond, although that's even complicated

00:19:44 ◼   ► because the Eon Productions actually controls James Bond.

00:19:49 ◼   ► So you can buy MGM and release James Bond movies,

00:19:52 ◼   ► but you still need the, basically the Broccoli family

00:19:55 ◼   ► has to work with you and approve everything that you do.

00:19:59 ◼   ► But so there's, this story is interesting background wise

00:20:03 ◼   ► because MGM has been trying apparently to sell itself

00:20:06 ◼   ► for a long time to a tech giant.

00:20:08 ◼   ► And the feedback has been, they're asking too much,

00:20:11 ◼   ► but maybe Jeff Bezos is now intrigued.

00:20:13 ◼   ► Maybe Jeff Bezos just wants to own James Bond.

00:20:16 ◼   ► I don't know, but we had speculated

00:20:19 ◼   ► that maybe this would be something that Apple could snap up.

00:20:21 ◼   ► And apparently Apple and Amazon and other companies

00:20:24 ◼   ► have sniffed around MGM,

00:20:26 ◼   ► but they've all found the price to just be

00:20:28 ◼   ► more than it's worth because it's not that,

00:20:31 ◼   ► it's not that great.

00:20:33 ◼   ► It's something, but it's not that great.

00:20:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, really what you want is James Bond, right?

00:20:38 ◼   ► Like that's probably what anybody would buy MGM for.

00:20:41 ◼   ► - There's the library of stuff.

00:20:43 ◼   ► You get some content

00:20:45 ◼   ► and there's some franchise possibilities in there,

00:20:47 ◼   ► but James Bond is the big asset for them,

00:20:51 ◼   ► even though it's not entirely theirs,

00:20:52 ◼   ► that's the big asset.

00:20:54 ◼   ► I do wonder though, following the rule,

00:20:56 ◼   ► which is who benefits by having a story leak like this.

00:21:00 ◼   ► I do wonder if this is once again,

00:21:02 ◼   ► somebody at MGM trying to stoke the flames and be like,

00:21:05 ◼   ► look, MGM might actually get bought by somebody

00:21:08 ◼   ► in hopes of either making the deal go along

00:21:12 ◼   ► or making the deal close faster

00:21:13 ◼   ► or making somebody else come to the table and say,

00:21:16 ◼   ► no, no, I wanna buy MGM.

00:21:18 ◼   ► I don't know, but the story seems to be,

00:21:20 ◼   ► the implication is that it's progressed a little bit further

00:21:22 ◼   ► and that Amazon is in serious talks to buy MGM.

00:21:26 ◼   ► But the truth is the Amazon is so huge

00:21:29 ◼   ► and Joe Bezos has so much money on his own

00:21:31 ◼   ► that really they can buy whatever they want.

00:21:35 ◼   ► The question is, is it worth it to them?

00:21:38 ◼   ► And I do sometimes wonder if in the end,

00:21:40 ◼   ► if the world's richest man says,

00:21:42 ◼   ► yeah, but I want James Bond.

00:21:43 ◼   ► They're like, all right, okay, Jeff wants James Bond.

00:21:47 ◼   ► Jeff knows what a good TV show is and he wants James Bond.

00:21:51 ◼   ► - He knows what a good spy movie is too.

00:21:53 ◼   ► - I also wonder just as a sidebar,

00:21:55 ◼   ► because of Eon Productions,

00:21:58 ◼   ► which is the family owned company that is,

00:22:00 ◼   ► Albert Broccoli was one of the original producers

00:22:02 ◼   ► of the Bond movies and MGM does the releasing

00:22:04 ◼   ► and it's kind of this shared thing.

00:22:06 ◼   ► And one of the stories that I read pointed out that,

00:22:10 ◼   ► like one of the challenges with this

00:22:11 ◼   ► is that they control it and they can say yes or no.

00:22:14 ◼   ► And they have been,

00:22:15 ◼   ► they are very conservative in what they do.

00:22:17 ◼   ► And so they have been pretty focused on,

00:22:20 ◼   ► there's just a James Bond movie every three or four years

00:22:22 ◼   ► and they don't do spin-offs

00:22:23 ◼   ► and there's no TV show or anything like that.

00:22:26 ◼   ► And I wonder if that's one of the deals here.

00:22:29 ◼   ► And if one of the delays might be

00:22:31 ◼   ► that anybody who buys MGM

00:22:32 ◼   ► has to go talk to Eon Productions and say,

00:22:35 ◼   ► look, what are you gonna let us do?

00:22:37 ◼   ► Or can we buy you out?

00:22:39 ◼   ► Right?

00:22:40 ◼   ► Is the family willing to sell James Bond after all of this?

00:22:43 ◼   ► And if not that, what does our partnership look like?

00:22:46 ◼   ► Does Amazon go to them and say,

00:22:47 ◼   ► did you see what we did with the Jack Ryan show?

00:22:49 ◼   ► Now imagine what we could do with James Bond.

00:22:51 ◼   ► We could have movies and we could have a TV show spinoff.

00:22:53 ◼   ► We could have a double,

00:22:54 ◼   ► the English agents office double O numbers TV show

00:22:58 ◼   ► and we could do all this stuff.

00:23:00 ◼   ► And it would be like a huge franchise

00:23:02 ◼   ► and would you be amenable?

00:23:03 ◼   ► And if they say, well, no,

00:23:05 ◼   ► we just want one theatrical release every three years.

00:23:08 ◼   ► It's like, oh, well then MGM is less intriguing to us.

00:23:12 ◼   ► So I wonder about all of those kinds of conversations.

00:23:14 ◼   ► I love the idea that you can buy this whole company,

00:23:17 ◼   ► but in the end, there's this other little small company

00:23:19 ◼   ► that's basically family run that can say yes or no

00:23:21 ◼   ► to everything you want to do.

00:23:22 ◼   ► That's hilarious.

00:23:24 ◼   ► So we'll see.

00:23:25 ◼   ► But anyway, there's a little bit of upstream

00:23:27 ◼   ► and that was it.

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00:25:09 ◼   ► Jason Snell, I am talking to you right now

00:25:12 ◼   ► from a yellow iMac.

00:25:14 ◼   ► - What?

00:25:15 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:25:15 ◼   ► So, kind of late last week, I took delivery

00:25:20 ◼   ► of my very first pre-release Apple review hardware.

00:25:24 ◼   ► So, last Thursday, I had an iMac arrive.

00:25:28 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:25:29 ◼   ► - This was kind of funny because it was originally

00:25:31 ◼   ► supposed to arrive on Wednesday,

00:25:33 ◼   ► but it got delayed in shipping,

00:25:34 ◼   ► and I was so nervous because if it arrived on Friday,

00:25:37 ◼   ► it wasn't pre-release hardware anymore,

00:25:39 ◼   ► it was just the day everybody else had it.

00:25:42 ◼   ► And it was like, I was like, please let it arrive Thursday,

00:25:45 ◼   ► because then I'll actually get what I wanted from it.

00:25:47 ◼   ► 'Cause look, just as a quick sidebar,

00:25:49 ◼   ► this just was an important thing to me.

00:25:51 ◼   ► You know, like I've been doing this stuff

00:25:52 ◼   ► for 10 or 11 years now,

00:25:55 ◼   ► and this was always something that I wanted, right?

00:25:57 ◼   ► Like I've had some review hardware in the past,

00:25:59 ◼   ► but it's been of products that were already available,

00:26:01 ◼   ► and this was like, it was 24 hours,

00:26:04 ◼   ► but it was 24 hours where I had this iMac

00:26:06 ◼   ► and nobody else had it, right?

00:26:07 ◼   ► Or like just such a small group of people.

00:26:09 ◼   ► So, it was really cool,

00:26:11 ◼   ► and I was very thankful to get that.

00:26:13 ◼   ► But now let me talk about my experiences of it,

00:26:15 ◼   ► 'cause I've been using this iMac

00:26:16 ◼   ► for the best part of half a week now.

00:26:20 ◼   ► And I've been using it quite extensively, actually.

00:26:23 ◼   ► So I have the yellow one.

00:26:24 ◼   ► Apple offered me the choice,

00:26:27 ◼   ► and I said I would like either the orange one

00:26:29 ◼   ► or the yellow one, and I got the yellow one.

00:26:30 ◼   ► And I was actually in the end happy to have the yellow one,

00:26:33 ◼   ► because then I had a different one to you, right?

00:26:36 ◼   ► 'Cause you had the orange one, so I have a different one.

00:26:39 ◼   ► And I wanted to try something different.

00:26:41 ◼   ► One of the reasons I asked for yellow

00:26:44 ◼   ► is 'cause I don't think it's one

00:26:45 ◼   ► that I necessarily would have bought myself,

00:26:47 ◼   ► but I wanted to see something different.

00:26:51 ◼   ► And like I think most of these iMacs,

00:26:56 ◼   ► what you see in person is so different looking

00:26:58 ◼   ► to what you see on the website,

00:27:00 ◼   ► 'cause these things are hard to photograph, right?

00:27:03 ◼   ► Like this yellow one, it's, and again,

00:27:05 ◼   ► like I've been sharing pictures of mine,

00:27:08 ◼   ► and I feel like I can't get the color in my images

00:27:12 ◼   ► to look how they look in real life.

00:27:14 ◼   ► Did you find that with the images

00:27:15 ◼   ► that you were taking of your orange model?

00:27:18 ◼   ► - It's really hard.

00:27:19 ◼   ► Color, getting color accurate is hard.

00:27:24 ◼   ► And then depending on the setting and the context,

00:27:27 ◼   ► there's a picture I posted, I think on Twitter,

00:27:29 ◼   ► that was literally the orange iMac with an orange iPad case

00:27:33 ◼   ► and a San Francisco Giants baseball cap.

00:27:36 ◼   ► And I was really, and my wall, which is orange,

00:27:38 ◼   ► and I was really just trying to get at,

00:27:40 ◼   ► look at all the different shades of orange, right?

00:27:42 ◼   ► Just to say, it's kind of hard to get it across.

00:27:46 ◼   ► And I think you're right, like Apple has all of its

00:27:51 ◼   ► sort of photography on this very light gray.

00:27:54 ◼   ► It's very much like the border of the iMac screen.

00:27:57 ◼   ► And are they trying to make it look accurate

00:28:00 ◼   ► or are they trying to make it look good?

00:28:02 ◼   ► I don't know, it's very hard to get across

00:28:03 ◼   ► what they actually look like.

00:28:04 ◼   ► And honestly, as lighting changes,

00:28:06 ◼   ► this is an anodized aluminum and it's got a texture.

00:28:11 ◼   ► And so the reflection and the texture

00:28:14 ◼   ► change in different light.

00:28:16 ◼   ► So it's very hard to get across what it looks like

00:28:21 ◼   ► because it looks different in different contexts.

00:28:23 ◼   ► And then you add in different lighting and it's, yeah,

00:28:26 ◼   ► you kind of need to see it in person.

00:28:28 ◼   ► And I hate to say this 'cause it's not practical,

00:28:30 ◼   ► but I think you kind of need to see it

00:28:32 ◼   ► where you're gonna have it,

00:28:34 ◼   ► which means you kind of need to take one home.

00:28:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's hot.

00:28:36 ◼   ► - And be willing to take it back, right?

00:28:40 ◼   ► Which is not something that you can do,

00:28:41 ◼   ► but there's truth in that.

00:28:43 ◼   ► Like, depending on what it looks like in the store,

00:28:46 ◼   ► it might not look the same in your house.

00:28:48 ◼   ► - At least I have been hearing from people

00:28:50 ◼   ► and seeing pictures too that Apple stores

00:28:52 ◼   ► seem to have them all.

00:28:54 ◼   ► Like, even though you can't buy all the colors

00:28:56 ◼   ► or maybe whatever, they actually do have them.

00:28:59 ◼   ► So, 'cause I think there's a few colors

00:29:00 ◼   ► you can only get online, if I remember rightly.

00:29:03 ◼   ► Yeah, I think Steven reported on that.

00:29:05 ◼   ► But they have all the colors at the stores.

00:29:07 ◼   ► 'Cause I've been having people message me

00:29:10 ◼   ► and say, "Oh, look, I wasn't sure about the yellow one.

00:29:12 ◼   ► "I saw it in person."

00:29:13 ◼   ► Or like, "Oh, actually I want the green one."

00:29:15 ◼   ► That kind of thing.

00:29:16 ◼   ► And so this yellow model, it's like a combination

00:29:18 ◼   ► of like a pastel kind of yellow on the front

00:29:21 ◼   ► and like a kind of like Easter kind of yellow on the front.

00:29:24 ◼   ► And then almost gold, right?

00:29:26 ◼   ► Like the foot and the back of it are gold.

00:29:29 ◼   ► But again, like in the images that I take,

00:29:32 ◼   ► the gold seems way more gold.

00:29:34 ◼   ► Like I can't seem to get it.

00:29:36 ◼   ► Like it looks like it's like a real like gold, gold,

00:29:39 ◼   ► but it's way more on the yellow end.

00:29:42 ◼   ► What it looks like to me, honestly,

00:29:44 ◼   ► is anodized yellow aluminum.

00:29:47 ◼   ► But in the images that I take,

00:29:48 ◼   ► it looks like they've tried to make a gold version

00:29:50 ◼   ► and it isn't as so strong as that color.

00:29:53 ◼   ► The unboxing experience is so good for this product.

00:29:59 ◼   ► They did such a great job with the packaging

00:30:01 ◼   ► that even like the handle is like a woven material.

00:30:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's fabric handle that's in the color of the iMac.

00:30:10 ◼   ► - Which again, it's like,

00:30:11 ◼   ► yeah, how hard do they make it for themselves, right?

00:30:14 ◼   ► We're managing these products that now have like

00:30:17 ◼   ► not only seven different boxes,

00:30:18 ◼   ► seven different handle colors for all the boxes.

00:30:21 ◼   ► And also you get colored stickers.

00:30:25 ◼   ► I have colored stickers in two tones.

00:30:26 ◼   ► There's one which is more yellow

00:30:28 ◼   ► and one which is gold, which is fun

00:30:29 ◼   ► 'cause they do the color stickers now.

00:30:31 ◼   ► But the actual opening of the whole thing is really nice.

00:30:34 ◼   ► Like you lay the box down,

00:30:35 ◼   ► you open it up, you pull the sides down

00:30:37 ◼   ► and it all kind of presents itself.

00:30:39 ◼   ► And you've got like a big sticker on the screen

00:30:42 ◼   ► and it says, hello again, in the color of the computer.

00:30:46 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:30:46 ◼   ► You spend this kind of money on a product like this,

00:30:49 ◼   ► you want it to be special.

00:30:50 ◼   ► And I feel like, Apple is now I think finding its way

00:30:55 ◼   ► in making special unboxing experiences that are responsible

00:31:03 ◼   ► from a environmental perspective.

00:31:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's all cardboard.

00:31:10 ◼   ► And they also, they do things like they have the pull tabs

00:31:12 ◼   ► and stuff now that make it a lot easier to get in and out.

00:31:15 ◼   ► It is, what struck me about it that's funny is first off,

00:31:17 ◼   ► the iMac is shipped upside down.

00:31:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, that took me a minute.

00:31:20 ◼   ► It took me a minute to work out how to open the box.

00:31:23 ◼   ► Oh, you gotta kind of lay it down

00:31:24 ◼   ► and yeah, it's upside down, which is funny.

00:31:27 ◼   ► - Right, and it's also a rectangular box now.

00:31:31 ◼   ► It's no longer kind of angled

00:31:32 ◼   ► where you can't put it anywhere.

00:31:33 ◼   ► The old iMac boxes were all like trapezoid or something,

00:31:37 ◼   ► like thicker at the bottom than at the top.

00:31:39 ◼   ► And it's not like, no.

00:31:41 ◼   ► So it's, and it's really nice packaging.

00:31:44 ◼   ► It's very easy to get the iMac out too.

00:31:47 ◼   ► 'Cause obviously when you open up that box,

00:31:49 ◼   ► that's what you wanna do is get your iMac out

00:31:50 ◼   ► and they did a good job for sure.

00:31:52 ◼   ► - The peripherals, I just love the look of them all.

00:31:57 ◼   ► Like the colors and shapes are nice.

00:31:59 ◼   ► Like I like the shapes of everything

00:32:01 ◼   ► and like everything's nice and round and stuff.

00:32:04 ◼   ► The keyboard, okay, so I love the look at the keyboard.

00:32:09 ◼   ► It's too low to the desk, like the profile.

00:32:11 ◼   ► If it's too low for me now,

00:32:13 ◼   ► you know, I'm used to much chunkier keyboards

00:32:15 ◼   ► with bigger typing angles and stuff now.

00:32:17 ◼   ► So using a magic keyboard is so strange feeling.

00:32:22 ◼   ► Touch ID is great.

00:32:24 ◼   ► I've noticed as well,

00:32:25 ◼   ► like it's a little slower than touch ID on other devices,

00:32:27 ◼   ► which I assume is something to do

00:32:29 ◼   ► with needing to send that information wirelessly.

00:32:32 ◼   ► I'm leaving the keyboard on my desk right now.

00:32:36 ◼   ► Like even though I'm using a keyboard,

00:32:38 ◼   ► one of my fancy keyboards,

00:32:41 ◼   ► I have the magic keyboard behind it

00:32:44 ◼   ► so I can get the touch ID.

00:32:45 ◼   ► And I had a friend recommend to me

00:32:47 ◼   ► to mount the keyboard underneath my desk

00:32:50 ◼   ► so I can just reach under and authenticate.

00:32:53 ◼   ► When I have one of my own, I'm going to do this.

00:32:57 ◼   ► It's such a silly little idea, but makes sense.

00:32:59 ◼   ► 'Cause all I have this on my desk for right now

00:33:02 ◼   ► is just to get to the touch ID button.

00:33:04 ◼   ► - So somebody on Etsy is going to make

00:33:07 ◼   ► like a magic keyboard touch ID cover thing

00:33:10 ◼   ► that you just snap on and it locks out all the other keys.

00:33:13 ◼   ► - That's a good idea too.

00:33:14 ◼   ► - But it has just the one key and then you can,

00:33:16 ◼   ► and then you mount it or put stuff on it.

00:33:18 ◼   ► And it's just for that one, yeah.

00:33:21 ◼   ► - So the power brick too is big.

00:33:25 ◼   ► It's bigger than I thought, right?

00:33:26 ◼   ► The actual power brick itself.

00:33:28 ◼   ► But having ethernet there is great

00:33:29 ◼   ► because I use ethernet in this machine.

00:33:31 ◼   ► I just plug it in.

00:33:31 ◼   ► It's one less cable that needs to be long, right?

00:33:34 ◼   ► Like everything's down on the ground now.

00:33:36 ◼   ► I like that.

00:33:37 ◼   ► Because as well, something that was happening for me

00:33:39 ◼   ► was my ethernet cable is shorter than the cable

00:33:43 ◼   ► that Apple ships with the power brick.

00:33:45 ◼   ► So I had to like suspend my Eero

00:33:48 ◼   ► on top of some sound dampening foam

00:33:49 ◼   ► because if I would put my desk into standing mode,

00:33:51 ◼   ► my Eero was just like hanging there.

00:33:54 ◼   ► So now I don't need to do that

00:33:55 ◼   ► 'cause it just plugs straight into the one on the ground,

00:33:57 ◼   ► which is much nicer.

00:33:59 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:34:00 ◼   ► - The iMac foot, you know, we knew this to stand.

00:34:03 ◼   ► Like it's not high enough for me.

00:34:05 ◼   ► It has to be raised.

00:34:06 ◼   ► It's too low down to the desk.

00:34:07 ◼   ► - Like are you telling me that all of Apple's

00:34:12 ◼   ► ergonomic consultants and calculations

00:34:14 ◼   ► that calculated that this is exactly the right height

00:34:17 ◼   ► for the iMac did not work for you?

00:34:19 ◼   ► - It did not work for me.

00:34:20 ◼   ► I'm sure, look, I believe that they did

00:34:23 ◼   ► what Nevpreet told us, right?

00:34:24 ◼   ► That they looked at a bunch of data

00:34:26 ◼   ► and they picked the size that they think is best.

00:34:28 ◼   ► Why would you not do that, right?

00:34:30 ◼   ► - But it's like the average size, right?

00:34:31 ◼   ► - And I'm not an average size guy.

00:34:33 ◼   ► - Well, I was gonna say people who are taller or shorter

00:34:37 ◼   ► in whatever length, you know,

00:34:39 ◼   ► maybe it's from the waist up when you're sitting down

00:34:42 ◼   ► and it's different when you're standing,

00:34:43 ◼   ► but like there's gonna be a lot of people

00:34:44 ◼   ► who don't fit in that area,

00:34:45 ◼   ► which is why there should be an adjustable stand

00:34:47 ◼   ► because you get this beautiful thing

00:34:49 ◼   ► that's all color matched.

00:34:50 ◼   ► And then you've got it sitting on top of a Mac mini.

00:34:53 ◼   ► It's sort of, I mean, come on.

00:34:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, mine is sitting on top of my Mac mini

00:34:57 ◼   ► that was on my desk right now.

00:34:59 ◼   ► And I've bought this stand as a company called Grovemade

00:35:01 ◼   ► who make nice but inexpensive products.

00:35:04 ◼   ► And I bought this stand 'cause I like the look of it

00:35:07 ◼   ► and it matches my desk.

00:35:09 ◼   ► And I figured that this stand,

00:35:11 ◼   ► I'm gonna keep around for whatever product comes next.

00:35:15 ◼   ► So I was thinking about like if for my next iMac

00:35:18 ◼   ► to go with VESA, but for me,

00:35:23 ◼   ► I feel like I got an arm.

00:35:24 ◼   ► Put an arm on it.

00:35:25 ◼   ► - Maybe, potentially, but I'm gonna have this stand anyway.

00:35:28 ◼   ► So I have this stand coming.

00:35:29 ◼   ► Also though, I do hope, and we said this before,

00:35:33 ◼   ► that on a higher end iMac,

00:35:37 ◼   ► Apple creates at least an option

00:35:39 ◼   ► for a high adjustable stand like the XDR.

00:35:42 ◼   ► Even if I have to pay extra for it,

00:35:45 ◼   ► as long as it's not $1,000,

00:35:48 ◼   ► I would pay extra for it though.

00:35:49 ◼   ► You know, like if they said like, this is it,

00:35:51 ◼   ► but you can get the Pro stand

00:35:52 ◼   ► and it's like 400 bucks more,

00:35:54 ◼   ► I would think about it, right?

00:35:56 ◼   ► Depending on how much I'm spending on the machine,

00:35:58 ◼   ► I would think about it.

00:35:59 ◼   ► Because I really do want that adjustability

00:36:02 ◼   ► just in a way that this machine doesn't provide.

00:36:04 ◼   ► Similarly, this machine doesn't have enough ports for me.

00:36:09 ◼   ► You know, like the four USB shaped ports,

00:36:11 ◼   ► two Thunderbolt, it's just not enough.

00:36:13 ◼   ► Like what I really need is two regular USB ports as well.

00:36:17 ◼   ► Because I just have stuff that isn't,

00:36:20 ◼   ► like so for example, like I use a Logitech mouse

00:36:22 ◼   ► and I need a little unifying receiver

00:36:24 ◼   ► and they only do those in USB-A.

00:36:26 ◼   ► - The iMac Pro has seven ports on the back.

00:36:29 ◼   ► And I just looked, I have five of them plugged.

00:36:33 ◼   ► So the four on the higher end iMac

00:36:36 ◼   ► would not be enough for me.

00:36:38 ◼   ► What we know about the M1, right?

00:36:42 ◼   ► Is that if you look at the Mac mini,

00:36:44 ◼   ► it's got two Thunderbolt and then two USB-A.

00:36:46 ◼   ► And then we look at this one

00:36:47 ◼   ► and it's got two Thunderbolt and two USB-C.

00:36:50 ◼   ► Clearly the M1 can't do more than that in terms of ports.

00:36:54 ◼   ► So what I wonder is if they do the larger iMac

00:36:57 ◼   ► at some point here, who knows,

00:36:59 ◼   ► Mark Gurman said they stopped for a while.

00:37:00 ◼   ► I don't know what that means.

00:37:01 ◼   ► But if they do a larger iMac,

00:37:03 ◼   ► which is what I would really like to see

00:37:04 ◼   ► and be very interested in buying,

00:37:06 ◼   ► will they then go back to doing what they did?

00:37:10 ◼   ► Especially if we're thinking it's more for,

00:37:11 ◼   ► you know, it's more expensive and it's bigger

00:37:13 ◼   ► and it's more for pro level users

00:37:14 ◼   ► and it's using a different chip,

00:37:17 ◼   ► would they go back to something like what the iMac Pro has,

00:37:19 ◼   ► which is the multiple Thunderbolt and USB-C

00:37:23 ◼   ► and USB-A ports to have a bunch of ports back there?

00:37:26 ◼   ► I don't know what they feel about ports.

00:37:29 ◼   ► And yeah, you can do hubs and stuff, but it's not as good.

00:37:32 ◼   ► It's not as nice if you have to start buying hubs

00:37:34 ◼   ► and hubs are expensive and complicated

00:37:36 ◼   ► and it gets weird really fast.

00:37:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, like I have a seven port USB hub,

00:37:43 ◼   ► which I now have three things plugged into.

00:37:46 ◼   ► You know, and I'm mostly fine with that,

00:37:49 ◼   ► but some stuff just doesn't work as well

00:37:52 ◼   ► when it's plugged into a hub.

00:37:54 ◼   ► And those things I also can't plug into the machine

00:37:57 ◼   ► because the USB-A thing is kind of stuck, right?

00:38:01 ◼   ► Like my hope is that for more professional machines,

00:38:06 ◼   ► they like higher end machines down the line,

00:38:12 ◼   ► they find a way to put more ports on them.

00:38:14 ◼   ► The rumors of the MacBook Pro, you know, getting the HDMI

00:38:17 ◼   ► and the SD card slot do actually fill me with some confidence

00:38:20 ◼   ► because they do feel like for that machine specifically,

00:38:24 ◼   ► that's the best stuff to plug on it.

00:38:26 ◼   ► Like I don't really mind so much about US,

00:38:28 ◼   ► regular USB on the laptops,

00:38:31 ◼   ► because you know, you're probably gonna use a dock

00:38:35 ◼   ► or a hub for those things anyway,

00:38:38 ◼   ► but it feels like they're adding more stuff on.

00:38:40 ◼   ► I would hope to see them continue to do that.

00:38:43 ◼   ► I personally love how thin this iMac is.

00:38:48 ◼   ► It feels like a complete flex from Apple

00:38:50 ◼   ► to make it this thin, right?

00:38:51 ◼   ► It's just like, we're gonna make a thin computer,

00:38:53 ◼   ► that's what we wanna do.

00:38:54 ◼   ► But like, it surprises me,

00:38:56 ◼   ► like when you turn on this machine,

00:38:58 ◼   ► like the first time I turned it on,

00:38:59 ◼   ► like you reach around to the back to press the button,

00:39:02 ◼   ► you know, you put your thumb on the front

00:39:03 ◼   ► and your finger on the back,

00:39:04 ◼   ► I kind of misjudged it based on my iMac Pro.

00:39:08 ◼   ► And it's like, oh, wait, hang on a minute.

00:39:10 ◼   ► Like, it feels like you're kind of just pinching

00:39:12 ◼   ► your fingers together to turn the thing on.

00:39:14 ◼   ► Like it really is very impressive,

00:39:17 ◼   ► just from a technical standpoint,

00:39:19 ◼   ► but adds just this thing is just so beautiful.

00:39:22 ◼   ► Like how thin it is, it's just so incredible to me.

00:39:25 ◼   ► And I, for me, like the thinness

00:39:30 ◼   ► adds to the overall specialness of the design.

00:39:33 ◼   ► And I have more to say on the design in a bit,

00:39:34 ◼   ► but personally, I think they made the right decision

00:39:37 ◼   ► with making this whole thing just so thin

00:39:40 ◼   ► and modern looking.

00:39:41 ◼   ► I love it the way it is.

00:39:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree.

00:39:43 ◼   ► I am not a fan of the school of thought that's like,

00:39:46 ◼   ► well, it's just an iMac,

00:39:47 ◼   ► you should make it as thick as possible.

00:39:49 ◼   ► It's like, well, no, it is in a bunch of spaces

00:39:53 ◼   ► and you want it to look pretty.

00:39:55 ◼   ► It looks much nicer flat than it did

00:39:57 ◼   ► when it kind of had the thickening at the back edge

00:40:00 ◼   ► and sort of trying to fake it at the corners.

00:40:02 ◼   ► And then you're right, like for turning it on or tilting it,

00:40:06 ◼   ► anytime you're reaching out and moving it around,

00:40:08 ◼   ► I imagine this will be true if you put it on an arm as well.

00:40:11 ◼   ► It is, first off, your hands are,

00:40:13 ◼   ► instead of on the sort of slope of the current iMac design

00:40:17 ◼   ► that we have with the iMac Pro,

00:40:19 ◼   ► it's just, it's very easily grabbable.

00:40:22 ◼   ► It's super light 'cause it's less than 10 pounds.

00:40:24 ◼   ► Moving it around is really easy.

00:40:26 ◼   ► Like carrying it around to different locations in your house

00:40:30 ◼   ► is also really easy.

00:40:31 ◼   ► Like I think it's the right thing to do

00:40:33 ◼   ► and it's the right kind of shape.

00:40:37 ◼   ► I just, I don't, I appreciate the fact

00:40:41 ◼   ► that it could be any size

00:40:42 ◼   ► and they could just make it thicker and heavier and bigger.

00:40:45 ◼   ► Like heck, they could just make it the size

00:40:46 ◼   ► of the original iMac if they really wanted to.

00:40:48 ◼   ► Just have it be enormous and weigh 40 pounds.

00:40:51 ◼   ► But I think in general, having it be thin and light

00:40:54 ◼   ► and having that consistent, the flat back

00:40:56 ◼   ► that also looks really good, I do think it matters.

00:40:59 ◼   ► If you're somebody who puts it at a desk

00:41:01 ◼   ► and never adjusts it and never sees the back

00:41:04 ◼   ► because it's facing against a cube wall or something,

00:41:06 ◼   ► well, yeah, you're not really taking advantage

00:41:08 ◼   ► of what this thing is,

00:41:09 ◼   ► but you're not who this design is for.

00:41:11 ◼   ► This design is for people seeing it from the back

00:41:14 ◼   ► and people seeing it from the side

00:41:15 ◼   ► and it being in environments.

00:41:17 ◼   ► That's why the colorful stuff is on the backside too.

00:41:20 ◼   ► That's the whole idea here.

00:41:21 ◼   ► So I think it's, I like that they did this.

00:41:26 ◼   ► I think that this is what the iMac should be.

00:41:28 ◼   ► This is like the ideal.

00:41:29 ◼   ► They're trying to get closer to the,

00:41:31 ◼   ► that little floating monitor that was on top

00:41:33 ◼   ► of the G4 iMac back in the day

00:41:35 ◼   ► that had the giant heavy computer beneath it.

00:41:38 ◼   ► Like the ideal of the iMac is that the computer

00:41:41 ◼   ► starts to disappear.

00:41:42 ◼   ► And I think that this one gets closer to that ideal

00:41:47 ◼   ► in a lot of delightful ways.

00:41:48 ◼   ► - 24 inch screen, I think is fine for me.

00:41:53 ◼   ► I would say that going from 21 to 24,

00:41:56 ◼   ► that's a big difference.

00:41:57 ◼   ► And I think that 24 is fine.

00:42:01 ◼   ► I set the resolution to give me more space

00:42:03 ◼   ► and that gave me kind of just enough real estate

00:42:05 ◼   ► to work with from what I'm used to on say 27 inch monitors

00:42:09 ◼   ► or whatever.

00:42:11 ◼   ► One thing that I immediately noticed,

00:42:13 ◼   ► which I didn't think I would notice but did,

00:42:16 ◼   ► is just how much nicer the screen is on this

00:42:19 ◼   ► than any third party monitor that I have.

00:42:22 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:42:23 ◼   ► - I've been used to recently using third party monitors

00:42:25 ◼   ► more than using my iMac.

00:42:27 ◼   ► And I have a 27 inch Dell that was on this desk

00:42:32 ◼   ► and it was a 4K display.

00:42:34 ◼   ► And I was like, oh, this is just as good

00:42:36 ◼   ► as my iMac screen or whatever, it was fine.

00:42:39 ◼   ► Big difference.

00:42:40 ◼   ► It just looks so much better in every possible way.

00:42:43 ◼   ► I don't know exactly what it is that Apple does

00:42:46 ◼   ► to make their monitors look so good, but they do something.

00:42:49 ◼   ► I know it's like a lot of little things, I'm sure,

00:42:51 ◼   ► but this just is so much nicer,

00:42:53 ◼   ► it's so much crisper as a display.

00:42:56 ◼   ► Like I'd be sad to go back now on this desk from it.

00:43:00 ◼   ► - I think they don't, I mentioned this in my review,

00:43:03 ◼   ► I think that we don't give enough credit to Apple

00:43:05 ◼   ► for its displays because they advance it so much

00:43:09 ◼   ► that you end up sort of just taking it for granted.

00:43:12 ◼   ► Like they've been pushing these iMac displays forward

00:43:14 ◼   ► for the last, what, six years,

00:43:16 ◼   ► since they first came out with a retina iMac.

00:43:18 ◼   ► And they added the wider color gamut

00:43:21 ◼   ► and presumably at some point here,

00:43:23 ◼   ► there's gonna be mini LED in these things

00:43:26 ◼   ► and they'll be even more impressive.

00:43:28 ◼   ► But like they're really good displays.

00:43:29 ◼   ► This is the root of why people complain

00:43:32 ◼   ► that there isn't a non expensive 6K Apple external display.

00:43:37 ◼   ► It's like the iMac display is just better

00:43:40 ◼   ► than any of those third-party displays that are out there.

00:43:43 ◼   ► And you have to have an iMac to get it basically,

00:43:47 ◼   ► or buy the Pro Display XDR, which is ridiculous.

00:43:49 ◼   ► So those are your choices right now

00:43:51 ◼   ► because the third-party displays just aren't as good.

00:43:53 ◼   ► Apple is really good at this.

00:43:55 ◼   ► And that's why it's a little frustrating

00:43:57 ◼   ► if you're somebody who wants a Mac Pro or a Mac Mini

00:44:01 ◼   ► or just an external display for your laptop,

00:44:03 ◼   ► that the third-party choices there aren't great

00:44:05 ◼   ► and Apple is not letting you just buy

00:44:07 ◼   ► essentially an iMac screen and make it your display.

00:44:11 ◼   ► Because like the iMac, imagine a version of that

00:44:14 ◼   ► that was maybe, you know, doesn't have the chin

00:44:16 ◼   ► and it's just a display.

00:44:18 ◼   ► That would be really good.

00:44:20 ◼   ► That would be a really good display.

00:44:21 ◼   ► A lot of people would buy it,

00:44:22 ◼   ► but Apple doesn't wanna make it for some reason.

00:44:24 ◼   ► Not yet, anyway.

00:44:27 ◼   ► So going back to the color,

00:44:29 ◼   ► I really like and I very much enjoy,

00:44:33 ◼   ► it puts a smile on my face to have this hint of color

00:44:36 ◼   ► in my peripheral vision from the chin, from the foot,

00:44:40 ◼   ► just while I'm looking at the Mac.

00:44:41 ◼   ► And also the, again, like those,

00:44:44 ◼   ► I understand what Apple's saying now

00:44:46 ◼   ► about the edges not being white.

00:44:48 ◼   ► It's like white with a mix of light gray.

00:44:53 ◼   ► It's almost as if there was something dark behind it

00:44:56 ◼   ► and the plastic was semi-translucent.

00:44:59 ◼   ► - It's a light gray.

00:45:01 ◼   ► If you hold a piece of paper next to it,

00:45:02 ◼   ► you're like, oh yeah, it's not white.

00:45:04 ◼   ► It's light gray.

00:45:05 ◼   ► But it is very light, light gray, but it's a neutral color.

00:45:10 ◼   ► I mean, my experience in using it,

00:45:12 ◼   ► which we talked about last week,

00:45:14 ◼   ► was that it's almost like a gradient

00:45:15 ◼   ► where there's the bright pop from the foot

00:45:18 ◼   ► and then there's the lighter color on the chin.

00:45:21 ◼   ► And then there's the gray border and then there's the screen.

00:45:24 ◼   ► And I think that, like, as I use it,

00:45:26 ◼   ► I was like, oh, I get why they did this.

00:45:28 ◼   ► Like, you can really focus on the screen

00:45:29 ◼   ► and the rest of it just kind of drops away.

00:45:31 ◼   ► And yet in your peripheral vision,

00:45:33 ◼   ► you still got kind of the color popping there.

00:45:35 ◼   ► And if you lean back a little bit

00:45:37 ◼   ► and then you're looking at your iMac,

00:45:38 ◼   ► you're like, oh, yellow, right?

00:45:39 ◼   ► Or orange.

00:45:41 ◼   ► But you're not like trying to focus on the screen.

00:45:43 ◼   ► And like, look, this yellow is getting in my vision.

00:45:46 ◼   ► I can't see the screen.

00:45:46 ◼   ► I feel like it's a good balance

00:45:48 ◼   ► where it's not overwhelming you.

00:45:50 ◼   ► Like, I think people were worried about.

00:45:52 ◼   ► - And I use my Mac in dark mode

00:45:54 ◼   ► and I don't feel like it's out of place.

00:45:56 ◼   ► Because dark mode on the Mac,

00:45:58 ◼   ► I mean, there's still a lot of color going on.

00:45:59 ◼   ► There's still a lot of brightness going on.

00:46:01 ◼   ► Maybe if you, you know, really were aggressive with it,

00:46:04 ◼   ► but like right now I'm looking at a Google Docs window

00:46:06 ◼   ► and it's white, you know?

00:46:07 ◼   ► So I feel like there's some differences

00:46:10 ◼   ► with dark modes on the Mac than on iOS devices

00:46:12 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

00:46:13 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:46:14 ◼   ► - But I feel like the design, the color of this Mac,

00:46:17 ◼   ► it sparks joy for me.

00:46:20 ◼   ► Like, and I can't remember the last time

00:46:23 ◼   ► that hardware gave me that kind of joyous feeling,

00:46:25 ◼   ► like it's playfulness.

00:46:28 ◼   ► And Apple designs used to do this for me, right?

00:46:32 ◼   ► I used to feel like there was a playful joy to the hardware.

00:46:37 ◼   ► And it's not that hardware design has been bad.

00:46:41 ◼   ► I just think that Apple had a different priority

00:46:44 ◼   ► for their design.

00:46:45 ◼   ► Like they wanted to create premium,

00:46:47 ◼   ► sleek, stylish looking devices.

00:46:50 ◼   ► And whilst this machine is still premium and sleek,

00:46:54 ◼   ► it's also in big bright colors

00:46:56 ◼   ► and that kind of makes it more joyous.

00:46:58 ◼   ► Like my system tint is yellow and that also makes me smile

00:47:03 ◼   ► because it's like, oh, even Safari knows

00:47:05 ◼   ► that this is a yellow computer, right?

00:47:07 ◼   ► Like I love that little stuff.

00:47:09 ◼   ► Like these are like frequent reminders

00:47:12 ◼   ► that I am using a computer that I find fun

00:47:15 ◼   ► whilst also it is incredibly powerful.

00:47:17 ◼   ► Like I've not even really spoken to me

00:47:19 ◼   ► 'cause there isn't really much to say.

00:47:20 ◼   ► I think about the M1 that you haven't heard before,

00:47:24 ◼   ► but it has made me realize something

00:47:26 ◼   ► and using this machine for editing and stuff like that.

00:47:29 ◼   ► One I had noticed about the MacBook Pro

00:47:31 ◼   ► compared to my iMac Pro where the M1 right now

00:47:35 ◼   ► is not as fast in some tasks as my iMac Pro is,

00:47:39 ◼   ► like exporting a project from Logic.

00:47:42 ◼   ► But during the actual editing process,

00:47:45 ◼   ► everything is much more smooth, right?

00:47:48 ◼   ► The M1 in Logic is a much nicer experience.

00:47:51 ◼   ► And I actually think for me, that is more important

00:47:54 ◼   ► than a few seconds on the export

00:47:57 ◼   ► because I'm less frustrated

00:47:58 ◼   ► and have more of an enjoyable experience

00:48:02 ◼   ► actually doing the hard part of the work.

00:48:04 ◼   ► So I think this machine right now

00:48:06 ◼   ► is more tuned to what I need,

00:48:08 ◼   ► but what I expect from M1X or M2 or whatever it's gonna be,

00:48:13 ◼   ► it's both of those things.

00:48:15 ◼   ► All of the performance gains that I see

00:48:17 ◼   ► in these Pro applications because of Apple Silicon,

00:48:21 ◼   ► plus the power to export more fast than the iMac Pro would.

00:48:26 ◼   ► Go back to the design.

00:48:30 ◼   ► I know that a lot of people are like,

00:48:31 ◼   ► "Why is the chin here?

00:48:33 ◼   ► Get rid of the chin.

00:48:35 ◼   ► I just want no bezels."

00:48:37 ◼   ► I say no.

00:48:38 ◼   ► I love, I don't want them to get rid of the chin on the iMac.

00:48:42 ◼   ► I think that it adds personality to this computer.

00:48:46 ◼   ► If it had no chin, it would look like a monitor.

00:48:48 ◼   ► And I don't want my computer to look like a monitor.

00:48:51 ◼   ► I want my computer to look like a computer.

00:48:54 ◼   ► And maybe this is like a nostalgia thing for me,

00:48:57 ◼   ► or there's like some kind of blinkered vision.

00:49:00 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:49:01 ◼   ► But for me, this looks like a computer

00:49:04 ◼   ► and it looks like a fun, beautiful computer.

00:49:07 ◼   ► With my phone, with my iPad, I want no bezels.

00:49:11 ◼   ► Do you know why?

00:49:11 ◼   ► 'Cause I have to hold it.

00:49:12 ◼   ► Spaces of a premium in my hands.

00:49:15 ◼   ► I don't have that concern with my computer.

00:49:18 ◼   ► Like it's not a problem for me to have no bezels.

00:49:23 ◼   ► - For 17 years, the iMac's look from the front

00:49:28 ◼   ► has been a screen with a chin below it.

00:49:31 ◼   ► Like that's what an iMac looks like, right?

00:49:34 ◼   ► And although they took the logo off of it,

00:49:36 ◼   ► they have the color accent there.

00:49:38 ◼   ► This is their decision, right?

00:49:41 ◼   ► Is to do it this way because they,

00:49:42 ◼   ► of course they could have put it behind.

00:49:44 ◼   ► It would have been a little bit thicker,

00:49:46 ◼   ► but they could have put it behind the screen

00:49:48 ◼   ► and had like a thicker iMac that didn't have it.

00:49:52 ◼   ► But I think you're exactly right.

00:49:53 ◼   ► Like the chin, and we mentioned this

00:49:55 ◼   ► when we interviewed them,

00:49:57 ◼   ► but like the chin is part of the design language

00:49:58 ◼   ► of the iMac, it has been for a long time.

00:50:00 ◼   ► You could get rid of it, but like,

00:50:02 ◼   ► I don't view the last 17 years of the iMac

00:50:05 ◼   ► as the eternal struggle to get rid of the chin.

00:50:08 ◼   ► Like the chin, it's part of the iMac.

00:50:11 ◼   ► Like you could, yeah, fine, you're right.

00:50:14 ◼   ► You could take it off.

00:50:14 ◼   ► It would look like a monitor at that point,

00:50:16 ◼   ► more than a computer.

00:50:17 ◼   ► And I think that that chin almost signals like,

00:50:20 ◼   ► oh, you're looking at an iMac.

00:50:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:50:23 ◼   ► - And I think it's just like one of the,

00:50:24 ◼   ► it's just whatever your tastes are for the design.

00:50:27 ◼   ► 'Cause if you got rid of the chin,

00:50:29 ◼   ► it would look more sleek.

00:50:30 ◼   ► But as I said earlier, I kind of want it to be fun.

00:50:33 ◼   ► Like this iMac feels iconic in its design to me, right?

00:50:38 ◼   ► Like, because it is building on all of the design language

00:50:41 ◼   ► of iMacs before, but the color and the thinness,

00:50:45 ◼   ► I think makes it a design that we will look back on.

00:50:49 ◼   ► I feel maybe as fondly as we look back on the G3,

00:50:54 ◼   ► because my hope and my feeling is right now,

00:50:59 ◼   ► this is the beginning of Apple computers

00:51:02 ◼   ► with more personality and fun again,

00:51:06 ◼   ► in a way that they haven't for a while.

00:51:07 ◼   ► You know, this is something you touched on so much

00:51:09 ◼   ► during 20 Macs in 2020.

00:51:11 ◼   ► That the design of a lot of the computers

00:51:13 ◼   ► have been very similar for a long period of time.

00:51:15 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:51:16 ◼   ► I did a whole rant in that podcast series

00:51:18 ◼   ► about how Apple should put color on the Mac again.

00:51:20 ◼   ► So I'm very happy that this is here.

00:51:21 ◼   ► - We've been asking for this for ages, right?

00:51:23 ◼   ► Like starting with the iPhone

00:51:24 ◼   ► and we want colors on our iPads and colors on our Macs.

00:51:27 ◼   ► Like it's been great for a long time.

00:51:30 ◼   ► Been very happy with the design.

00:51:31 ◼   ► Apple have made beautiful products,

00:51:33 ◼   ► but you gotta change every now and then.

00:51:35 ◼   ► And I think that all this bright and beautiful color,

00:51:38 ◼   ► that is a great change.

00:51:40 ◼   ► And yeah, I don't think I'm gonna get

00:51:42 ◼   ► these wonderful pastel colors on Pro machines,

00:51:44 ◼   ► but I'm expecting like midnight green, Pacific blue,

00:51:49 ◼   ► like, you know, that kind of stuff.

00:51:50 ◼   ► So I can still have something different.

00:51:53 ◼   ► - Right.

00:51:55 ◼   ► - I actually wanna wrap up my thoughts here

00:51:57 ◼   ► by talking about the speakers,

00:51:59 ◼   ► because I had a revelation with the speakers.

00:52:02 ◼   ► So I just put some music on,

00:52:05 ◼   ► 'cause I was like, oh yeah, this has speakers in it.

00:52:07 ◼   ► Apple talk about the speakers being good.

00:52:08 ◼   ► And I didn't expect the speakers on this machine

00:52:11 ◼   ► to sound as good as they do,

00:52:13 ◼   ► considering the kind of limited space

00:52:15 ◼   ► that they're dealing with.

00:52:16 ◼   ► And like to my ears, they sounded really great for music.

00:52:20 ◼   ► Like it just sounded like there was some separation

00:52:23 ◼   ► and the bass was good and everything was clear.

00:52:26 ◼   ► And I thought it sounded really great.

00:52:27 ◼   ► And it made me think that,

00:52:30 ◼   ► like I could imagine someone very happily

00:52:32 ◼   ► having this computer in their living room

00:52:35 ◼   ► and using it to play music like a home pod,

00:52:38 ◼   ► as well as you might do other computer style stuff on it.

00:52:42 ◼   ► And then I thought, well,

00:52:44 ◼   ► I think that this is kind of what this iMac is,

00:52:46 ◼   ► like it's where it shines.

00:52:48 ◼   ► It is a computer that becomes a part of your home

00:52:52 ◼   ► in a way that computers, I think for a long time,

00:52:55 ◼   ► they've been like, you put them in the office

00:52:58 ◼   ► or like you get them out of the way.

00:53:00 ◼   ► And I think that this one has more going for it

00:53:04 ◼   ► to be a part of the living room or the family room

00:53:08 ◼   ► than maybe a lot of computers have in a while.

00:53:10 ◼   ► Like it doesn't take up a lot of space.

00:53:12 ◼   ► There's a great screen, which is big.

00:53:14 ◼   ► The touch ID makes it super easy

00:53:16 ◼   ► to switch between family members, which is super cool.

00:53:19 ◼   ► Like anybody, if like,

00:53:20 ◼   ► if me and Jason are both registered as a computer,

00:53:23 ◼   ► if I'm logged in and Jason puts his finger

00:53:25 ◼   ► on the touch ID sensor, it will switch to his account.

00:53:28 ◼   ► It has great, the girl has great speakers.

00:53:29 ◼   ► It has a good camera and mics of video calling and stuff.

00:53:32 ◼   ► Like it feels like it has this vibe

00:53:34 ◼   ► of a kind of general purpose home family computer

00:53:38 ◼   ► in a way that I don't remember for a while.

00:53:41 ◼   ► And I think all of the colors and stuff

00:53:42 ◼   ► really accentuate that.

00:53:45 ◼   ► I think this, for what this machine is

00:53:48 ◼   ► and what it is expected to be used for,

00:53:50 ◼   ► I think it's a slam dunk.

00:53:51 ◼   ► Like I adore it.

00:53:53 ◼   ► I think it's a fantastic computer.

00:53:56 ◼   ► And I didn't think that I would feel so excited

00:53:59 ◼   ► about the 21 inch iMac replacement,

00:54:03 ◼   ► because I feel like I knew what that computer was gonna be,

00:54:07 ◼   ► but I was wrong.

00:54:08 ◼   ► It's a way cooler computer than that one that was in my mind.

00:54:11 ◼   ► I think it's great. I love it.

00:54:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, I more or less agree.

00:54:16 ◼   ► I'm disappointed by the webcam,

00:54:17 ◼   ► even though it's the best Mac webcam ever,

00:54:19 ◼   ► because having seen center stage,

00:54:21 ◼   ► like they should have done that on the iMac

00:54:23 ◼   ► and maybe they will do that in the future.

00:54:25 ◼   ► In fact, I think it's almost certain that they will.

00:54:28 ◼   ► But yeah, I think I agree with you that it's fun.

00:54:31 ◼   ► And most of the criticism I've seen honestly

00:54:34 ◼   ► is from people for whom this is not the Mac that they want.

00:54:37 ◼   ► Like this isn't for you.

00:54:39 ◼   ► And also it's just funny.

00:54:41 ◼   ► A lot of the criticism is very much sort of stuff

00:54:44 ◼   ► that's not an issue.

00:54:45 ◼   ► Like people don't like the colors.

00:54:46 ◼   ► It's like, well, that's why there's the silver one.

00:54:48 ◼   ► So stop talking about the colors.

00:54:50 ◼   ► If we like the colors,

00:54:51 ◼   ► we're not telling you you have to get the colors,

00:54:55 ◼   ► get the silver one.

00:54:56 ◼   ► They make the silver one for a reason,

00:54:57 ◼   ► but we're excited about the colors.

00:54:58 ◼   ► And similarly, it's a low end iMac.

00:55:01 ◼   ► It is the 24 inch, formerly the 21 and a half inch iMac.

00:55:05 ◼   ► There will be more, and it's on an M1.

00:55:08 ◼   ► There will be more powerful, bigger,

00:55:10 ◼   ► probably iMacs in the relatively near future.

00:55:14 ◼   ► But for what this is,

00:55:16 ◼   ► and Apple trying to find a place for it,

00:55:18 ◼   ► where does it belong?

00:55:19 ◼   ► Why do you need a desktop computer at your house now?

00:55:21 ◼   ► Something like this is that's Apple's argument

00:55:24 ◼   ► of like this is pleasant to reside in a house

00:55:28 ◼   ► and you can move it around

00:55:29 ◼   ► and different people can use it.

00:55:31 ◼   ► And it's got the big screen,

00:55:32 ◼   ► which is a lot bigger than any mobile device you're using

00:55:36 ◼   ► for when you wanna use that big screen.

00:55:37 ◼   ► And yeah, yeah.

00:55:39 ◼   ► Also, I agree about the speakers.

00:55:40 ◼   ► I didn't write about it,

00:55:41 ◼   ► but I did write my article

00:55:43 ◼   ► with music playing on the speakers.

00:55:46 ◼   ► And it's good enough that I don't think

00:55:48 ◼   ► that I would need a separate external speaker

00:55:51 ◼   ► most of the time when I'm working,

00:55:53 ◼   ► if I was just editing podcasts

00:55:55 ◼   ► and listening to music when I'm writing.

00:55:58 ◼   ► Yeah, I've been choosing to listen to music

00:56:00 ◼   ► on the speakers where typically even with my iMac Pro,

00:56:03 ◼   ► I would use my headphones instead.

00:56:05 ◼   ► I've been quite surprised at how good they sound.

00:56:09 ◼   ► I just wanted to dovetail

00:56:11 ◼   ► from the beginning of our conversation

00:56:13 ◼   ► and just say that for a memory for me

00:56:16 ◼   ► is like my first experience with pre-release hardware.

00:56:19 ◼   ► I'm really pleased it was this computer

00:56:22 ◼   ► 'cause I think this is just gonna be

00:56:25 ◼   ► a memorable computer anyway.

00:56:26 ◼   ► And so, yeah, it's been a fun experience for me.

00:56:29 ◼   ► - Yeah.

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00:57:43 ◼   ► Let's talk about the iPad Pro.

00:57:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, let's do it.

00:57:46 ◼   ► - Wow, so I love this.

00:57:49 ◼   ► I feel like we could sum it up

00:57:51 ◼   ► with this one line from your review.

00:57:54 ◼   ► It's in your introduction.

00:57:55 ◼   ► "A Hall of Fame device

00:57:56 ◼   ► that just can't fulfill its remarkable potential."

00:57:59 ◼   ► It's really great.

00:58:01 ◼   ► We got one on Friday, so I got one for Adina

00:58:05 ◼   ► and I've been poking around with it very much,

00:58:07 ◼   ► but I haven't spent anywhere near as much time as you.

00:58:10 ◼   ► Like I've just been doing the kind of things

00:58:12 ◼   ► you would do, right?

00:58:13 ◼   ► I looked at how dark some UI is in the images

00:58:16 ◼   ► and we played around the center stage.

00:58:19 ◼   ► But you know, I haven't done any of the testing

00:58:20 ◼   ► that you will have done on yours.

00:58:23 ◼   ► Overall, how do you feel about this?

00:58:26 ◼   ► Does this iPad excite you?

00:58:28 ◼   ► Are you gonna get one for yourself?

00:58:30 ◼   ► - Well, it doesn't excite me.

00:58:36 ◼   ► It is very impressive in a lot of ways,

00:58:39 ◼   ► but this is the theme of the whole thing,

00:58:41 ◼   ► which is it's impressive in a lot of ways

00:58:43 ◼   ► and I'm sure that I could use some of the power

00:58:46 ◼   ► doing some of the stuff I do like editing,

00:58:49 ◼   ► but it still feels like I would like there to be more here.

00:58:53 ◼   ► That you could really argue that if you bought an iPad Pro

00:58:57 ◼   ► in 2018, you have no reason to update to this,

00:59:02 ◼   ► unless you really want that screen.

00:59:04 ◼   ► I'm like everybody else hoping that at

00:59:08 ◼   ► the developer conference, we're gonna get iPadOS 15

00:59:11 ◼   ► and it's going to legitimately use the features

00:59:16 ◼   ► of this thing in a way that older devices don't

00:59:20 ◼   ► and it's gonna make you wanna get it.

00:59:21 ◼   ► And I have some theories about that.

00:59:23 ◼   ► I actually wrote about that Six Colors Members post

00:59:26 ◼   ► last week about that.

00:59:28 ◼   ► I have a theory that one of the reasons

00:59:30 ◼   ► that they come with eight and 16 gigs of RAM,

00:59:33 ◼   ► in addition to it just sort of being M1 standard,

00:59:35 ◼   ► is if you're gonna rethink multitasking on the iPad

00:59:38 ◼   ► and potentially allow apps to run in Windows

00:59:43 ◼   ► and have multiple apps running and viewable

00:59:45 ◼   ► at the same time, they need to be in memory.

00:59:49 ◼   ► There's much more memory pressure

00:59:53 ◼   ► if you expand multitasking on iPadOS than there used to be.

00:59:56 ◼   ► And it's one of those things where having eight

00:59:58 ◼   ► or 16 gigs of RAM suddenly becomes really convenient

01:00:02 ◼   ► and not just I can have a lot of browser tabs

01:00:05 ◼   ► or I can launch a bunch of apps and they instantly launch

01:00:08 ◼   ► instead of having to relaunch 'cause they quit

01:00:09 ◼   ► in the background because of memory pressure.

01:00:11 ◼   ► Like I feel like you can definitely invent all sorts

01:00:15 ◼   ► of ways where the specs of this thing are suddenly made

01:00:20 ◼   ► much more necessary by the OS.

01:00:25 ◼   ► But today, for 99% of the people who use the iPad Pro,

01:00:30 ◼   ► you could just, if you're using the 2018 model,

01:00:35 ◼   ► you just go on using it

01:00:36 ◼   ► and it's not gonna be appreciably different.

01:00:39 ◼   ► The, yes, the screen is amazing.

01:00:41 ◼   ► It is beautiful.

01:00:42 ◼   ► I imagine that every Apple display

01:00:45 ◼   ► that is currently using backlight LCD

01:00:49 ◼   ► is going to go to this mini LED backlight

01:00:52 ◼   ► and that's gonna roll out over the next few years

01:00:56 ◼   ► and it's going to dramatically improve everybody's displays.

01:00:58 ◼   ► And that's really exciting 'cause it's gorgeous.

01:01:01 ◼   ► It is a fantastic display.

01:01:02 ◼   ► - I so desperately want it in an 11 inch

01:01:07 ◼   ► 'cause just, I was trying to play around.

01:01:09 ◼   ► I was like, okay, let me fill this.

01:01:11 ◼   ► And I was reading some stuff or whatever.

01:01:13 ◼   ► For what I'm using my iPad for most these days,

01:01:16 ◼   ► which is like a lot of reading and entertainment stuff

01:01:18 ◼   ► and just taking some basic notes,

01:01:20 ◼   ► I am using it in my hands more than I'm using it

01:01:23 ◼   ► in the Magic Keyboard.

01:01:24 ◼   ► And it's too big and heavy compared to the 11,

01:01:28 ◼   ► like the 12.9, it's just too big and heavy.

01:01:30 ◼   ► - I mean, and I am a 12.9 user and have been,

01:01:33 ◼   ► and this one is just a little bit bigger,

01:01:36 ◼   ► a little bit heavier.

01:01:38 ◼   ► And as Federico said, and last week on Connected

01:01:41 ◼   ► and as I said in my review and he wrote in his review,

01:01:43 ◼   ► you can tell it's one of those moments I send him a text.

01:01:45 ◼   ► I basically said, I like it when we're working

01:01:48 ◼   ► on these things in parallel and not talking to each other.

01:01:51 ◼   ► And then I read your review and I think,

01:01:52 ◼   ► oh, he said the same thing I did.

01:01:54 ◼   ► And one of them is, yeah, it's noticeably heavier.

01:01:57 ◼   ► It's not a lot heavier, but it's already a device

01:02:00 ◼   ► that's kind of pushing it in terms of how big this thing is

01:02:04 ◼   ► and how heavy it is.

01:02:05 ◼   ► And it's now a little bit heavier.

01:02:07 ◼   ► So what am I going to get out of this?

01:02:09 ◼   ► What am I going to get out of it?

01:02:10 ◼   ► Well, the screen is beautiful, no doubt about it.

01:02:12 ◼   ► Center stage is amazing, no doubt about it.

01:02:14 ◼   ► Yes, 11 inch iPads with this technology

01:02:18 ◼   ► that will come at some point here

01:02:20 ◼   ► will bring this to a lot more people

01:02:23 ◼   ► and they'll love it too.

01:02:24 ◼   ► Center stage is going to go everywhere.

01:02:27 ◼   ► I feel like it's only a matter of time

01:02:28 ◼   ► before every Apple device has center stage.

01:02:32 ◼   ► - It's so cool.

01:02:33 ◼   ► - The whole idea that you'd put an ultra wide camera

01:02:36 ◼   ► in the front facing camera.

01:02:37 ◼   ► And so, yeah, the selfies aren't quite as good

01:02:39 ◼   ► because the selfies by default,

01:02:40 ◼   ► they're basically like cropped and de-skewing

01:02:42 ◼   ► the ultra wide camera to make it look like

01:02:44 ◼   ► the same frame of view, field of view as it was before.

01:02:48 ◼   ► But if you tap or pinch, you can get the ultra wide view,

01:02:51 ◼   ► which is very, very wide and kind of weird,

01:02:55 ◼   ► but you get a 12 megapixel ultra wide view,

01:02:57 ◼   ► and then you can dynamically crop and de-skew

01:03:00 ◼   ► and create that effect of you having

01:03:04 ◼   ► your own personal camera man tracking you

01:03:07 ◼   ► as you move around and somebody comes into frame.

01:03:10 ◼   ► There's in my story, there's a GIF

01:03:12 ◼   ► of an actual family Zoom that we did.

01:03:16 ◼   ► And my son and I sit down next to my wife and my daughter

01:03:20 ◼   ► and the camera pulls out so that all four of us

01:03:23 ◼   ► are in the frame.

01:03:24 ◼   ► And when we leave, it's not in the story,

01:03:26 ◼   ► but like when we leave, I left and it goes down to three

01:03:29 ◼   ► and then my son leaves and it goes down to two.

01:03:31 ◼   ► And it's just, it's magical.

01:03:33 ◼   ► It really does feel magical.

01:03:34 ◼   ► It is a wonderful thing.

01:03:35 ◼   ► So I can't see how Apple isn't gonna be putting

01:03:37 ◼   ► ultra wide forward facing cameras and center stage

01:03:40 ◼   ► into every product that it makes at some point,

01:03:43 ◼   ► especially any product that is likely to be set down

01:03:46 ◼   ► somewhere and not held in a hand.

01:03:47 ◼   ► So maybe the iPhone, maybe not the iPhone,

01:03:50 ◼   ► although maybe the iPhone, but maybe not the iPhone,

01:03:52 ◼   ► but like every Mac and all the iPads.

01:03:55 ◼   ► Like it's such a great feature.

01:03:57 ◼   ► We use this stuff all the time.

01:03:58 ◼   ► It's so natural.

01:03:59 ◼   ► I'm at the point now where if I can do a video,

01:04:02 ◼   ► anything on that iPad Pro, that's where I choose to do it

01:04:05 ◼   ► because it's so nice. - They should put it

01:04:06 ◼   ► on the iPhone.

01:04:07 ◼   ► I mean, the iPhone already has a ultra wide

01:04:10 ◼   ► on the front facing.

01:04:11 ◼   ► - I think the only issue with the iPhone

01:04:13 ◼   ► is that if it's in your hand,

01:04:14 ◼   ► it's gotta fight your own hand movement.

01:04:17 ◼   ► And I wonder if there's stabilization and issues there

01:04:20 ◼   ► where it's trying to focus on your face

01:04:22 ◼   ► and then you're moving it around and how does that work?

01:04:25 ◼   ► And I don't know.

01:04:26 ◼   ► So that's the caveat I'll give there.

01:04:28 ◼   ► But otherwise, yeah, I mean, it's great.

01:04:31 ◼   ► I hate to do the thing that everybody is doing,

01:04:34 ◼   ► but this is what it is, which is it's center stage is great.

01:04:38 ◼   ► The screen is great.

01:04:39 ◼   ► It's an M1.

01:04:41 ◼   ► It's just as fast as all those M1 Macs.

01:04:44 ◼   ► I did the tests.

01:04:45 ◼   ► It's just as fast.

01:04:46 ◼   ► It doesn't boost the speed over the 2020 and 2018 iPad Pros

01:04:52 ◼   ► as much because they already were using Apple Silicon, right?

01:04:56 ◼   ► So it's not, it doesn't have to,

01:04:57 ◼   ► they don't get the leg up on Intel effect, but it's faster.

01:05:00 ◼   ► But again, how often are you pushing against the speed

01:05:04 ◼   ► of the A12 in those models?

01:05:07 ◼   ► How much do you hit the RAM limit,

01:05:11 ◼   ► especially on the 2020 model

01:05:13 ◼   ► that was all at six gigs of RAM?

01:05:14 ◼   ► Thunderbolt is nice,

01:05:17 ◼   ► but unless you're in very particular things

01:05:19 ◼   ► where you're hanging a whole bunch of devices,

01:05:21 ◼   ► probably including a monitor off of it,

01:05:23 ◼   ► then what, you know, you're not gonna see it

01:05:26 ◼   ► because the USB three is, the USB that's on the previous

01:05:31 ◼   ► models is faster than any, you know,

01:05:33 ◼   ► regular hard drive that you would plug in is gonna be.

01:05:36 ◼   ► So Thunderbolt, it's like, it's overkill.

01:05:38 ◼   ► It's all overkill.

01:05:40 ◼   ► And that's great because you could buy this thing

01:05:43 ◼   ► and it's probably gonna work great at full capacity

01:05:46 ◼   ► for a long time because it's such overkill.

01:05:49 ◼   ► But at the same time, first off,

01:05:51 ◼   ► you may already have one that works fine.

01:05:52 ◼   ► So you should wait if it works fine for you,

01:05:55 ◼   ► because, you know, this doesn't really enable

01:05:57 ◼   ► that much that's new.

01:05:59 ◼   ► And two, it's frustrating because I want it,

01:06:03 ◼   ► you know, I want this hardware that's so amazing

01:06:06 ◼   ► to allow me to do more.

01:06:08 ◼   ► And it doesn't because there are missing apps.

01:06:12 ◼   ► Apple's Pro apps aren't there,

01:06:14 ◼   ► and I know there are alternatives,

01:06:15 ◼   ► but you know, if you're, like LumaFusion is great,

01:06:20 ◼   ► but LumaFusion is not Final Cut Pro.

01:06:24 ◼   ► And so you have to learn a different app

01:06:25 ◼   ► that behaves differently.

01:06:27 ◼   ► And then if I wanna work on a project on Final Cut Pro

01:06:30 ◼   ► and then take it to LumaFusion or vice versa,

01:06:32 ◼   ► it's either you can't do it or it's hard to do it.

01:06:36 ◼   ► And you know, this could be better.

01:06:38 ◼   ► Like Apple could have its own Pro apps.

01:06:40 ◼   ► Apple could rethink multitasking.

01:06:43 ◼   ► Apple could do proper external device support

01:06:45 ◼   ► or external display support.

01:06:46 ◼   ► There are lots of things that would make this new iPad Pro

01:06:51 ◼   ► be like, oh yes, look what it enables for me.

01:06:54 ◼   ► But instead, I worry that it ends up being an exercise

01:06:58 ◼   ► of counting specs and saying,

01:07:01 ◼   ► look at all the specs that are big.

01:07:03 ◼   ► And a number without any context,

01:07:05 ◼   ► a feature without any way to really use it is pointless.

01:07:09 ◼   ► So that's where we are with the iPad Pro.

01:07:11 ◼   ► And I'm somebody who loves the iPad,

01:07:12 ◼   ► and I use the iPad a lot, but I look at this thing

01:07:15 ◼   ► and I just think, where's the rest of it?

01:07:18 ◼   ► And I apologize for that not being an original take

01:07:21 ◼   ► 'cause it's literally every iPad Pro take

01:07:24 ◼   ► for the last three years.

01:07:25 ◼   ► But that, you know, we're kind of there again,

01:07:27 ◼   ► which is this is an amazing piece of hardware

01:07:29 ◼   ► with some really remarkable technology on it.

01:07:32 ◼   ► And now what?

01:07:34 ◼   ► - At least we can say it is a better buy

01:07:37 ◼   ► than the 2020 iPad Pro

01:07:39 ◼   ► because this one got some real great quality of life features

01:07:44 ◼   ► like center stage, like the display.

01:07:45 ◼   ► - The 2020 iPad Pro had essentially nothing.

01:07:48 ◼   ► It had the LIDAR scanner and the one extra GPU core.

01:07:52 ◼   ► I had somebody ask me like,

01:07:53 ◼   ► I would have liked you to run your benchmark tests

01:07:55 ◼   ► against the 2018 iPad Pro as well.

01:07:57 ◼   ► And I'm like, it's the same,

01:07:59 ◼   ► like except the GPU score would be slightly less

01:08:03 ◼   ► because it would be seven eighths instead of, you know,

01:08:05 ◼   ► a hundred percent of the GPU cores of the Z model.

01:08:08 ◼   ► But like, it's just, they didn't change it.

01:08:11 ◼   ► It was so far ahead that they basically didn't change it.

01:08:13 ◼   ► And they just added a LIDAR scanner.

01:08:15 ◼   ► And this is more than that.

01:08:16 ◼   ► This is appreciably faster.

01:08:18 ◼   ► But again, you know,

01:08:22 ◼   ► like I was talking to the developer of Fairite

01:08:25 ◼   ► and he said, MP3 exports are a lot faster

01:08:27 ◼   ► 'cause that's multi-threaded

01:08:29 ◼   ► and they're a lot faster on the M1.

01:08:30 ◼   ► And I edited a podcast this weekend on it.

01:08:32 ◼   ► And yeah, that's great.

01:08:34 ◼   ► That's an example where it's good.

01:08:36 ◼   ► And I'm sure video editing is more responsive.

01:08:38 ◼   ► I exported a two hour almost long video

01:08:42 ◼   ► from LumaFusion over the weekend.

01:08:43 ◼   ► And you know, it was,

01:08:46 ◼   ► it's pretty much the same performance

01:08:48 ◼   ► as my MacBook Air, right?

01:08:49 ◼   ► Like it's, or the 24 inch iMac, it's an M1.

01:08:53 ◼   ► It does what you'd expect.

01:08:55 ◼   ► It's just that in an iPad context,

01:08:58 ◼   ► I just feel all of the,

01:09:00 ◼   ► by calling it an M1, Apple is drawing attention to the fact

01:09:04 ◼   ► that it's just as powerful as the Mac

01:09:06 ◼   ► in terms of the hardware.

01:09:08 ◼   ► And then you start looking around and say,

01:09:10 ◼   ► well, yeah, but all of these things that I do on my Mac

01:09:14 ◼   ► that I can't do on my iPad.

01:09:15 ◼   ► - I was seeing, I think it was Matt Castanelli today

01:09:19 ◼   ► on Twitter was saying that potentially Apple

01:09:23 ◼   ► do a disservice by releasing the hardware

01:09:25 ◼   ► before the software.

01:09:27 ◼   ► And I wonder what you thought about that.

01:09:30 ◼   ► Would it be better to have at least waited until WWDC

01:09:35 ◼   ► to show off the hardware and put the hardware on sale?

01:09:38 ◼   ► 'Cause then you could at least say like,

01:09:40 ◼   ► we've seen what iOS 15 can do

01:09:43 ◼   ► and we know how that's gonna take advantage of this.

01:09:45 ◼   ► Like, especially with being so close,

01:09:48 ◼   ► you know, like a few weeks really difference.

01:09:51 ◼   ► I understand the argument of like,

01:09:52 ◼   ► if you've got the hardware, release the hardware,

01:09:55 ◼   ► release the hardware, but there's, you know.

01:10:00 ◼   ► - But the hardware development is going,

01:10:02 ◼   ► it's in its pipeline and you're replacing the old model

01:10:06 ◼   ► with a new model.

01:10:07 ◼   ► And I don't think that the new model like is

01:10:16 ◼   ► harmed in some way by the fact that the software

01:10:18 ◼   ► hasn't changed.

01:10:20 ◼   ► It's more a frustration about the platform,

01:10:22 ◼   ► like holding off on it and not releasing a thing

01:10:25 ◼   ► that you designed, you know, two years ago

01:10:28 ◼   ► and built a year ago and now is ready for production

01:10:30 ◼   ► and then holding it for nine months or six months

01:10:33 ◼   ► or even a month or two in order to reveal your plan

01:10:37 ◼   ► for your next operating system release.

01:10:40 ◼   ► It seems like a silly thing to ask.

01:10:43 ◼   ► It's like, you should just release the hardware

01:10:44 ◼   ► when you release the hardware.

01:10:45 ◼   ► If honestly, part of my, what my heart tells me is,

01:10:49 ◼   ► if this was the case, we'd still be waiting

01:10:51 ◼   ► for the 2018 iPad Pro to come out.

01:10:53 ◼   ► Right, I mean, not really, but like they could have held

01:10:58 ◼   ► that for a while and they could have held this.

01:11:01 ◼   ► Holding the hardware that already exists

01:11:03 ◼   ► and could be mass produced because the software isn't ready

01:11:06 ◼   ► is not only kind of a ridiculous suggestion,

01:11:09 ◼   ► but it shows you just how broken this situation is.

01:11:13 ◼   ► That that's the solution is don't make the software look bad.

01:11:16 ◼   ► Just wait with the hardware.

01:11:17 ◼   ► We know you're way ahead in hardware.

01:11:18 ◼   ► Just sit on your hardware for a year

01:11:20 ◼   ► until the software can catch up.

01:11:22 ◼   ► And you know, that's the truth of it.

01:11:24 ◼   ► So it's an amazing product.

01:11:26 ◼   ► And if you're in the market for an iPad Pro,

01:11:28 ◼   ► if you want that screen, if you want center stage,

01:11:30 ◼   ► there's lots of reasons to get it.

01:11:31 ◼   ► But yeah, we are put back in the position

01:11:36 ◼   ► where we're hoping that the platform advances

01:11:38 ◼   ► to make the more impressive hardware more useful.

01:11:43 ◼   ► And I talk about the screen a lot.

01:11:45 ◼   ► Yes, the 11 is going to give you the M1 in center stage.

01:11:47 ◼   ► It's just not going to give you the screen.

01:11:49 ◼   ► So this goes for the 11 inch model as well.

01:11:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that screen though,

01:11:53 ◼   ► like it's a big feature of this device.

01:11:57 ◼   ► - It's huge.

01:11:58 ◼   ► It's a huge feature.

01:11:59 ◼   ► And it's the future of Apple displays.

01:12:02 ◼   ► Like it very clearly is that this is

01:12:04 ◼   ► where they're going next.

01:12:05 ◼   ► And I would be, I'd actually be surprised

01:12:07 ◼   ► if you don't see it in Apple's next round of laptops.

01:12:11 ◼   ► And probably if they do that higher end iMac,

01:12:14 ◼   ► that it would be there too.

01:12:16 ◼   ► 'Cause this really feels like it's a tech intro

01:12:19 ◼   ► of something and center stage actually.

01:12:22 ◼   ► Those are tech intros of things

01:12:23 ◼   ► that are going to go across the platform.

01:12:24 ◼   ► They just happen to be in the iPad Pro first.

01:12:27 ◼   ► - This episode is brought to you by Public Sector Future.

01:12:30 ◼   ► Public Sector Future is a podcast from Microsoft.

01:12:32 ◼   ► I love finding new podcasts to listen to.

01:12:34 ◼   ► I love the insight that they can give.

01:12:35 ◼   ► And I love having something new in my rotation every week,

01:12:38 ◼   ► something fun to look forward to.

01:12:39 ◼   ► If you're looking for something new to check out,

01:12:41 ◼   ► you want to check out Public Sector Future.

01:12:43 ◼   ► It discusses real stories from public sector leaders

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01:12:50 ◼   ► the challenges that the users face

01:12:51 ◼   ► and the lessons that they've learned.

01:12:53 ◼   ► Throughout the series, they discuss technology and trends

01:12:56 ◼   ► as well as cultural aspects of change.

01:12:58 ◼   ► Host Olivia Neal digs deep into the use of digital approaches

01:13:01 ◼   ► to help the public sector work better

01:13:03 ◼   ► for those that it serves.

01:13:05 ◼   ► And she's the director of the digital transformation

01:13:07 ◼   ► in Microsoft's World Public Sector team.

01:13:11 ◼   ► Before Microsoft, Olivia spent her career

01:13:12 ◼   ► in the government of Canada and the UK government as well.

01:13:15 ◼   ► So she knows the public sector.

01:13:17 ◼   ► There's a ton of interesting show topics,

01:13:19 ◼   ► including mixed reality, rules of code, digital policing,

01:13:23 ◼   ► digital strategy and digital access.

01:13:25 ◼   ► And they have some great guests,

01:13:26 ◼   ► like the episode that I listened to featured Mark Polifaz,

01:13:30 ◼   ► who is the professor of computer science at ETH Zurich

01:13:33 ◼   ► and the director of science at Microsoft.

01:13:35 ◼   ► And in the episode that I listened to,

01:13:37 ◼   ► it was about mixed reality.

01:13:39 ◼   ► And it was super interesting to see, to hear,

01:13:41 ◼   ► some of the stuff that Mark was saying about AR

01:13:44 ◼   ► on our phones right now

01:13:46 ◼   ► and how that's kind of just really a tiny step

01:13:49 ◼   ► into the overall future

01:13:50 ◼   ► of what mixed reality technology can be.

01:13:53 ◼   ► Because it's really just a small window

01:13:55 ◼   ► and you're holding it and it's not in our vision.

01:13:57 ◼   ► And it was really intriguing to hear

01:13:59 ◼   ► how mixed reality devices could be utilized

01:14:01 ◼   ► to help us undertake specific tasks

01:14:04 ◼   ► with things like instructions overlaid in front of your eyes

01:14:06 ◼   ► and how they've actually been doing this stuff.

01:14:09 ◼   ► And there was some stuff being done in hospitals

01:14:11 ◼   ► during COVID, I think in the UK,

01:14:13 ◼   ► where doctors were able to instruct multiple people a time

01:14:18 ◼   ► by using this device without having to be

01:14:20 ◼   ► in a million places at once.

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01:14:36 ◼   ► Our thanks to Public Sector Future

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01:14:41 ◼   ► So usually we would say right now in the show,

01:14:43 ◼   ► it's time for #AskUpgrade, but we have more

01:14:45 ◼   ► because there was a report that we just couldn't let go

01:14:48 ◼   ► because that's the lasers powering down.

01:14:51 ◼   ► They were so ready to go.

01:14:53 ◼   ► Mark Gurman released a report kind of detailing

01:14:56 ◼   ► the future of Apple's Mac hardware last week

01:14:59 ◼   ► and I wanted to touch on it.

01:15:00 ◼   ► We can go through all these things,

01:15:02 ◼   ► we can stop where we want to,

01:15:04 ◼   ► but there was a lot of interesting detail in here

01:15:06 ◼   ► that I was afraid otherwise we wouldn't talk about

01:15:09 ◼   ► for weeks and I didn't want that to be the case

01:15:11 ◼   ► in case we see some of it before now.

01:15:13 ◼   ► MacBook Pro will debut as soon as early summer,

01:15:17 ◼   ► fingers crossed for WWDC.

01:15:19 ◼   ► So stuff we know, 14 and 16 inches mag safe HDMI SD card,

01:15:24 ◼   ► but it will feature new Apple Silicon chips.

01:15:27 ◼   ► These chips will feature eight high performance cores

01:15:30 ◼   ► and two energy efficient cores, 16 or 32 graphics cores

01:15:35 ◼   ► and up to 64 gigabytes of memory.

01:15:38 ◼   ► Now, just to put this into perspective,

01:15:40 ◼   ► the current M1, it's four high performance,

01:15:43 ◼   ► four energy efficiency.

01:15:45 ◼   ► So this will be more high performance cores,

01:15:49 ◼   ► fewer energy efficiency cores with the ability

01:15:51 ◼   ► to now have up to 64 gigabytes of RAM.

01:15:55 ◼   ► Sounds exciting, doesn't it?

01:15:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, so again, it's a mystery

01:16:00 ◼   ► of how they're gonna brand this,

01:16:01 ◼   ► but my guess is that this is the M1X, essentially.

01:16:06 ◼   ► That this is not, 'cause it's coming as soon as early summer,

01:16:11 ◼   ► I'll have the as soon as, could be five years from now,

01:16:14 ◼   ► but it could be this summer, early summer.

01:16:16 ◼   ► So it'd be mid summer, late summer, fall,

01:16:19 ◼   ► those are all, but as soon as early summer.

01:16:21 ◼   ► Anyway. - Late spring, no way.

01:16:22 ◼   ► - So if you think about the A14 core

01:16:27 ◼   ► that is in the iPad Air and then the iPhone,

01:16:31 ◼   ► 'cause they had the weird sequencing thing there.

01:16:34 ◼   ► The way I generally view how Apple

01:16:37 ◼   ► does their silicon advancement is

01:16:40 ◼   ► they build a new base core every year.

01:16:42 ◼   ► And then we're in the A14 year.

01:16:46 ◼   ► And the M1 is based on that A14 core.

01:16:48 ◼   ► That's the chip generation, for lack of a better word,

01:16:52 ◼   ► that we're on right now.

01:16:54 ◼   ► And so if there's gonna be a new Apple silicon chip

01:16:57 ◼   ► this summer, it strikes me that it's more likely

01:17:00 ◼   ► that it's based on that A14 core.

01:17:02 ◼   ► And they built a new model that's got a different set

01:17:06 ◼   ► of characteristics, but it's still based on that

01:17:08 ◼   ► kind of fundamental system.

01:17:11 ◼   ► And so you could see a scenario where M1 is essentially,

01:17:16 ◼   ► you know, the A number,

01:17:18 ◼   ► the M processors are the A number minus 13.

01:17:22 ◼   ► And they advance together every year.

01:17:25 ◼   ► So this is, we're in M1 year.

01:17:28 ◼   ► Year one of Apple silicon is M1.

01:17:30 ◼   ► And this would be eight high-performance cores

01:17:33 ◼   ► and two energy-efficient cores.

01:17:35 ◼   ► Those would still be A14 cores essentially, or M1 cores,

01:17:39 ◼   ► but there are more of them.

01:17:40 ◼   ► And so it's M1X.

01:17:41 ◼   ► Or they could call it something else,

01:17:43 ◼   ► but like, let's call it M1X, at least for now.

01:17:45 ◼   ► It's that idea that it's more of the same.

01:17:48 ◼   ► And if that disappoints you, it shouldn't.

01:17:51 ◼   ► Performance of Apple's processors

01:17:54 ◼   ► historically has scaled basically

01:17:56 ◼   ► with the number of high-performance cores.

01:17:58 ◼   ► Energy-efficient cores are really nice,

01:17:59 ◼   ► but obviously if you're measuring peak performance,

01:18:01 ◼   ► it all comes out of the high-performance cores.

01:18:04 ◼   ► This rumored processor would mean that these rumored max

01:18:07 ◼   ► would be literally twice as fast as the previous M1 max,

01:18:12 ◼   ► which were already pretty fast.

01:18:14 ◼   ► So that's pretty great.

01:18:15 ◼   ► - I hadn't thought of it that way.

01:18:17 ◼   ► - And then you throw in 16 or 32 graphics cores

01:18:20 ◼   ► instead of eight, so you're gonna double or triple

01:18:22 ◼   ► your graphics performance.

01:18:24 ◼   ► And now you've got the memory to go up to 64 gigs of RAM.

01:18:27 ◼   ► So yeah, it's a big step up.

01:18:29 ◼   ► - Apparently there's also gonna be potentially

01:18:31 ◼   ► a new Mac mini with these same chips

01:18:35 ◼   ► and four ports on them, which, okay, fine.

01:18:39 ◼   ► Mark also details the potential for a new MacBook Air.

01:18:42 ◼   ► Now this, Mark labels to be a direct successor

01:18:45 ◼   ► to the M1 chips, let's imagine M2.

01:18:47 ◼   ► And it would have the same CPU core count,

01:18:50 ◼   ► but would run faster.

01:18:51 ◼   ► So this is all kind of tying into what you were saying,

01:18:54 ◼   ► right, that this would be based on the A15 core

01:18:59 ◼   ► and there would be the same amount,

01:19:00 ◼   ► but they would run quicker because it's the new generation.

01:19:03 ◼   ► And apparently they would also look to potentially

01:19:05 ◼   ► increase graphics a little bit.

01:19:07 ◼   ► And this new MacBook Air will probably be

01:19:10 ◼   ► what we were talking about over the last couple of weeks

01:19:12 ◼   ► of this new design with new colors.

01:19:14 ◼   ► And we can expect this maybe towards the end of the year,

01:19:16 ◼   ► maybe, or maybe next year.

01:19:18 ◼   ► - That's your A15 generation and it would be the M2

01:19:21 ◼   ► and it would be, yeah, it would be the same CPU count

01:19:24 ◼   ► as you said, and it will be faster because it's an A15

01:19:27 ◼   ► instead of an A14, it's an M2 instead of an M1,

01:19:30 ◼   ► but not as fast as the, let's call it M1X.

01:19:34 ◼   ► And then of course, this sets them up to then do another

01:19:37 ◼   ► wave of high-end updates next year that are M2X,

01:19:41 ◼   ► that are lots of cores of the new hot thing.

01:19:44 ◼   ► And they don't have to do it this way,

01:19:46 ◼   ► and this may not be how they do it.

01:19:48 ◼   ► But if you look at it from this perspective,

01:19:50 ◼   ► it's like exactly their playbook

01:19:52 ◼   ► for the iPad and the iPhone.

01:19:54 ◼   ► And I think that although they can do whatever they want,

01:19:57 ◼   ► the most likely scenario is that they're gonna look

01:20:01 ◼   ► what they did with the iPad and the iPhone and say,

01:20:03 ◼   ► "Yeah, that works, let's do that."

01:20:05 ◼   ► And make an M1 and an M1X and then an M2 and an M2X

01:20:09 ◼   ► and have it essentially be kind of consumer and pro

01:20:14 ◼   ► of chip variants.

01:20:17 ◼   ► And then that leads to the bigger question,

01:20:19 ◼   ► which is, is Apple gonna revise their computers every year?

01:20:22 ◼   ► Maybe.

01:20:24 ◼   ► Now that they control the chips,

01:20:26 ◼   ► I mean, would you just do refresh them every year

01:20:29 ◼   ► because you control the chips,

01:20:30 ◼   ► you just drop in the new chip and move along?

01:20:34 ◼   ► They could, they could.

01:20:35 ◼   ► It'll be interesting to watch that.

01:20:36 ◼   ► If there are, if like the Mac Mini is a great example

01:20:38 ◼   ► where Mark Gurman says, "Maybe, or maybe not."

01:20:42 ◼   ► I think that's like a great question of like,

01:20:45 ◼   ► what is Apple gonna refresh all these models

01:20:47 ◼   ► on a regular basis?

01:20:48 ◼   ► Are they gonna be like, "Yeah, maybe every two years

01:20:50 ◼   ► or every 18 months or something?"

01:20:51 ◼   ► We'll see.

01:20:52 ◼   ► - I think maybe the difference will be they can

01:20:54 ◼   ► if they want to, right?

01:20:56 ◼   ► Where maybe they haven't been able to in the recent,

01:21:00 ◼   ► in recent memory.

01:21:01 ◼   ► If they want to just bump the chip every year

01:21:04 ◼   ► with no change, they can do that.

01:21:06 ◼   ► - Sure, they can.

01:21:06 ◼   ► And the iPad did go, as was just pointed out

01:21:09 ◼   ► in the member Discord, you know, Apple sometimes goes,

01:21:13 ◼   ► you know, the iPad chip only gets updated

01:21:15 ◼   ► every couple of years.

01:21:16 ◼   ► Well, it's like, that's true.

01:21:17 ◼   ► Although now it's the iPad and the Mac, right?

01:21:18 ◼   ► So there's a little more weight behind doing it

01:21:20 ◼   ► on a regular basis, but yeah, there's nothing

01:21:22 ◼   ► that forces Apple to refresh their product line

01:21:24 ◼   ► except when they want to.

01:21:25 ◼   ► I just wonder like, if they get on a cycle

01:21:28 ◼   ► where they're rolling out a couple of chip variations

01:21:32 ◼   ► every year, would they want to keep the old ones around

01:21:37 ◼   ► or would they be, would they rather refresh everything?

01:21:41 ◼   ► 'Cause keeping in mind here that most of these updates

01:21:44 ◼   ► won't be redesigns of the products.

01:21:46 ◼   ► It'll be the same product that it looked like before

01:21:48 ◼   ► with a different chip inside.

01:21:50 ◼   ► So it's not, it's still an update.

01:21:52 ◼   ► It still has cost, but it's not quite the same

01:21:55 ◼   ► as a complete rethink.

01:21:57 ◼   ► - And it would make sense that we would get

01:21:58 ◼   ► a new MacBook Air with, you know, a year after the first one

01:22:01 ◼   ► because the current M1 MacBook Air

01:22:03 ◼   ► is just the same MacBook Air as before.

01:22:06 ◼   ► And if they're gonna redesign all of the machines

01:22:08 ◼   ► potentially by that point, or at least, you know,

01:22:10 ◼   ► like we'll have say maybe another new iMac at some point

01:22:15 ◼   ► and we'll have new MacBook Pros

01:22:16 ◼   ► and maybe there's a new Mac Pro.

01:22:18 ◼   ► You know, you want to want a new MacBook Air in there.

01:22:20 ◼   ► You don't want like the most popular computer

01:22:22 ◼   ► to be the only one that hasn't got a new design.

01:22:26 ◼   ► Could be a bit strange.

01:22:27 ◼   ► Now, one of the things that,

01:22:29 ◼   ► actually the main thing I don't understand from this report,

01:22:32 ◼   ► or at least the thing that I wouldn't have expected

01:22:33 ◼   ► is a new low-end MacBook Pro,

01:22:36 ◼   ► which has the same chip as the MacBook Air.

01:22:39 ◼   ► And that's all it says.

01:22:40 ◼   ► Now I expect here, this is like a,

01:22:43 ◼   ► it looks like the current one,

01:22:45 ◼   ► but like how long are they gonna keep that around and why?

01:22:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's like,

01:22:51 ◼   ► is that not the existing 13 inch MacBook Pro?

01:22:54 ◼   ► So would they do like an M2 13 inch MacBook Pro

01:22:56 ◼   ► and keep it around?

01:22:58 ◼   ► I mean, they may, because I don't know why.

01:23:00 ◼   ► It would make more sense for them not to do it that way.

01:23:03 ◼   ► But if the rumors are true

01:23:04 ◼   ► that there's gonna be a 14 inch MacBook Pro,

01:23:06 ◼   ► then they would have 13, 14, 16.

01:23:09 ◼   ► But like, why is it a MacBook Pro

01:23:11 ◼   ► if it's basically a MacBook Air?

01:23:13 ◼   ► Like why, how is that a MacBook Pro?

01:23:17 ◼   ► I don't understand it.

01:23:17 ◼   ► - And would that be the- - It's weird.

01:23:20 ◼   ► - With a touch bar then?

01:23:21 ◼   ► - No.

01:23:23 ◼   ► - Right, like what is this computer?

01:23:26 ◼   ► Like I don't understand this one.

01:23:28 ◼   ► It is I think of everything in the report,

01:23:30 ◼   ► the thing that has the least information.

01:23:33 ◼   ► And that might be for a reason.

01:23:34 ◼   ► But like it was just like a really weird addition to me.

01:23:39 ◼   ► Another weird thing, larger iMac, new processor,

01:23:42 ◼   ► but put on hold for Apple to focus on the 24 inch.

01:23:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mentioned this earlier.

01:23:47 ◼   ► It is a mysterious bit of the report

01:23:49 ◼   ► and it's unclear whether this is,

01:23:51 ◼   ► again, who's the source?

01:23:54 ◼   ► What were they working on?

01:23:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, who was maybe put on hold?

01:23:57 ◼   ► - Or did they have to pull some people off

01:23:59 ◼   ► in order to ship the 24

01:24:00 ◼   ► and now they're going back to the other one?

01:24:02 ◼   ► But it is a little, has a little chilling effect, right?

01:24:06 ◼   ► Which is like, oh, maybe that larger iMac

01:24:07 ◼   ► isn't coming right this fall.

01:24:10 ◼   ► - For all we know, that was further along

01:24:12 ◼   ► and they put it on, you know, like we don't,

01:24:14 ◼   ► we don't have detail, right, on that one.

01:24:16 ◼   ► - It's true.

01:24:17 ◼   ► Maybe they made some decisions about it.

01:24:19 ◼   ► I would say I'd still bet on it being done by this fall

01:24:23 ◼   ► because I think Apple wants this transition

01:24:25 ◼   ► to happen quickly.

01:24:27 ◼   ► And now that they've got the 24 inch iMac out there,

01:24:30 ◼   ► having that Intel, that big Intel iMac out there

01:24:32 ◼   ► is just not like, no, gotta get rid of it.

01:24:35 ◼   ► Gotta get rid of it.

01:24:36 ◼   ► - And then the new Mac Pro.

01:24:39 ◼   ► How about 20 or 40 cores?

01:24:42 ◼   ► (both laughing)

01:24:43 ◼   ► 16 or 32 high performance cores

01:24:46 ◼   ► with four or eight high efficiency cores,

01:24:49 ◼   ► depending on whether you go for the 20 or 40 core option.

01:24:53 ◼   ► 64 or 128 core GPU as an option.

01:24:57 ◼   ► On paper being, I guess, two to four times more powerful

01:25:02 ◼   ► than the Intel Mac Pro.

01:25:03 ◼   ► Smaller physical design, but with a similar look.

01:25:07 ◼   ► I can't even fathom this computer, Jason.

01:25:10 ◼   ► I can't imagine what this would be like to use.

01:25:15 ◼   ► Like the 40 core version with 128 graphics cores.

01:25:20 ◼   ► I can't even imagine what that computer would be like.

01:25:24 ◼   ► - Sounds like a Mac Pro, doesn't it?

01:25:25 ◼   ► - It sounds like a very much a Mac Pro.

01:25:28 ◼   ► This sounds more like what I imagine, in my mind,

01:25:32 ◼   ► the Mac Pro of old.

01:25:34 ◼   ► Like when you would go to the configurator

01:25:36 ◼   ► and you'd bump it all the way to the top

01:25:37 ◼   ► and it would be like soap and on

01:25:38 ◼   ► as compared to everything else.

01:25:40 ◼   ► Like, yeah, I really, I'm super intrigued by this machine.

01:25:45 ◼   ► I don't really, it's just like everything about it, right?

01:25:50 ◼   ► Like what is it gonna be like on the inside?

01:25:52 ◼   ► What will it keep of the old one?

01:25:54 ◼   ► How expandable will it be?

01:25:55 ◼   ► - Right.

01:25:56 ◼   ► - Are Apple's GPUs the only GPUs?

01:25:58 ◼   ► - Gurman still believes that it's actually gonna be

01:26:00 ◼   ► kind of like a mini version of the existing tower

01:26:03 ◼   ► that they're gonna shrink it down a little bit.