00:00:27 ◼ ► Good to be here. Good to start my year because, as we all know, I start my week, my work week,
00:00:35 ◼ ► with Upgrade on Monday morning. What do you do for the rest of Monday? You work on Upgrade.
00:00:41 ◼ ► I work on Upgrade. That's the first thing I do on a Monday and then I do other things and then
00:00:50 ◼ ► Now. That's right now. Right. Well, and I start my work week, which means now I have started my work
00:01:11 ◼ ► Jared wants to know, "Jason, for non-embargued articles, so articles that do not require being
00:01:17 ◼ ► published at a certain time, do you post as soon as you're ready, as soon as something's finished,
00:01:25 ◼ ► Very inside baseball question, Jared. Thank you. It varies. I would say generally I post them as
00:01:37 ◼ ► soon as they're ready. The exceptions would be if it's something that I think needs another set
00:01:45 ◼ ► of eyes, in which case I'll ask maybe Dan to look at it before I post it for a longer piece.
00:01:51 ◼ ► Or if it's outside of what I consider good posting time. So if I finish it and it's sort of like,
00:02:02 ◼ ► this doesn't even happen as much. Generally, I just post it. Sometimes I'll say, "Well,
00:02:06 ◼ ► I wrote this and it's late in the day and there's no reason to post it now that it's evening and
00:02:12 ◼ ► nobody's paying attention anywhere to the east of me and I'll schedule it for the morning."
00:02:17 ◼ ► But generally, I just think, "Well, why don't I just post it now and then it shows up in everybody's
00:02:21 ◼ ► feeds when they get up in the morning anyway?" It used to be at IDG, we targeted a lot of stuff
00:02:28 ◼ ► for the peak traffic time, which was I think 11 a.m. Pacific to Eastern, which is every day when
00:02:35 ◼ ► traffic peaked. And I don't know why that that was the time, but I guess it was the time when we had
00:02:40 ◼ ► the most people around the world that were reading. Anyway, it was like, "Let's catch the most traffic
00:02:46 ◼ ► there." I'm not really playing that game at Six Colors and I never really have. So I generally
00:02:51 ◼ ► just auto-post stuff. The other thing would be if there were already a couple of things that had just
00:02:56 ◼ ► gone up on the site, I might push it back an hour or two or even to the next day, figuring,
00:03:01 ◼ ► "I don't need to do two posts in one day. I can do this next post the next day," or something
00:03:07 ◼ ► like that. But it's pretty rare. Generally, when it goes up, it's not that I've written it right
00:03:13 ◼ ► then necessarily, but I finished it right then and then I just press post. That's generally how
00:03:19 ◼ ► I do it. I need that instant gratification. For podcasts, I pretty much, with very rare
00:03:25 ◼ ► exceptions, just post them as soon as they're done. So as soon as I'm edited, it goes up.
00:03:30 ◼ ► I think the only podcast that I may be slightly different is maybe Cortex because the editing is
00:03:37 ◼ ► different, where I edit and then I pass it over to Gray and he edits and we just choose the day
00:03:43 ◼ ► that we're going to publish it on, which is not normal, but it's because it's a very different
00:03:50 ◼ ► way of doing things. And then I try and publish them somewhere between 12 and 3 my time because
00:04:06 ◼ ► have a very specific release day and time. And those, obviously, I'm not working up to the moment
00:04:12 ◼ ► and then posting them live. Those all get scheduled in advance. So Robot or Not is scheduled
00:04:16 ◼ ► in advance, and Total Party Kill, and Incomparable Game Show, and all that's scheduled in advance.
00:04:21 ◼ ► But Incomparable, unless I work on it well in advance, which sometimes happens where I get
00:04:27 ◼ ► somebody else to edit it for me or I edit it in advance. But if it's like Saturday or Sunday and
00:04:32 ◼ ► I'm just editing that week's episode and posting it, I just post it when I'm done. There's no
00:04:39 ◼ ► deadline day to hit there. But we just did come out of a period in the holiday period where a lot
00:04:45 ◼ ► of us were doing things in advance in order to clear out some time in our schedules to not be
00:04:50 ◼ ► working on podcasts. And that's another case where you kind of, I kind of delight in going into the
00:04:55 ◼ ► Incomparable CMS and seeing all the stuff that's been queued up in advance, just because it's kind
00:05:00 ◼ ► of fun. It's like, look at all those episodes that are all ready to go. But generally, especially for
00:05:05 ◼ ► articles, but generally it's sort of like, well, I did it now. Here it is. There's no holding bin or
00:05:15 ◼ ► We publish analogs on Sundays, but our editor Jim always does them way before, but I just always
00:05:21 ◼ ► publish a show on Sundays. So that's just one that I'll just do. But I don't say, I'm not, I don't,
00:05:28 ◼ ► I think I spoke about this before. Like you just mentioned with the Incomparable CMS, you have it
00:05:33 ◼ ► in Six Color CMS. We have a timed posting mechanism. So you can say like, Hey, post it this
00:05:38 ◼ ► time. I never do it. I never, I never, I never use it. I like to do it myself. I like to just press the button.
00:05:43 ◼ ► I, uh, I used that for all of the 20 max for 2020 and double because there were two versions of them
00:05:49 ◼ ► for member and non-member. And so I did use that feature and there's always a little bit of like,
00:05:54 ◼ ► is this really going to work? Because the way it's worded is you set it, you set the status to
00:05:58 ◼ ► published, but it's in the future. And you're like, is this really going to publish it or just
00:06:02 ◼ ► publish it in the future? And it publishes it in the future. It works. It's a perfectly good thing.
00:06:06 ◼ ► I did it 40 times. It works fine. Um, but, uh, I did use that feature and that was, that was kind
00:06:11 ◼ ► of fun. Again, it was fun to, to be like the previous week, like, yeah, it's early on in the
00:06:17 ◼ ► process. It was sort of like, I got three episodes loaded up. I could walk away. It was great.
00:06:25 ◼ ► question to help us start the show, you can just send a tweet with the hashtag snow talk
00:06:29 ◼ ► or use question Mark snow talk in the relay FM members discord, and you can help us open an
00:06:34 ◼ ► episode of the show. You mentioned 20 max for 2020. I just wanted to follow up that it is now
00:06:40 ◼ ► done 20 max for 2020. It was Jason's wonderful series, which has taken like 22, 23 weeks to
00:06:46 ◼ ► complete. Um, because I think you took a couple of weeks off of a holidays, right? So you have,
00:06:51 ◼ ► yeah, I had two weeks to give, so we broke between 11 and 10 and between six and five. Yeah.
00:06:57 ◼ ► A list of 20 notable Macintosh computers. Uh, there'll be a link in the show notes to the
00:07:02 ◼ ► podcast version of it, which you can also, and there's also articles and videos and that kind
00:07:07 ◼ ► of stuff that are linked from that page as well. If you haven't checked it out, it's very worth
00:07:24 ◼ ► Well, not a big project, but you know, I, I get, I get some time back that I kind of lost
00:07:29 ◼ ► once we got into the teeth of it. Um, and, and it became basically every week it got a little
00:07:36 ◼ ► bit more intense until the last four or five weeks. It was, it was most of what I did during
00:07:41 ◼ ► the week was just getting the next week done. So I'm not going to do, I'm not going to pick
00:07:45 ◼ ► up another project and announce it this week or something like that. That's not going to happen,
00:07:49 ◼ ► but I do have this time back that I have to decide how to spend. And, and that's part of,
00:07:54 ◼ ► um, being an independent kind of worker is you have to figure out where to, where to spend your
00:07:58 ◼ ► time. And it's one of the reasons I did all those charts at the beginning of last year is I just
00:08:01 ◼ ► decided I wanted a little bit of structure. And so I said, I'm going to do a little, a chart post
00:08:05 ◼ ► every Friday. And I did that up until the, uh, 20 max project kind of launched. And then I,
00:08:11 ◼ ► I didn't do it anymore because I was busy. So I I'm, that's my next thing. I'm going to probably
00:08:17 ◼ ► write a final, like what was on the cutting room floor kind of piece to wrap it up this week.
00:08:25 ◼ ► Because I feel like I've got a bunch of other kind of loose ends that I can, I can tie up. And,
00:08:30 ◼ ► and there's one other follow-up somebody made a very interesting point on Twitter about the
00:08:35 ◼ ► contents of my list that I'm not going to, I'm not going to relay here other than to say that I think
00:08:39 ◼ ► that there's probably a piece to be written about that in specific that might be separate. But, um,
00:08:45 ◼ ► the podcast project is, is finished. Although, as I say, at the end of the podcast project,
00:08:49 ◼ ► uh, you know, the lesson we've all learned, which is keep podcasts, you listen to keep their feeds
00:08:54 ◼ ► in your podcast player. Cause sometimes they come back and if I do another project like this again,
00:09:00 ◼ ► I'll just stick it in that same feed. So you can, you can keep it, keep it there kicking around.
00:09:08 ◼ ► releasable, but I'll consider that too. There might be bonuses and stuff down the road. So,
00:09:13 ◼ ► but it's a fun project. I hope people enjoy it in whatever form they enjoyed it, video or audio or,
00:09:22 ◼ ► Upgradies last week. I just wanted to mention in case you hadn't checked it out, upgradees.com has
00:09:26 ◼ ► been updated with all of the winners. Um, I could imagine a lot of people wouldn't have gone to the
00:09:31 ◼ ► website cause you don't want to get spoiled, but if you want to see the hall of fame and every single
00:09:36 ◼ ► winner of all of the Upgradies awards, you can go to upgradees.com and thank you to Zach Knox for
00:09:41 ◼ ► the work that's acted and help them put that together. So I have some headlines for you in
00:09:46 ◼ ► Upstream. Upstream is where we take a look at what's going on in the world of streaming media
00:09:51 ◼ ► and how it intersects with technology companies today. Warner Brothers, Jason, have announced
00:09:56 ◼ ► that they are planning six new DC Universe movies a year, starting in 2022. I think Warner Brothers
00:10:04 ◼ ► got the memo. Uh, four of these movies are planned to be in theaters. Two will be exclusive to HBO
00:10:10 ◼ ► Max. They are also working on TV spinoffs of their properties for HBO Max from the movies.
00:10:18 ◼ ► It's a little different. So one of the things that I find fascinating here is where Marvel has
00:10:21 ◼ ► succeeded and where DC has succeeded because the DC superhero stuff has actually been quite
00:10:28 ◼ ► successful on television on, especially, you know, on commercial television in the U S on the, the,
00:10:34 ◼ ► the CW network primarily, which is a joint venture of CBS and Warner Brothers. So it makes sense that
00:10:40 ◼ ► Warner Brothers would have their characters there. And they had Arrow, which is now off the air,
00:10:44 ◼ ► but they had Arrow, which ran for like seven years or something and the flash. And they have a whole
00:10:48 ◼ ► bunch of other black lightning and, and, uh, and star girl. And there's a whole bunch of DC heroes
00:10:53 ◼ ► that have been very successful. There's a, there's a Superman show coming. There's Supergirl,
00:10:58 ◼ ► like there's lots and lots of, Gotham was on, on Fox actually, but yes. And they did a,
00:11:06 ◼ ► they did a, uh, uh, a Pennyworth, which was about the early days of Alfred, the Butler,
00:11:11 ◼ ► when he worked in the, like the secret service and military in, in the UK. And that was a stars
00:11:18 ◼ ► series. So they've had a bunch of TV projects, kind of some of them directly connected the ones
00:11:25 ◼ ► produced by Greg Berlanti and airing on the CW and a bunch of other ones that are sort of around.
00:11:29 ◼ ► So that's a way where they've been very successful and that Marvel's kind of not like Marvel's tried
00:11:35 ◼ ► a bunch of stuff and they had their whole TV thing, which they've now folded where they were
00:11:39 ◼ ► producing stuff for Netflix and also for cable and stuff like that. Um, what's interesting is then
00:11:45 ◼ ► that Marvel has, has what we're about to see this month is going to be when it starts, we're going
00:11:49 ◼ ► to see the, the WandaVision series, which is the first TV series to be done by Marvel, uh, studios.
00:11:57 ◼ ► So that's the movie people did not do the previous series, but are doing the, uh, forthcoming series
00:12:03 ◼ ► on Disney plus that's all from the same group, Kevin Feige's group that does all the Marvel
00:12:07 ◼ ► movies that everybody loves, not the separate, uh, TV group. So that's an interesting challenge
00:12:18 ◼ ► successfully kind of add this Disney plus streaming series product line? Because while there have been
00:12:24 ◼ ► Marvel shows before they were not, uh, generally that successful and those people, uh, aren't making
00:12:31 ◼ ► shows for them anymore. It's now back in the hands of the money, the money people, the people who
00:12:35 ◼ ► generated all those expensive and popular movies, DC's challenge is very different where they've
00:12:40 ◼ ► got the successful TV shows. So this announcement is more focused on movies, even though like two of
00:12:45 ◼ ► them are going to be direct to streaming movies, which is kind of an interesting idea. And then
00:12:49 ◼ ► the way they framed it is they're going to do TV spinoffs, like you said, from the movies that
00:12:54 ◼ ► they're generating. So like they're viewing this six movies a year thing as, which is lots, a lot
00:13:00 ◼ ► of movies as, as, as film releases, you know, that will also spin off, um, series. And I have some
00:13:11 ◼ ► questions. One of my questions is, are these two non-theatrical HBO max direct DC movies,
00:13:21 ◼ ► are they movies? Are they pilots? Are they like TV specials? Like, yeah, well, that's what I'm
00:13:29 ◼ ► saying is, I mean, whether it be in them, but is it going to be like, we want, cause they,
00:13:34 ◼ ► they've suggested it's going to be like, well, let's look at every movie we make. We're going
00:13:37 ◼ ► to look at the ancillary characters and decide if there's a TV show to be made about them,
00:13:41 ◼ ► which is a weird decision to make, but I get what they're, I get what they're saying there,
00:13:45 ◼ ► but I do wonder if these two HBO max movies that they're talking about, are they really movies?
00:13:50 ◼ ► Is it more like a pilot for a series? Is it, uh, something that they do, they get to the point
00:13:58 ◼ ► where they're making them and then realize that they've got a cut that's four hours long and that
00:14:02 ◼ ► they'd be better off releasing it as a two part, three part, four part series on HBO max, rather
00:14:08 ◼ ► than as a movie. I think, I think there's some stuff to watch here about exactly what the right
00:14:15 ◼ ► thing is, what people want to see. Cause, um, I'm curious, honestly, I'm really curious. Like
00:14:21 ◼ ► do people, do they get the most bang out of their buck to make an HBO max original movie that's two
00:14:29 ◼ ► hours long and say this month, this new movie is out. It features this DC comics character. Yay.
00:14:40 ◼ ► mini series featuring that character and say for the next six weeks, this new series on HBO max
00:14:45 ◼ ► about this character. And I don't know, I don't know whether people feel overwhelmed by TV series,
00:14:50 ◼ ► streaming TV series and they're like, just give me two hours and let me walk away. Maybe they do.
00:14:55 ◼ ► So I'm fascinated because, you know, again, Marvel and DC essentially in the same business
00:15:00 ◼ ► have had very different fortunes with different kinds of content. And it's one of those rare
00:15:07 ◼ ► cases where if you're just kind of interested in the creative and business aspects of the
00:15:11 ◼ ► entertainment industry, um, it's, it's really interesting to compare and contrast what their
00:15:16 ◼ ► strategies are. And there are a lot of unanswered questions about how people are going to want to
00:15:21 ◼ ► subscribe to services and watch original content, uh, in the future. So let's, I I'm, I'm fascinated
00:15:28 ◼ ► ultimately, obviously everybody at Warner wants the DC stuff to be as successful as the Marvel
00:15:35 ◼ ► stuff, because it hasn't been, uh, at least in the film, you know, any net amount of money that they
00:15:39 ◼ ► make Marvel has made a lot and DC has not, especially, but who knows going forward, not even
00:15:45 ◼ ► just the money. Cause some of the, some of the stuff they've done has done really well, but critically
00:15:48 ◼ ► most of their movies have actually not done well since they've been trying to turn it into a thing.
00:15:57 ◼ ► there been a couple others that have also been well received. Yeah. I've actually heard, um,
00:16:02 ◼ ► some great things about the Harley Quinn movie. Monty Ashley recommended it on the incomparable
00:16:07 ◼ ► year in review show, which we just put out, which is really funny. And you should listen to it.
00:16:16 ◼ ► And I've seen it on some 10 best lists for movie critics too, for, for 2020. So, um, they, they
00:16:22 ◼ ► have some, but it's not been like the Marvel stuff where it's just like set them up and knock them
00:16:25 ◼ ► down. Every single one is profitable and, and generally well thought of. And, um, so yeah,
00:16:31 ◼ ► anyway, they're there, they have a new plan. Yeah. One quirk is that, uh, Warner brothers are
00:16:39 ◼ ► not going to have one timeline like Marvel does. So they may create different shows and movies in
00:16:47 ◼ ► different timelines from each other. Right. So they've got like, they've got a movie in
00:16:51 ◼ ► production with Robert Pattinson as the Batman and a movie in production that will have as a,
00:17:04 ◼ ► except Marvel's next set of movies is all about embracing the multiverse. So Marvel's basically
00:17:13 ◼ ► doing the same thing, which is, it's a lot easier if we can have parallel universes and we can tell
00:17:17 ◼ ► different stories without having them all linked up. So yeah, I don't actually, I don't want to
00:17:22 ◼ ► spoil it, but in case people don't know, right, like for media blackout and all that, but yes.
00:17:26 ◼ ► And also Marvel have that what if series, which is entirely just speculative. That's an animated
00:17:38 ◼ ► are starting to experiment in that space now, um, they have up until this point, you know,
00:17:44 ◼ ► everything's been interconnected. Right. And the way they're doing it is they're, they're actually
00:17:48 ◼ ► doing movies and TV series that sort of like push into this multiverse concept. Um, and really you
00:17:54 ◼ ► could argue that the time travel in, uh, Avengers end game is what broke the seal on that for Marvel.
00:18:01 ◼ ► And that's still acknowledging even that they're connected, right? If you do the multiverse thing,
00:18:07 ◼ ► but that's, that doesn't seem to be what one is doing. It seems like it's not, maybe they will
00:18:11 ◼ ► at some point acknowledge some of that if it suits them, but more they're like with Joker,
00:18:16 ◼ ► they're just feeling free to tell stories. And I gotta say, I prefer that approach. Um, there is a,
00:18:21 ◼ ► there's a great deal of benefit to doing what Marvel did and rolling everything together.
00:18:26 ◼ ► But I think creatively you shouldn't not make a movie because it doesn't line up with your
00:18:31 ◼ ► other movies. Right. There is, there's advantage in lining up all your movies and connecting them
00:18:39 ◼ ► but I wouldn't shy away from making that super weird Batman movie. Yeah. Just because you can't
00:18:51 ◼ ► you should make it. And I think that was the argument that they made about Joker was that
00:18:54 ◼ ► this is a movie that we want to make and it's going to be great. And, um, and, uh, I haven't
00:19:08 ◼ ► Different. It's interesting. It's a galaxy. Well, I think the, the, some of the Star Wars stuff
00:19:16 ◼ ► that's coming up, it seems to, seems to not be set in the same time as the Mandalorian, but this has
00:19:22 ◼ ► been the argument for a long time. I think, um, when people look at Star Wars is you have a whole
00:19:26 ◼ ► galaxy and apparently thousands of years of history. So not everything needs to take place
00:19:31 ◼ ► in the same 15 years with the same set of interrelated characters. Yeah. That's kind of
00:19:36 ◼ ► more what I mean, right? It's just like you have this infinite span, but everybody bumps into each
00:19:42 ◼ ► other. They're apparently developing apologies for the Star Wars nerdery. I'm not the person to be
00:19:47 ◼ ► doing this, but they're apparently developing a, uh, high Republic series, which is like basically
00:19:52 ◼ ► the, like a thousand years before the Star Wars movies, back when the, it was still a galaxy with
00:19:58 ◼ ► lots of good and bad people in it, but the center think, think Star Trek, actually, it was more like
00:20:03 ◼ ► a center force that was mostly positive. That was the Republic and then stories in that world. And
00:20:09 ◼ ► Star Wars has the freedom to do that. It would be nice to see them explore that as well. The,
00:20:17 ◼ ► who are all interrelated in every single thing. Amazon has bought the podcast network and
00:20:23 ◼ ► production company. Wondery, the deal is suggested to total $300 million. Wondery will technically
00:20:30 ◼ ► now be a part of Amazon music, which there is a podcast offering for Amazon music kind of
00:20:36 ◼ ► reminiscent of how Google started when Google podcasts was originally part of Google play music
00:20:42 ◼ ► or Spotify. Right. So Spotify is doing silly me. That's a better example. Um, this is different to
00:20:48 ◼ ► Audible's podcast offering because why not? Right. Like, yeah, sure. This has different offerings.
00:20:53 ◼ ► Um, Amazon has said that Wondery shows will be available through quote, a variety of providers,
00:20:59 ◼ ► but they hope this acquisition will quote, accelerate the growth and evolution of podcasts
00:21:04 ◼ ► by bringing creators, hosts, and immersive experiences to even more listeners across the
00:21:08 ◼ ► globe. Uh, I wanted to include that cause it's like the most ridiculous quote. It's like, it doesn't,
00:21:12 ◼ ► this acquisition doesn't do that. You're not bringing Wondery shows to more people. Now it's
00:21:16 ◼ ► a part of Amazon. Like it already had all the people, right? Wondery shows. We have access to
00:21:24 ◼ ► Amazon's little known and little used podcasts. And if maybe they mean like, like Amazon echoes,
00:21:29 ◼ ► I don't know. It's, it's, there's corporate, there's synergy. Yeah, I guess. But you could
00:21:34 ◼ ► listen to all these shows through various echo skills. Anyway, you don't understand, Myke,
00:21:39 ◼ ► this is providing some synergy where we're getting the, uh, the, uh, the leveraged, uh,
00:21:44 ◼ ► innovation of Amazon is combined with the immersive expansiveness of Wondery into a leveraged
00:21:52 ◼ ► expansiveness. This was gonna happen. Wondery has been rumored to be shopping itself around for a
00:21:58 ◼ ► while. The founder is leaving and then Lopez is leaving, which is intriguing. It's not typically
00:22:04 ◼ ► what you see, um, in situations like this, but that was reported by, I think the Wall Street
00:22:08 ◼ ► Journal. Uh, there is like a whole separate story of Lopez being incriminated in some FIFA
00:22:15 ◼ ► allegations of, is it bribery or match fixing or something, which is like a whole other thing,
00:22:21 ◼ ► which is going on on the side, uh, which is a really weird story, which Wondery could probably
00:22:28 ◼ ► make an interesting show about at some point. Cause that's the kind of shows they make. Wondery
00:22:32 ◼ ► is intriguing because they've been selling the rights to their properties to companies,
00:22:38 ◼ ► to make TV shows about them. So I know Apple's bought a couple. So there is a hashtag synergy
00:22:44 ◼ ► in, uh, this because Amazon could take the rights to all the popular shows. And as you say,
00:22:49 ◼ ► put them on Prime Video. Yeah. You could argue that maybe this is a $300 cheap, $300 investment
00:22:55 ◼ ► in, um, develop 300 million. Oh, sorry. I would buy it for $300. Oh man. It's a, it's a cheap $300
00:23:06 ◼ ► million investment in, uh, development for Amazon Prime Video, except this is the except part,
00:23:13 ◼ ► except technically it's part of Amazon music. And I have one of those thoughts, which is,
00:23:17 ◼ ► are they going to get, I think Jen Salke is the executive who's in charge of Prime Video. Like
00:23:24 ◼ ► if I were in her shoes, I would say, um, I want to be connected to what they're developing. Right.
00:23:31 ◼ ► Because yes, you, you would start to think that a lot of this stuff would be, um, essentially being
00:23:37 ◼ ► developing, developing shows for Amazon Prime Video, but I don't know. I don't know how Amazon
00:23:42 ◼ ► is structured. Maybe they don't view it that way. And they're like, no, it's totally independent and
00:23:50 ◼ ► But you know, I, I, this is a, it's a big price, but Wondery are very, they are genuinely very
00:23:56 ◼ ► successful. So, you know, if they launch a show, it goes to number one, like any show that they
00:24:02 ◼ ► launch goes to number one. Um, it's a lot of shows about murder, uh, which I'm not super into.
00:24:08 ◼ ► Yeah. I was going to say it's a, there's a, there's the show where a cop murders people.
00:24:11 ◼ ► There's a show where a cop gets murdered. There's a show where a cop investigates a doctor who
00:24:15 ◼ ► murders people. There's a show about a cop who investigates a doctor who gets murdered.
00:24:22 ◼ ► Okay. Okay. Okay. My theory is actually that they may have struggled through the pandemic.
00:24:27 ◼ ► There was a lot of data that suggested, uh, from the industry places that I was looking at,
00:24:33 ◼ ► that showed that, um, listenership of these types of shows went down, which makes sense. This is all
00:24:39 ◼ ► very dark and dreary. Plus they, these are the most mainstream shows and more mainstream type
00:24:46 ◼ ► offerings. We're actually seeing, uh, reductions in listenership due to, uh, commute differences
00:24:52 ◼ ► and stuff. Um, I would like to thank technology podcast audiences for not changing their habits.
00:24:57 ◼ ► You're the best. And that's why we love you. It was kind of funny. So like I had subscribed to
00:25:01 ◼ ► one industry thing and it would show charts, right. Of all the different categories that
00:25:05 ◼ ► they were tracking and technology just continued. If anything, it went up. It was like, you know,
00:25:12 ◼ ► technology podcast listeners love their podcasts, right. And other types of shows are more like,
00:25:18 ◼ ► I will listen to this because sports saw the biggest drop by the way, cause there were no
00:25:24 ◼ ► sports. So that was rough. But anyway, it's an interesting deal. Someone was going to pick them
00:25:29 ◼ ► up. Uh, and I guess it was just highest bidder. Like the rumor was Apple was looking at them.
00:25:42 ◼ ► Yay. Why not? Right. And they get it. The funny thing about this deal is if it, if it does go
00:25:53 ◼ ► It's not licensing, but it makes sense because there is no more Quibi. So right. They'll have
00:25:58 ◼ ► all this content. There might be some IP in there. I think I saw a quote from someone suggesting that
00:26:04 ◼ ► like this stuff might be more interesting if it's free. I'm like, yeah, okay. Maybe people
00:26:09 ◼ ► will check it out. I don't know. We can watch the golden arm thing. I, my thought about it was
00:26:15 ◼ ► always that there's a bunch of content out there that was professionally produced that a lot of
00:26:19 ◼ ► people didn't see because it was on Quibi. And therefore surely it has some value, right? It's
00:26:24 ◼ ► not going to just vanish forever. Surely it has some value and somebody will pay enough. I mean,
00:26:31 ◼ ► somebody's got to buy it. Presumably they've got creditors and stuff like somebody's going to buy
00:26:35 ◼ ► it. So if it's Roku, then so be it. But that, that stuff will get out there and we'll all get to see
00:26:39 ◼ ► that, uh, you know, the horror show about the different States of like the first, whatever,
00:26:53 ◼ ► et cetera, is launching on February the 23rd in the UK. I got an email about it while I was
00:27:03 ◼ ► which I thought was really funny because it's, it's, you know, stuff like family guy, um, 24,
00:27:08 ◼ ► all that kind of stuff. So it's, it's not just stuff that Fox made. It's also stuff that was
00:27:15 ◼ ► on Hulu as well. So I'm intrigued to see what the full content offering will be, but it's coming,
00:27:29 ◼ ► there's a lot of stuff that is not, uh, widely available because it's, uh, in this separate
00:27:37 ◼ ► stream that's stuff that came from Fox and yeah. Oh yeah. That I otherwise wouldn't have gotten. So
00:27:42 ◼ ► I'm excited to check in it, checking out what's what's available. Yeah. Report back on that to
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00:29:36 ◼ ► make your next website. So it is a new year and you do a thing like many people do and you make
00:29:44 ◼ ► predictions. You write Mac wall columns every year where I just saw you publish these, you
00:29:49 ◼ ► had your 2021 predictions, but also you published an article, which I really appreciate that you do
00:29:54 ◼ ► this, where you grade yourself for your predictions of 2020. It's true and let me give you a little
00:29:59 ◼ ► peek behind the curtain there, which is when you write, I write 40 Mac world columns a year.
00:30:07 ◼ ► So that's 40 unique takes on what's going on in the Apple world for a thousand words-ish.
00:30:19 ◼ ► And I've been doing this now, Myke, guess what? I've been doing this for almost six years.
00:30:27 ◼ ► Yep. That Mac world column is coming up six years in a couple months. So when you get an
00:30:36 ◼ ► idea for something you can repeat every year and it takes three columns to do it all, you do it.
00:30:47 ◼ ► And so it's the iPhone and iPad predictions, the Mac predictions, and then grading my previous year
00:30:53 ◼ ► predictions, which is only fair. It's kind of fun to see what I got right and what I got wrong.
00:30:59 ◼ ► And my predictions are mixed in with WishCasting and knowing what the rumors say, it's not
00:31:05 ◼ ► necessarily the fairest kind of set of predictions because it's a combination of what I would expect.
00:31:37 ◼ ► And it was very fun to me to read through. I actually ended up going through and reading
00:31:48 ◼ ► Yeah. Make sure that I didn't steer away from the ones that were really bad. Yeah, sure. That's smart.
00:31:52 ◼ ► I linked to them all. Readers can always check up on me. And in fact, you can keep clicking back
00:31:59 ◼ ► and you'll eventually get to the beginning of time when I did my first prediction about the universe.
00:32:13 ◼ ► Yeah. Although I expressed some skepticism. I was despairing about the MacBook Air. I thought Apple
00:32:21 ◼ ► cared so little about the MacBook Air that it might not even bother updating the keyboard
00:32:25 ◼ ► on that one. Because a year ago, there was a real question about whether Apple felt it had
00:32:29 ◼ ► fixed the problem with the butterfly keyboard and that it might reserve the magic keyboard for the
00:32:37 ◼ ► pro models, which turned out to be not true, which I guess now in hindsight, they didn't think it
00:32:41 ◼ ► fixed it. It was a temporary fix while they immediately replaced all of the keyboards and
00:32:47 ◼ ► all of the models. So the MacBook Air, well, I mean, I really missed on the MacBook Air because
00:32:51 ◼ ► I was despairing that the MacBook Air would get much of Apple's attention. And instead,
00:32:57 ◼ ► Yeah, it's two significant updates in 2020. I think it got more than that. I think there might
00:33:02 ◼ ► have been two versions of the fixed keyboard one. I think they did another. But like, yeah,
00:33:07 ◼ ► you were like, "Oh, the MacBook Air is dead." And then they did, they not only changed the
00:33:12 ◼ ► keyboard over and basically created a new version of the product with the retina screen,
00:33:21 ◼ ► Yeah. I just, I figured that since in 2018, they did the retina MacBook Air. I figured that they
00:33:26 ◼ ► would think, "Well, it's good enough now. We can sort of leave it here for a little while."
00:33:32 ◼ ► Until the arm transition, maybe. But they didn't. They updated it with that new keyboard right away.
00:33:38 ◼ ► So what am I thinking of then? Didn't they make a new version of the product itself? Or was that
00:33:44 ◼ ► in 2018? Am I conflaying it with something else? The retina version was in 2018, and then they
00:33:48 ◼ ► speed bumped that in '19. And then they did another one in '20 with the keyboard. And then they did
00:33:56 ◼ ► the M1. So there was a lot more than you would think from the Air. So I missed on that. I
00:34:01 ◼ ► mentioned it as a strong possibility that the Air would get the new keyboard, but you can see it in
00:34:06 ◼ ► my article. I just sort of despair about it. I'm like, "Eh, I don't know. I think this is too much
00:34:11 ◼ ► wish-casting, too much wishful thinking that they would clear that keyboard out." I just really felt
00:34:15 ◼ ► like Apple was going to continue inflicting that keyboard on us for more time. Because keep in mind,
00:34:20 ◼ ► that was where they had announced a laptop with the good keyboard, and all other laptops still
00:34:24 ◼ ► had the bad keyboard. And we were all sort of saying, "Well, why did you do that? Why did you
00:34:29 ◼ ► just do the one?" But early on in 2020, they swept away the other ones. - One prediction that you
00:34:39 ◼ ► made, which looking back, I'm so surprised that you made it. You were right, but I don't think
00:34:43 ◼ ► many people would have agreed with you at the beginning of 2020 that there would not be a 14-inch
00:34:49 ◼ ► MacBook Pro in 2020 like there was the 16-inch in 2019. One, I'm surprised that Apple didn't do this
00:34:57 ◼ ► still. And I am surprised that you made that prediction. That was bold. - Yeah, I don't even
00:35:04 ◼ ► know what I was thinking then. Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking. - Because all of the
00:35:08 ◼ ► stars aligned to suggest that that was going to happen. The 16-inch had been updated, they
00:35:13 ◼ ► hadn't touched the 13. It seemed like it was obvious that they were going to do it, but they
00:35:17 ◼ ► didn't. - I feel like this is a combination of things here. One is, it's like a version of my
00:35:29 ◼ ► argument about Apple pricing, where you take the price you want it to be and then increase it and
00:35:34 ◼ ► then round it up and that's the actual Apple price. I feel like a little bit like that,
00:35:38 ◼ ► like if you expect Apple to do everything, you're going to be disappointed because they aren't going
00:35:43 ◼ ► to do everything. And the fact that they did the 16 but didn't change the 13, I thought maybe sent
00:35:51 ◼ ► a little bit of a message. And then also my rationale there was also the big laptop getting
00:35:57 ◼ ► bigger makes more sense than the small laptop getting bigger. And we may yet see that for,
00:36:02 ◼ ► I think I may have predicted it, the 14-inch MacBook Air coming now that we've got the MacBook Air
00:36:08 ◼ ► where it is the 14-inch Pro could be coming. But part of my rationale there was that if you look
00:36:14 ◼ ► at the iPad Pro, they did different things for the different models based on their size. And
00:36:25 ◼ ► they made, they reduced the bezels on the big one. I don't know. So I put all that in the blender and
00:36:32 ◼ ► I just thought they're going to disappoint us about a 14-inch MacBook Pro and I was right. So
00:36:36 ◼ ► some of it is just, you get a feeling and you get a little lucky. There's always going to be a
00:36:44 ◼ ► product that everybody anticipates that Apple doesn't actually ship. And I felt like that
00:37:07 ◼ ► And the lesson there is just keep on predicting it. - And there was a quite robust new iMac.
00:37:11 ◼ ► - But there was not a new iMac design. And the new iMac design, you and I talked about a new
00:37:16 ◼ ► iMac design in '19. - I was right here with you, Jason. This is the thing that I would also
00:37:24 ◼ ► continue to predict every year forever because it seems so obvious. - Right? Because that design has
00:37:29 ◼ ► been there so long and it feels like it's so obvious that they would do it. And we may yet
00:37:35 ◼ ► get that new iMac design, but not in 2020, that didn't happen. - More stable macOS focused on
00:37:45 ◼ ► improving existing features. - Well. - I think this was the, again, I think everyone would agree
00:37:52 ◼ ► with you, but I think this was the biggest, at least in this column, miss, right? Because if
00:37:58 ◼ ► there was one thing macOS was not this year, it was just a, "Hey, we're gonna fix existing issues."
00:38:05 ◼ ► - So I'm gonna split the difference here and say, I actually stand by my opinion that I mentioned
00:38:13 ◼ ► in my review of Big Sur, which is Catalina was the bad cop, Big Sur is the good cop. Big Sur broke a
00:38:21 ◼ ► lot less than Catalina did. Big Sur has some changes in it, it had some issues, but I hear
00:38:28 ◼ ► people talking about going to Big Sur. People were talking about not upgrading to Catalina for a very
00:38:34 ◼ ► long time. So in that way, I would say, and I also think this summer's beta period was a lot less
00:38:39 ◼ ► traumatic than the beta period was in '19. I think the '20 beta period was better. That said,
00:38:49 ◼ ► even though I think technically it was less weird, they had this whole other layer on top of it,
00:38:57 ◼ ► which was this incredibly ambitious redesign of the operating system, and I certainly didn't see
00:39:02 ◼ ► that coming. - Yeah, I mean, nobody did. Like, no one was, "Oh yeah, they're gonna completely
00:39:11 ◼ ► re-open the design, and that's gonna be that." Anyway, you did reference Catalyst a bit. You
00:39:20 ◼ ► suggested there would be improvements to Catalyst, which is definitely a case. - Yeah, that was a
00:39:23 ◼ ► tough one. - But you said that there'd be no improvements to Apple's Catalyst apps, and I
00:39:28 ◼ ► just wonder what you think about that, 'cause I think there were some, and they did brand new ones.
00:39:33 ◼ ► - That's the big one to me, is not that there were dramatic improvements, they did fix the
00:39:39 ◼ ► data input on the Home app and stuff, but the messages being the best example, and maps,
00:39:46 ◼ ► like they got Catalyst better enough that the new Catalyst apps they did are, I would say,
00:39:52 ◼ ► Mac class in a way that the previous Catalyst apps weren't. - Yeah, again, I will reference this.
00:39:58 ◼ ► I've had people try and tell me all of the things that was bad about messages on Big Sur. I think
00:40:03 ◼ ► after I mentioned this on last week's episode, I still stand by. - I mentioned it. - We both spoke
00:40:08 ◼ ► about it, but I still stand by the points that we made, which is, I don't think you could tell
00:40:12 ◼ ► most of the time. - What we did not say last week is that messages on Big Sur is flawless,
00:40:21 ◼ ► but, and I stand by this, it is vastly superior to what we had on Catalina. That old Messages app
00:40:29 ◼ ► that didn't support all these features and was super buggy and bad, like, do not try to sell me
00:40:37 ◼ ► that Messages on Catalina was some refined app that was part of the golden age of the Mac,
00:40:44 ◼ ► and now it's been thrown in the bin and we get this lousy version. No, the old version of Messages
00:40:49 ◼ ► was bad and they didn't fix it for years. - And it had been bad for a long time, it wasn't just bad.
00:40:53 ◼ ► - I cannot tell you how many times I typed a message to the wrong person because I clicked
00:40:58 ◼ ► on a person, began to type, and it just changed to another tab, like, so bad. And although Messages
00:41:07 ◼ ► on Big Sur is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, is it better than what we had on
00:41:14 ◼ ► Catalina? Yeah, yeah, it is, by a lot. - And obviously you made the prediction that you
00:41:19 ◼ ► would be making forever and finally you got it, the ARM transition would begin. - Yeah, that's
00:41:24 ◼ ► right, you keep it, if something's inevitable and you keep predicting it, eventually you'll be right.
00:41:28 ◼ ► - But, but, in your Predictions article, you reference a lot a low-end laptop, which never
00:41:36 ◼ ► existed, which didn't exist, but again, we were talking about this low-end laptop until like a
00:41:41 ◼ ► week before they announced it. - Okay, so I'm gonna push back a little bit because low-end laptop and
00:41:45 ◼ ► not specifying, I think, meant I was open to the 12-inch MacBook, but it was possible it was the
00:41:51 ◼ ► MacBook Air. Turns out they also did the MacBook Pro and a Mac Mini, so, okay. - But like, we were
00:41:57 ◼ ► talking about the return, we, I think it was a pick in the draft for that event was that they would
00:42:03 ◼ ► bring back the MacBook. Like, it was definitely something we thought was going to be the case.
00:42:07 ◼ ► - But part of the prediction game is being vague enough that you can get a lot of possibilities
00:42:12 ◼ ► and accrue them to you, and I think the idea there was that ARM processors are really good in
00:42:17 ◼ ► laptops, especially if you can't ramp them up in terms of the processor power, you can start on the
00:42:23 ◼ ► low-end. And so I would argue that the MacBook Air choice, the M1 MacBook Air qualifies because it's
00:42:32 ◼ ► Apple's low-end laptop. However, they also did a MacBook Pro, so, yeah. - And I personally still
00:42:40 ◼ ► think it's possible that something could occupy the MacBook space again. I don't think that's gone
00:42:45 ◼ ► forever. - I do too. There are a lot of people who are very quick to say that Apple's never gonna do,
00:42:50 ◼ ► never gonna bring back the 12-inch MacBook. I would, I think there's still a possibility.
00:42:55 ◼ ► Like, why not do, Apple is so obsessed with thin and light laptops, and although the MacBook Air is
00:43:01 ◼ ► beloved, we know that you can make a thinner, lighter laptop because we've seen the 12-inch
00:43:07 ◼ ► MacBook. And imagine an M1 12-inch MacBook for Pete's sake. That would be great. So, and they
00:43:13 ◼ ► already have the design more or less, they gotta just fix the keyboard. So, I don't know, I think
00:43:17 ◼ ► it's still possible. It may not happen, but I think it's still possible. - So your iPhone iPad
00:43:23 ◼ ► picks, you said that the iPhones would not be exciting and there would be no redesign. And I
00:43:28 ◼ ► just wonder what you think about that, 'cause redesign means many things. So do you feel like
00:43:34 ◼ ► what they did is more than you were expecting from a design perspective? - Yes, absolutely. I thought
00:43:38 ◼ ► that this would be a, I thought 2020 would be a year where they would just let it ride and push.
00:43:43 ◼ ► The pace of change on the iPhone was so great, where they put in the 10 and then they experimented
00:43:50 ◼ ► with the 10R, and then, you know, they were doing all this stuff and I thought they would not,
00:43:57 ◼ ► they would bypass this year in terms of making it a visual refresh, because they were making so many
00:44:04 ◼ ► models. The rumors were already out at that point that they would be making multiple models. So I
00:44:09 ◼ ► didn't think that they could do that and do a complete refresh at the same time and totally
00:44:14 ◼ ► missed it because they absolutely did. And I'm glad they did, but yeah, I got that one completely
00:44:20 ◼ ► wrong. - So while you did accurately predict that there would be an iPhone SE with new internals in
00:44:27 ◼ ► the case of the 8, you thought that that meant there would be no small iPhone, new small iPhone.
00:44:32 ◼ ► - Yeah, alas, they did five phones in one year. Go figure that. - And you did think they would.
00:44:39 ◼ ► - They did five phones in one year and four of them have a completely new, well, recycled from
00:44:43 ◼ ► the five, but completely new design on the exterior, like in a pandemic, which I didn't
00:44:48 ◼ ► know about when I wrote that. - If you did, that would have been really mean to not share that.
00:44:52 ◼ ► - That would be a heck of a prediction. It is a, I think, a testament to just how impressive Apple's
00:45:07 ◼ ► and did it during, in the circumstances that we were in in 2020. - Yeah, obviously I've been,
00:45:14 ◼ ► like all of us, reflecting on the year a lot, been doing a lot of stuff that looks back on the year.
00:45:18 ◼ ► I think we will in history, like further down the line, look back at 2020 as one of Apple's best
00:45:24 ◼ ► years in history, because take the pandemic away, they had an amazing year product-wise, right?
00:45:31 ◼ ► The iPhones, they did five of them. I think they're really great. They've definitely made a lot
00:45:37 ◼ ► of people feel happy. Stuff in the middle is like an S year or whatever, but then everything we saw
00:45:43 ◼ ► about the M1 Max, right, and how that's potentially going to change the future of computing again,
00:45:48 ◼ ► because of the capabilities there. But then when you add the pandemic in and they manage to do all
00:45:54 ◼ ► of it, it's kind of astounding really, what they managed to pull off. The iPhone line you predicted
00:46:01 ◼ ► would be the 12, the 12 Max, the 12 Pro, 12 Pro Max. - Yeah, so I thought that they would take,
00:46:07 ◼ ► on the cheaper side, they would make a big phone and a small phone, where the small phone is the
00:46:13 ◼ ► same size, right? Just like the top of the line. I thought they would just do Pro and Pro Max and
00:46:20 ◼ ► 12 and 12 Max. And that's not what happened. - Yeah, so there was no 12 Max. That's the product
00:46:27 ◼ ► that's missing, right, which is a bigger iPhone 12, which is the same size as the iPhone 12 Pro Max.
00:46:33 ◼ ► - Right, shows you there's more room for more iPhones in the future too, because I think that
00:46:37 ◼ ► they could make a lower cost two camera, kind of like the iPhone 11 bigger model, and have that in
00:46:46 ◼ ► their product line too. - Yeah, because I mean, it is weird that if you want a bigger phone,
00:46:52 ◼ ► you have to get the most expensive phone, and that doesn't necessarily track. It doesn't have to be
00:46:57 ◼ ► that one. And you predicted that the phones would start at 649, which they kind of do. - Kind of, I
00:47:04 ◼ ► got that. I didn't know that the mini would be what it was, but I did figure there'd be some
00:47:07 ◼ ► aggressiveness in price. It's in the ballpark. - On the iPad, you predicted a smart keyboard
00:47:17 ◼ ► with more traditional keys and cursor support. So bravo to you, I guess. - And let me tell you,
00:47:25 ◼ ► but it totally happened. - It felt obvious to me and you, right, as bridge keyboard users.
00:47:30 ◼ ► But the rumor that came out about this product, so the information had a report about it,
00:47:37 ◼ ► that came out like two or three weeks before the magic keyboard for iPad came out. So like,
00:47:45 ◼ ► there was only a rumor of this product for a very short period of time. - Yep. - But you called it
00:47:52 ◼ ► earlier than everyone because it was something that we both desperately wanted to exist. - I'll
00:47:57 ◼ ► take the win on this. I think, so they added the accessibility cursor support in 2019, right?
00:48:18 ◼ ► They did it midstream as part of the iOS 13 development cycle. So I missed that one a little
00:48:28 ◼ ► bit, but I'm going to take the win that we got the product that was kind of my wish-casting product.
00:48:32 ◼ ► It actually came true. We did not get an SD card slot on iPad Pro, though. - No, we didn't get that.
00:48:39 ◼ ► On iOS and iPadOS, you suggested slowdown for stability, upgrades to shortcuts, improvements
00:48:45 ◼ ► to Safari. - I just mailed that one in, didn't I? I mean, aren't there always? - But like, yeah,
00:48:51 ◼ ► I mean, but the things that they did do were not on the face of it huge. - Yeah, no. - Right.
00:48:58 ◼ ► - I think that's true. And I think after the tumultuous summer of '19 that the iOS development
00:49:08 ◼ ► in the summer of '20 was a little bit calmer too. So I didn't have a lot of big predictions to make
00:49:15 ◼ ► there. I find that predicting iOS or really OS features in general very hard because the truth is
00:49:22 ◼ ► yeah, we've left the era where there are obvious gaping holes in the feature set. So it ends up
00:49:28 ◼ ► being a menu of a thousand different things that they could do and they pick 40 or 20 or whatever
00:49:33 ◼ ► they pick. And they literally, how do you predict that? Because that's entirely based on the whims
00:49:41 ◼ ► of the people at Apple to decide what they think would make a great feature or dovetails with some
00:49:47 ◼ ► hardware. So I find it very hard to predict some of the specific stuff where they're like, oh,
00:49:53 ◼ ► this time we're gonna do, finally we're gonna do multi-user FaceTime, right? When they did that.
00:49:57 ◼ ► And I was like, okay, you couldn't have done that literally at any point in the last eight years,
00:50:01 ◼ ► but I guess it's the year now. Like very hard to predict that kind of stuff. - Yeah. But I would
00:50:08 ◼ ► say you did pretty well, Jason. You're proud of yourself there, I think. - I think I did okay.
00:50:13 ◼ ► It was better than I thought. That smart keyboard with, yeah, with three keys and stuff. That one
00:50:21 ◼ ► was a, whew, dream come true. But yeah, it's okay. And again, finally the ARM transition,
00:50:29 ◼ ► you pick it long enough, eventually it'll be true. - This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by
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00:52:04 ◼ ► of this show and Real AFM. So you also made a selection of predictions for 2021. And I've
00:52:13 ◼ ► broke down and pulled out a couple of those from your articles. And we'll start with the Mac. And
00:52:18 ◼ ► you're doubling down on new iMac. Here it comes again. Why not? I mean, it's a new year.
00:52:24 ◼ ► Yeah, new year, new, same old prediction. Like if not now, then when? I guess. There are rumors
00:52:30 ◼ ► to suggest this actually might happen this time, but I just will reference everything that I've
00:52:36 ◼ ► previously said on the subject over the entire run of Upgrade, which is the iMac design has not
00:52:42 ◼ ► appreciably changed in a very long time. We're coming up on a decade. And really, if you'll
00:52:50 ◼ ► think about it, since 2007, but then it got a little bit thinner a few years later, but really
00:52:55 ◼ ► it is done looking face on right at the screen. Very little has changed. I mean, all of this time.
00:53:02 ◼ ► And then they released a whole new product based on it that, except for the color, also looks exactly
00:53:08 ◼ ► the same. The iMac Pro. Exactly. So I feel like if you look at like the bezels are a good example.
00:53:15 ◼ ► Like think about the MacBook Air and like the MacBook Air had those huge bezels and like modern
00:53:20 ◼ ► computers, we have done a lot to shrink. The display technology allows us to shrink the bezels
00:53:26 ◼ ► to make a smaller, either a bigger screen in the same space or a smaller space outside the screen.
00:53:34 ◼ ► And so the whole device just contracts a little bit. That's what a modern computer looks like.
00:53:37 ◼ ► The iMac has this enormous bezel and then the enormous chin below it. I like the size of an
00:53:42 ◼ ► Apple watch. They're massive. Exactly. Every TV that I own has a tiny bezel now. So like it,
00:53:51 ◼ ► it seems clear to me that Apple needs to refresh the iMac. It is, it is literally based on design
00:54:00 ◼ ► decisions made in the early 2010s. So it's got, if not now, then when? And the rumors about a new
00:54:09 ◼ ► design of a new M1 or at least Apple Silicon iMac make me see this scenario, which is they're going
00:54:16 ◼ ► to get rid of the smaller, the 21.5 inch iMac, and they're going to replace it with something that's
00:54:21 ◼ ► got a larger display, but also with the shrunken in bezels. Maybe they're going to do the other
00:54:29 ◼ ► a face ID kind of thing at that point? Face ID I would love and they should do because you're
00:54:36 ◼ ► never going to get touch ID on an iMac. It's too weird. So I hope that they do face ID. They really
00:54:42 ◼ ► should, but they cannot be let off if they do not upgrade the cameras in all of their new designs.
00:54:48 ◼ ► Now, like, no, there's no way out of this. Now you barely got away with it with the laptops.
00:54:57 ◼ ► If you're going to design a new iMac, that's going to take you through the 2020s. I think it's got to
00:55:02 ◼ ► have that sensor stack from iOS on it, right? With a does face ID. It's got to have that.
00:55:08 ◼ ► Why would you not do that? A much better forward facing camera and sensors so you can do face ID.
00:55:14 ◼ ► You've got your whole Apple Silicon technology there. You roll in a Mac OS update that supports
00:55:19 ◼ ► face ID. Like it makes so much sense to do that. And then, you know, there are lots of rumors about
00:55:38 ◼ ► And then I guess the other prediction there is that, although I think the easiest bet is that
00:55:46 ◼ ► it's going to be familiar in some other ways, it's still going to be on a foot and sit on a desk,
00:55:53 ◼ ► that I would hope that they would consider some other approaches, including the famous,
00:56:03 ◼ ► Not necessarily, because it could be Apple Pencil and no touch. That's actually a possibility.
00:56:10 ◼ ► They would allow Apple Pencil support, but not conventional touch. And they would pitch it as
00:56:15 ◼ ► being this thing that is really about like for artists and all of that. Whether that's in a
00:56:18 ◼ ► different iMac or they don't bother to do that, or whether there's maybe, maybe it's going to be
00:56:22 ◼ ► like the Pro Display XDR and there's like the standard stand. And then there's like the special
00:56:26 ◼ ► stand that does pivoting and things like that. I don't know. I have a hard time. I mean, I think
00:56:32 ◼ ► officially my prediction is that they're not going to do that. And they're just going to do it. You
00:56:37 ◼ ► know, they'll change things about the iMac, but they'll still be sitting on a foot on a desk.
00:56:42 ◼ ► Because although I think I would, because I would really love for them to do something more radical,
00:56:48 ◼ ► Apple generally doesn't do more radical. It's not, Apple has a profound conservatism in their
00:57:00 ◼ ► I think we've been talking about this for a while, but I think it's a good one to just put the stake
00:57:04 ◼ ► in the ground for. That was a one and done. Yeah. I mean, they could, what we said was it's a
00:57:08 ◼ ► marketing decision. They could, they could say that there's an iMac Pro or a Pro model of the iMac.
00:57:13 ◼ ► They could do that. But in the end, the distinction of the iMac Pro was it had Xeon processors. It was
00:57:20 ◼ ► going to be the replacement for the Mac Pro, which is no longer going to be replaced. And that they'd
00:57:24 ◼ ► be better off just waiting and doing high-end iMacs with more power and making those available. And
00:57:30 ◼ ► you can just call them iMacs. You don't need to call them iMac Pro. If they wanted to, they could
00:57:34 ◼ ► take the lower level iMac and call it iMac and then bring out a big iMac and call it iMac Pro.
00:57:40 ◼ ► And then they wouldn't have to use the size of the display to differentiate them. And if they wanted
00:57:46 ◼ ► to do that, they could, but again, that's a marketing decision. I don't think it changes
00:57:49 ◼ ► the computer at all. And I don't think there's going to be a third completely discrete iMac
00:57:53 ◼ ► with completely different internals that's the iMac Pro. I just think that that time has passed.
00:57:58 ◼ ► Do they brand a high-end iMac as an iMac Pro? I think not, but they could if they wanted to,
00:58:05 ◼ ► but it won't be a substantially different computer. I don't think that's going to happen.
00:58:10 ◼ ► >> It's basically the way to tell it is, are Apple making an iMac that's supposed to be the
00:58:14 ◼ ► fastest computer that they make? Because that's what the iMac Pro was supposed to be. And that's
00:58:19 ◼ ► not going to be the case because the Mac Pro exists. >> Yeah, exactly right. >> On the MacBook Pro,
00:58:25 ◼ ► Apple Silicon in both, which seems obvious, but now you're making the 14-inch prediction.
00:58:32 ◼ ► >> Yeah, I am. Why? I don't know. It's Apple Silicon. It seems like it's time. I got over
00:58:39 ◼ ► my disappointment of last year where they're like, "They're not going to give it to you yet."
00:58:42 ◼ ► And it's like, "Okay, now they're going to give it to you." Like, this seems like I'm torn on this
00:58:46 ◼ ► one. I think that the rumors are so strong that I think we have to go with it. But my guess is that
00:58:52 ◼ ► they're going to try very hard to not make the laptop actually much larger, and it's going to be
00:58:56 ◼ ► like with the 16. Really, the goal here is to put a new screen in that'll be slightly larger,
00:59:00 ◼ ► so they'll be able to call it a 14 instead of a 13, but that in reality, it's going to be...
00:59:05 ◼ ► The biggest benefit that it's going to have is that it will differentiate itself from the 13,
00:59:12 ◼ ► so we won't have two separate 13-inch MacBook Pros, because that's dumb. Two-port and four-port.
00:59:20 ◼ ► So on that level, they're differentiating between the high-end 13 and the low-end 13. By making that
00:59:27 ◼ ► high-end 13 a 14, now we have a little bit clearer differentiation between product A, product B,
00:59:33 ◼ ► and product C. And that makes sense, and you do it when you go to Apple Silicon. Makes sense.
00:59:53 ◼ ► is what's the next phase for Apple Silicon's rollout? Because I could argue that the new
01:00:01 ◼ ► low-end iMac uses an M1, right? That's enough. An M1 iMac is fine. A M1 four-port 14-inch MacBook Pro,
01:00:27 ◼ ► Or does Apple hold off on releasing every high-end Mac model until the fall when they do an M2? And
01:00:37 ◼ ► the M2 is the more high test processor for the high-end systems. And if I had to guess,
01:00:44 ◼ ► I think I made this prediction. If I had to guess, I would say I'm going to bet on us being
01:00:50 ◼ ► disappointed again, which is any Macs in the first half of the year that you see are going to be
01:00:54 ◼ ► using that same M1 that we've already seen. And that if you want the higher-end, faster Apple
01:01:01 ◼ ► Silicon Macs that everybody's sort of like, "Well, if this isn't fast enough for you, just wait,"
01:01:05 ◼ ► I think they're going to make us wait until the fall, and then there'll be M2 Macs, and the M2 Macs
01:01:09 ◼ ► will be faster than the M1 Macs. And I don't think they're going to take the M2 Macs or the M2s and
01:01:14 ◼ ► stuff them in the MacBook Air, right? I don't think that's going to happen. I think the MacBook Air is
01:01:20 ◼ ► just going to have the M1 for a little while. Could be wrong, but you know, that's part of
01:01:23 ◼ ► predicting. So that's my gut feeling is that if you get something in the early part of the year,
01:01:28 ◼ ► it's just, I mean, just the M1 is amazing, but it's just going to be an M1. And then they're
01:01:34 ◼ ► saving themselves for that next chip that's got more power that they can stick further up in the
01:01:40 ◼ ► product line. You also predicted incremental Mac OS updates again this year. I feel like this year
01:01:47 ◼ ► you're probably going to be right. I feel like... What else are they going to do? And a new display.
01:01:54 ◼ ► - I did it. Okay, display. Sorry, this isn't the Accidental Tech Podcast, which is a podcast
01:02:04 ◼ ► largely about Apple's display strategy. But I will say this, I was at the event where Apple said
01:02:14 ◼ ► to Nielle from The Verge that I was there, I was like two feet away from him when this happened,
01:02:34 ◼ ► I look at our little Apple nerd market and ponder Apple's overall marketing strategy, which is
01:02:46 ◼ ► like iPhone cases, right? Why does Apple make iPhone cases? Anybody can make an iPhone case.
01:02:53 ◼ ► The answer is because Apples are more expensive and they throw off profit. And a lot of people
01:02:58 ◼ ► just buy the Apple case when they buy the Apple stuff because it's from Apple and it's in the
01:03:03 ◼ ► Apple store online or in person. And so they just buy it and it's more money for Apple.
01:03:08 ◼ ► Like all of these accessories that Apple makes for its products, they make them not because there
01:03:14 ◼ ► isn't a robust accessory market, but because some people will pay the premium price to get the Apple
01:03:19 ◼ ► product for convenience or for the brand or whatever the reason is. That's why Apple makes
01:03:24 ◼ ► these products. I have a hard time looking at the monitor market, which is not well-served right now
01:03:33 ◼ ► for external monitors, for things like that Mac Mini or for the new laptops that they put out.
01:03:38 ◼ ► It's very difficult to find anything that's really very good. It's a very weird state where Apple's
01:03:44 ◼ ► sort of missing. The monitor market is not really well aligned with Apple. And Apple has had these
01:03:51 ◼ ► great displays on the iMac and they just have not made a standalone display. So I roll those things
01:03:57 ◼ ► together. I consider that there are also rumors out there about a new like mini Mac Pro coming
01:04:04 ◼ ► down the road in a year or two. And the reaction people have to the M1 Macs and not being able to
01:04:11 ◼ ► hook them up to a really great monitor and Apple working on some new monitor technology
01:04:28 ◼ ► why would they not do it? Now we said this before and they didn't do it, but it feels like you're
01:04:32 ◼ ► gonna create an Apple monitor. It's gonna work with all of your products. It's gonna be to your
01:04:39 ◼ ► standards. You're gonna charge a premium for it. So it's gonna be a very profitable product.
01:04:46 ◼ ► And you can sell one to like everybody who buys a Mac mini and a lot of people who buy laptops.
01:04:53 ◼ ► I don't know. I feel like it's worth making the prediction because there are so many reasons
01:05:05 ◼ ► I would point at this market and say, do you understand, especially if we're strategizing
01:05:12 ◼ ► to make another Mac Pro model at some point here, do you understand how much profit... Let's
01:05:18 ◼ ► estimate how many of those are gonna buy the Apple display along with it and what's our profit on
01:05:22 ◼ ► each one. And we're giving away money to LG here. Don't do it. And they're not gonna buy the XDR.
01:05:29 ◼ ► They're not gonna buy the XDR. Not everybody is crazy enough to buy the $5,000 monitor.
01:05:39 ◼ ► So I don't know too many people that own that monitor now. Yeah. And it doesn't make sense.
01:05:43 ◼ ► I get it. It's beautiful. I get it. But it's a $5,000, $6,000 monitor. No. I really don't
01:05:53 ◼ ► Ergo one I was talking about recently. I love it. It's great. I don't know. I don't know what
01:05:59 ◼ ► I'm not seeing. Well, so they could be better. And I've got a 4K ultra fine here and the USB
01:06:08 ◼ ► and Thunderbolt ports on the back just go out sometimes and you have to unplug the monitor and
01:06:15 ◼ ► there's no, like, it's been years now and it's not like everybody who's really into Apple products has
01:06:23 ◼ ► focused on a monitor and said, yeah, this is the one to get. There's like one. It also is telling,
01:06:28 ◼ ► right? That it's not like everybody else in the monitor market went, ooh, all these Mac people
01:06:33 ◼ ► want a good monitor. We'll make one and we'll make some money by selling it to them. That also
01:06:38 ◼ ► kind of hasn't happened. Right. So this seems like a good place for Apple to be in there and
01:06:42 ◼ ► basically say, this is largely like the LG monitor, but we did some Apple stuff and it's $600 more
01:06:49 ◼ ► and sell a bunch of them and make a lot of money. So that's, you know, that's, that's my prediction.
01:06:55 ◼ ► It's, it's definitely mixed in with a little bit of wish casting, but I am a believer that Tim
01:07:00 ◼ ► Cook's Apple does not in the end want to leave all that money on the table. I mean, I have assumed
01:07:07 ◼ ► like all of us that they will do it. Uh, it seems obvious. They just haven't. They just haven't.
01:07:18 ◼ ► we've spoken about before. 13 is unlucky in some cultures. Um, but maybe they're just going to do
01:07:24 ◼ ► it. They did iOS 13, so there was no problem there. Uh, same design with new colors, possibly
01:07:31 ◼ ► a smaller notch. Uh, the new camera sensor stabilization to appear in a smaller phone and touch
01:07:37 ◼ ► ID coming back. Yeah, this is just, you know, it's a synthesis of some of the rumors we've seen and
01:07:43 ◼ ► what I think seems realistic. Um, I'm once again saying they're not going to change the, the shape
01:07:49 ◼ ► of it. I think they changed the shape of it. So they're going to vary it. There'll be new colors.
01:07:52 ◼ ► They'll do that. The smaller notch. There are some rumors about that. That, that is, I think one of
01:07:58 ◼ ► the places where there is a real hardware benefit to be gained. We've largely had that same true
01:08:04 ◼ ► depth, uh, sensor stack since the 10. And this might be a place where like, where what's the next
01:08:10 ◼ ► generation one that's just way smaller and that makes that notch almost invisible. There's some
01:08:15 ◼ ► rumors to that effect. I think that makes sense, right? I have to think that Apple knows the notch
01:08:22 ◼ ► isn't great. Like we've all gotten used to it, but like they don't want it there. That's, it's like a
01:08:26 ◼ ► little imperfection in their beautiful thing. Like they don't want it there. So they're not every
01:08:30 ◼ ► year going to make it a little bit smaller, but I would not be surprised if there is a true depth
01:08:34 ◼ ► two that is dramatically smaller, maybe not non-existent, but close to it that allows them to
01:08:42 ◼ ► reclaim that kind of most of the perfect display from the notch part. Um, and then I think I'm just
01:08:50 ◼ ► betting on the idea now that the pro max is going to get some features that we don't see elsewhere,
01:08:54 ◼ ► and then they will slowly trickle down. So like the sensor stabilization is a good example of that,
01:08:59 ◼ ► that, you know, they'll, it'll be in the pro max and the next year it'll be in the pro,
01:09:03 ◼ ► something like that. I think that's not unreasonable. And I do think that, um, they will
01:09:08 ◼ ► have the time to get that touch ID sensor in at least at least some models, if not all models,
01:09:13 ◼ ► the face ID for people who are wearing masks. Yes. This is the question. Do you think there will be a,
01:09:19 ◼ ► a, uh, touch ID sensor in the iPad or do you think they're going to go to an under screen?
01:09:32 ◼ ► the, on the iPhone, the touch, I think it's going to be like, like the iPad thing. Yeah.
01:09:37 ◼ ► My bet is that it'll be in the button because the button is already technology Apple has designed
01:09:49 ◼ ► and it frees them up to not have to be limited in what they do on their display and under their
01:09:55 ◼ ► display in order to do a sensor. Cause I think that there's probably, I, this is just a guess,
01:10:00 ◼ ► but, but if they've already got the button, you can use the button and then you don't have this
01:10:05 ◼ ► mandatory. Cause like, think back to like, uh, like 3d touch, right? There are things you have
01:10:09 ◼ ► to do to engineer on the display in order to do this mandatory feature. Well, if you don't have
01:10:15 ◼ ► to do that, that frees you up to not have that technology attached to your display in that area.
01:10:20 ◼ ► So that's just, I mean, they invented the button, right? They did the button, they got the button.
01:10:25 ◼ ► Use the button. I agree with what you're saying completely. My only pitch for the under screen
01:10:29 ◼ ► one, like if they can get it to work and get it to work in a way they're happy with the story for why
01:10:35 ◼ ► it's there, is it easier to tell, which is like, look how amazing this is. Right. Which is, I know
01:10:41 ◼ ► other companies have been doing it, but whatever it is Apple will do, be like, Oh, we, we brought
01:10:45 ◼ ► touch ID back because we worked out this incredible new technology. Right? Like it's not a button like
01:10:51 ◼ ► you've seen in other places. Look at this, it's under the screen, you know, you just, you just put
01:10:56 ◼ ► your thumb on the screen and you're ready to go. Right. And it would be great if they could do that,
01:11:00 ◼ ► but I understand, I understand completely what you're saying. If it was the only authentication
01:11:05 ◼ ► method, I think I might agree with you, but I think they're going to soft pedal this as,
01:11:09 ◼ ► and if you're in a situation where face ID doesn't work, like when you're wearing a mask,
01:11:13 ◼ ► just touch the button and like do it like that, where it's like, it's really a secondary
01:11:17 ◼ ► authentication method. It's a fallback it's for when you're in the grocery store wearing a mask.
01:11:21 ◼ ► And, and, and there's a question like, well, what about mask wearing? Do you really build an iPhone
01:11:26 ◼ ► for mask wearing when we've already sort of had the pandemic and hopefully it will be done by
01:11:30 ◼ ► then. And I would say there are lots of places where mask wearing is common. I think there will
01:11:33 ◼ ► be more of them now after this era. So, but it was already an issue in Asia where there were people
01:11:42 ◼ ► wearing masks. And I would also say all the other people who didn't like face ID because there are,
01:11:50 ◼ ► but they can reach out with their finger. Like there are reasons to do a secondary authentication.
01:12:17 ◼ ► display tech on the iPad and the iPad, you know, Apple's got OLED in all of their iPhones,
01:12:22 ◼ ► but OLED on an iPad has proven, I think to be very expensive and difficult. And there are rumors that
01:12:28 ◼ ► they're trying some new, very, you know, these, these new led technologies that make for better
01:12:34 ◼ ► contrast without it being like full on OLED. And that seems like a direction for the iPad,
01:12:40 ◼ ► right? For the iPad pro like improved display is a, is a pro feature that makes sense and better
01:12:47 ◼ ► performance. Sure. I fully expect that it's easy to make predictions like this, but they didn't do
01:12:52 ◼ ► it last time. So this time I'm going to say essentially the M1, the iPad version of the M1,
01:12:57 ◼ ► which will be the A14X in an iPad pro and it'll do M1 basically performance. And think about that.
01:13:06 ◼ ► The iOS and iPadOS, the new home screen stuff. So widgets on the home screen, app library.
01:13:11 ◼ ► **Tiffany. They'll figure it out. They'll figure it out. They'll do an iPad version of that at
01:13:15 ◼ ► least an iPad take on it. It'll probably be different from the iPhone, but something that's
01:13:21 ◼ ► Uh, that there will be, uh, some work to be done on the cross platformness of iOS apps.
01:13:31 ◼ ► of the things that they're pushing forward there is they want to really build up this iPad to Mac
01:13:36 ◼ ► flow. And so more that they can do there is possible. We had a question in, in the, uh,
01:13:42 ◼ ► in the chat room about iPad pro price increase. I think we mentioned this on a previous show.
01:13:50 ◼ ► I do. I think the existence of the iPad air with a lot of those pro features probably means that
01:13:54 ◼ ► the iPad pro is going to be more expensive. **Ezra Kleinman** I just remembered one thing
01:13:58 ◼ ► that I just wanted to just say for the record sake. Uh, I think that the iPhone will get a
01:14:03 ◼ ► higher, higher refresh rate display. I think that would be one of the things that it gets.
01:14:10 ◼ ► I do think that it's very possible, especially on the pro models, promotion on the, on the pro.
01:14:23 ◼ ► features for iOS. I think that that, that seems like a, a pretty, pretty solid pick as well.
01:14:28 ◼ ► **Beserat Debebe** Yeah. I just, they've got a lot going on right now and they rolled out a bunch of
01:14:33 ◼ ► stuff and, and maybe this is also wish casting, but I feel like this would be a really good year
01:14:38 ◼ ► for Apple to spend its, its development cycles, fixing bugs, tightening integration, improving
01:14:46 ◼ ► the technologies that it's trying to push along, whether it's catalyst or Swift UI, getting, you
01:14:53 ◼ ► know, whatever they need to do for new Apple Silicon max, which ends up being software features
01:14:58 ◼ ► that get pulled out of what we think of as the traditional software cycle, because they're
01:15:02 ◼ ► coupled to hardware instead of being coupled to the annual release. But it's still, it's still
01:15:07 ◼ ► work, right? It's still work for them to do that stuff. And there's going to be a lot of that.
01:15:11 ◼ ► There are going to be a lot of new Apple Silicon max. So I feel like across their platforms, this
01:15:16 ◼ ► would be a really good year to like focus in on some of the details and get everything kind of
01:15:21 ◼ ► like moving along and not like, I just don't think they need a bombshell release. I feel like they've
01:15:27 ◼ ► had a couple of really dramatic years and it would be good for them to calm it down a little bit.
01:15:43 ◼ ► And I think that that can be simple, right? Like in what is required of developers and of Apple.
01:15:53 ◼ ► I've been meaning to write a column about this and maybe I will at some point, depends on what ideas
01:15:58 ◼ ► I have for my Mac world columns, the idea that, um, well, I did write a version of this actually
01:16:04 ◼ ► for Mac world last year, which is, um, there are ways for Apple to do it, a user customization that
01:16:09 ◼ ► are not giving people as much control as they want, which is a very Apple thing to do where they
01:16:13 ◼ ► could do things like have themes where, you know, we knew, uh, themes that are available that let
01:16:21 ◼ ► you choose your color theme and they offer like five different themes. And they basically tell
01:16:27 ◼ ► all developers, if you want to support this, make five different icons. These are the themes. These
01:16:31 ◼ ► are the colors go, right? So it's not like free form. You can have any color and you can have,
01:16:44 ◼ ► personalization, but, uh, I wouldn't put it past them to be regimented like that rather than having
01:16:51 ◼ ► it be completely free form. But I think you're right. They're going to take the lesson from
01:16:59 ◼ ► So, uh, you made your predictions. Uh, Ming Chi Kuo has made his, this is an article that came out,
01:17:05 ◼ ► uh, just yeah, but he's, he's not basing it on, uh, nonsense. He's basing it on his actual sources
01:17:11 ◼ ► in the supply chain. Super quick article, really like the things that actually came out. Um,
01:17:16 ◼ ► but I think they are worth mentioning. Uh, so AirTags still on track for 2021. I say on track,
01:17:24 ◼ ► on deck is probably a better phrase because I mean, the track of that product is gosh knows what
01:17:29 ◼ ► yeah. If you've been predicting AirTags for a few years, you might get it right. Eventually
01:17:39 ◼ ► Now, what I wanted to do is something that came up when we did our year review for connected,
01:17:44 ◼ ► which was that Ming Chi Kuo had a report in January. And one of the things that Kuo reported
01:17:49 ◼ ► was that Apple would make a charging mat, which everyone thought was air power, but ended up being
01:17:55 ◼ ► MagSafe. Right. I wanted to mention that as a way of like Apple's first AR device could be something,
01:18:01 ◼ ► but not glasses. Yeah. So I have, I have a theory, which is that this is an AR developer kit
01:18:18 ◼ ► for WWDC. Everybody knows Apple's going to do an AR product. Everybody knows it, but one way,
01:18:26 ◼ ► cause you're like, how are they going to do an AR device? And do they really want to sell a
01:18:29 ◼ ► consumer device? That's kind of clunky and not ready to go. Or do they really have an AR AR
01:18:34 ◼ ► glasses ready to go? Maybe they do. But I do think that because he's so unspecific here,
01:18:40 ◼ ► that one possibility is that registered Apple developers can sign up to spend, I don't know what
01:18:46 ◼ ► amount of money to get a developer kit for AR that is very much like their developer kit for
01:18:55 ◼ ► Apple Silicon, which is, it's not the final tech that will be used in the product, but it will let
01:19:01 ◼ ► you start developing AR experiences for when Apple does. And they might even say, you know,
01:19:07 ◼ ► it's a great way to do AR development for the iPhone, but really everybody knows what it is,
01:19:12 ◼ ► which is there is an AR product coming, but this isn't it. And that would be a big step for Apple
01:19:19 ◼ ► in the sense that it would be acknowledging that it's doing an AR product. But I feel like they
01:19:23 ◼ ► have basically already done that since Tim Cook talks up AR and says it's an area of intense
01:19:27 ◼ ► interest, et cetera, et cetera. And that might be a way for them to dip their toe in the water here
01:19:37 ◼ ► - Oh, that would be so sad. I completely agree with you that I think they've got to start. I
01:19:46 ◼ ► mean, and they've started, like there was stuff from WWDC even this year, right? Of like that map
01:19:50 ◼ ► thing where you could, you know, Apple's got to start, I think. I don't think that they should,
01:19:54 ◼ ► their first entry into AR should be something you strap to your face, right? Like, and we've been
01:20:00 ◼ ► seeing them do more and more, but I think they've got to still do little things first before going
01:20:05 ◼ ► that heavy. Like, I like the idea personally that they'll have some device that you'll use at home
01:20:18 ◼ ► like an Oculus Quest, because I just think it's a big jump from there being nothing to me supposed
01:20:25 ◼ ► to wear an iPhone on my face all the time, right? It's a lot. - So I got an Oculus Quest. I think I
01:20:32 ◼ ► mentioned that in the upgradees, Quest 2. And it has an AR mode, which is black and white,
01:20:39 ◼ ► but it's brilliant. It's brilliant, especially as somebody who used the PSVR, which doesn't have
01:20:43 ◼ ► that and it's not good. You double, you can, there's a feature you turn on, you double tap
01:20:48 ◼ ► on the side and you can see, or if you leave the like AR area, it toggles into this mode. It's
01:20:53 ◼ ► using cameras on the device to show you what's around you. And, you know, Apple has the technology
01:21:01 ◼ ► to build that product, right? Apple could build that product today that is based on the iPhone.
01:21:06 ◼ ► It's got iPhone cameras. It's got all the sensors that are needed. Many, if not most of which are
01:21:14 ◼ ► already in the iPhone. So Apple making an AR headset like the Oculus Quest that's based on
01:21:21 ◼ ► all their iPhone tech and runs iPhone apps so that you can do VR games, but also you can put it in an
01:21:27 ◼ ► AR mode where you're seeing the world through the iPhone camera, which is pretty good and an overlay
01:21:34 ◼ ► on top of it, which is not technically, I guess, is that AR if it's a VR headset with, that's piping
01:21:43 ◼ ► in reality and then overlaying it, I would say it's arguable. I'm sure there's a name for it
01:21:49 ◼ ► that in VR and AR circles, but it's like AR inside VR, but it's cool to add. Okay. Mediated reality.
01:21:58 ◼ ► Mixed reality. Okay. So it's mixed reality where it's taking reality and mixing it with VR and then
01:22:08 ◼ ► All right. So you're not seeing like the world with an overlay. You're seeing a VR view of the
01:22:14 ◼ ► world with an overlay. Apple could do that, right? Like Apple could have done that years ago. Is that
01:22:24 ◼ ► maybe they could do that. Like they could, if they wanted to, if they thought the software was there,
01:22:29 ◼ ► if they thought the tech was good, they could absolutely make a product like that because
01:22:33 ◼ ► they've got all the pieces. And that would be weird. I mean, you wouldn't want to wear that
01:22:39 ◼ ► around like the world, but you could wear it in your house and sometimes be in VR mode and
01:22:45 ◼ ► sometimes be in AR mode. That could also be the developer kit, right? Like you could argue whether
01:22:51 ◼ ► if you didn't want that to be a consumer product, you could be, you know, it's like, well, the
01:22:56 ◼ ► developer kits just for in the house, but we'll do a lightweight one eventually. Cause most people
01:23:03 ◼ ► do not want to strap an iPhone headset thing to their face, which is what these VR headsets are.
01:23:09 ◼ ► So I think it's really interesting because I didn't think there'd be any AR stuff in 2021.
01:23:15 ◼ ► This feels, the AR still feels like something that I can't believe Apple is actually going to do,
01:23:20 ◼ ► but I think they're going to do it. So maybe it is this year. That would be, um, that'd be
01:23:25 ◼ ► interesting. That'd be fun. Yeah. Well, we're going to talk about this a lot, probably over
01:23:29 ◼ ► the last couple of years, but like this is like, I've said it before and I'll keep saying it.
01:23:47 ◼ ► get quite nervous about that thought. So if they're going to do this and they want it to work,
01:23:53 ◼ ► I think it's got to be very slow, very slow. A listener, a listener in the chat says that, uh,
01:23:59 ◼ ► that XR is, uh, is also a term that is thrown around for this mixed reality. It's the most
01:24:12 ◼ ► my first moment with that on the quest two, I was like, Oh, this is great. Cause it's like
01:24:17 ◼ ► that moment where you're like, it was almost an apple like moment. I have to say where,
01:24:22 ◼ ► where you step outside of where you're supposed to be. And suddenly you see the world while you're
01:24:26 ◼ ► wearing your VR headset. And I was like, Oh, like, this is so good. Right? So you're not going to
01:24:31 ◼ ► trip over the dog when you're on your way to get the thing that you need to get and then step back
01:24:36 ◼ ► into the, into the play area. Like it's super smart. So if you did that at a high quality,
01:24:41 ◼ ► I think that would be really good. So anyway, uh, quote also thinks new AirPods. I mean,
01:24:47 ◼ ► that seems fair, right? Like some updates to the line. Yes. Never, never bet again. I see. I,
01:24:58 ◼ ► is add in add in predictions for the other stuff because I just didn't predict any of these things.
01:25:10 ◼ ► but I might need to roll them in because again, nobody ever, um, went broke, uh, betting on
01:25:17 ◼ ► more AirPods from Apple. It's just such a successful category for them that, that they will,
01:25:23 ◼ ► I don't know what it will be. I don't, I don't care what it will be. They will do more of them
01:25:28 ◼ ► because it's a, it's a hit for them. AirPods are a hit for them in all of their forms. So whether
01:25:33 ◼ ► it's new brand new fourth product in the line, or it's just updates to the individual ones,
01:25:37 ◼ ► they're going to keep pushing on AirPods bank it. And then something we've spoken about in this
01:25:42 ◼ ► episode and quote was mentioned a bunch of times more Apple Silicon, max, obviously first devices
01:25:47 ◼ ► with many led that almost seems obviously at this point. Yeah, I think so. It's just a matter of
01:25:52 ◼ ► when and the details, right? It's always, it's always what the details are. And that's the,
01:25:57 ◼ ► if I had a number one thing that I'm looking forward to in 2021 from Apple, it's what the
01:26:01 ◼ ► Apple Silicon Mac rollout strategy is for everything that we've already said on this episode.
01:26:07 ◼ ► When do the chips change? What do they chip change to the chips change soon or do they not?
01:26:13 ◼ ► And we just get more M1 max, which will feel to some people like a disappointment, which is wrong
01:26:20 ◼ ► because the M1 max are amazing. And if you could get an M1 Mac and an iMac, you'd be very,
01:26:26 ◼ ► very happy. I think I would buy one. So yeah. Um, when, when did the chips change? When do the
01:26:33 ◼ ► different models roll out and what models don't we see and how do the models change? Like all
01:26:37 ◼ ► that's wrapped up in the max in 2021, but like it's, it's this era of mystery that we've not
01:26:41 ◼ ► had with the Mac before, where it's pretty much just like what iteration will happen on existing
01:26:48 ◼ ► models. And it's a little more, uh, and we also knew like the Intel roadmap and stuff like that.
01:26:59 ◼ ► This episode of upgrade is brought to you by the Upgradients who are Upgrade Plus members.
01:27:03 ◼ ► Well and us, I guess. Uh, if you no longer want to hear ads on this show, whilst also getting
01:27:09 ◼ ► extra content, Upgrade Plus is for you. It's just $5 a month or $50 a year, and you get loads of
01:27:15 ◼ ► other great benefits. So not only do you get the Upgrade Plus feed, which includes longer episodes
01:27:21 ◼ ► of the show with no ads, you also get access to our annual bonus crossover content at Relay FM,
01:27:27 ◼ ► which includes extra monthly shows like Backstage and Fusion, which are these fun crossover events.
01:27:37 ◼ ► which is a bustling community of all of the different topics that we have here at Relay FM,
01:27:43 ◼ ► plus our really awesome live stream chat, which is where I think the vast majority of all of our live
01:27:49 ◼ ► chat happens now is in the Relay FM members Discord and so much more. Like maybe you want
01:27:54 ◼ ► some beautiful wallpapers of your Relay FM favorite shows. You can get all of that as well
01:27:59 ◼ ► when you become a member of Upgrade Plus. We've been really enjoying creating additional content
01:28:04 ◼ ► for Upgrade Plus subscribers. Let's just share what's going on behind the scenes of the show
01:28:08 ◼ ► and things that we're up to. And we also get deep on some nerdy topics. We also talk about
01:28:13 ◼ ► media stuff that we like there as well. Basically, if you like Upgrade, if you love Upgrade,
01:28:18 ◼ ► you're going to really love Upgrade Plus. So get this and so much more by becoming a member today.
01:28:24 ◼ ► Go to getupgradeplus.com and you can sign up for our $5 a month or $50 a year plan. So that's
01:28:31 ◼ ► getupgradeplus.com. Thank you so much if you sign up. Let's finish off today's episode with
01:28:37 ◼ ► some #AskUpgrade questions. JD asks, "Do you have Bootcamp installed on your Intel Macs?"
01:28:54 ◼ ► iMac. And the idea there is there have been some games. It's been a while since I've booted into
01:28:59 ◼ ► it, honestly. But there are some games that I have played that are Windows only. And so I have
01:29:04 ◼ ► booted into Bootcamp for them. It's essentially a game thing and I don't use it very often. But like
01:29:09 ◼ ► I played Life is Strange in there at one point for the incomparable. And every now and then there's
01:29:14 ◼ ► a game that somebody recommends to me and it sounds pretty good, but it's only on Windows or
01:29:18 ◼ ► it's Windows in a console I don't have. And I'm not going to miss doing it when if I do go to
01:29:26 ◼ ► Apple Silicon on the desktop here at some point and it's not compatible. I'm not going to miss
01:29:33 ◼ ► it too much, but I do have it and occasionally we'll go there. Josh asks, "Do you think Apple
01:29:41 ◼ ► will take cues from the iPad and iPhone line with the Mac and keep older M1 Macs around when they
01:29:47 ◼ ► eventually update them to the M2?" So like for example you can still buy say the iPhone 11? Can
01:29:57 ◼ ► you still buy the 11? There are old iPhones that you can still buy, right? Yes. Could you imagine
01:30:02 ◼ ► that Apple will keep then say like the current MacBook Air around when it updates to a different
01:30:08 ◼ ► MacBook Air processor? Here's what I will say. I don't think Apple is going to make two MacBook
01:30:15 ◼ ► Airs. Probably? Well, probably. We don't know. This is part of the great mystery. I do think what
01:30:22 ◼ ► will happen to answer the first part of this I think, which is I do think Apple's going to roll
01:30:26 ◼ ► out M2 that's not going to go to the M1 low-end systems, right? So you're going to end up with
01:30:32 ◼ ► Macs with M2 and Macs with M1. I don't think everything's going to get the M2. I think like
01:30:36 ◼ ► the MacBook Air that got the M1 is going to sit there for a while and then eventually it'll get
01:30:43 ◼ ► an update and will it get an update to the M2 or will it get an update to like an M1X or something
01:30:47 ◼ ► like that. But I think Apple is going to be able to like target their different chips and sort of
01:30:52 ◼ ► bring them along as the product line advances, but they're going to target different parts of the
01:30:56 ◼ ► product line with different versions of the chips, especially at the beginning here. Rather than
01:31:00 ◼ ► having here's the M2 and there's eight variations of it that go in these eight systems, it'll be
01:31:04 ◼ ► more like here's the M2 and these Macs have the M2 and these other Macs still have the M1 and
01:31:09 ◼ ► we're done. Would they make an M1, an M2 let's say or whatever MacBook Air and still sell the M1
01:31:27 ◼ ► be a way that they could make a more expensive and less expensive version of the Air and differentiate
01:31:34 ◼ ► them or some other product too, whatever you want to put in there. I'm just using the Air as an
01:31:38 ◼ ► example. I think it's possible because you're going to start, I would say with Intel, Apple
01:31:47 ◼ ► sells different models with different chips and different speeds and now it's supplying its own
01:31:54 ◼ ► chips. So is it possible that the base MacBook Air stays on the M1 but there is a higher-end
01:32:02 ◼ ► configuration that uses a faster processor? And we look at it and say, oh basically there's still
01:32:08 ◼ ► selling the old one and now there's also a new one but it starts at $1299. Or the new one is $1099
01:32:16 ◼ ► but the old one is $899. I think those are all possible. I do think that they may experiment
01:32:22 ◼ ► with that, especially when they're trying to push the prices down and create more differentiation
01:32:28 ◼ ► because they don't have Intel with a supplier where they can get a whole bunch of different
01:32:32 ◼ ► variations of Intel processors and use those to vary their product line. They got to vary it
01:32:36 ◼ ► themselves if they choose to vary their product line and that would be one way they could do it.
01:32:42 ◼ ► So I think they might experiment with that and it might be confusing. And we might end up having to
01:32:49 ◼ ► say like, well there are two MacBook Airs now. There's the 2020 M1 MacBook Air which is now $899
01:32:56 ◼ ► but there's also the 2021 M2 MacBook Air but that's the high-end configuration. It's messy
01:33:08 ◼ ► they don't need to specify. The nerds will know but they don't necessarily. There's the M1 version
01:33:13 ◼ ► and then there's the for more money there's a more expensive faster M2 version. Take your pick.
01:33:19 ◼ ► They could do that. So I don't know. I don't know. They got lots of options here. It's what
01:33:42 ◼ ► Back up. Well just so as a recap, at some point Apple changed the direction of scrolling in MacOS
01:34:15 ◼ ► touching the item on the screen and moving it downward when you scroll your fingers downward
01:34:35 ◼ ► The answer is I use natural scrolling. I changed immediately. I use a trackpad so it really makes
01:34:45 ◼ ► sense for the trackpad because it's the same gesture as an iOS which is why they changed it.
01:34:49 ◼ ► And there's a hilarious bug in web views in iOS and iPadOS that I find on the magic keyboard often
01:34:56 ◼ ► where I'll open a web view inside an app and I'll start to scroll and it does the scrolling backward
01:35:01 ◼ ► and it makes me laugh every time but it's there. I'm like oh it's unnatural scrolling is happening
01:35:08 ◼ ► now and it makes me ill. So no I embraced natural scrolling immediately and have never looked back.
01:35:15 ◼ ► Sorry to John Syracuse. I don't know how anyone could use the old version of scrolling now. It
01:35:21 ◼ ► just it seems so logical to me with the iOS devices I mean they do work in that natural
01:35:27 ◼ ► way because it makes sense. You would just get used to it being one way. Having two different
01:35:33 ◼ ► ways to scroll now is weird to me. Well the idea was that you were scrolling this is why they
01:35:38 ◼ ► changed it but the idea was you're scrolling the interface you're scrolling the scroll bar
01:35:50 ◼ ► but it doesn't make sense when Apple changes all interfaces to be basically direct interaction.
01:35:56 ◼ ► Think of moving the piece of paper that is your web page or your Google doc or whatever. Once you
01:36:03 ◼ ► do that which you have to do for something like an iPhone once you start thinking of it that way
01:36:08 ◼ ► you flipped it around and that's the predominant interface approach today so you got to do it. But
01:36:14 ◼ ► I feel for all the unnatural scrollers out there I really do. By the way we didn't mention this
01:36:20 ◼ ► and follow we we I don't think we heard from a pinky a pinky unlocker but we heard from we heard
01:36:28 ◼ ► from people with various unusual fingers. Maybe there was one pinky unlocker. I think we got at
01:36:32 ◼ ► least one pinky on but they had a reason for why they used their pinky to unlock face. Oh no
01:36:38 ◼ ► this this I want to I want to oh yeah let me let me give you the details here because now I remember
01:36:42 ◼ ► but we heard from one pinky unlocker somebody uses their pinky finger to unlock their their touch id
01:36:46 ◼ ► on their mac and the reason given was if I'm if I'm robbed or compelled by bad people to unlock my
01:36:55 ◼ ► mac oh that one I nobody expects the pinky and so I'll try it with the other fingers and it won't
01:37:03 ◼ ► work and then they can't compel me to to log in it'll lock they lock up and go to a password
01:37:08 ◼ ► that was that was the excuse given by the pinky unlocker. I didn't have the energy to give my
01:37:13 ◼ ► response to this but now I'm going to give it here on the show if that's the situation you found
01:37:18 ◼ ► yourself in you have more problems than oh yeah if the computer can be unlocked or not. I know I know
01:37:25 ◼ ► but we did hear from some some index some ring finger unlockers and a thumb unlocker and yeah
01:37:30 ◼ ► you know I this is the diversity of the human experience thank you all for for doing that but um
01:37:37 ◼ ► but one pinky unlocker and I'm not sure I believe that person but anyway just some follow-up some
01:37:43 ◼ ► quick pinky unlocking follow-up while we're talking about. Final question before we wrap up today's
01:37:48 ◼ ► show. Barry asks on the heels of your conversations of RSS apps during the upgradees what RSS services
01:37:54 ◼ ► do you use to drive these apps and why? So I resisted for a very long time but I recently
01:38:02 ◼ ► bought a feed bin subscription. I don't want a web interface all these things are basically like web
01:38:08 ◼ ► interfaces for RSS which I don't want I used it newswire. I also primarily just use it on my
01:38:16 ◼ ► ipad so I don't really need syncing although every now and then if I open it on my mac I was
01:38:21 ◼ ► disappointed because you know it doesn't sync and I've added some subscriptions on my ipad and they
01:38:25 ◼ ► don't come to the mac. I what I really want is for them to just add an iCloud sync for my
01:38:31 ◼ ► subscriptions for net newswire and that would solve the problem. The reason I signed up for
01:38:36 ◼ ► this service at all the reason I signed up for feedbin was I wanted to use their email gateway
01:38:45 ◼ ► because I subscribe to a bunch of newsletters and I don't want to really read them in my email
01:38:50 ◼ ► client in the morning I want to read them with all my other articles in the RSS feed and they do that
01:38:55 ◼ ► and so that's that I'm using that's a good feature so all of those newsletters that I subscribe to
01:39:01 ◼ ► now pop in as feeds in net newswire thanks to feedbin. Yeah I've been meaning to do that.
01:39:07 ◼ ► I use feedbin too because when I wanted a service I asked all my friends what they used and they all
01:39:12 ◼ ► told me they used feedbin so I signed up for feedbin. Yep pretty much everyone I asked used it
01:39:24 ◼ ► and what I don't like about inoreader is after a certain period of time they just mark an article
01:39:31 ◼ ► as read on your behalf and I did not like that so I went with feedbin instead. If you would like
01:39:38 ◼ ► to send in a question for a future episode of the show just send in a tweet with the hashtag
01:39:43 ◼ ► askupgrade or you can use question mark askupgrade in the relayfm members discord. I would like to
01:39:50 ◼ ► thank smile and squarespace for the support of this episode and also for our members you can
01:39:55 ◼ ► sign up at getupgradeplus.com thank you so much for your support if you do that. If you want to
01:40:01 ◼ ► find Jason online you can go to sixcolors.com and he is @jsnell j s n e double l. Jason hosts many
01:40:08 ◼ ► shows at the incomparable and here on relayfm as well as do I. You can find many shows if you go to
01:40:14 ◼ ► relay.fm/shows not just stuff that me and Jason produce but we have many fine programs here at