443: Core Variations
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(upbeat music)
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- From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 443.
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Today's show is brought to you by
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Electric Capital One and Upgrade Plus.
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My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Jason Snell.
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- We've got a big show today.
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Since our last episode, Apple revealed
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new Macintosh's to the world.
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You've gotten to spend some time with one of them,
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the MacBook Pro.
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And we're gonna do a review of it today on this episode,
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as well as talk about the Mac mini
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and Dan Morin's coverage of Six Colors,
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and much, much more.
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But before we do all of that,
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I have a hashtag Snell Talk question for you,
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which comes from Kevin, who wants to know,
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are you still paying for iTunes match?
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- Right, I took the Snell Talk question
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as a public service announcement just to explain to people.
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If you are an Apple Music subscriber,
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you don't need to pay for iTunes match
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because iTunes match functionality is included
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with your Apple music subscription.
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iTunes match for those who don't know,
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is a thing where it looks at all of the music
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that you've got on your personal music library
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and it scans it and it either matches it to stuff
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that's in the iTunes library, the Apple music library,
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or it uploads it and it allows you to have cloud access
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to your entire sort of like MP3 library
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that you have on your Mac at home.
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It means that it'll play on an iPhone and stuff like that.
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It's a fun little feature, but it was very quickly
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sort of subsumed by Apple Music,
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which also does all of those same things.
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So if you're an Apple Music subscriber,
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you don't need to be paying for iTunes match.
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And to answer Kevin's question, well, no,
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as soon as I became an Apple Music subscriber,
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I stopped paying for iTunes match
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because I don't need them both.
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If you're not an Apple Music subscriber
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and you wanna sort of like be your own music streaming
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service with the music that you have and nothing else,
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then iTunes match is the way to do that.
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- I have a secondary question from Zach,
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who's listening live in the Relay FM members Discord.
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We do record this show live every Monday
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if you wanna hang out.
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Especially if you're a member,
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it's fun to hang out in the Discord while we do it.
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Zach asks, "Doesn't iTunes match it to DRM free
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and content and Apple Music will match it to DRM'd content?"
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- I don't know what that means, Zach.
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- So let's imagine you had a live version of a song
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or whatever, that's your live version of a song.
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- Is it going to do it to a different,
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like to a version that's in the Apple Music Library
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rather than the one that's yours?
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- It's not supposed to, and in most cases it doesn't.
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There's a chance that it might do that by mistake,
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it's not supposed to do that.
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So I, yeah, I've got live albums and stuff
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that are in my iTunes Music Library
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and will play from any device.
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So it doesn't matter.
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In fact, the clever thing about it is,
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if you downloaded content from someplace,
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wasn't yours, and it matches, you get it.
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- And then it's in the library.
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- It may be, again, this is a question about responding live
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to a question that is unclear in a Discord,
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but there is a question about like,
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if you're matching in Apple Music,
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is it all wrapped in Apple Music DRM
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and expires when you leave?
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That may be true, I don't know.
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the point I would make is,
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do not upload your entire music collection to Apple
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in any feature in iTunes match or in Apple music
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and then delete your music collection.
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- Yeah, okay.
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- You should keep it. - That's the way to do it.
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Yes, and then you can check it, right?
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But then you've also still got it, it's yours.
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And then you can see if it's the stuff that you want,
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but yeah, don't delete the music.
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- No, so you keep it around.
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And if you decide to switch to Spotify
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or something like that,
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What you could do in that scenario is cancel Apple Music, pay from iTunes Match to get
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your stuff that you have on your hard drive, again, that you saved and you didn't throw
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away available on your phone when you're out and about, and then also have Spotify.
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Because I don't think Spotify will let you upload tracks and stuff like that.
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They used to a long time ago.
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There are ways to do it.
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There are ways to do it, but iTunes Match is not relevant if you are an Apple Music
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It's duplicative.
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but what ifs all come down to don't throw away your music collection. Don't do that. Don't trust Apple.
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If you would like to send in a question for us to answer on a future episode of Upgrade,
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just send in your Snell Talk over at UpgradeFeedback.com. I use question mark
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SnellTalk in the Relay FM members Discord. Thank you to everybody that has done so.
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It is time for some follow-up, Jason Snell, which has all been submitted again while our wonderful
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or new feedback tool.
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I'm gonna start off with something sent in
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from _DavidSmith, which I enjoyed that _ sent this
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via the upgrade feedback tool when he could have just
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texted it to me or put it in Slack, but you know,
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very official, he sent it in that way.
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- And this is about, remember Zombie Arms?
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We were talking about Zombie Arms?
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_ wrote in to say, "I explored a bit about the origin
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of the phrase 'Zombie Arms' as it relates
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to touchscreen Macs.
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The earliest reference I could find was actually Jason
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talking to Jon Gruber on the talk show episode 164
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back in August of 2016,
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as part of a discussion about the touch bar.
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- Yeah, so the proof that I did not invent that term,
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so proof that it predates that.
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- Yeah. - I don't know
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where it comes from.
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- Or maybe you did invent it.
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- Maybe you did though. - I really didn't invent
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Zombie Arms. - Do you know
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if you've considered that?
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- Brian writes in and says,
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"Regarding touch screens coming to the MacBook Pro first,
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it's the laptop iOS developers use.
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If all it did was let developers use the touch screen
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for their iOS simulator, some of us would buy it.
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I found that as an interesting idea
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for why developers might want a touch screen.
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- Sure, I do think it's interesting.
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I think it's novel.
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I don't think that's like the reason they do it,
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but I do think it's a novel use that would be useful
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if they let developers have access to that.
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I mean, you're gonna get the zombie arms, but you know,
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it's okay. - You can do that.
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And I had one counterpoint that I hadn't considered
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from Anthony who said, "I would hate to see a touch screen
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"added to the Macs at the expense of a noticeably thicker
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"or heavier screen."
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- Fair enough, but there are lots of PC laptops out there.
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They all have touch screens.
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There are iPhones and iPads.
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Fair enough.
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Yes, it would be a shame if the screens
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of a MacBook Pro got worse because of the touch screen.
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I'll also point out that it might not be the touchscreen,
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it might be other stuff.
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Because if the Apple were to do something
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that was more convertible,
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they may have to do things like put the brains
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of the computer or a battery in that top half,
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which would make the balance of it really different
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than it is now.
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There's lots of things that could happen there.
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So we will see, but I am dubious
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that Apple would add a touchscreen.
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And when you look at other PC laptops, it's fine.
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So I just, but fair enough.
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Yes, that would be a negative
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if they made your whole laptop thicker.
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I actually kind of don't care about
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if the screen being thicker,
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it would be more about the weight and the balance
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and the laptop being thicker.
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Yeah, sure, sure.
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I'm, yeah, I'm doubtful that this is gonna be an issue,
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but I don't deny that if it were, it would be a problem.
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All right, let's talk about the MacBook Pro.
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So you've had one for the best part of a week also?
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- Yeah, five-ish days, six days, something like that, yeah.
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- So we're gonna talk about the MacBook Pro
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and the M2 chips kind of all in this one discussion,
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and we'll touch on the Mac Mini.
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Oh, and there's a HomePod.
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We'll talk about that too a little bit later
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into this episode. - Sure, which I don't have.
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- What I wanted to start with though
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is the configuration that you got.
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Could you let me know the specs?
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But also I wanna talk about the fact
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that you have a 16 inch laptop
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and I just wanna know how that felt to use.
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- It is a 16 inch MacBook Pro M2 Max
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with 12 cores and 38 GPUs.
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I think it's a terabyte and 64 RAM.
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I don't know, I would have to go get it.
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It's actually not right in front of me right now.
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- It's a big one. - It's powerful.
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- It's the big one in all dimensions.
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- So when was the last time you used a laptop of this size,
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if you have ever?
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- I mean, I probably,
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the last time I used a laptop of this size
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was when they introduced the 16 inch MacBook Pro on Intel
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or I mean, right, 'cause I got the 14 inch for M1.
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So it was that first,
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it was that right before the pandemic event in New York City
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where they did the first 16 inch
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where they still had the touch bar,
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but they fixed the keyboard.
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That was sort of the, I think the last time
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that I spent any appreciable time with a laptop this large.
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- And this is just what Apple sent you, right?
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You didn't ask for a 16 inch computer?
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- No, I did not, no.
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- Okay. - But that's what
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they sent me.
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- And I'm just intrigued. - I think they're having
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- I wanna know like how it felt.
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Like I know this is not the interesting part of the review,
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but I've been desperate to know how you got on
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with that like massive laptop.
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- Really huge.
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- Yes, it's gigantic, it's enormous.
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It's hilariously enormous.
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I mean, what do you want me to say?
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I hate this.
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- I just wanted to get your like,
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did you have a revelation or what?
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- I would never in a billion years
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want a laptop this large, right?
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Fortunately, the 14 inch is exactly the same on the inside
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other than like battery capacity
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and the literal physical size of the screen.
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But like computer wise, they're the same.
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So you can choose.
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I would never in a million years
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choose the 16 inch ergonomically.
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I don't see the benefit in having that screen.
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And I mean, like, I didn't even know where to put my hands
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on the keyboard, Myke,
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'cause my hands are like drifting around
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'cause there's like the big speakers to the side
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and there's just this vast amount of space
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on the keyboard plane of the laptop.
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And I didn't even like,
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I try to orient my hands sometimes
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by the edge of the laptop,
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but you can't reach the edge of the laptop.
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It just goes on forever.
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Like, you know, I don't know.
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It's not a size for me.
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And those who love it, bless you.
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It is a beautiful, huge screen.
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As a thing you put on your desk,
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I can get behind why you might want it.
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I tried to use it as a laptop, like in my lap and stuff.
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And it's, yeah, it's gigantic.
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I would love to know, Upgradians,
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if you use a 16-inch laptop every day,
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I wanna know why you chose it.
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Send us some feedback. - Why?
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- And we can talk about it.
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I'm not judging you, right?
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There is, for me, no judgment.
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I'm just intrigued.
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- And where do you use it primarily?
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- Yeah. - How about that one too?
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Because I suspect a lot of 16-inch laptops
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are left on a desk, right?
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They're not- - Maybe.
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- toted around all the time and,
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"Oh, I'm on the couch with my giant 16-inch laptop."
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But then why are you using it as a laptop?
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Get a monitor and a keyboard.
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Why would you get a 16-inch laptop
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and then not take it anywhere?
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You know what I mean?
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I'm just really intrigued.
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So if you have a 16-inch MacBook Pro and you use it,
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I want to know why you chose it and how you use it.
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Let me know.
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Great feedback. - And what is wrong with you?
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No, sorry. - No, I'm not saying that part.
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That's Jason.
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Myke just was curious.
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And we can talk about it.
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I'll collect these up if we get people right in.
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- Great. - And we can talk
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about it later on.
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- All right, that's UpgradFeedback.com, right?
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UpgradeFeedback.com. - UpgradeFeedback.com.
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Hit the link in the top of the show notes,
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send us some feedback.
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So by and large, this MacBook Pro,
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everything that's new is inside, right?
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It's like the power of the thing.
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That's where the newness is.
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Outside of that, there isn't really much to talk about.
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- This is, I mean, that's how my lead of my story is,
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is here's what it's not new.
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It's not, it's not new.
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We did that already, right?
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M1 MacBook Pro had more ports, and it had Apple Silicon,
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and it had that beautiful backlit, the mini-LED, HDR display.
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It is the best display Apple has ever made, basically,
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for the Mac, certainly.
00:12:37
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►
It is that again, right?
00:12:40
◼
►
Like, there's not anything really new,
00:12:44
◼
►
except that they took the processor from M1 to M2.
00:12:48
◼
►
So it's a generational boost, which is something,
00:12:51
◼
►
but it's not a lot.
00:12:53
◼
►
I mean, I think what I said was,
00:12:55
◼
►
if you have an M1 MacBook Pro, I think you're fine.
00:12:58
◼
►
Unless you're in this,
00:13:01
◼
►
unless you're one of these people
00:13:02
◼
►
who it just doesn't matter,
00:13:04
◼
►
I always need the fastest
00:13:05
◼
►
because I could use all of that power.
00:13:07
◼
►
So get me the fastest again,
00:13:09
◼
►
'cause it is a little bit faster, 'cause it's an M2.
00:13:12
◼
►
Or you've got a very specific need,
00:13:14
◼
►
like with the HDMI,
00:13:15
◼
►
being able to output at higher resolution
00:13:17
◼
►
and frame rates like, okay.
00:13:20
◼
►
Or the only other scenario could really come up with
00:13:22
◼
►
from the M1 would be regret.
00:13:25
◼
►
Like I bought the M1, but I kind of like cheaped out
00:13:29
◼
►
on the specs and I've regretted the size
00:13:30
◼
►
of the internal drive or the RAM or whatever.
00:13:33
◼
►
And like, and you're gonna give yourself a mulligan
00:13:36
◼
►
and buy an M2 and then sell off your M1, like, okay.
00:13:39
◼
►
But a regular user of an M1 MacBook Pro should feel fine
00:13:44
◼
►
because these things are not meant to last a year
00:13:47
◼
►
or 15 months.
00:13:48
◼
►
They are meant to last a lot longer.
00:13:50
◼
►
The difference in speed is not worth
00:13:53
◼
►
the price of buying a brand new laptop.
00:13:55
◼
►
Your laptop is fine.
00:13:57
◼
►
So I think that the truth of this product is
00:14:00
◼
►
it's primarily for the holdouts, right?
00:14:03
◼
►
Lots of people who bought the,
00:14:05
◼
►
maybe that 2018, or 2019 MacBook Pro 15
00:14:10
◼
►
that they rolled out, or one prior to that,
00:14:13
◼
►
but like an Intel MacBook Pro, late model,
00:14:16
◼
►
Still pretty good, still pretty new,
00:14:19
◼
►
couldn't really justify getting rid of it.
00:14:21
◼
►
Also, a lot of people talked about sitting out the M1 era
00:14:26
◼
►
because they were concerned about a processor transition
00:14:28
◼
►
and a lot of bumps.
00:14:29
◼
►
I would argue that the processor transition
00:14:31
◼
►
was actually incredibly smooth,
00:14:33
◼
►
but you do get those people who are like,
00:14:36
◼
►
"Mm-mm, no first-generation hardware,
00:14:39
◼
►
"I'm just gonna wait."
00:14:40
◼
►
I suspect a lot of those people said that
00:14:42
◼
►
and then they saw the reviews of the M1s
00:14:43
◼
►
and they're like, "Okay, nevermind."
00:14:45
◼
►
But I think that there are also people out there
00:14:47
◼
►
who are like that.
00:14:48
◼
►
But the most likely scenario is,
00:14:50
◼
►
you just bought a laptop in 2019.
00:14:55
◼
►
And you just bought it.
00:14:56
◼
►
You're not in the market for a new laptop.
00:14:59
◼
►
Those are the kind of people
00:15:00
◼
►
for whom the M2 MacBook Pros make most sense, right?
00:15:04
◼
►
Because there, you're still getting what we talked about
00:15:07
◼
►
15, 14 months ago in late '21,
00:15:11
◼
►
which is the enormous leap that you get
00:15:14
◼
►
going from Intel to Apple Silicon, that you still get.
00:15:17
◼
►
And then the leap is just that much further
00:15:20
◼
►
because it's M2 instead of M1.
00:15:22
◼
►
But otherwise, yeah, these are really familiar,
00:15:26
◼
►
recognizable laptops because they're just,
00:15:29
◼
►
this is unlike the MacBook Air
00:15:33
◼
►
because it changed its physical appearance
00:15:37
◼
►
when it went to M2.
00:15:39
◼
►
This is a speed bump.
00:15:41
◼
►
This is what an Apple Silicon speed bump looks like,
00:15:45
◼
►
which is everything gets a little bit better,
00:15:48
◼
►
but it's not revolutionary in any way.
00:15:51
◼
►
It doesn't need to be.
00:15:52
◼
►
The revolution happened 15 months ago.
00:15:55
◼
►
It was pretty great, and this is still pretty great.
00:15:57
◼
►
- I would say Apple pulled a bit of a magic trick on me
00:16:00
◼
►
with the Pro and Max chip, right?
00:16:02
◼
►
Because the M1 to the M2 is about 12% faster, right?
00:16:07
◼
►
Like I remember when the M2,
00:16:09
◼
►
like the straight up M2 MacBooks came out.
00:16:12
◼
►
- Yeah. - MacBook Airs.
00:16:13
◼
►
It was like, oh, this is a little bit faster,
00:16:16
◼
►
but it's not like, you know, I remember at the time
00:16:18
◼
►
we were saying like, oh okay, like,
00:16:20
◼
►
maybe that's what this is gonna be like,
00:16:22
◼
►
it's a little bit faster, you know,
00:16:24
◼
►
but the way that they tricked us is,
00:16:26
◼
►
they just put more cores in than they did last time.
00:16:29
◼
►
And so now you get 20 to 40% faster on some tasks,
00:16:33
◼
►
depending on the task, I thought it was very smart,
00:16:35
◼
►
and it surprised me, the difference.
00:16:37
◼
►
I was expecting a similar from the like M1 Pro to M2 Pro
00:16:42
◼
►
that we got M1 to M2, but it's more than that.
00:16:44
◼
►
- An M1 core is about 1700 Geekbench
00:16:47
◼
►
and an M2 core is about 1900.
00:16:49
◼
►
So that's 12%.
00:16:51
◼
►
- And that's true through everything
00:16:55
◼
►
because an M1 core and an M2 core,
00:16:57
◼
►
they are what they are, right?
00:16:59
◼
►
Like it's just core count 'cause they did,
00:17:02
◼
►
that's one of the interesting things they did with this
00:17:04
◼
►
is they did four of these efficiency cores,
00:17:09
◼
►
and then you get six or eight of the performance cores.
00:17:14
◼
►
- P cores and E cores, there's upgrade in snow,
00:17:16
◼
►
you know what I mean?
00:17:16
◼
►
- So the four means that you're gonna get,
00:17:21
◼
►
and battery life we can talk about,
00:17:23
◼
►
'cause battery life is so complicated,
00:17:24
◼
►
but I did manage to drain the battery in two and a half hours.
00:17:28
◼
►
But here's the thing, having those four efficiency cores
00:17:32
◼
►
means that most of the work you do on this Mac
00:17:37
◼
►
is not gonna run the performance cores ever, right?
00:17:42
◼
►
'Cause it won't need to,
00:17:44
◼
►
which means that that's why it gets really good battery life
00:17:48
◼
►
in regular use is because if you're not stressing it out,
00:17:52
◼
►
it's just sitting there going,
00:17:53
◼
►
boop-a-doop-a-doop-a-doop with its four cores,
00:17:56
◼
►
a quad core processor that's pretty fast.
00:17:59
◼
►
It's not a performance fast,
00:18:02
◼
►
but it's pretty fast and very low energy.
00:18:05
◼
►
And so anytime you need more, it's not gonna feel slow.
00:18:09
◼
►
It will send something to the performance cores,
00:18:12
◼
►
but having four efficiency cores means
00:18:16
◼
►
that it could do a lot before it even breaks a sweat.
00:18:19
◼
►
And that is where the battery life is coming from.
00:18:21
◼
►
And then yes, there's this cumulative effect that happens.
00:18:24
◼
►
It's not one-to-one, you don't add a second core and double
00:18:27
◼
►
and then add a third core and fourth core,
00:18:29
◼
►
and then it's quadruple.
00:18:30
◼
►
Like it doesn't work quite like that.
00:18:32
◼
►
it's not quite that efficient.
00:18:34
◼
►
But yeah, every core that gets added,
00:18:36
◼
►
especially every performance core that gets added
00:18:38
◼
►
or every GPU core that gets added makes it that much faster.
00:18:42
◼
►
So if you've got 32 GPU cores, it's that fast.
00:18:46
◼
►
And if you've got 38 GPU cores, it's that fast.
00:18:49
◼
►
And that's just, this is how I was talking to Dan Morin
00:18:53
◼
►
about this on the Six Colors Podcast for members.
00:18:55
◼
►
And we were talking about how we've swapped
00:19:00
◼
►
kind of like one complexity for another
00:19:02
◼
►
'cause it used to be like i3, i5, i7, megahertz,
00:19:05
◼
►
all the clock speed of the Intel processors, all that stuff.
00:19:09
◼
►
And now we don't have that.
00:19:11
◼
►
Apple doesn't talk about speed with M1 and M2 at all,
00:19:15
◼
►
but there are these core variations, right?
00:19:18
◼
►
Like the low-end model that's got too few or CPU cores
00:19:22
◼
►
or the GPU configuration differences that happen.
00:19:27
◼
►
And it's funny 'cause they have these names,
00:19:30
◼
►
M2, M2 Pro, M2 Max, but, and they could make it like,
00:19:35
◼
►
well, they mean something.
00:19:37
◼
►
M2 means this many cores in this many GPUs.
00:19:39
◼
►
M2 Pro means this many cores in this many GPUs.
00:19:42
◼
►
And M2 Max means this many cores in this many GPUs.
00:19:45
◼
►
But then they do that binning thing where they're like,
00:19:47
◼
►
"Well, no, not really."
00:19:48
◼
►
I mean, the M2 Pro starts with this one
00:19:50
◼
►
with two fewer cores, and then you can pay for more cores
00:19:52
◼
►
and the GPU cores can be a little bit, or it can be a lot.
00:19:55
◼
►
And that's where the new complexity is
00:19:57
◼
►
and the Apple Silicon world is Apple letting you
00:20:00
◼
►
vary some of that stuff.
00:20:03
◼
►
But that's the stuff that directly relates to performance.
00:20:05
◼
►
'Cause it's all based on just core count,
00:20:07
◼
►
how many more of these are there?
00:20:09
◼
►
- Yeah, I think it was just,
00:20:12
◼
►
this is the thing that I hadn't really conceived of yet,
00:20:16
◼
►
that they do have some level of flexibility
00:20:19
◼
►
in how they want these chips to be,
00:20:21
◼
►
by the amount of cores they decide to put in them.
00:20:25
◼
►
and they can scale it up or down,
00:20:28
◼
►
depending on the power of the core itself.
00:20:30
◼
►
Let's imagine a world where the M3 core on its own
00:20:34
◼
►
is like 20% faster than the M2.
00:20:36
◼
►
Well then you don't need to add so many, right?
00:20:39
◼
►
You don't need to necessarily increase the core count
00:20:42
◼
►
for the M3 Max to get a significant boost over the M2 Max.
00:20:46
◼
►
And so they have that flexibility there,
00:20:48
◼
►
which I guess Apple loves, right?
00:20:50
◼
►
Because now they were able to make
00:20:52
◼
►
year-over-year improvement on like revision is like 18 months right like
00:20:57
◼
►
also since the forms a little less I think they were planning on this being a
00:21:01
◼
►
12 month I think so right thing right back in November it would have been 12
00:21:05
◼
►
or 13 months but but it's a little bit longer yeah that they've basically for
00:21:09
◼
►
some people have made this a year-over-year desire for upgrading
00:21:14
◼
►
because they can get their work done with a 20% speed improvement or whatever
00:21:19
◼
►
So I just think that that's kind of fascinating
00:21:22
◼
►
that they have those tools available to them now,
00:21:24
◼
►
which they wouldn't have been able to have before
00:21:28
◼
►
- Yeah, I think that's a very small audience,
00:21:31
◼
►
but it is important.
00:21:32
◼
►
- But it's there though, right?
00:21:33
◼
►
- For whom performance, money is no object,
00:21:35
◼
►
performance is what matters, right?
00:21:36
◼
►
And so that's what I, when I was saying,
00:21:38
◼
►
those are the people who will always pay more
00:21:40
◼
►
for more performance no matter what,
00:21:42
◼
►
because it matters either in terms of their time
00:21:44
◼
►
or in terms of the amount of, you know,
00:21:47
◼
►
the high end level of their work.
00:21:48
◼
►
- Sure, that's true.
00:21:50
◼
►
I think most people who buy this laptop aren't those people,
00:21:52
◼
►
but those people do exist.
00:21:54
◼
►
- I liked in your review that you made a big kind of like,
00:21:59
◼
►
basically half of it, talking about like,
00:22:01
◼
►
all right, if you're coming from an Intel Mac now,
00:22:03
◼
►
because you didn't want the first ones of these,
00:22:05
◼
►
here's what you'll get.
00:22:05
◼
►
Like, I like that perspective a lot.
00:22:07
◼
►
Like, I have an M1 Max MacBook Pro.
00:22:11
◼
►
I'm not gonna upgrade to this, there's no need.
00:22:13
◼
►
But there are people that will,
00:22:15
◼
►
and I just think it's interesting
00:22:17
◼
►
that I wasn't expecting them to do anything
00:22:19
◼
►
with this machine that would make that a real desire
00:22:23
◼
►
for people, but there are interesting gains
00:22:26
◼
►
that you can get from the speed increase that they've got.
00:22:30
◼
►
- Yeah, and the memory bandwidth and the fact
00:22:31
◼
►
that the 92, or 92?
00:22:36
◼
►
- 96 max RAM.
00:22:38
◼
►
- Like those things are all there,
00:22:39
◼
►
and those people are there.
00:22:40
◼
►
I just, I mean, this is the question,
00:22:43
◼
►
this is why I wrote the three different reviews,
00:22:45
◼
►
essentially, within my review.
00:22:46
◼
►
'cause the question is, who's this for?
00:22:49
◼
►
And I think Apple wants to show off Apple Silicon
00:22:52
◼
►
and quite rightly so.
00:22:54
◼
►
It wants to show off how high-end work
00:22:58
◼
►
can be done on these things.
00:22:59
◼
►
And so good for them, right?
00:23:00
◼
►
Like it's absolutely true.
00:23:02
◼
►
And if you're chasing performance
00:23:03
◼
►
and you want the most RAM and the RAM,
00:23:05
◼
►
the memory bandwidth and the...
00:23:08
◼
►
They have this thing that they always demo
00:23:11
◼
►
where it's like, here's a 3D model
00:23:13
◼
►
that can't be opened on a PC laptop,
00:23:15
◼
►
but they can open it and work with it pretty fast
00:23:18
◼
►
on a Mac laptop.
00:23:19
◼
►
And that's entirely down to the fact that
00:23:21
◼
►
they have all that RAM
00:23:22
◼
►
and they have all that GPU performance.
00:23:23
◼
►
It's like, it's a very impressive demo.
00:23:25
◼
►
So I want to give them credit for that.
00:23:27
◼
►
And I know there's an audience out there for that.
00:23:30
◼
►
That said, I mean, most people who buy this thing
00:23:34
◼
►
aren't gonna be that audience.
00:23:35
◼
►
They're not, they're gonna be people.
00:23:38
◼
►
I mean, we can talk about the psychology
00:23:39
◼
►
of who buys the MacBook Pro.
00:23:40
◼
►
'Cause that was the other,
00:23:41
◼
►
one of the other sections of my article was,
00:23:44
◼
►
why would you buy this essentially,
00:23:46
◼
►
given everything else that's out there?
00:23:48
◼
►
And there are lots of good reasons, right?
00:23:50
◼
►
But not everybody who buys it,
00:23:52
◼
►
most people who buy it are not gonna be,
00:23:53
◼
►
well, I really need the 96 gigs of RAM
00:23:55
◼
►
and I really need all those GPU cores.
00:23:58
◼
►
They're gonna be people who are like,
00:24:00
◼
►
I want the nicer screen.
00:24:02
◼
►
I want more ports.
00:24:04
◼
►
I want more external display configurations.
00:24:07
◼
►
I hear from those people a lot about
00:24:08
◼
►
how frustrated they are about the MacBook Air,
00:24:10
◼
►
not doing multiple external displays.
00:24:13
◼
►
Like those are the reasons that I think a lot of people
00:24:16
◼
►
will buy the MacBook Pro or have bought the M1 MacBook Pro.
00:24:21
◼
►
And those are good reasons too.
00:24:22
◼
►
I think we could ask ourselves the question,
00:24:26
◼
►
why Apple made the decisions it did
00:24:30
◼
►
about some of this stuff to say,
00:24:31
◼
►
we're gonna wrap all of our GPUs and all of our CPUs
00:24:35
◼
►
and all of our Pro stuff and our screen
00:24:37
◼
►
and all the best stuff is gonna go up here
00:24:39
◼
►
and it's two grand or up.
00:24:42
◼
►
and we're gonna withhold most of that stuff
00:24:45
◼
►
from the MacBook Air.
00:24:46
◼
►
And that's just,
00:24:47
◼
►
that's how we're differentiating our line.
00:24:50
◼
►
But that's the decision they made.
00:24:51
◼
►
And the result is, you know,
00:24:53
◼
►
you might choose it for performance,
00:24:55
◼
►
but there are plenty of other reasons
00:24:57
◼
►
to choose the MacBook Pro.
00:24:58
◼
►
And I think at this point,
00:24:58
◼
►
performance across the line is so great,
00:25:01
◼
►
like even in the air,
00:25:03
◼
►
that most people who buy a MacBook Pro
00:25:07
◼
►
are probably buying it for the features
00:25:10
◼
►
that aren't raw speed,
00:25:12
◼
►
which is just, I think that's interesting.
00:25:14
◼
►
- So you wrote that piece before, right,
00:25:17
◼
►
where you referenced the first review
00:25:19
◼
►
and you said like Mac Pro in your backpack kind of thing.
00:25:23
◼
►
- And I think we're back in that situation again
00:25:26
◼
►
because I was actually excited
00:25:28
◼
►
and then also kind of surprised
00:25:31
◼
►
that the MacBook Pro with an M2 Max
00:25:34
◼
►
beats out the M1 Max Max Studio, right,
00:25:38
◼
►
in basically every test you put it through
00:25:42
◼
►
based on your charts.
00:25:44
◼
►
- I just found that kind of interesting because,
00:25:48
◼
►
I mean, I don't know why,
00:25:49
◼
►
but there's just something about,
00:25:50
◼
►
well, if you built this machine and it sits on a desk
00:25:53
◼
►
and it's not a laptop
00:25:54
◼
►
and you can do whatever you want with it,
00:25:56
◼
►
that maybe it would still just have an edge in some way.
00:26:00
◼
►
And I think about the fans and stuff and like, you know?
00:26:03
◼
►
- Well, let's be clear here.
00:26:06
◼
►
The Max Studio Ultra is the fastest Mac around.
00:26:11
◼
►
But there's also the one that I've got,
00:26:15
◼
►
which is the Max.
00:26:17
◼
►
And you can get a Max chip in the MacBook Pro too.
00:26:20
◼
►
And at that point it's an M2 Max versus an M1 Max.
00:26:23
◼
►
And if you keep everything else equal,
00:26:25
◼
►
it's gonna be a little bit faster on the laptop
00:26:27
◼
►
because it's the newer generation of the chip.
00:26:32
◼
►
So yeah, I mean, this is,
00:26:35
◼
►
Mac Pro in your backpack is still a real thing here.
00:26:38
◼
►
That the power that you can get,
00:26:41
◼
►
especially if you choose the high-end configuration
00:26:44
◼
►
of a MacBook Pro, the power, the huge amounts of RAM,
00:26:49
◼
►
so many GPU cores, like if you're somebody in that market,
00:26:53
◼
►
that's kind of what we always thought of
00:26:55
◼
►
as the Mac Pro essentially market.
00:26:58
◼
►
And it remains the case that at 14 or enormous 16 inch sizes,
00:27:05
◼
►
you can have what we always used to think of
00:27:08
◼
►
as Mac Pro power and stick it in a bag
00:27:10
◼
►
and walk away with it and do work on it on battery.
00:27:13
◼
►
And Apple always makes this point,
00:27:15
◼
►
but I think it's a good one that PCs tend to,
00:27:18
◼
►
the high-performance PCs tend to only be able
00:27:20
◼
►
to put out that amount of power when plugged in.
00:27:23
◼
►
Whereas the Mac laptop will do it
00:27:25
◼
►
whether it's plugged in or not.
00:27:27
◼
►
So full power, even if you're like in your backyard
00:27:31
◼
►
in a chair doing your whatever it is
00:27:33
◼
►
that requires that amount of RAM and that amount of GPU,
00:27:36
◼
►
your 3D modeling or whatever.
00:27:38
◼
►
It's a nice day outside and you're working from home
00:27:40
◼
►
and you've decided to go in the backyard
00:27:42
◼
►
and take your MacBook Pro with you.
00:27:44
◼
►
And you've got that Mac Pro power sitting there.
00:27:47
◼
►
It's absolutely the case and it's quite remarkable.
00:27:51
◼
►
And that's why I think that Apple is right to make hay
00:27:55
◼
►
with the super high-end applications of this thing,
00:27:58
◼
►
even though it's mostly,
00:28:00
◼
►
I guess we could say mostly aspirational
00:28:02
◼
►
for the vast number of people who will buy it.
00:28:06
◼
►
It still feels good, right?
00:28:07
◼
►
To know that like, the thing I'm getting
00:28:09
◼
►
has no limits essentially,
00:28:10
◼
►
even though I'm not gonna push the limits.
00:28:12
◼
►
Like this is what the pros can use too,
00:28:14
◼
►
and it's the same tool.
00:28:15
◼
►
And that's always been an aspect of buying,
00:28:19
◼
►
you know, high-end Apple products
00:28:21
◼
►
if you're not a high-end user.
00:28:23
◼
►
- So Apple quote,
00:28:23
◼
►
"This is the best battery life in any laptop ever."
00:28:26
◼
►
I think he got like an extra hour for both Pro and Max.
00:28:30
◼
►
I think I heard, you can correct me if I'm wrong,
00:28:33
◼
►
but you said you drained it in two hours?
00:28:35
◼
►
- It's about two and a half, two and a half hours.
00:28:37
◼
►
I went from full to empty.
00:28:39
◼
►
I ran all the CPU cores at 100%.
00:28:43
◼
►
- Okay, how do you do that?
00:28:45
◼
►
- I used Xcode benchmark.
00:28:49
◼
►
I could have used anything,
00:28:50
◼
►
but Xcode benchmark is a nice benchmark test
00:28:53
◼
►
that tests Xcode compile.
00:28:56
◼
►
And there's a Unix command you can use
00:29:01
◼
►
that is, what is it, repeat?
00:29:05
◼
►
Something like that, where you basically,
00:29:07
◼
►
when it's done, do it again.
00:29:08
◼
►
And then, so I just ran it.
00:29:11
◼
►
And I had an activity monitor open,
00:29:14
◼
►
and all the cores were full CPU cores.
00:29:18
◼
►
And that was enough to kill it in two and a half hours.
00:29:21
◼
►
But again, the point is, this is not scandalous.
00:29:24
◼
►
The point here is that if you take another computer
00:29:27
◼
►
and do that to it, and I didn't,
00:29:29
◼
►
so I don't have a comparison here,
00:29:30
◼
►
it will kill it a lot faster than that.
00:29:32
◼
►
That's literally, nobody works like that.
00:29:34
◼
►
Nobody has 100% CPU on all cores at all times on a laptop.
00:29:39
◼
►
And if they do, their laptop doesn't last two
00:29:43
◼
►
and a half hours.
00:29:44
◼
►
But I wanted to make that point too,
00:29:46
◼
►
that like these are the extremes.
00:29:48
◼
►
I didn't hit the GPUs.
00:29:48
◼
►
The GPUs probably would have killed it even faster.
00:29:51
◼
►
And if I'd been able to flood both of them,
00:29:53
◼
►
it would have killed it even faster than that.
00:29:55
◼
►
But the point here is when Apple quotes 22 hours,
00:29:59
◼
►
they're quoting for sitting in the TV app,
00:30:01
◼
►
watching a movie that's using one of their hardware decoders
00:30:05
◼
►
to decode it and play it.
00:30:07
◼
►
And as a result,
00:30:09
◼
►
almost nothing else is happening on that system.
00:30:11
◼
►
When they quote 14 hours or 16 hours of wireless web,
00:30:15
◼
►
they're quoting a scripted test where they're using Safari
00:30:19
◼
►
to load a bunch of websites and click around and scroll
00:30:22
◼
►
and then click around again and all of that.
00:30:24
◼
►
And that's automated, which is great.
00:30:26
◼
►
But again, it is a, I would say very non-intensive test.
00:30:31
◼
►
It's more intense than watching a video
00:30:34
◼
►
and not doing anything else.
00:30:35
◼
►
But again, you can see it just dropped from 22 to 16
00:30:39
◼
►
or 20 to 14 or whatever their numbers are.
00:30:42
◼
►
But like you lose a lot just there.
00:30:44
◼
►
So the truth is everybody's profile is different.
00:30:47
◼
►
Everybody's using different apps to do different things
00:30:50
◼
►
with, and keeping in mind that when you're sitting there
00:30:53
◼
►
staring at your screen and nothing is happening
00:30:55
◼
►
and you're not rendering something or whatever,
00:30:58
◼
►
it's crashing everything to zero, right?
00:31:01
◼
►
It's like, all the performance cores go off,
00:31:04
◼
►
you know, the efficiency cores start to go off
00:31:07
◼
►
because there's nothing happening
00:31:08
◼
►
and your battery use goes way down when that happens too.
00:31:12
◼
►
So it becomes a very difficult to say,
00:31:15
◼
►
here's what your battery is in this thing,
00:31:18
◼
►
here's what you're gonna get.
00:31:19
◼
►
it will be somewhere between 22 and two and a half hours,
00:31:24
◼
►
depending on, or probably two hours or an hour and a half,
00:31:27
◼
►
depending if I'd killed it in a different way.
00:31:29
◼
►
And that's just, you know, again,
00:31:30
◼
►
the point here is that based on,
00:31:32
◼
►
by holding those tests that Apple does level,
00:31:36
◼
►
Apple's able to say,
00:31:37
◼
►
to express that this one has more battery power.
00:31:41
◼
►
And that is a function of both its battery life
00:31:43
◼
►
and the efficiency of its chip
00:31:44
◼
►
and the efficiency of the software
00:31:46
◼
►
to drive that chip efficiency even further
00:31:49
◼
►
by being really smart.
00:31:51
◼
►
I suspect that the four efficiency cores
00:31:54
◼
►
are a part of this.
00:31:55
◼
►
Like I said at the beginning of this whole conversation,
00:31:57
◼
►
like I think that's gonna be a big part of it
00:31:59
◼
►
just because so much of what we do
00:32:03
◼
►
is not pushing performance.
00:32:06
◼
►
And so having four cores that can just do stuff
00:32:08
◼
►
with very little effort, very little energy expended
00:32:12
◼
►
is a big win.
00:32:15
◼
►
But again, I didn't do one of those things.
00:32:17
◼
►
I didn't have time to do anything
00:32:18
◼
►
other than run the battery killing test.
00:32:20
◼
►
But it does have an enormous battery.
00:32:24
◼
►
And if you get the 16-inch, it's even more enormous.
00:32:28
◼
►
And that's why it's so big and so heavy.
00:32:29
◼
►
But it's also a huge battery.
00:32:32
◼
►
And if you are on a lot of airplanes
00:32:34
◼
►
or out in the desert at a video shoot or something,
00:32:37
◼
►
then it's gonna be valuable for you to have it.
00:32:40
◼
►
- The exact numbers, I don't know how useful they are,
00:32:43
◼
►
right, for those reasons.
00:32:44
◼
►
but just knowing that it's more than the last one,
00:32:48
◼
►
is, you know, that's kind of what you really need to know.
00:32:50
◼
►
Right, like, oh that's great, like there's more.
00:32:52
◼
►
You know, like I already like my battery life
00:32:54
◼
►
and my laptop, now there's more of it?
00:32:56
◼
►
Awesome, always want more of it.
00:32:57
◼
►
There are no colors still.
00:33:00
◼
►
Still just silver and darker silver.
00:33:04
◼
►
No midnight, no nothing like that.
00:33:06
◼
►
I just feel like we need to mention it,
00:33:07
◼
►
you know, something we care about.
00:33:09
◼
►
- No colors in professional-ism.
00:33:14
◼
►
very impressive machine, right?
00:33:17
◼
►
As you rightly pointed out,
00:33:18
◼
►
these were already great going into it
00:33:20
◼
►
and now it's even faster than it was before.
00:33:22
◼
►
Like there's no complaints here.
00:33:24
◼
►
- Yeah, it's spectacular.
00:33:27
◼
►
As somebody who has chosen,
00:33:31
◼
►
I mean, I have a Mac studio and a MacBook Air, right?
00:33:33
◼
►
So I've made both of these choices
00:33:34
◼
►
and I see the value in both of them.
00:33:36
◼
►
I would say I love the M2 MacBook Air.
00:33:38
◼
►
I think it's a great value.
00:33:40
◼
►
I think that it's not quite half the price
00:33:42
◼
►
'cause that's the M1,
00:33:44
◼
►
But I think the MacBook Air is the best Mac
00:33:48
◼
►
for most people to buy.
00:33:49
◼
►
I really do.
00:33:51
◼
►
But I detail in the article,
00:33:54
◼
►
I mean, and we've talked about it here,
00:33:55
◼
►
there are lots of reasons to get a MacBook Pro.
00:33:57
◼
►
And the funny thing I think is that it's enormous,
00:34:01
◼
►
truly enormous power
00:34:04
◼
►
is maybe not the most important one for most people.
00:34:09
◼
►
It's all the rest, right?
00:34:12
◼
►
It's the battery and the ports and the external,
00:34:17
◼
►
and that beautiful screen, right?
00:34:21
◼
►
Like those are all the other reasons that you get it.
00:34:23
◼
►
And I think those are all perfectly reasonable reasons.
00:34:25
◼
►
Plus it's Mac Pro power if you wanna go down that path.
00:34:29
◼
►
But at the same time, when then I opened my MacBook Air up,
00:34:34
◼
►
I was like, oh, what a relief.
00:34:36
◼
►
And I know it's slower, but I do the kind of work
00:34:39
◼
►
where I can stress a computer out.
00:34:42
◼
►
That's why I use a Mac studio.
00:34:44
◼
►
I've got a lot of audio and video stuff that I do
00:34:46
◼
►
that having the extra power is great.
00:34:49
◼
►
But that said, I'm not working in an environment
00:34:52
◼
►
like some people are where a MacBook Air
00:34:55
◼
►
is just not gonna be able to do it, right?
00:34:58
◼
►
It's just gonna be slower, right?
00:34:59
◼
►
All the video stuff I do, all the audio stuff I do
00:35:02
◼
►
will just be slower on a MacBook Air,
00:35:05
◼
►
but I could still do it.
00:35:06
◼
►
So I can have my primary computer be a MacBook Air
00:35:08
◼
►
if I wanted to and plug it into my studio display,
00:35:12
◼
►
what I would lose is the speed of every time I do a,
00:35:15
◼
►
you know, isotope RX, D reverb or D noise that takes,
00:35:20
◼
►
you know, it would take whatever, four times as long,
00:35:23
◼
►
or who knows, a lot longer to do it on the MacBook Air
00:35:26
◼
►
than it would to do it on the Mac studio.
00:35:28
◼
►
But my point is that like,
00:35:31
◼
►
most people don't even do what I do.
00:35:34
◼
►
And so I think that the Air is, in terms of like,
00:35:38
◼
►
I have friends who call me and they're like,
00:35:40
◼
►
"My kid is buying a laptop and what should they buy?"
00:35:43
◼
►
And one of the fears that comes up a lot is,
00:35:46
◼
►
"Is this not gonna be capable
00:35:48
◼
►
"of doing what they need to do?"
00:35:49
◼
►
There still is a fear out there that like,
00:35:52
◼
►
the cheapest Mac laptop is not gonna be powerful enough
00:35:57
◼
►
for their kid to do whatever they wanna do.
00:35:59
◼
►
It's gonna be kind of a loser system.
00:36:01
◼
►
And there were eras when that was more true.
00:36:04
◼
►
And that's why I think about it in these terms,
00:36:06
◼
►
because what I tell them now is, no, it's not a problem.
00:36:11
◼
►
Like the 999 M1 MacBook Air will be more power
00:36:17
◼
►
than your kid is ever gonna need.
00:36:20
◼
►
And yes, I would know if their kid was a 3D artist
00:36:24
◼
►
and their employer would probably buy them
00:36:26
◼
►
that computer for them.
00:36:28
◼
►
But like, you see what I mean?
00:36:29
◼
►
Like there was a time when you might have to worry
00:36:31
◼
►
that the cheap Mac was just not, you know,
00:36:34
◼
►
you're so compromised,
00:36:35
◼
►
It was just not gonna do what you wanted it to do.
00:36:37
◼
►
And we have left that, especially with Apple Silicon,
00:36:40
◼
►
we have left that era behind.
00:36:42
◼
►
So that's not a reason to get a MacBook Pro.
00:36:45
◼
►
The reason to get a MacBook Pro is, yeah,
00:36:47
◼
►
you need that power or you need,
00:36:48
◼
►
like, I think I'm not gonna blame you.
00:36:50
◼
►
I'm not gonna judge anybody, right?
00:36:52
◼
►
But I'm especially not gonna judge you if you said,
00:36:53
◼
►
"Well, I don't really need the power,
00:36:55
◼
►
"but I want that screen,
00:36:56
◼
►
"and I'm willing to pay $2,000 to get that screen."
00:36:58
◼
►
It's like, I totally get it.
00:37:00
◼
►
The screen is amazing.
00:37:02
◼
►
It is absolutely better than the one in the MacBook Air.
00:37:05
◼
►
it looks great, you got those extra ports, that's super convenient, you want to attach your laptop
00:37:12
◼
►
to two external displays on your desk, all of these are also great reasons. This episode is
00:37:18
◼
►
brought to you in part by Electric. Turning a small business into a business empire takes a
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00:39:01
◼
►
Let's talk about the Mac Mini now then.
00:39:06
◼
►
The Macbook Pro wasn't the only new machine.
00:39:08
◼
►
There is a new Mac Mini as well which features both M2 and M2 Pro as configurations.
00:39:15
◼
►
Your partner in crime Six Colors, Dan Morin, had got a review of the M2 Mac Mini and has
00:39:21
◼
►
written a review and published it as well.
00:39:24
◼
►
I like that Dan makes the argument that this Mac Mini is really kind of two products where
00:39:32
◼
►
it is both the base level, I think very affordable and capable M2 machine which is available
00:39:39
◼
►
is really compatible for all kinds of work similar to how you were talking about the
00:39:43
◼
►
MacBook Air right like it is the a machine for whoever has a monitor already right like
00:39:49
◼
►
this would do a great job for you. But then you add the M2 Pro, which is a mid-range prosumer
00:39:55
◼
►
machine that can go that extra mile and I think kind of starts bumping up against the
00:40:00
◼
►
current studio as well, right? It's like a really fascinating take on this computer being
00:40:05
◼
►
quite different from each other depending on the spec that you get.
00:40:08
◼
►
Yeah, I don't, I wouldn't say bump up. I feel like it slides in. Okay. Actually, I think,
00:40:13
◼
►
I think it's, the Apple's vision here has been revealed
00:40:18
◼
►
a little bit, right?
00:40:19
◼
►
Which is, there are, it's not two computers, Myke, it's four.
00:40:24
◼
►
- Whoa, so many computers.
00:40:26
◼
►
- It's four computers.
00:40:28
◼
►
It's the M2 Mac Mini, the M2 Pro Mac Mini,
00:40:32
◼
►
the M2 Max Max Studio, or M1 Max Max Studio,
00:40:35
◼
►
and the M1 Ultra Max Studio.
00:40:36
◼
►
I feel like if you look at it as four,
00:40:39
◼
►
they're all kind of, they all have their prices
00:40:41
◼
►
and their kind of performance profiles.
00:40:43
◼
►
And they really are four different computers.
00:40:46
◼
►
So the Mac mini we're talking about
00:40:47
◼
►
is one different computer, but it's really two
00:40:49
◼
►
because it's got that, you know, 599 M2 model.
00:40:53
◼
►
And then you go up to whatever it is 1299, 1399.
00:40:56
◼
►
I didn't write the review.
00:40:57
◼
►
I don't know 1299.
00:40:59
◼
►
- A million?
00:40:59
◼
►
- Then you get the M1 Pro or M2 Pro
00:41:05
◼
►
which is our first pro desktop,
00:41:06
◼
►
pro M whatever pro on a desktop system.
00:41:10
◼
►
We've only really had the M1 iMac
00:41:12
◼
►
and then the Mac Studio with Macs and Ultra.
00:41:16
◼
►
And so it fits this little kind of like,
00:41:18
◼
►
Apple has obviously M2, M2 Pro, M2 or M1,
00:41:23
◼
►
Macs, these names are so hard.
00:41:25
◼
►
Obviously M whatever no name, M whatever Pro,
00:41:30
◼
►
M whatever Macs and M whatever Ultra means something to Apple
00:41:36
◼
►
And with these two/four products now,
00:41:41
◼
►
you've got all of them in a compact desktop.
00:41:45
◼
►
And I think that's meaningful.
00:41:47
◼
►
And if you look at the prices,
00:41:49
◼
►
Mac Studio is a premium over the Mac Mini
00:41:51
◼
►
at the high end still,
00:41:53
◼
►
because you're going up to Macs from Pro.
00:41:58
◼
►
And so you spend an extra several hundred dollars
00:42:01
◼
►
to get up there.
00:42:02
◼
►
- And you can go wild, right?
00:42:04
◼
►
- You can spec one of these Mac Minis out to $4,500
00:42:08
◼
►
if you want to. - Yeah, but you can spec,
00:42:09
◼
►
right, which is true, and I see those arguments sometimes,
00:42:11
◼
►
and I'm like, well, yeah, but have you seen
00:42:13
◼
►
what you can spec a Mac Studio out to, right?
00:42:15
◼
►
Like if we're specing them up, they both go up.
00:42:18
◼
►
It's not like the Mac Mini shoots past the Mac Studio.
00:42:21
◼
►
I think that's like, right, if you're like,
00:42:22
◼
►
I have to have two terabyte internal,
00:42:24
◼
►
then the prices you're comparing between the two
00:42:26
◼
►
are very different prices, but they still are separate
00:42:30
◼
►
because one of them has got a Pro processor
00:42:32
◼
►
and one of them's got the max processor.
00:42:34
◼
►
I mean, how many people really need a Mac's processor
00:42:38
◼
►
over a Pro processor, I think is a good argument to make.
00:42:41
◼
►
Like, would I, if they had offered the Mac Studio
00:42:46
◼
►
and the Mac Mini side-by-side last year,
00:42:51
◼
►
would I have bought a Mac Studio?
00:42:53
◼
►
Maybe, but I certainly would have done what Dan is doing,
00:42:58
◼
►
which is seriously considering whether the Pro chip
00:43:03
◼
►
is plenty for me, and it probably would be.
00:43:07
◼
►
But I mean, I'm happy to have a Max
00:43:10
◼
►
because it's just, you know,
00:43:12
◼
►
it's gonna serve me well for a long time.
00:43:14
◼
►
But in terms of what I do day to day,
00:43:15
◼
►
Pro probably would have been just fine.
00:43:18
◼
►
- So where I'm looking at the charts again here.
00:43:20
◼
►
So the Mac Mini with the M2 Pro,
00:43:24
◼
►
it does beat out the Max Studio.
00:43:29
◼
►
I'm assuming this is your Max Studio, right?
00:43:32
◼
►
- Yeah, it's my max studio.
00:43:33
◼
►
- In like a couple of things, I think, what is it GPU,
00:43:36
◼
►
where it kind of starts to fall down, but in CPU tasks.
00:43:40
◼
►
- Well, I mean, 19 GPU cores versus 32 GPU cores, it's,
00:43:44
◼
►
- It's not gonna have much of a competition.
00:43:47
◼
►
So I'm saying like, it's interesting though, right?
00:43:49
◼
►
Like you could, I mean, considering the type of work
00:43:53
◼
►
that you're doing.
00:43:55
◼
►
- Exactly, I'm not using those GPU cores, am I?
00:43:57
◼
►
- No, you're not, you're not doing that.
00:43:59
◼
►
So the difference is, so my M1 Max
00:44:01
◼
►
has eight performance cores and the Mac Mini Pro,
00:44:05
◼
►
you can configure it to have eight performance cores
00:44:08
◼
►
and then the four efficiency cores
00:44:09
◼
►
instead of the two on my studio.
00:44:12
◼
►
So, yeah, I mean, that's a good example
00:44:15
◼
►
where an M2 Pro, like the one Dan tested,
00:44:19
◼
►
it's fast, it's Geekbench CPU multi-core score
00:44:23
◼
►
is faster than my Mac studio, absolutely.
00:44:26
◼
►
I want to make a claim here and I want to test it against your knowledge.
00:44:32
◼
►
I think the Mac Mini, the standard M2 Mac Mini might be the best value Apple has ever
00:44:39
◼
►
offered in a Mac.
00:44:41
◼
►
They dropped the price by $100 from the M1 Mini and it's faster.
00:44:47
◼
►
Made it more powerful and I kind of can't believe the price of it.
00:44:55
◼
►
very surprising to me. You get an 8 core CPU, 10 core GPU, 8 gigabytes of RAM, 256 gigabytes
00:45:03
◼
►
of storage. Like yeah, the RAM and storage aren't great, but it's $600.
00:45:08
◼
►
Yeah. Keeping in mind, somebody did the calculation like the original Mac Mini that was $4.99
00:45:15
◼
►
like 750 in today's dollars. So it's, it may be, it may be pound for pound, dollar for
00:45:24
◼
►
processor, dollar for Geekbench score. Somebody could do that math by the way. But it's not
00:45:30
◼
►
me today. That it might be the best deal that they've ever done. It's entirely possible.
00:45:36
◼
►
Like, I, I am kind of blown away by it. Like I wanted to make sure we mentioned it because
00:45:40
◼
►
you know, I spend a lot of time talking about how things get more expensive all the time,
00:45:43
◼
►
But this is not only is it so good they made it cheaper and if you're in education it's $4.99.
00:45:50
◼
►
Right like this is a great computer for that money like a truly excellent machine that can be dropped
00:45:58
◼
►
into a bunch of scenarios right like it's you know the Mac Mini was created to try and get people to
00:46:05
◼
►
switch from Windows right like that was its thing. Initial yeah. Yeah bring your own keyboard monitor
00:46:11
◼
►
or a mouse, is that what it was?
00:46:13
◼
►
Was that screen and mouse?
00:46:15
◼
►
- Display, keyboard and mouse, yeah.
00:46:17
◼
►
- And I feel like this might be trying to do that again.
00:46:22
◼
►
The Apple Silicon transition,
00:46:25
◼
►
I think is turning a lot of heads, right?
00:46:27
◼
►
Like the power and it's like interesting
00:46:29
◼
►
and Apple Silicon is cool, right?
00:46:30
◼
►
Like I see it a lot in YouTubers, right?
00:46:32
◼
►
Like people talk about it a lot.
00:46:33
◼
►
They even started their fake keynote video
00:46:35
◼
►
with a bunch of content creators,
00:46:37
◼
►
including friend of the show, Austin Evans, right?
00:46:38
◼
►
Like they put a bunch of clips in.
00:46:41
◼
►
of like people are talking about the Apple Silicon chips.
00:46:44
◼
►
These are a big deal in tech right now.
00:46:47
◼
►
So it's like, why not make a really competitive
00:46:49
◼
►
entry-level Mac again, that can be just be dropped
00:46:52
◼
►
into an existing PC setting?
00:46:54
◼
►
And now you've got this great value Mac mini to do that.
00:46:57
◼
►
I think it's really interesting.
00:46:58
◼
►
And I do wonder if that played any hand
00:47:01
◼
►
in the decisions that they made in this machine.
00:47:04
◼
►
- I don't know.
00:47:06
◼
►
- Because they didn't change anything on it.
00:47:07
◼
►
Design's the same.
00:47:08
◼
►
They didn't, as Dan points out,
00:47:10
◼
►
They didn't put any ports on the front or anything like that which is a shame.
00:47:14
◼
►
Because the Max Studio got those ports on the front which would have been lovely.
00:47:18
◼
►
The colors, they actually reduced this.
00:47:20
◼
►
There's less colors now.
00:47:22
◼
►
It's just silver.
00:47:23
◼
►
There's no space grey.
00:47:25
◼
►
I'm surprised that the overall size of the thing, the overall form factor is basically
00:47:33
◼
►
I think there's some small changes in the physical size but it still looks like, put
00:47:38
◼
►
those two things next to each other.
00:47:40
◼
►
It just looks like a Mac Mini.
00:47:43
◼
►
I guess that's part of why they can make it cheap.
00:47:45
◼
►
I don't know.
00:47:46
◼
►
I think it is.
00:47:47
◼
►
Yeah, it's a MacBook Air stuck inside a Mac Mini enclosure.
00:47:50
◼
►
I haven't given a lot of thought to the M2 base Mac Mini because it is just, yeah, I'm
00:47:55
◼
►
glad it exists.
00:47:56
◼
►
It's kind of amazing that they refreshed it.
00:47:59
◼
►
And everything I said about the MacBook Air goes for the Mac Mini, right?
00:48:02
◼
►
It's literally the same, except not a laptop, but like performance wise, it's exactly the
00:48:07
◼
►
fan so it'll it'll be it'll get keep cooler longer and to run a little bit
00:48:12
◼
►
faster in the long run if you're really extending it out it's a lot of computer
00:48:16
◼
►
in a pretty low price and a little small container and a little bit low price
00:48:21
◼
►
yeah Dan did a lot of work and couldn't get the fan to go and I appreciated the
00:48:26
◼
►
the lengths that he went to to putting his Apple watch up to the thing to see
00:48:30
◼
►
if the decibels changed he installed an app like a fan monitoring app to make
00:48:35
◼
►
sure there was in fact a fan inside. It seems like you couldn't get this fan to go. Which
00:48:40
◼
►
I don't know why but I feel like I have a personal vendetta against the fan inside of
00:48:44
◼
►
the Max Studio. I don't know. I don't know why it bothers me but like it bothers me that
00:48:48
◼
►
it's in there and it's apparently from people I know including you and Steven is running
00:48:52
◼
►
all the time the fan inside of the Max Studio. And there were a bunch of other machines that
00:48:57
◼
►
this doesn't happen. So like I'm really intrigued as to why it does what it doesn't why it seems
00:49:03
◼
►
to have so much headroom for cooling compared to upper max.
00:49:08
◼
►
Yeah, I mean, I use it every day and I don't care.
00:49:12
◼
►
So I'm not saying you should care.
00:49:14
◼
►
Well, I'm just saying it's funny that you don't use it and have a problem with it and
00:49:19
◼
►
I do and I don't but...
00:49:20
◼
►
Well, my problem, it's not like a problem.
00:49:22
◼
►
It's like it is a curiosity to me that I feel like I don't have an answer for.
00:49:26
◼
►
- It is mysterious that it seems to always run
00:49:29
◼
►
and that it has the ability to cool an M1 ultra configuration
00:49:34
◼
►
but even if you get the cheapest M1 max configuration,
00:49:41
◼
►
the fan still runs.
00:49:43
◼
►
I think that the cooling is different in the two units too.
00:49:46
◼
►
So it's like that M1 max one with the fan noise,
00:49:49
◼
►
it's strange, right?
00:49:51
◼
►
Like, why is it always making noise?
00:49:56
◼
►
- I find that, I just find that strange.
00:49:58
◼
►
Like, it's not like I feel like they shouldn't do it,
00:50:00
◼
►
but like, I just, I feel like at the moment,
00:50:02
◼
►
there doesn't really seem to be an answer.
00:50:03
◼
►
Like, we wanted this at a time.
00:50:05
◼
►
Maybe this will make sense in like three years, right?
00:50:08
◼
►
The ultra-- - Or maybe never.
00:50:09
◼
►
- So bananas, or maybe never.
00:50:12
◼
►
- Maybe never, but I did ask Dan about noise.
00:50:16
◼
►
He was like, there isn't any, so, you know, that is,
00:50:20
◼
►
And that's the case with that laptop too.
00:50:23
◼
►
The only time I could get the fans to turn on
00:50:25
◼
►
on the MacBook Pro is when I ran graphics tests.
00:50:29
◼
►
- CPU at a hundred percent for two and a half hours,
00:50:33
◼
►
it got a little warm, fans never came on.
00:50:37
◼
►
Or at least, well, I can't say that.
00:50:39
◼
►
Fans were never audible.
00:50:40
◼
►
I can say that.
00:50:43
◼
►
The GPU test, the fans were audible.
00:50:46
◼
►
Very, very much audible.
00:50:47
◼
►
'Cause the GPUs are the ones that get really hot.
00:50:49
◼
►
the CPU's don't get so hot.
00:50:51
◼
►
The GPU is really burning up
00:50:53
◼
►
and they're the ones who need the cooling.
00:50:55
◼
►
- And I love the Apple Silicon era.
00:50:59
◼
►
- It's pretty wild, right?
00:51:00
◼
►
I mean, we will talk later in the show
00:51:04
◼
►
about what might be next for the Apple Silicon era
00:51:06
◼
►
'cause we're always looking ahead.
00:51:09
◼
►
But this has given us, with the Pro and the Max,
00:51:12
◼
►
I mean, the lesson we learned here
00:51:13
◼
►
with both of these computers is that
00:51:17
◼
►
with M2 Apple's really just sort of like
00:51:20
◼
►
pushing it forward a bit.
00:51:21
◼
►
It's not, nor should we expect that there'll be a revolution
00:51:25
◼
►
in the second generation, right?
00:51:26
◼
►
That doesn't happen.
00:51:28
◼
►
But everything got pushed forward
00:51:30
◼
►
and there were little tweaks here and there,
00:51:31
◼
►
but Apple also made a bunch of design decisions in the M1
00:51:34
◼
►
that essentially carried forward to the M2.
00:51:36
◼
►
So when we shift gears in a little bit
00:51:41
◼
►
and talk about the future,
00:51:43
◼
►
that's one of the things to think about is like,
00:51:47
◼
►
will there be a more, at some point there will be more
00:51:50
◼
►
dramatic change, I think, in things that Apple throws
00:51:53
◼
►
into the M3 or M4 or M5, whatever.
00:51:57
◼
►
But M2 is really just about keeping it going,
00:52:00
◼
►
keeping the trains running,
00:52:02
◼
►
getting these out there refreshed,
00:52:05
◼
►
which is, again, very admirable.
00:52:07
◼
►
I love that they were originally planning on this
00:52:10
◼
►
basically being a year.
00:52:11
◼
►
It's a little bit more than that, it turns out,
00:52:13
◼
►
but not a lot more.
00:52:14
◼
►
Here's a faster MacBook Pro,
00:52:16
◼
►
and everybody who was sitting on the fence saying,
00:52:18
◼
►
I can't justify buying the M1 MacBook Pro,
00:52:20
◼
►
I still have this Intel MacBook Pro,
00:52:22
◼
►
now is another, you have another opportunity now
00:52:26
◼
►
with a new MacBook Pro if you want.
00:52:28
◼
►
- So why don't we switch gears
00:52:32
◼
►
from talking about some exciting product revisions
00:52:36
◼
►
to maybe a less exciting product revision
00:52:40
◼
►
with the brand new HomePod?
00:52:45
◼
►
a new HomePod. There is! Is that what you were looking for? Yes! Believe it or not,
00:52:52
◼
►
there is one. You know, you can look at it and you might not know. It is now powered
00:52:57
◼
►
by the S7 chip from the Apple Watch. It is apparently a little bit smaller. It has a
00:53:03
◼
►
slightly bigger kind of like screen on the top. It has the same temperature and humidity
00:53:09
◼
►
sensor that the HomePod Mini does and now all of these are exposed to HomeKit as of
00:53:13
◼
►
of iOS 16.3, which I think comes out this week.
00:53:17
◼
►
And there is a Thread Radio inside,
00:53:19
◼
►
so it was all set to be a full on meta controller
00:53:22
◼
►
and it's $299.
00:53:25
◼
►
- Yeah, so for all of us who anticipated
00:53:27
◼
►
that the HomePod needed a rethink,
00:53:30
◼
►
the answer is it didn't get one.
00:53:31
◼
►
It got a refresh and it looks like it got turned
00:53:37
◼
►
into sort of the brains of a HomePod mini
00:53:40
◼
►
and that they de-contented, right?
00:53:44
◼
►
They removed some stuff from it.
00:53:47
◼
►
Presumably the new HomePod is cheaper for Apple to make.
00:53:52
◼
►
So it's back.
00:53:55
◼
►
I think it's okay.
00:53:58
◼
►
I still have HomePods that work and are fine.
00:54:00
◼
►
And I like them, the big HomePods.
00:54:02
◼
►
I think that having the minis
00:54:04
◼
►
and no big HomePods was weird.
00:54:06
◼
►
It's not like Apple to have a modified product
00:54:09
◼
►
without other products in the family.
00:54:12
◼
►
It was the HomePod mini and that's all there was.
00:54:15
◼
►
But I think that the biggest thing that's not like Apple is,
00:54:18
◼
►
it's not like Apple to have a product for $99
00:54:20
◼
►
and not a more expensive product to upsell you to.
00:54:24
◼
►
And now they do with the big HomePod.
00:54:27
◼
►
And I haven't heard it, I don't have them.
00:54:30
◼
►
Apparently some journalists were allowed into a secret room
00:54:33
◼
►
somewhere to listen to them, but only in that one room.
00:54:38
◼
►
And I don't know, I'm sure they sound fine.
00:54:41
◼
►
I'm sure they sound good.
00:54:42
◼
►
The old HomePod sounded great.
00:54:44
◼
►
And it's still stereo pair for 600 bucks is pricey,
00:54:48
◼
►
but you know, Apple stuff is often pricey.
00:54:52
◼
►
At least the HomePod minis also exist.
00:54:54
◼
►
Beyond that, I don't know.
00:54:55
◼
►
I don't know what to think about it.
00:54:56
◼
►
Personally, my HomePods still work great.
00:54:59
◼
►
Would I buy new HomePods if my HomePods died?
00:55:01
◼
►
I don't know, maybe.
00:55:04
◼
►
Maybe, I like having them there.
00:55:05
◼
►
Even though I could turn on my Apple TV
00:55:07
◼
►
and I've got speakers in my living room
00:55:10
◼
►
that I could use instead that are better.
00:55:12
◼
►
I find myself playing music on the HomePods a lot
00:55:16
◼
►
because they're just there and addressable and sound good.
00:55:20
◼
►
So I might, I might look around at other options,
00:55:25
◼
►
other speaker options,
00:55:27
◼
►
but I might get a new set of HomePods
00:55:29
◼
►
if my HomePods died.
00:55:31
◼
►
- Yeah, Chris Walsh at The Verge got some time with it.
00:55:34
◼
►
Wasn't allowed to take any photos of it.
00:55:36
◼
►
- Wasn't allowed to have a side by side comparison.
00:55:38
◼
►
- What did we call it when the original one came out
00:55:40
◼
►
that I was allowed in like the hidden Grove or something?
00:55:43
◼
►
- You had a similar deal, right?
00:55:44
◼
►
Where it's like, you can listen to this thing,
00:55:47
◼
►
but nothing else.
00:55:48
◼
►
- You can't tell details of where you were
00:55:50
◼
►
or what the environment was or what you saw.
00:55:53
◼
►
You can only talk about what you heard in this room
00:55:55
◼
►
and that seems to have happened again.
00:55:57
◼
►
- Remind me though,
00:55:59
◼
►
did they play it in comparison to other devices?
00:56:04
◼
►
- Right, okay.
00:56:05
◼
►
my demo they compared it to other devices.
00:56:07
◼
►
But they didn't do that this time it seems. And Welch says it sounds about as good as
00:56:12
◼
►
the original to his ear but of course he couldn't do a side pod. He said he had to run back
00:56:17
◼
►
to the office so you can guess where they were and listen to the original and try and
00:56:23
◼
►
be like does it sound the same? I'm disappointed in case you couldn't tell. I'm very disappointed
00:56:30
◼
►
this home pod. I really want more from Apple than what they've done here, especially for
00:56:37
◼
►
$300. The home pods are great, but I don't think they're $300 great right now. And I
00:56:46
◼
►
don't think that they've really put enough into this thing to make it compelling. It
00:56:53
◼
►
is really now, it's just a big home pod mini and I kind of feel like, well, I would just
00:56:57
◼
►
get HomePod minis and it will be way cheaper.
00:57:01
◼
►
- I think there's nothing wrong with making a bigger version
00:57:04
◼
►
that sounds better for people who want to spend more money
00:57:06
◼
►
and get something that sounds better.
00:57:07
◼
►
And I like that they're both functionally the same
00:57:09
◼
►
beyond that, I think that's all good.
00:57:11
◼
►
I wish it was cheaper because I do think
00:57:16
◼
►
that they're best in stereo pairs.
00:57:18
◼
►
And I'll say what I did when the original HomePods came out,
00:57:20
◼
►
which is I kind of wish they would sell it as a bundle,
00:57:24
◼
►
right, like buy two and save,
00:57:26
◼
►
but that doesn't seem to be part
00:57:28
◼
►
of their initial announcement either.
00:57:30
◼
►
And 300, right, like triple the price of the HomePod mini
00:57:35
◼
►
is, that's a big leap, but obviously they have some
00:57:40
◼
►
confidence that they can sell them that way.
00:57:43
◼
►
I think it's really interesting
00:57:44
◼
►
'cause the HomePod original is perceived
00:57:46
◼
►
as being kind of a failure of a product
00:57:48
◼
►
and yet they're really kind of going back there again.
00:57:50
◼
►
It's $50 less, but 299 was a price
00:57:52
◼
►
that was readily available at the end for the HomePod.
00:57:55
◼
►
So at least it's cheaper, but I don't know.
00:57:57
◼
►
It's interesting.
00:57:59
◼
►
A lot of rumors out there.
00:58:00
◼
►
This is not the rumor roundup,
00:58:01
◼
►
but a lot of rumors out there, a lot of reports
00:58:03
◼
►
that there are other Apple home products in the works.
00:58:07
◼
►
And so maybe this is Apple finally kind of like showing
00:58:10
◼
►
that they need to get all their ducks in a row.
00:58:12
◼
►
They need to get that new home pod out.
00:58:14
◼
►
They need to get ready for Matter.
00:58:16
◼
►
And then they can start rolling out
00:58:17
◼
►
some other products too, who knows?
00:58:19
◼
►
- This episode is brought to you by Capital One.
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00:59:53
◼
►
While we head on down to the room around up and see what Sheriff Mark Gurman has got for
00:59:57
◼
►
us maybe to lift my spirits about Apple's home strategy, Mark Gurman is reporting that
01:00:03
◼
►
Apple continues to work on a set of devices to expand their smart home lineup. "The
01:00:09
◼
►
push into smart displays will start with a tablet product, essentially a low-end iPad,
01:00:14
◼
►
that can control things like thermostats and lights, show video and handle facetime. The
01:00:19
◼
►
product could be mounted on walls or elsewhere using magnetic fasteners, positioning it as
01:00:24
◼
►
more of a home gadget than a regular iPad. Apparently as well, a version of the Apple
01:00:29
◼
►
TV that would combine a speaker and camera is still being worked on but is unfortunately
01:00:33
◼
►
facing setbacks.
01:00:35
◼
►
Oh, my soundbar, come on.
01:00:37
◼
►
iPad, he's describing it as an iPad,
01:00:40
◼
►
essentially an iPad, right?
01:00:42
◼
►
- I think that's just a way to describe it, right?
01:00:45
◼
►
- I think so too, right?
01:00:47
◼
►
Now we've speculated about this a lot.
01:00:49
◼
►
I love hearing about this.
01:00:51
◼
►
Let me tell, as somebody who's had an Amazon Echo Show
01:00:53
◼
►
in his kitchen for a while now,
01:00:55
◼
►
there's a lot of opportunity to do better.
01:00:59
◼
►
And that Apple could really,
01:01:02
◼
►
I really want Apple to make this product.
01:01:04
◼
►
My guess is that it's based on iPad hardware,
01:01:08
◼
►
that it is gonna be able to run apps like an iPad,
01:01:12
◼
►
but that they're gonna make it have a kind of like a better
01:01:17
◼
►
kind of far away visual mode like these other products have
01:01:21
◼
►
so that you can control it via voice, via Siri
01:01:26
◼
►
and have it be, you know,
01:01:29
◼
►
have it be able to show you stuff
01:01:31
◼
►
in a way that like an iPad lock screen
01:01:33
◼
►
that expects you to be holding it in your hands, doesn't.
01:01:37
◼
►
So whether that's a more Apple TV-like mode
01:01:39
◼
►
or it's a different kind of lock screen mode or--
01:01:42
◼
►
- Yeah, I mean, I don't know what the form is.
01:01:45
◼
►
And again, everything needs to be scaled up
01:01:47
◼
►
because you're standing four feet away from it
01:01:49
◼
►
instead of holding it in your hands.
01:01:51
◼
►
But all the pieces, I know we've said this in the past,
01:01:54
◼
►
all the pieces are there.
01:01:55
◼
►
Apple has all the pieces to make a product like this.
01:01:58
◼
►
They just have to have the will to make it.
01:01:59
◼
►
And it sounds like this is what this product is gonna be.
01:02:02
◼
►
It's gonna be something that is, you know, put it on,
01:02:05
◼
►
here's a stand you can put it in,
01:02:07
◼
►
here's an attachment to the wall you can put it on
01:02:10
◼
►
and that they're trying to use it
01:02:12
◼
►
based on kind of iPad technology.
01:02:14
◼
►
Sounds good.
01:02:16
◼
►
I'd love to see it.
01:02:17
◼
►
- The thing that I want them to do
01:02:19
◼
►
is what Google's doing with the Pixel tablet,
01:02:23
◼
►
where you can get this base
01:02:26
◼
►
and if you put it on the base, it turns it into a home hub.
01:02:28
◼
►
So like, you can just take your existing tablet
01:02:32
◼
►
and just turn it into one of the home products.
01:02:34
◼
►
I think that's super cool.
01:02:36
◼
►
I would like them to do that.
01:02:37
◼
►
However, I don't imagine they'll do that
01:02:39
◼
►
because why sell a bass when you can sell a whole device?
01:02:43
◼
►
But then it would give people something to do
01:02:45
◼
►
with their older iPads, which I think would be awesome.
01:02:50
◼
►
But nevertheless, I really want both of these products.
01:02:53
◼
►
This is exactly the types of things that I want.
01:02:55
◼
►
Me and you have spoken about this idea of this like
01:02:58
◼
►
soundbar, Apple TV, FaceTime thing, a bunch.
01:03:02
◼
►
I really hope that they can get this product together
01:03:04
◼
►
because I think it would be amazing.
01:03:07
◼
►
But I really do want an Apple focused screen.
01:03:12
◼
►
It's got all my photos in it already to show me memories.
01:03:16
◼
►
- Or got all my calendars in there
01:03:17
◼
►
or like everything's in there for me.
01:03:20
◼
►
And like, I think for most of all listeners, right?
01:03:22
◼
►
They're using some version of services that Apple provide.
01:03:25
◼
►
I would love the stuff that I have in iCloud
01:03:29
◼
►
to be available to me on a screen,
01:03:32
◼
►
do smart stuff, right?
01:03:33
◼
►
Like you have a voice or face recognition
01:03:36
◼
►
to show the correct things for the correct person
01:03:38
◼
►
in the house when they're looking at it.
01:03:39
◼
►
Like I would love all of that kind of stuff
01:03:42
◼
►
in a product made by Apple,
01:03:44
◼
►
rather than a product made by somebody else.
01:03:47
◼
►
- Yeah, yeah, I agree.
01:03:48
◼
►
And you could implement this, if you're Apple,
01:03:51
◼
►
you could implement this as a device that was running tvOS,
01:03:54
◼
►
you could implement it as an iPad OS,
01:03:56
◼
►
kiosk mode of some kind.
01:03:58
◼
►
It's unclear what it's doing here,
01:04:02
◼
►
but those are implementation details, right?
01:04:03
◼
►
Somebody has presumably been working for years
01:04:05
◼
►
trying to figure out the best way
01:04:07
◼
►
to make a product like this
01:04:08
◼
►
that is at a price point that Apple wants to hit,
01:04:11
◼
►
but with widgets and Siri and all the cloud services
01:04:16
◼
►
and honestly apps, whether it's tvOS apps or iPadOS apps,
01:04:20
◼
►
the pieces are here for something great.
01:04:23
◼
►
And every time that I wonder why can't I do that thing
01:04:26
◼
►
on my Echo Show,
01:04:27
◼
►
or why is it showing me another stupid ad?
01:04:30
◼
►
And the answer is 'cause I paid very little for it
01:04:31
◼
►
'cause it's an Amazon product designed to deliver me ads.
01:04:34
◼
►
Don't get me started.
01:04:36
◼
►
That I wish for something better
01:04:38
◼
►
and think of how nice it would be
01:04:40
◼
►
if I could put some iOS widgets on my screen
01:04:45
◼
►
and maybe get my notifications there
01:04:47
◼
►
and use Siri to play music and, you know,
01:04:51
◼
►
which I can do with the Amazon Assistant too.
01:04:54
◼
►
But like, I don't know,
01:04:56
◼
►
there's a better experience to be had there
01:04:58
◼
►
and Apple's got all the pieces.
01:04:59
◼
►
So I would be very excited if Apple decided, yes,
01:05:01
◼
►
actually an assistant with a screen is a good idea, right?
01:05:06
◼
►
'Cause the HomePod, my frustration
01:05:09
◼
►
that I'll go into at a later time,
01:05:10
◼
►
my frustration with the Amazon assistants,
01:05:13
◼
►
I could unplug it and move my HomePod there, right?
01:05:17
◼
►
But I don't, because there is value in having a screen.
01:05:20
◼
►
There really is value in having a screen.
01:05:22
◼
►
Even if it's just being able to glance
01:05:24
◼
►
and see what the timer's status is,
01:05:26
◼
►
There's value in having a screen.
01:05:27
◼
►
So I hope Apple will play there one day.
01:05:29
◼
►
- Mark Gellman has also reported
01:05:32
◼
►
that Apple is currently planning to follow up
01:05:34
◼
►
on their mixed reality headset now with a cheaper version
01:05:38
◼
►
in either 2024 or 2025,
01:05:40
◼
►
before they were to release a full AR focused product.
01:05:45
◼
►
The AR product is apparently on hold
01:05:48
◼
►
due to technical issues in development.
01:05:50
◼
►
I mean, translation, this thing sounds like
01:05:52
◼
►
it's gonna be really hard to make,
01:05:54
◼
►
and turns out it is.
01:05:56
◼
►
- I mean, I'm not surprised by this at all.
01:05:59
◼
►
I feel like what we're seeing with Apple
01:06:02
◼
►
and these products is a pretty traditional
01:06:06
◼
►
new product category curve, right?
01:06:10
◼
►
Which is like, or plot, however you wanna say it,
01:06:13
◼
►
where it's like, well, here's our first one
01:06:15
◼
►
and it kind of works and it's overpriced
01:06:17
◼
►
and not a lot of people who aren't enthusiasts
01:06:21
◼
►
are gonna want it, but here it is.
01:06:23
◼
►
And then the next one is,
01:06:24
◼
►
"Well, we made one that's cheaper
01:06:26
◼
►
and more people are gonna want it,
01:06:28
◼
►
but we're still working on it."
01:06:29
◼
►
And you gotta go several steps out from there
01:06:32
◼
►
before you get to,
01:06:33
◼
►
these are glasses you can wear out in the world
01:06:35
◼
►
and they overlay things into your field of vision, right?
01:06:37
◼
►
Like that's a way harder product to make.
01:06:39
◼
►
That's like somebody with an Apple II in 1977
01:06:43
◼
►
saying, "We've got the iPhone on our roadmap."
01:06:51
◼
►
It's like, hmm.
01:06:53
◼
►
I even see it as something like, imagine if Apple started with the iPad,
01:06:58
◼
►
and the next year we're like, "Oh, we're going to have an iPhone next year."
01:07:01
◼
►
Like, that technology, you know, the iPad much bigger,
01:07:04
◼
►
like you could, in theory, make it a chunkier device.
01:07:07
◼
►
But then, having something that can just be available all the time,
01:07:10
◼
►
battery life can be put in somebody's pocket, right?
01:07:13
◼
►
Like, the miniaturization required, if they had done it the other way around,
01:07:16
◼
►
would have been really hard.
01:07:17
◼
►
And that's kind of what this feels like, right?
01:07:19
◼
►
where you start off with a mixed reality headset
01:07:21
◼
►
for whatever that's gonna be.
01:07:23
◼
►
It's gonna be expensive and big and chunky
01:07:25
◼
►
so it can have a bigger battery life in it.
01:07:27
◼
►
The idea that then somebody could just put a pair
01:07:29
◼
►
of glasses in their face and just live their regular life,
01:07:32
◼
►
like that is going to be incredibly hard.
01:07:35
◼
►
- Yeah, it's not one, two, three, right?
01:07:37
◼
►
That's not how those steps work.
01:07:38
◼
►
It's like one, two, three, four, five,
01:07:40
◼
►
cloud, question mark.
01:07:42
◼
►
- 83, it's a long way off.
01:07:45
◼
►
So of course, I mean, technical issues in development,
01:07:49
◼
►
I just read that as this is technology
01:07:53
◼
►
we have not yet invented,
01:07:54
◼
►
or that we have not yet invented at a size or weight
01:07:59
◼
►
or power consumption or all of the above
01:08:02
◼
►
that it makes it a product that can exist today.
01:08:05
◼
►
And that, I mean, that's the case.
01:08:07
◼
►
Apple was prototyping touchscreen things,
01:08:09
◼
►
including like iPhone-like touchscreen things
01:08:13
◼
►
way before the iPhone.
01:08:15
◼
►
But it was always like, how do we, you know,
01:08:18
◼
►
how do we get this to work in anything small?
01:08:21
◼
►
And it took time to reach that point where it was like,
01:08:24
◼
►
now we can make a product that people want.
01:08:27
◼
►
And that is the case, and it's not just Apple,
01:08:29
◼
►
it's literally everybody.
01:08:30
◼
►
Like this glasses that you wear that show you the world,
01:08:34
◼
►
but also paint things on your vision with details on that,
01:08:38
◼
►
like that is science fiction tech that we're not there yet.
01:08:41
◼
►
Or if we are there yet, it's with like a thing
01:08:44
◼
►
that is connected to 80 other things.
01:08:46
◼
►
It's like that fusion that happened
01:08:50
◼
►
at the Lawrence Livermore Lab where they're like,
01:08:52
◼
►
well, it took an enormous thing and we actually,
01:08:55
◼
►
to run it all, it took this huge amount of energy,
01:08:58
◼
►
but the actual fusion experiment generated power.
01:09:00
◼
►
It's like, it's a very large asterisk.
01:09:03
◼
►
It's like, this is very exciting,
01:09:04
◼
►
but it's not something you can actually apply right now.
01:09:07
◼
►
This is a little like that,
01:09:08
◼
►
where it's like they may have a lot of this tech,
01:09:10
◼
►
but not in a way that it'll fit on your face.
01:09:14
◼
►
Like, if you've got eight people behind you
01:09:16
◼
►
and like a cable going to a van
01:09:18
◼
►
that is following you down the street,
01:09:20
◼
►
like, okay, but that's not what the product has to be.
01:09:24
◼
►
- Yeah, it's like that fusion, as you say,
01:09:27
◼
►
like that fusion reaction wasn't net positive, right?
01:09:30
◼
►
Like if you encountered everything that it took
01:09:33
◼
►
to get it to the point where it can generate the energy.
01:09:36
◼
►
- To get it to the point, right?
01:09:37
◼
►
And it's experimental,
01:09:38
◼
►
and I get that's what happens in early tech.
01:09:40
◼
►
And the encouraging thing about the fusion reaction
01:09:41
◼
►
is that when they got it there,
01:09:43
◼
►
they, this technique generated more than they put in.
01:09:46
◼
►
And that is a milestone, right?
01:09:47
◼
►
But you can't forget the rest of it,
01:09:49
◼
►
which is that there's, that there,
01:09:52
◼
►
it's not like you can put one in your basement, right?
01:09:56
◼
►
That part, that product does not exist
01:10:00
◼
►
and may not exist if ever for decades.
01:10:02
◼
►
And there's just a long way to get there.
01:10:05
◼
►
- Quote, "Apple is aiming the lower price
01:10:07
◼
►
of the follow-up mixed reality device
01:10:09
◼
►
by using chips on par with those in the iPhone
01:10:12
◼
►
rather than components found in higher end Mac computers.
01:10:16
◼
►
So I don't think this is a version one, version two situation.
01:10:20
◼
►
- No, this is Apple reality pro
01:10:22
◼
►
and then Apple reality one, I think is what Mark Gurman said
01:10:25
◼
►
that it's calling it.
01:10:26
◼
►
So what they're doing is they're gonna make
01:10:28
◼
►
the aspirational thing that costs a fortune
01:10:30
◼
►
that nobody's gonna buy.
01:10:31
◼
►
And then they're gonna follow it up.
01:10:33
◼
►
And whether they say it at the time,
01:10:34
◼
►
this is clearly the strategy, which is like,
01:10:36
◼
►
"Oh, there will be another version
01:10:38
◼
►
that people will actually buy."
01:10:40
◼
►
Just not yet, right?
01:10:41
◼
►
There'll be a cheaper version.
01:10:42
◼
►
it's like Oculus, what is it?
01:10:43
◼
►
The Oculus strategy is similar, right?
01:10:46
◼
►
Where they have, they still are selling the Quest 2,
01:10:49
◼
►
which is their cheap one,
01:10:50
◼
►
and then they've got their expensive nice one.
01:10:52
◼
►
- Yeah, and I mean, for them,
01:10:53
◼
►
it was the other way around, right?
01:10:54
◼
►
Where they had the Rift, and then they had the Quest.
01:10:57
◼
►
Right, the Rift needed the PC,
01:10:59
◼
►
then they brought the Quest and made it easy.
01:11:01
◼
►
Now, the Rift doesn't exist anymore,
01:11:04
◼
►
but now they have the Quest Pro, right, as you say.
01:11:06
◼
►
So like, they kind of flipped it around again,
01:11:08
◼
►
but there's still the cheap, the expensive,
01:11:11
◼
►
I really wonder if Apple would be so bold as to say this
01:11:16
◼
►
when they introduced the product.
01:11:18
◼
►
- It would go against everything that they've done
01:11:23
◼
►
in the past, but I would certainly, again,
01:11:25
◼
►
if I were one of those people in a meeting,
01:11:27
◼
►
again, they would recognize me as an outsider
01:11:30
◼
►
and throw me out immediately.
01:11:31
◼
►
- Immediately.
01:11:32
◼
►
- If I were there and they somehow thought
01:11:35
◼
►
that I had something to say, that's what I would say is,
01:11:39
◼
►
"You know, you need to reassure people
01:11:41
◼
►
"that this isn't the whole story
01:11:43
◼
►
"because you're gonna get lambasted for it."
01:11:46
◼
►
- This might be the one time to do it.
01:11:48
◼
►
- Yeah, you only get one chance to make a first impression.
01:11:50
◼
►
Developers wanna hear what you have to say.
01:11:52
◼
►
And so you should commit
01:11:54
◼
►
that this is just the beginning for us.
01:11:56
◼
►
We have other products that are coming
01:11:59
◼
►
that are also VR, AR, XR, whatever you wanna say, products.
01:12:04
◼
►
Lean into that.
01:12:06
◼
►
Lean into that this is step one of a whole,
01:12:09
◼
►
just like how you leaned into it's an area of interest
01:12:12
◼
►
years before in order to prime the pump, just say it.
01:12:15
◼
►
You don't have to say next year we're gonna announce
01:12:17
◼
►
the Apple reality one,
01:12:18
◼
►
but say we have other products in the pipeline,
01:12:23
◼
►
this is gonna be big.
01:12:25
◼
►
And we anticipate that in the next couple of years,
01:12:27
◼
►
lots of people are gonna have devices
01:12:30
◼
►
running on this platform.
01:12:31
◼
►
That's what I would say that they should probably say,
01:12:34
◼
►
is just go out with confidence,
01:12:36
◼
►
don't pre-announce those other products,
01:12:38
◼
►
but give a nod and say, yeah, that we're in on this.
01:12:40
◼
►
This isn't it.
01:12:41
◼
►
This isn't a sink or swim kind of thing
01:12:43
◼
►
with this one product.
01:12:44
◼
►
We're in it and there will be other products coming
01:12:47
◼
►
that are great that people are gonna want.
01:12:49
◼
►
And in a few years, there's gonna be so many people
01:12:52
◼
►
using this platform that you get on board today, right?
01:12:55
◼
►
That's the argument.
01:12:56
◼
►
- Yeah, I agree with you.
01:12:57
◼
►
I would say this is maybe one of the only times
01:13:00
◼
►
where they could straight up say,
01:13:01
◼
►
we have another product next year
01:13:02
◼
►
that's gonna be different in value
01:13:04
◼
►
and this is a sneak peek of it because-
01:13:05
◼
►
- They could, they could.
01:13:06
◼
►
But I mean, like I said, they can couch it a little bit
01:13:08
◼
►
and it would be okay.
01:13:09
◼
►
- I don't think that the user base
01:13:12
◼
►
of this expensive headset would change
01:13:15
◼
►
depending on if they did that or not.
01:13:18
◼
►
Like the type of person that's gonna buy this.
01:13:21
◼
►
- If it's $3,000, right?
01:13:23
◼
►
The type of person that's buying this
01:13:25
◼
►
is not now gonna go, "Oh, okay then, I'll wait."
01:13:28
◼
►
- I'll wait for the one in two years that's cheaper, yeah.
01:13:30
◼
►
- It's either people, sickos like me, right?
01:13:35
◼
►
who want it and like I would be that person no matter what, right?
01:13:39
◼
►
Like whether I do in this show or not, if I wasn't doing this show,
01:13:42
◼
►
I'd still be the person that wanted it and if I could afford it, I would do it.
01:13:45
◼
►
And then also developers, right?
01:13:49
◼
►
And like developers aren't going to be like,
01:13:51
◼
►
"Oh, they're bringing out another thing next year that's cheaper."
01:13:54
◼
►
Like if you have an idea, you're not going to be like,
01:13:55
◼
►
"I'll wait for that one then."
01:13:56
◼
►
It's like, no, you want to be ready for when the cheaper one comes.
01:14:00
◼
►
And so I don't think they're going to do it this way.
01:14:03
◼
►
I'm saying I could imagine this being one of the only times
01:14:06
◼
►
where they could get away with it.
01:14:08
◼
►
And I don't think it would hurt this product's chance
01:14:12
◼
►
in the market either way, to be honest.
01:14:16
◼
►
- Probably not.
01:14:17
◼
►
And like I said, I actually,
01:14:18
◼
►
I think Apple needs to give developers
01:14:20
◼
►
especially confidence that this platform matters.
01:14:24
◼
►
Digitimes is expecting a MacBook Air powered by an M3 chip
01:14:30
◼
►
to be released in the second half of 2023.
01:14:34
◼
►
It is expected that this could be Apple's first
01:14:36
◼
►
three nanometer Apple Silicon chip.
01:14:39
◼
►
This is interesting 'cause it kind of does
01:14:42
◼
►
and doesn't line up with the rumors time-wise
01:14:45
◼
►
at the 15 inch model.
01:14:47
◼
►
There have been lots of rumors to suggest
01:14:49
◼
►
it would occur in Q2,
01:14:52
◼
►
but I think personally this all kind of wraps up.
01:14:55
◼
►
This is the next revision.
01:14:57
◼
►
- I mean, they could do an M3 MacBook Air
01:15:00
◼
►
a year after doing, or a little more after the M2 MacBook Air.
01:15:04
◼
►
Remember the M2 MacBook Air was delayed,
01:15:06
◼
►
so maybe they turn around and put an M3 in it pretty fast.
01:15:09
◼
►
The scenario that does make more sense
01:15:12
◼
►
is that this is the 15-inch model
01:15:14
◼
►
that they've been talking about.
01:15:16
◼
►
But it's possible we'll get a 15-inch M2,
01:15:18
◼
►
and then in the fall,
01:15:19
◼
►
we'll get a revision of the 13-inch model that's an M3.
01:15:24
◼
►
It's possible.
01:15:25
◼
►
I mean, who knows, right?
01:15:27
◼
►
Like who knows how their schedules are shaping up.
01:15:31
◼
►
I think what's more interesting here is the idea
01:15:33
◼
►
that this could be the Apple's first three nanometer chip.
01:15:37
◼
►
This is a theory that I've had for a little while now
01:15:40
◼
►
that I'm still wondering about,
01:15:42
◼
►
which is given that the A series chips release every year
01:15:46
◼
►
and the M series chips release every year and a half,
01:15:49
◼
►
that we're going to see a skip at some point.
01:15:52
◼
►
If this is the first three nanometer Apple Silicon chip,
01:15:56
◼
►
that suggests that the M3 is based on,
01:15:58
◼
►
I would guess on the A17,
01:16:01
◼
►
which will be in this falls iPhone
01:16:03
◼
►
and is supposed to be on a three nanometer process.
01:16:07
◼
►
And given the rumors or reports,
01:16:10
◼
►
there are reports that the A16 had the GPU cores
01:16:14
◼
►
that they tried to do next gen GPU cores
01:16:16
◼
►
and they failed them and went back to the old ones
01:16:18
◼
►
because they used too much power.
01:16:20
◼
►
This plays into that, right?
01:16:22
◼
►
Which is the Mac wants to leap over that.
01:16:24
◼
►
It's almost like the A16 is a lost generation at that point.
01:16:27
◼
►
It's also possible that it's based on the A16,
01:16:32
◼
►
but made at the three nanometer process
01:16:33
◼
►
with the new GPU cores,
01:16:35
◼
►
because they'll work fine on the Mac.
01:16:37
◼
►
But I don't know, at that point, it's almost an A17 anyway.
01:16:41
◼
►
So maybe that's the truth, is that the M3 is the A17.
01:16:45
◼
►
They're gonna come out together this fall, essentially,
01:16:48
◼
►
and the Mac will...
01:16:49
◼
►
And when I was talking before about like,
01:16:52
◼
►
just progressing from the M1 to the M2,
01:16:55
◼
►
the M3 feels like that's where you might see apples first
01:16:59
◼
►
sort of like, "Ha ha, but wait,
01:17:02
◼
►
see what we did with this next generation of chip
01:17:05
◼
►
in a way that the M2 doesn't do
01:17:07
◼
►
because it is more just a little bit
01:17:10
◼
►
of an improvement over M1."
01:17:11
◼
►
- If you enjoy this show and want more of it,
01:17:15
◼
►
you should subscribe to Upgrade Plus
01:17:17
◼
►
because you'll get no ads and you'll get bonus content
01:17:20
◼
►
each and every single week, including our challenges.
01:17:22
◼
►
I think we're going to set one of those pretty soon.
01:17:24
◼
►
We'll talk about that when we do.
01:17:27
◼
►
You'll get access to the Relay FM members Discord, which is a wonderful community of
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◼
►
If you're feeling a little bit lost on where to go with your social media time now, I recommend
01:17:34
◼
►
the Relay FM members Discord or whatever Discord is near you, or wherever other fine Discords
01:17:40
◼
►
You go to getupgradeplus.com, $5 a month or $50 a year, you'll get access to all of this,
01:17:46
◼
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plus tons of other wonderful content for being a Relay FM member.
01:17:49
◼
►
but we're talking about Upgrade Plus here.
01:17:51
◼
►
And on today's Upgrade Plus,
01:17:52
◼
►
I'm gonna quiz Jason on his seeming new distaste
01:17:57
◼
►
for his Echo Show because I have an Echo Show
01:18:00
◼
►
and have my own distaste for my Echo Show.
01:18:03
◼
►
So I wanna dig into that today.
01:18:05
◼
►
- Take that rich guys.
01:18:07
◼
►
- Go to getupgradeplus.com.
01:18:09
◼
►
Jeff Bezos, if you're out there,
01:18:11
◼
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you can pay $500 a month and you can find out what it is.
01:18:13
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You can just email us and we'll help you out.
01:18:15
◼
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- $500 a month or $10,000 a year.
01:18:19
◼
►
Just that is just the Bezos discount.
01:18:21
◼
►
- Bezos price.
01:18:22
◼
►
- Everybody else, $5 a month or $50 a year
01:18:25
◼
►
at getupgradeplus.com.
01:18:27
◼
►
Thank you so much if you sign up and help support the show
01:18:29
◼
►
and get some awesome content for you.
01:18:31
◼
►
It is time for Ask Upgrade.
01:18:34
◼
►
Jem said, "You mentioned previously in the loss
01:18:41
◼
►
of future revenue for Twitter app developers."
01:18:43
◼
►
So like we're talking about that as like
01:18:45
◼
►
Twitter apps gone away, Twitter apps like gone, gone now,
01:18:47
◼
►
like that's gone, it's done,
01:18:49
◼
►
Twitter changed the API rules, it's over.
01:18:52
◼
►
So we were talking about the idea that these businesses,
01:18:56
◼
►
that's it for them now with these products,
01:18:58
◼
►
that is a thing that's in them.
01:19:00
◼
►
But as the, and Jim goes on to say,
01:19:02
◼
►
but as the Twitterrific team state in their blog post,
01:19:05
◼
►
if people who paid demand refunds because of the app
01:19:08
◼
►
that they paid for is now useless, it could devastate them.
01:19:12
◼
►
- For icon factory and Tapbots both, they are,
01:19:15
◼
►
and anybody else who's got a paid Twitter client,
01:19:17
◼
►
If people ask for their money back, which is their right,
01:19:22
◼
►
but it's gonna happen all at once,
01:19:24
◼
►
and it's going to, yeah, it will be an enormous loss
01:19:29
◼
►
of money for these very small businesses, yeah.
01:19:34
◼
►
- And this is a very complicated situation, I feel like,
01:19:38
◼
►
because, as you say, right, like, people paid for an app.
01:19:45
◼
►
It is not the user's fault that this happened.
01:19:47
◼
►
This isn't the developer's fault either,
01:19:49
◼
►
but it's not the user's fault, right?
01:19:51
◼
►
And so this is one of those really weird decisions,
01:19:55
◼
►
like really weird situations where I, being who I am,
01:19:59
◼
►
lean on the idea of that the developers keep the money,
01:20:03
◼
►
like they're these small businesses, et cetera, et cetera.
01:20:07
◼
►
But there are a lot of people that,
01:20:08
◼
►
"Well, I pay for this too, right?
01:20:10
◼
►
"It's very complicated.
01:20:13
◼
►
I would ask our listeners, if they're thinking about this,
01:20:17
◼
►
to just write this one off as like, "Oh, well."
01:20:21
◼
►
Because if you used and loved this app,
01:20:24
◼
►
do you really want to put the developer in a tough situation?
01:20:27
◼
►
Because you know, listening to this show,
01:20:31
◼
►
what's gone down here.
01:20:34
◼
►
I would give it to them as a tip or whatever.
01:20:36
◼
►
Like, here you go.
01:20:38
◼
►
Thanks for your work.
01:20:40
◼
►
But I would not, if somebody wants a refund
01:20:43
◼
►
and requests a refund, I'm not gonna say you're wrong
01:20:45
◼
►
for doing that because it's a business, right?
01:20:48
◼
►
You are a customer, it's a transaction
01:20:50
◼
►
to provide a service.
01:20:52
◼
►
It's not your fault that it went away.
01:20:53
◼
►
It's really weird, right?
01:20:54
◼
►
This is a very strange situation.
01:20:57
◼
►
I mean, and it gets worse by the fact of like,
01:20:58
◼
►
if you ask for a refund in the App Store,
01:21:01
◼
►
that 30% that Apple takes, I think there is precedent
01:21:05
◼
►
that they can make you as the developer
01:21:07
◼
►
refund the full amount and Apple won't give back
01:21:09
◼
►
30% which is even stranger and more complicated and weird.
01:21:15
◼
►
David says I'm ready to update my desktop mac and the new mac mini looks great to me.
01:21:20
◼
►
My current iMac which is a retina 5k 27 inch late 2014 has a lovely big monitor that I
01:21:26
◼
►
would love to keep using. From everything that I've seen I'm out of luck and will have
01:21:30
◼
►
to discard this monitor and buy something new. Have you heard of any way possible to
01:21:35
◼
►
to reuse my iMac monitor with a modern Mac mini or Mac Studio?
01:21:39
◼
►
- The answer is essentially no.
01:21:41
◼
►
The way that the retina 5K displays on iMacs were built,
01:21:48
◼
►
they don't have target display mode,
01:21:51
◼
►
which used to be a thing long ago.
01:21:53
◼
►
They're moving a lot of pixels
01:21:55
◼
►
and they just were, they were never designed,
01:21:57
◼
►
as iMacs largely have not been designed to be monitors.
01:22:00
◼
►
They're computers, they're not monitors.
01:22:03
◼
►
If you really want to,
01:22:06
◼
►
you can use something like the Duet Display.
01:22:11
◼
►
There are some apps that'll do it.
01:22:14
◼
►
- Luna Display.
01:22:16
◼
►
- Luna Display.
01:22:17
◼
►
No, Duet Display is another app, right?
01:22:18
◼
►
Isn't that a different app?
01:22:20
◼
►
- They're both app, but I think Luna Display
01:22:22
◼
►
does the hardware thing.
01:22:23
◼
►
Luna Display is software.
01:22:25
◼
►
- Right, I think that may be right.
01:22:29
◼
►
There's definitely hardware with a Luna Display
01:22:32
◼
►
That's part of the secret sauce there.
01:22:35
◼
►
So there are apps that will let you take your Mac
01:22:37
◼
►
and put it on a second Mac as a screen.
01:22:42
◼
►
But keep in mind, one, you gotta boot up your iMac
01:22:44
◼
►
and run that.
01:22:45
◼
►
It's still your iMac.
01:22:46
◼
►
It's still running there.
01:22:48
◼
►
And two, you know, you're not gonna be satisfied
01:22:51
◼
►
with the quality 'cause it's gonna be laggy
01:22:54
◼
►
or it's gonna be lower quality
01:22:55
◼
►
'cause it is streaming video to a faux monitor
01:22:59
◼
►
like from your Mac.
01:23:02
◼
►
So you could try it and you might like it.
01:23:05
◼
►
My guess is you won't like it.
01:23:08
◼
►
And so that's why I taken this question to be,
01:23:12
◼
►
you know, reuse my iMac monitor with a Mac mini
01:23:16
◼
►
or Mac studio as like the primary display.
01:23:19
◼
►
That's why I say no.
01:23:22
◼
►
'Cause the answer is yes with an asterisk
01:23:25
◼
►
and the asterisk is you're not gonna like it.
01:23:29
◼
►
You can try it, you're not gonna like it.
01:23:32
◼
►
It's not gonna be satisfying to you.
01:23:33
◼
►
Just like using it with an iPad would not be satisfying.
01:23:37
◼
►
You could do it, you're not gonna like it.
01:23:40
◼
►
- Joe asks, "Do you think that an M2 Max
01:23:44
◼
►
and M2 Ultra Max Studio update could be imminent
01:23:48
◼
►
now that we have the MacBook Pro updates?
01:23:51
◼
►
Or could the Max Studio be another one and done proposition
01:23:54
◼
►
like the iMac Pro?"
01:23:57
◼
►
Joe, you're asking the question that we're all asking.
01:23:59
◼
►
- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
01:24:01
◼
►
Whose way, is this just Mac Studio owners or like?
01:24:04
◼
►
- I mean, I think everybody is asking, right?
01:24:05
◼
►
Like is the Mac Studio a one-off
01:24:07
◼
►
that was just sort of like to get us to the Mac Pro
01:24:09
◼
►
or is the Mac Studio going to continue
01:24:10
◼
►
to be a part of Apple's product line?
01:24:12
◼
►
I feel like there's a perfectly good place
01:24:15
◼
►
for the Mac Studio.
01:24:16
◼
►
I don't know how the sales have done, right?
01:24:17
◼
►
Like I feel like I said earlier in this very show
01:24:21
◼
►
that there's this space where you've got the Mac Mini
01:24:23
◼
►
and the Mac Studio and they fit, the four of them.
01:24:26
◼
►
fit across the line.
01:24:28
◼
►
What a Mac Pro does to that, I don't know.
01:24:30
◼
►
The Mac Pro is gonna be so much more expensive
01:24:32
◼
►
than the Mac Studio.
01:24:33
◼
►
So my feeling is that there is probably room
01:24:37
◼
►
in the product line for a Mac Studio
01:24:38
◼
►
and that the Mac Studio is actually gonna appeal
01:24:40
◼
►
to more people than a Mac Pro.
01:24:42
◼
►
But I could also see Apple saying, "Nah, it's not worth it.
01:24:46
◼
►
Mac Mini is good enough."
01:24:48
◼
►
And then Mac Pro.
01:24:49
◼
►
So we'll see.
01:24:51
◼
►
But I hope that they'll just keep revising the Mac Studio.
01:24:54
◼
►
They went to the trouble of making it.
01:24:56
◼
►
So just keep doing it.
01:24:59
◼
►
- And Eli asks, "What movies are you most excited for
01:25:04
◼
►
- Oh, right, is this a draft or how do we do this?
01:25:09
◼
►
- You could just list it.
01:25:10
◼
►
Just list the ones I have a list, you have a list.
01:25:13
◼
►
I think we can just go through the lists.
01:25:14
◼
►
- All right, the sequel to the animated Spider-Man
01:25:25
◼
►
Spider-Verse movie is coming out across the Spider-Verse part one, I guess, or maybe it's they're gonna have to they're making two of them
01:25:30
◼
►
Yeah, but they have different names
01:25:32
◼
►
I don't remember what the second one is but like across the Spider-Verse and then there's another one Spider-Verse
01:25:37
◼
►
So Into the Spider-Verse was the one this is the one starring, you know
01:25:41
◼
►
Miles Morales and it's animated and it's great
01:25:43
◼
►
It's one of the great one of the best animated movies of all time there. I said it easy. Yep
01:25:47
◼
►
so another one of those so yes, please I
01:25:51
◼
►
I'm encouraged by the trailer for the new Indiana Jones movie. So and I love Indiana Jones. So I'm looking forward to that very much
01:25:58
◼
►
The Marvel movie I'm looking forward to the most is the Marvels which is the Captain Marvel Ms. Marvel team-up movie
01:26:05
◼
►
I'm gonna mention a DC movie here. I haven't seen anything about it, but I love the comics of it, which is Blue Beetle
01:26:13
◼
►
Which is about a kid in Texas named Jaime Reyes who gets the this bizarre alien
01:26:21
◼
►
tech suit that allows him to be a superhero. The comics were really fun. If they can capture
01:26:28
◼
►
the vibe of this kid trying to figure out how to be a superhero and deal with his family and his
01:26:32
◼
►
friends and this weird alien suit, uh, could be great. I don't know. I'm gonna put on my list for
01:26:38
◼
►
now. Very intrigued. And I realized the other week that Dune Part 2 is coming out this year, which
01:26:47
◼
►
When the first part came out, I thought, you know, they didn't produce them simultaneously.
01:26:51
◼
►
It was going to be forever before they got part two into theaters, but it's apparently
01:26:55
◼
►
going to happen, uh, toward the end of the year.
01:26:57
◼
►
So I'm excited about that because I really liked Dune part one.
01:27:00
◼
►
So bring on part two.
01:27:02
◼
►
So I'm also all in on Across the Spider-Verse.
01:27:05
◼
►
Cannot wait for that movie.
01:27:06
◼
►
The trailer looks so sick, like, can't wait.
01:27:09
◼
►
Um, I'm, you know, for me, I'm all in on Marvel movies, so I'm excited for Ant-Man.
01:27:14
◼
►
- I've got an update here.
01:27:18
◼
►
Across the Spider-Verse is the third movie.
01:27:21
◼
►
Beyond the Spider-Verse is the second movie, I think.
01:27:26
◼
►
I don't know.
01:27:28
◼
►
Or is it the other way around?
01:27:29
◼
►
- No, I think Beyond the Spider-Verse is the next.
01:27:31
◼
►
- Beyond the Spider-Verse is 2024.
01:27:35
◼
►
Across the Spider-Verse is 2023.
01:27:36
◼
►
So confusing.
01:27:38
◼
►
Part one and two were less confusing than this.
01:27:41
◼
►
All right, anyway, sorry.
01:27:42
◼
►
So yeah, Ant-Man, I'm in.
01:27:45
◼
►
The Marvels, I'm in.
01:27:46
◼
►
Guardians of the Galaxy 3.
01:27:47
◼
►
Can't wait for all of them.
01:27:49
◼
►
I'll be there open at night.
01:27:52
◼
►
That's just how I am.
01:27:53
◼
►
For me with Marvel movies, I love them, right?
01:27:55
◼
►
And I don't want spoilers.
01:27:56
◼
►
So I just go open at night to each one of them
01:27:58
◼
►
and have a great time.
01:28:01
◼
►
I'm super excited for the Super Mario movie.
01:28:03
◼
►
It looks great.
01:28:04
◼
►
Like, I love it.
01:28:06
◼
►
The clip that they had at the Game Awards
01:28:08
◼
►
completely solved me.
01:28:09
◼
►
The trailer was good, but they played like a one minute clip
01:28:12
◼
►
or something and it just looked like so much fun. I am gonna have a great time watching
01:28:15
◼
►
the Super Mario movie. Can't wait. Similarly, I'm very intrigued about the Barbie movie.
01:28:22
◼
►
Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling. The trailer solved me where I was like, "Oh, okay. Now I don't
01:28:29
◼
►
know what's happening." And Oppenheimer. Christopher Nolan movie about the atomic bomb.
01:28:36
◼
►
Killian Murphy, like I love Killian Murphy.
01:28:39
◼
►
I'm happy that Killian Murphy's finally getting
01:28:41
◼
►
a full-on starring role in the Nolan movie.
01:28:44
◼
►
Like he's always in 'em somewhere.
01:28:46
◼
►
And I love Killian Murphy, so.
01:28:48
◼
►
That's what I'm excited for this year.
01:28:50
◼
►
- I read The Making of the Atomic Bomb,
01:28:54
◼
►
which is a very large book, last year.
01:28:58
◼
►
So I'm very interested in that,
01:28:59
◼
►
because I've read a lot about that,
01:29:01
◼
►
about the Manhattan Project,
01:29:02
◼
►
and Oppenheimer is a particularly interesting figure.
01:29:04
◼
►
So, you know, I'm intrigued by that one.
01:29:08
◼
►
I didn't have that on my list,
01:29:09
◼
►
but I will admit to being intrigued.
01:29:10
◼
►
- This is the one where they actually did
01:29:12
◼
►
like an actual bomb, right?
01:29:14
◼
►
And they shot footage of an actual explosion
01:29:16
◼
►
rather than using CGI?
01:29:17
◼
►
- I don't think so.
01:29:19
◼
►
You can't blow up atomic bombs.
01:29:21
◼
►
- Not an atomic bomb.
01:29:23
◼
►
- They just blew up a bomb and said,
01:29:24
◼
►
look, it's atomic, pretend it's atomic.
01:29:26
◼
►
- So Christopher Nolan recreated a nuclear explosion
01:29:29
◼
►
without CGI for new film, according to the Guardian.
01:29:32
◼
►
- Yeah, without CGI.
01:29:34
◼
►
I'm gonna give you a guarantee here, there's CGI.
01:29:36
◼
►
But it's nice that he blew something up.
01:29:39
◼
►
- Blew something up, you know?
01:29:40
◼
►
- Yep, mm-hmm.
01:29:42
◼
►
- I don't know what it means,
01:29:43
◼
►
but apparently he blew something up.
01:29:44
◼
►
I just hear people talking about the blowing up.
01:29:46
◼
►
- And then you add CGI.
01:29:47
◼
►
We watched Top Gun Maverick over the weekend,
01:29:49
◼
►
and we had that conversation, which is,
01:29:52
◼
►
you know, is this practical or are those effects shots?
01:29:56
◼
►
And my answer was, I think the answer is yes.
01:29:59
◼
►
I think they did a lot of innovative photography
01:30:01
◼
►
and they did a lot of aerial photography
01:30:02
◼
►
and that crazy Tom Cruise was probably out there
01:30:06
◼
►
in a plane somewhere, and then they took that footage,
01:30:09
◼
►
and then they composited it a lot, right?
01:30:12
◼
►
Like, I think both of those things can be true,
01:30:15
◼
►
if you can hold that in your mind,
01:30:16
◼
►
that they can shoot some amazing footage,
01:30:19
◼
►
and then still need to clean it up
01:30:22
◼
►
in order to make it look like it fits inside the film.
01:30:25
◼
►
- I kind of don't understand
01:30:26
◼
►
why people are so against visual effects.
01:30:28
◼
►
Like, you see this, right? - I don't get it.
01:30:31
◼
►
And I understand the mixture, right?
01:30:34
◼
►
Like I think the mixture is important, right?
01:30:36
◼
►
'Cause I can imagine sometimes for actors,
01:30:38
◼
►
they like to be in places, right?
01:30:40
◼
►
Which is I think the volume is really cool
01:30:43
◼
►
because it can at least give you the impression
01:30:45
◼
►
of like being in a place
01:30:46
◼
►
rather than just standing in front of a green screen.
01:30:49
◼
►
But like, there is like, I don't know why people get so mad
01:30:53
◼
►
about practical versus special effects and I don't get it.
01:30:57
◼
►
- Or practical versus like digital effects.
01:31:00
◼
►
And yeah, I don't entirely agree.
01:31:02
◼
►
I mean, there is an argument to be made
01:31:05
◼
►
that there are movies that are being made
01:31:07
◼
►
that are relying on special effects to dazzle people
01:31:10
◼
►
and that the other parts of filmmaking are left behind.
01:31:13
◼
►
The problem is that, I mean,
01:31:16
◼
►
that is such a reductive kind of idea.
01:31:19
◼
►
Special effects have been with us,
01:31:20
◼
►
visual effects have been with us
01:31:21
◼
►
since the beginning of film, believe it or not.
01:31:25
◼
►
Todd Dzirui always likes to bring out GIFs
01:31:28
◼
►
from like things from the '20s.
01:31:29
◼
►
to show you VFX has been with us since the very beginning. And there are always good ones and
01:31:36
◼
►
there are bad ones and there are filmmakers who know how to use them to tell a story and there
01:31:39
◼
►
are filmmakers who don't know how to use them and fail to tell a story. And the tools that are being
01:31:45
◼
►
used have changed but everything else remains the same. So I don't, I, yeah, I am with you. I don't
01:31:51
◼
►
I don't really understand the "I'm tired of CGI" argument.
01:31:56
◼
►
I do, I will say, I think that there's something
01:32:01
◼
►
at the root of that argument that maybe I do understand,
01:32:04
◼
►
which is that there are,
01:32:06
◼
►
there's a couple of things there, right?
01:32:09
◼
►
One is that filmmakers don't always,
01:32:12
◼
►
or production companies or studios,
01:32:15
◼
►
don't always have a good movie,
01:32:17
◼
►
but they figure that if they have a bunch
01:32:20
◼
►
of special effects that maybe people will come see it.
01:32:23
◼
►
- Right. - That's not new.
01:32:24
◼
►
That's been happening for a long time.
01:32:26
◼
►
I don't know.
01:32:27
◼
►
- I feel like what people are seeing is
01:32:29
◼
►
that they don't like the bad filmmaking, right?
01:32:31
◼
►
Like it's just bad filmmaking.
01:32:32
◼
►
It's what you don't like.
01:32:34
◼
►
- Yeah. - Right?
01:32:35
◼
►
It's not the special effects.
01:32:36
◼
►
- They try to find reasons to do that.
01:32:38
◼
►
And then bad filmmaking is another thing
01:32:39
◼
►
I wanted to mention, which is another problem here
01:32:41
◼
►
is that sometimes it's just that the filmmakers
01:32:43
◼
►
don't know how to use, you know, they get hired
01:32:46
◼
►
and they've never worked on a movie
01:32:48
◼
►
with a lot of special effects
01:32:49
◼
►
and they don't know how to use them.
01:32:50
◼
►
Also some of this stuff is like laziness.
01:32:52
◼
►
Like the volume is interesting because it requires you
01:32:56
◼
►
to do all of your computer production work, not all,
01:32:59
◼
►
but a lot of your computer production work before you shoot.
01:33:02
◼
►
And that means that it forces the filmmakers
01:33:04
◼
►
to actually make the decisions and do the work
01:33:06
◼
►
before they get on set to shoot.
01:33:09
◼
►
I think that a lot of broken films from the modern era
01:33:13
◼
►
are because filmmakers have decided
01:33:15
◼
►
that they don't need to do the work upfront.
01:33:17
◼
►
They can wave their hands at the VFX department
01:33:20
◼
►
and say, "Fix my things."
01:33:22
◼
►
They don't plan ahead.
01:33:24
◼
►
And those filmmakers make bad films.
01:33:27
◼
►
Shockingly, people who don't do their job
01:33:30
◼
►
don't do good at their job.
01:33:34
◼
►
But that's why I actually like things like the volume
01:33:37
◼
►
is for those who don't know,
01:33:39
◼
►
like if you're shooting on an LED wall
01:33:42
◼
►
where you've got an entire 3D world
01:33:45
◼
►
that moves as the camera moves
01:33:46
◼
►
to make it seem like you're outside in that world,
01:33:49
◼
►
all those assets have to be done and decided on in advance.
01:33:54
◼
►
Whereas with a lot of stuff that's shot before
01:33:56
◼
►
a green screen or a blue screen or really anywhere,
01:33:59
◼
►
it allows the director to get away with being like,
01:34:03
◼
►
yeah, we'll figure it out later.
01:34:04
◼
►
And that's not conducive to good filmmaking.
01:34:06
◼
►
So I think there's stuff that's at the roots of it
01:34:09
◼
►
and then it just becomes a holy war, right?
01:34:11
◼
►
Which is just like, this is stupid CGI,
01:34:13
◼
►
where you see people posting,
01:34:15
◼
►
over the weekend, Todd Visserie posted a thing that was,
01:34:20
◼
►
somebody posting a video of Iron Man
01:34:24
◼
►
from the first Iron Man movie in a scene,
01:34:27
◼
►
and he said the Iron Man costume was so much better
01:34:30
◼
►
when they didn't do it in CGI.
01:34:32
◼
►
And Todd said, "You know the Iron Man costume
01:34:35
◼
►
"in that shot is CGI, right?"
01:34:39
◼
►
Anyway, it's silly.
01:34:41
◼
►
But anyway, all the movies that I listed
01:34:43
◼
►
and that you listed will have CGI in them, I guarantee it.
01:34:46
◼
►
- Back in my day, Iron Man really put the suit on.
01:34:50
◼
►
- You know how many people got poisoned from the makeup
01:34:53
◼
►
in "The Wizard of Oz" because it was clogging their pores
01:34:56
◼
►
and they were allergic to it?
01:34:58
◼
►
Well, at least one, but probably more than that.
01:35:01
◼
►
They're probably very sick, covered in silver paint
01:35:04
◼
►
or lion fur or whatever, right?
01:35:06
◼
►
And that was 1939, it happens.
01:35:08
◼
►
- If you would like to send in a question of your own
01:35:12
◼
►
for us to answer on the show in Ask Upgrade, send it into upgradefeedback.com or click
01:35:16
◼
►
the link in the podcast app of your choice and you can send in some feedback to us. It
01:35:22
◼
►
would be great. I'm really enjoying getting our Ask Upgrade questions there. They've been
01:35:25
◼
►
really great. Thank you to everybody that's done that.
01:35:29
◼
►
We'll be back next week's episode. Until then, you can check out Jason's writing at sixcolors.com
01:35:33
◼
►
and here he's podcasting at the incomparable.com and right here on Wheel AFM. You can listen
01:35:38
◼
►
to my shows, of course, here on relay FM 2 and check out my work at cortexbrand.com.
01:35:43
◼
►
You can send us your feedback and your questions at upgradefeedback.com and thank you to our
01:35:48
◼
►
members who support the show with Upgrade Plus and to our sponsors this week, Capital
01:35:54
◼
►
One and Electric.
01:35:55
◼
►
We'll be back on next week's episode.
01:35:57
◼
►
Thank you so much for listening.
01:35:58
◼
►
Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow.
01:36:00
◼
►
Goodbye, everybody.
01:36:01
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[MUSIC PLAYING]