ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► we have to talk about the ATP membership and pricing.

00:00:04 ◼   ► And I really wish Apple did not raise their prices

00:00:07 ◼   ► on the day that we're talking about this,

00:00:10 ◼   ► because you know, there's something something headwinds.

00:00:13 ◼   ► So, we have some pricing updates to talk about

00:00:16 ◼   ► for ATP membership.

00:00:17 ◼   ► John, can you give us the bullet points at the very least,

00:00:20 ◼   ► and maybe we can talk longer, later on?

00:00:22 ◼   ► - We should actually talk about foreign currency

00:00:24 ◼   ► exchange rates.

00:00:25 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:00:26 ◼   ► - What kind of podcast does this hit?

00:00:28 ◼   ► - Foreign currency exchange rates,

00:00:29 ◼   ► they affect us, 'cause we do accept memberships

00:00:31 ◼   ► in different currencies.

00:00:32 ◼   ► Anyway, Oscar-winning performance, Casey, very good.

00:00:35 ◼   ► - Thank you, I appreciate it.

00:00:36 ◼   ► - So, we do have some ATP membership changes to announce.

00:00:38 ◼   ► We're gonna announce them briefly,

00:00:39 ◼   ► just the bullet points for now.

00:00:41 ◼   ► We will talk about them more in the after show

00:00:42 ◼   ► if you care about that type of stuff.

00:00:44 ◼   ► If not, here's the deal.

00:00:46 ◼   ► ATP membership, if you buy an entire year's worth

00:00:49 ◼   ► of membership, the price is decreasing.

00:00:52 ◼   ► Now, if you buy a whole year, you get a discount

00:00:54 ◼   ► that's equivalent to getting one month free.

00:00:56 ◼   ► - Wait, we did this all wrong!

00:00:57 ◼   ► We're supposed to be raising prices, John!

00:00:59 ◼   ► Raising prices!

00:01:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, we should be increasing prices to match inflation.

00:01:02 ◼   ► I don't know why we're not doing that, but we're not.

00:01:04 ◼   ► If you are an existing annual member, don't worry,

00:01:07 ◼   ► your subscription will renew at the new lower rate.

00:01:09 ◼   ► There's nothing you have to do.

00:01:11 ◼   ► Second item, we have a membership FAQ, or FAQ,

00:01:14 ◼   ► depending on how you wanna pronounce it.

00:01:16 ◼   ► Link will be in the show notes.

00:01:17 ◼   ► It's at atp.fm/membership/faq,

00:01:20 ◼   ► and it hopefully answers a bunch of questions

00:01:22 ◼   ► you might have about membership.

00:01:24 ◼   ► And if you have other questions, send them to us,

00:01:25 ◼   ► and I'll add them to the FAQ.

00:01:27 ◼   ► And then the final thing, and this is the weirdest thing,

00:01:29 ◼   ► and again, we'll talk about it more on the after show,

00:01:31 ◼   ► but not now, as part of our recent survey of listeners

00:01:35 ◼   ► about membership stuff, we got some feedback

00:01:37 ◼   ► where some people, not many people,

00:01:40 ◼   ► but some people said they wish there was a way

00:01:43 ◼   ► they could pay us more money for membership.

00:01:45 ◼   ► I don't think Apple got a lot of those things

00:01:46 ◼   ► about Apple TV+, but we got some about our program.

00:01:51 ◼   ► And so we figured that's a thing that we should do.

00:01:54 ◼   ► We now have a way for people who want to

00:01:57 ◼   ► to pay more than less price for ATP membership.

00:01:59 ◼   ► We will provide a link in the show notes,

00:02:01 ◼   ► and of course, it is described in the FAQ.

00:02:03 ◼   ► - We gotta start with some follow-up, as always,

00:02:06 ◼   ► and the entire internet wrote to tell us about something

00:02:09 ◼   ► that I actually already knew.

00:02:10 ◼   ► I was very excited that I was first to report this in.

00:02:14 ◼   ► One of my really favorite podcasts is "20,000 Hertz."

00:02:18 ◼   ► You can sorta kind of think of it as a 99% invisible,

00:02:22 ◼   ► but specifically around audio and audio-related things.

00:02:25 ◼   ► And I think it was literally the day after we reported,

00:02:28 ◼   ► or perhaps the day after we released.

00:02:29 ◼   ► - It sure was.

00:02:30 ◼   ► - Last week, Dallas Taylor and team did an episode

00:02:33 ◼   ► called "Auto-Tone," which I presume is a play on auto-tune,

00:02:37 ◼   ► which is all about automotive, noises, and things like that.

00:02:40 ◼   ► And wouldn't you guess, what did they feature prominently

00:02:44 ◼   ► in the episode but Rivian?

00:02:45 ◼   ► And sure enough, the Rivian sound engineers,

00:02:48 ◼   ► or whatever we're supposed to call them,

00:02:49 ◼   ► said, "Yep, they are based on nature,"

00:02:51 ◼   ► just as I think Jon had theorized last episode.

00:02:55 ◼   ► - I didn't theorize, I was just telling you.

00:02:56 ◼   ► - Okay, sorry. - 'Cause I had heard this

00:02:58 ◼   ► from the Rivian people for many years.

00:03:00 ◼   ► I mean, as you would imagine,

00:03:00 ◼   ► the PR push for their electric trucks,

00:03:03 ◼   ► they've been talking about this a lot.

00:03:04 ◼   ► But yeah, I listened to the episode as well,

00:03:05 ◼   ► so I'll link it in the show notes.

00:03:06 ◼   ► - Yep, and it's genuinely really good.

00:03:08 ◼   ► - In all fairness, first of all, I love the show.

00:03:11 ◼   ► It's a great show, this is a great episode.

00:03:13 ◼   ► But as a new Rivian owner and a sound nerd,

00:03:16 ◼   ► I can tell you, they have twisted and turned these sounds

00:03:20 ◼   ► so far from the natural sources.

00:03:22 ◼   ► Like, listen to the episode, they'll play you,

00:03:23 ◼   ► like, here's what it was based on,

00:03:25 ◼   ► here's a wolf howling or whatever.

00:03:26 ◼   ► - I thought it was weird that you were saying,

00:03:28 ◼   ► like, oh, it doesn't sound like nature sounds to me.

00:03:29 ◼   ► But I think the one that sounds like a bird chirp,

00:03:32 ◼   ► yes, it's messed up, as you'll hear in the episode,

00:03:34 ◼   ► like it's pitched up or whatever,

00:03:35 ◼   ► but it still sounds like a bird chirp.

00:03:37 ◼   ► Like, are you not getting that?

00:03:38 ◼   ► I don't know, it was going over your head.

00:03:39 ◼   ► - Well, that sound I never hear.

00:03:41 ◼   ► I'm just talking about the whirring sound

00:03:43 ◼   ► and the turn signals, those are the ones I actually hear.

00:03:45 ◼   ► It does sound very nice.

00:03:47 ◼   ► I really enjoy the sound design of Rivian.

00:03:50 ◼   ► But it's like, well, we started with this owl noise,

00:03:53 ◼   ► and then we stretched it and pitched it down

00:03:54 ◼   ► and added this river and tweaked it up.

00:03:56 ◼   ► And when you hear, on the episode,

00:03:58 ◼   ► they're like, here's the sound we started with,

00:04:00 ◼   ► and then you hear the final sound,

00:04:00 ◼   ► you're like, there is no part of that

00:04:03 ◼   ► that sounds like an owl.

00:04:04 ◼   ► - You just gotta feel the nature.

00:04:06 ◼   ► - It's in there.

00:04:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, okay. (laughs)

00:04:09 ◼   ► - Yep, so anyway, that's the deal, Rivian confirmed.

00:04:12 ◼   ► Sounds are at least nature-inspired, if not nature-like.

00:04:17 ◼   ► So here we are.

00:04:18 ◼   ► We got a lot of feedback, many of which was quite,

00:04:21 ◼   ► many pieces of feedback were quite interesting

00:04:22 ◼   ► with regard to this whole updating iPhones

00:04:25 ◼   ► while they're still in the box.

00:04:26 ◼   ► And a lot of this was anonymous,

00:04:28 ◼   ► but we have a couple of people that we can cite.

00:04:30 ◼   ► Ryan Emenecker writes, "I tried a quick experiment

00:04:33 ◼   ► "to charge my iPhone 14 Pro Max

00:04:35 ◼   ► "through the original packaging.

00:04:37 ◼   ► "The iPhone 14 line's packaging did have the back

00:04:41 ◼   ► "of the phone facing up.

00:04:42 ◼   ► "It didn't work with a MagSafe puck,

00:04:44 ◼   ► "but it did work with two large multi-device charging pads."

00:04:48 ◼   ► And I don't think Ryan was the only one to try this,

00:04:50 ◼   ► and I don't have any other examples in front of me,

00:04:52 ◼   ► but I feel like at least a couple of people said,

00:04:54 ◼   ► yeah, yeah, it might take a little bit of effort,

00:04:56 ◼   ► but it definitely does work as is,

00:04:58 ◼   ► which is kind of interesting.

00:04:59 ◼   ► Anonymous writes, "What Apple is most likely to do

00:05:02 ◼   ► "is just stage the updated software on the device,

00:05:05 ◼   ► "which would mean transferring the installation image

00:05:07 ◼   ► "and having the onboard firmware verify its integrity.

00:05:10 ◼   ► "Then, once the customer unboxes the device and turns it on,

00:05:13 ◼   ► "it will perform the rest of the installation process.

00:05:15 ◼   ► "If the device arrives without enough battery juice

00:05:17 ◼   ► "for this process, the firmware could prompt the user

00:05:19 ◼   ► "to plug it in before finishing the installation."

00:05:21 ◼   ► This is one of those things that as soon as I read this,

00:05:24 ◼   ► I was like, oh, of course.

00:05:25 ◼   ► That didn't even cross my mind, but it makes perfect sense.

00:05:28 ◼   ► - When I heard that, I thought, no way.

00:05:30 ◼   ► 'Cause it's like, that doesn't really,

00:05:32 ◼   ► that only half solves the problem.

00:05:33 ◼   ► Like, if the problem is these phones take too long

00:05:36 ◼   ► to set up in first run, like, it's not gonna really be

00:05:39 ◼   ► that huge of a time savings if they're only gonna, like,

00:05:43 ◼   ► download the installation image,

00:05:44 ◼   ► but not actually install it.

00:05:45 ◼   ► - And based on the first feedback,

00:05:46 ◼   ► like, the whole idea is if you can charge it

00:05:48 ◼   ► when it's in the box, you don't have to do

00:05:50 ◼   ► this staging thing, so that's an interesting solution

00:05:53 ◼   ► if you're like, well, we can't figure out a good way

00:05:54 ◼   ► to charge them while they're in the box, so,

00:05:56 ◼   ► but we can, you know, they probably have enough juice

00:05:58 ◼   ► that we can just shove the image on there.

00:05:59 ◼   ► That would shave some time off, but it seems like

00:06:01 ◼   ► if you can get electricity through to them,

00:06:02 ◼   ► you don't have to do it this way, we'll see.

00:06:04 ◼   ► - And like, most of our speculation last time

00:06:06 ◼   ► and discussion was based on, we were, I think,

00:06:08 ◼   ► assuming that they probably couldn't get enough

00:06:10 ◼   ► charging power to them, but, you know, with all this,

00:06:13 ◼   ► you know, information and experimentation people have done

00:06:15 ◼   ► in the meantime, it turns out, yeah, actually,

00:06:17 ◼   ► it seems like they have plenty of power available.

00:06:18 ◼   ► Like, they can charge through the box, it's fine.

00:06:20 ◼   ► They don't even need to change the packaging

00:06:21 ◼   ► from where it is now.

00:06:22 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:06:23 ◼   ► Different anonymous person writes,

00:06:25 ◼   ► "I work in an Apple store.

00:06:26 ◼   ► "Updating iPhones in the box would be really useful

00:06:28 ◼   ► "for the setup process.

00:06:29 ◼   ► "If a customer uses iCloud and their existing iPhone

00:06:31 ◼   ► "is an iOS version that's newer than what's in the box,

00:06:35 ◼   ► "an update has to be performed before they can restore.

00:06:37 ◼   ► "This extends their stay and their frustration.

00:06:39 ◼   ► "If 20 minutes can be shaved off anywhere,

00:06:41 ◼   ► "that's a huge plus."

00:06:42 ◼   ► Yeah, makes perfect sense.

00:06:43 ◼   ► - That, to me, you know, when we were, again,

00:06:46 ◼   ► we were speculating about this, we were saying, like,

00:06:48 ◼   ► how could this possibly work in the stores?

00:06:50 ◼   ► It seemed like it would be, you know, not enough volume,

00:06:53 ◼   ► or not enough capacity to deal with the volume

00:06:55 ◼   ► and everything, what would this possibly be worth?

00:06:57 ◼   ► And this is the part that I was not thinking of,

00:07:02 ◼   ► because when I buy new iPhones, I don't do in-store setup.

00:07:07 ◼   ► A lot of people do.

00:07:09 ◼   ► And if you can imagine, and you see this,

00:07:11 ◼   ► like if you've ever been to an Apple store on launch day,

00:07:13 ◼   ► a huge part of the, of like what's going on in the store

00:07:17 ◼   ► is just massive quantities of in-store setups,

00:07:20 ◼   ► as much as, you know, anywhere there's a table

00:07:21 ◼   ► and an employee, there's somebody doing an in-store setup,

00:07:23 ◼   ► and it's a huge bottleneck, 'cause it takes a long time.

00:07:26 ◼   ► And so, anything they can do to speed up

00:07:29 ◼   ► in-store setup times, that actually is

00:07:32 ◼   ► a pretty strong incentive for them to do this.

00:07:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think, remember last time when I got,

00:07:37 ◼   ► like my camera was bad and I got a replacement iPhone

00:07:39 ◼   ► and I had to sit there in the store,

00:07:40 ◼   ► because at that time Google Authenticator didn't sync,

00:07:43 ◼   ► right, so I had to manually transfer

00:07:45 ◼   ► all my Google Authenticator stuff.

00:07:47 ◼   ► I think I was there, you can go back

00:07:48 ◼   ► and listen to the old episode, was it two hours

00:07:50 ◼   ► or three hours or something?

00:07:51 ◼   ► It was a huge amount of time, because as you can imagine,

00:07:53 ◼   ► my phone is chock full of stuff,

00:07:56 ◼   ► and I had to run an OS update from the one that,

00:07:58 ◼   ► you know, the new one they gave me.

00:07:59 ◼   ► So, I mean, 20 minutes, yes, 20 minutes being saved

00:08:03 ◼   ► would be great, but like, it's not like you're taking it

00:08:05 ◼   ► from, you know, 40 minutes to 20 minutes.

00:08:07 ◼   ► I was there for hours, so yeah, please,

00:08:10 ◼   ► anything to make this shorter, and you know,

00:08:11 ◼   ► obviously this is not something I normally do.

00:08:13 ◼   ► I don't set up in the store, but had to in this case,

00:08:15 ◼   ► so they wouldn't let me leave with the new phone

00:08:16 ◼   ► without giving them my old one, but I do see it

00:08:19 ◼   ► as a common experience, especially on, you know,

00:08:21 ◼   ► iPhone launch week or whatever.

00:08:23 ◼   ► - Excellent, another anonymous person writes,

00:08:25 ◼   ► your recent episode triggered my memory

00:08:27 ◼   ► of an old Apple patent application.

00:08:28 ◼   ► It was about charging and transferring data to devices

00:08:31 ◼   ► while still in the packaging in the retail stores.

00:08:33 ◼   ► Now, I read the, or I skimmed the actual patent application,

00:08:38 ◼   ► and I didn't look closely at the date,

00:08:40 ◼   ► and it was very weird because I'm looking at this,

00:08:43 ◼   ► and first of all, the diagrams all have home buttons in them.

00:08:45 ◼   ► Secondly, they're talking about like USB connections

00:08:48 ◼   ► and like wired network connections

00:08:50 ◼   ► and all sorts of wired this and wired that,

00:08:52 ◼   ► and I'm like, what is going on?

00:08:53 ◼   ► Turns out it's from December 12 of 2011,

00:08:56 ◼   ► so 12 years ago, and that explains why

00:08:59 ◼   ► all this tech seems so old, but nevertheless,

00:09:02 ◼   ► a US patent application for active electronic media

00:09:04 ◼   ► device packaging, and again, we'll put a link

00:09:07 ◼   ► in the show notes, a couple of pull quotes from here.

00:09:09 ◼   ► The active packaging may provide power data

00:09:12 ◼   ► or both power and data to one or more electronic media

00:09:15 ◼   ► devices housed within the packaging.

00:09:17 ◼   ► The data signal may include promotional information,

00:09:20 ◼   ► for example, advertising or media content,

00:09:22 ◼   ► for example, digital audio or video content

00:09:23 ◼   ► for presentation on the electronic media device

00:09:26 ◼   ► while inside the active packaging.

00:09:27 ◼   ► The data signal may also include firmware

00:09:29 ◼   ► or software updates, bug fixes,

00:09:30 ◼   ► or application customizations to be applied

00:09:33 ◼   ► to the electronic media device.

00:09:34 ◼   ► - That's fun because like this bit, you know,

00:09:36 ◼   ► it's an old patent and obviously companies patent everything

00:09:38 ◼   ► doesn't mean they're ever gonna make them,

00:09:40 ◼   ► but this patent was not just, hey, we can do updates

00:09:43 ◼   ► or charge them while they're in the box.

00:09:44 ◼   ► The idea with this is that you'd be able to see the thing

00:09:48 ◼   ► in the device and through the active packaging,

00:09:51 ◼   ► put in like video signals, basically, you know,

00:09:54 ◼   ► advertising or thinking they're not gonna run ads.

00:09:56 ◼   ► It would be just like, you know, what do they call it?

00:09:58 ◼   ► A track screens on a video game thing,

00:09:59 ◼   ► showing like Apple advertisement or like the screen servers

00:10:02 ◼   ► on some of the Macs in the stores, you know what I mean?

00:10:05 ◼   ► Obviously they never did this, right?

00:10:07 ◼   ► But it's not just, yes, we can do software updates

00:10:09 ◼   ► and bug fixes, which is what we're talking about,

00:10:12 ◼   ► but also it would make the packaging like,

00:10:14 ◼   ► we could have the phones in the box

00:10:16 ◼   ► and they'd be playing a little video

00:10:17 ◼   ► telling you how great the iPhone is.

00:10:19 ◼   ► That definitely does not fit with Apple's current,

00:10:22 ◼   ► not current, Apple's years long move

00:10:24 ◼   ► to make the packaging smaller and simpler

00:10:26 ◼   ► and made it more recyclable material.

00:10:28 ◼   ► So back in 2011, someone thought

00:10:30 ◼   ► this was a good enough idea to patent.

00:10:32 ◼   ► - Couple other interesting bits that I read.

00:10:34 ◼   ► The encasing may allow for at least the display portion

00:10:36 ◼   ► of the electronic media device be viewed from outside

00:10:39 ◼   ► of the encasing, this is what John was describing.

00:10:41 ◼   ► The backing may be printed or in molded

00:10:43 ◼   ► with one or more wire traces to supply power,

00:10:45 ◼   ► ground and data to the device.

00:10:47 ◼   ► So they're talking about actually having wiring

00:10:48 ◼   ► within the packaging, which is kind of funny.

00:10:50 ◼   ► And then finally, in some embodiments,

00:10:52 ◼   ► the wire traces are routed to the appropriate pins

00:10:54 ◼   ► or connectors on the electronic media device

00:10:56 ◼   ► through the hooks or clasps that hold the device

00:10:58 ◼   ► onto the backing.

00:10:59 ◼   ► For example, one hook or connector may interface

00:11:01 ◼   ► with a dock connector interface

00:11:02 ◼   ► on the electronic media device.

00:11:04 ◼   ► So this was talking about like,

00:11:05 ◼   ► how do you hook the iPhone or what have you into the box?

00:11:08 ◼   ► And they're saying, oh, well, the physical thing

00:11:11 ◼   ► that hooks the iPhone into the box

00:11:13 ◼   ► might also provide the data or power or both,

00:11:16 ◼   ► which I thought was quite fascinating.

00:11:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is all pre-mag safe,

00:11:19 ◼   ► pre-ubiquitous wireless power and data and stuff like that.

00:11:24 ◼   ► So yeah, older tech, but a similar idea.

00:11:27 ◼   ► - Yet another anonymous person writes,

00:11:29 ◼   ► I was an Apple employee for nearly eight years,

00:11:31 ◼   ► and I remember how much of an operations headache it was

00:11:33 ◼   ► to have hardware tied to its corresponding software RC.

00:11:36 ◼   ► Millions of iPhones have to be manufactured

00:11:38 ◼   ► only to be stored on the side waiting for the RC,

00:11:41 ◼   ► this is release candidate in this.

00:11:43 ◼   ► - Release candidate of the operating system, yeah.

00:11:45 ◼   ► - From Cupertino to be delivered.

00:11:47 ◼   ► Once signed off, there's a gargantuan effort

00:11:49 ◼   ► to flash all these devices, box them,

00:11:50 ◼   ► and ship them all over the world.

00:11:51 ◼   ► If the RC turns out to contain a late ship stopper,

00:11:54 ◼   ► all of these phones need to be unboxed, reflashed,

00:11:57 ◼   ► and re-boxed, which is an utter catastrophe

00:11:59 ◼   ► as far as ops are concerned.

00:12:00 ◼   ► I've personally attended a meeting

00:12:02 ◼   ► where one of these bugs was discussed.

00:12:03 ◼   ► The estimated cost of halting production,

00:12:05 ◼   ► unboxing, reflashing, and re-boxing millions of iPhones

00:12:08 ◼   ► at this stage was mentioned by someone in the know.

00:12:11 ◼   ► It was mind-boggling.

00:12:13 ◼   ► Operations would like nothing more

00:12:14 ◼   ► than to completely eliminate this risk.

00:12:16 ◼   ► It is well worth the cost of designing such a system

00:12:19 ◼   ► and having every Apple store in the world

00:12:20 ◼   ► follow a hopefully simple process

00:12:22 ◼   ► before the iPhone goes on sale.

00:12:24 ◼   ► Moreover, software teams would also appreciate such a system.

00:12:27 ◼   ► It would remove a huge weight off their shoulders

00:12:30 ◼   ► and allow them to deliver the release candidate

00:12:32 ◼   ► with a bit more flexibility if the need arises.

00:12:35 ◼   ► - This is something people usually don't think about.

00:12:36 ◼   ► Like, they think like, oh, if there was a bug,

00:12:39 ◼   ► you know, the phones haven't shipped yet,

00:12:41 ◼   ► so they'll just put the new bug fix version

00:12:44 ◼   ► on all the phones.

00:12:45 ◼   ► And I guess they imagine there's some magic robot

00:12:48 ◼   ► or something that does that.

00:12:49 ◼   ► Or like, but it's, you know, the bottom,

00:12:51 ◼   ► like someone has to take those phones

00:12:55 ◼   ► and connect them to something to,

00:12:57 ◼   ► and then wait for the thing to put the new OS on it.

00:13:00 ◼   ► And that can be automated a little bit,

00:13:02 ◼   ► but especially if you've already got them all boxed up

00:13:05 ◼   ► and sealed up and you thought they were gonna be ready

00:13:06 ◼   ► to ship and you have to unbox them and then reseal them

00:13:10 ◼   ► without making it look like every single new iPhone

00:13:12 ◼   ► is basically used at this point.

00:13:14 ◼   ► So you can, it's not like you can just do it

00:13:15 ◼   ► in a haphazard way.

00:13:16 ◼   ► It has to be done carefully.

00:13:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I love the idea of they manufacture

00:13:21 ◼   ► millions of phones and they're just sitting

00:13:22 ◼   ► in big piles somewhere, but you can't put them in boxes yet

00:13:25 ◼   ► because they don't have an OS on them

00:13:26 ◼   ► because the software isn't done.

00:13:28 ◼   ► That's always the way with these things.

00:13:30 ◼   ► You're always waiting for the software.

00:13:31 ◼   ► So yeah, it seems like, you know,

00:13:33 ◼   ► as ridiculous as this idea sounds,

00:13:36 ◼   ► there are lots of parts of the organization

00:13:38 ◼   ► that would love for this to be a thing.

00:13:40 ◼   ► - Yep, then finally, an anonymous Apple retail person

00:13:45 ◼   ► writes, "The pad is like a multi-level pizza oven

00:13:48 ◼   ► that can accommodate multiple devices at a time.

00:13:50 ◼   ► It charges devices while updating the software.

00:13:52 ◼   ► We are super excited about this innovation

00:13:54 ◼   ► as it makes the experience much better

00:13:55 ◼   ► for those excited to get started with their new device.

00:13:57 ◼   ► We are most excited about the charging capabilities,

00:13:59 ◼   ► especially with all the skews for watches.

00:14:01 ◼   ► If you buy a watch that's dead in the box,

00:14:03 ◼   ► it can take up to 40 minutes on a charger

00:14:05 ◼   ► before it even turns on, causing skepticism

00:14:07 ◼   ► that the watch will even work in the long run.

00:14:09 ◼   ► To be clear, it will support new phones first,

00:14:11 ◼   ► then watch an iPad and hopefully eventually

00:14:13 ◼   ► genius bar service parts, like when you swap a phone."

00:14:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, see, if this is true,

00:14:18 ◼   ► if this is actually what this thing is,

00:14:19 ◼   ► like the multi-level pizza oven thing

00:14:21 ◼   ► and going through all these different small products

00:14:23 ◼   ► that they have, that makes this make a lot more sense.

00:14:27 ◼   ► That's why I'm choosing to believe this anonymous report

00:14:30 ◼   ► because with these final details of what form it is

00:14:35 ◼   ► and how it would work, it makes it both plausible

00:14:39 ◼   ► and very sensible and kind of impressive, to be honest.

00:14:43 ◼   ► But, you know, 'cause I was concerned last episode

00:14:45 ◼   ► about, again, can they handle the volume?

00:14:47 ◼   ► How many iPhones and watches does a single store

00:14:49 ◼   ► sell in a day?

00:14:50 ◼   ► I think it's a lot, but if they can have these

00:14:54 ◼   ► stacked things that can do a whole bunch

00:14:56 ◼   ► of these things at once, that starts to become plausible.

00:14:59 ◼   ► And it does seem like there's pretty good reasons

00:15:02 ◼   ► from the store's perspective to do this.

00:15:04 ◼   ► - I think this is five anonymous bits of feedback

00:15:06 ◼   ► in a row that may be a record.

00:15:08 ◼   ► I mean, obviously we pick which ones go in here,

00:15:09 ◼   ► but yeah, a lot of people didn't wanna go in the record.

00:15:12 ◼   ► A lot of anonymous feedback here, but yeah,

00:15:14 ◼   ► I'm also choosing to believe that bottom one

00:15:16 ◼   ► because the original source of this rumor

00:15:17 ◼   ► was fairly reliable and everything that has been said

00:15:20 ◼   ► so far sounds at least plausible to me.

00:15:22 ◼   ► And the idea that if the watch is dead in the box,

00:15:24 ◼   ► it takes 40 minutes on a charger,

00:15:25 ◼   ► you know some Apple retail employees

00:15:27 ◼   ► has had this conversation where the person's looking

00:15:29 ◼   ► at them saying, "Do I really want this watch?

00:15:31 ◼   ► It seems like it's a dud.

00:15:32 ◼   ► Am I getting a lemon?

00:15:34 ◼   ► Is it supposed to be this way?"

00:15:35 ◼   ► We've all kind of experienced this sometimes,

00:15:36 ◼   ► like an iPad or whatever that's totally drained,

00:15:38 ◼   ► Marco in a drawer, drained its battery.

00:15:41 ◼   ► And how long does it have to be plugged in

00:15:42 ◼   ► before it will boot the OS?

00:15:45 ◼   ► You think it would boot immediately

00:15:46 ◼   ► 'cause that's what laptops would do.

00:15:47 ◼   ► You plug them in and they'll boot immediately.

00:15:48 ◼   ► Nope, not a battery powered device like an iPad or something

00:15:51 ◼   ► because they have to be ready for you to yank the cord

00:15:55 ◼   ► at a moment's notice.

00:15:56 ◼   ► I guess in theory, a laptop does.

00:15:57 ◼   ► But anyway, it's having to wait for 40 minutes

00:16:01 ◼   ► while the Apple store employee assures you,

00:16:06 ◼   ► this is a working product.

00:16:08 ◼   ► This is normal, don't worry.

00:16:09 ◼   ► - I swear, it won't normally be like this.

00:16:11 ◼   ► - It's terrible, yeah.

00:16:12 ◼   ► - This is the first time it's ever happened.

00:16:13 ◼   ► - I wonder too, if this actually might occasionally

00:16:16 ◼   ► cause returns for Apple watches,

00:16:18 ◼   ► that maybe the system will reduce

00:16:19 ◼   ► the number of watch returns they get.

00:16:21 ◼   ► 'Cause if somebody gets an Apple watch home,

00:16:22 ◼   ► they don't do the in-store setup,

00:16:24 ◼   ► and they get it home and they plug it in

00:16:25 ◼   ► and it doesn't work for 40 minutes,

00:16:26 ◼   ► maybe they give up and bring it back to the store.

00:16:28 ◼   ► - Yep, that very well could be.

00:16:30 ◼   ► All right, moving on from that, M2 versus M1 efficiency.

00:16:33 ◼   ► Jonathan Dietz Jr. writes,

00:16:35 ◼   ► "At any point where their power curves overlap,

00:16:37 ◼   ► "the M2 delivers higher performance than the M1.

00:16:40 ◼   ► "This means the M2 is more efficient.

00:16:42 ◼   ► "Given the same fixed workload,

00:16:44 ◼   ► "the M2 will always finish in less time,

00:16:46 ◼   ► "use less power, and dissipate less heat than the M1.

00:16:50 ◼   ► "The M2 has two additional GPU cores

00:16:51 ◼   ► "and a more dynamic power envelope than the M1.

00:16:54 ◼   ► "This means peak power consumption

00:16:55 ◼   ► "is indeed higher for the M2 than the M1.

00:16:57 ◼   ► "This does not alter the statements

00:16:59 ◼   ► "of the previous paragraph in any way.

00:17:00 ◼   ► "It simply means that if you push an M2 to its limit,

00:17:02 ◼   ► "it can do considerably more work

00:17:04 ◼   ► "in the same fixed time period by using more power

00:17:06 ◼   ► "and dissipating more heat than the M1 is capable of.

00:17:09 ◼   ► "Anand Shimpi, the founder of AnandTech,

00:17:11 ◼   ► "who joined Apple's hardware technologies team back in 2014,

00:17:14 ◼   ► "made an appearance on Andrew Edwards' YouTube show

00:17:17 ◼   ► "and explained the dynamic power situation

00:17:18 ◼   ► "with the M2 generation."

00:17:19 ◼   ► We will, of course, put a link in the show notes.

00:17:22 ◼   ► - Jonathan Dietz defending the honor of the M2,

00:17:24 ◼   ► says, "Yes, it uses more power and gets hotter,

00:17:26 ◼   ► "but it does more stuff."

00:17:28 ◼   ► - I mean-- - Than the M1

00:17:30 ◼   ► in the same amount of time, given a fixed workload, yes.

00:17:33 ◼   ► That is true.

00:17:34 ◼   ► I would really say that the M1 is more efficient

00:17:36 ◼   ► than the M2, but really what we're saying

00:17:38 ◼   ► is it gets less hot, but it also does less stuff.

00:17:40 ◼   ► So let's be fair to the M2,

00:17:42 ◼   ► although I still think the M1

00:17:43 ◼   ► is the more impressive piece of technology than the M2,

00:17:46 ◼   ► but that's just because the M1 came before the M2

00:17:48 ◼   ► and stole a lot of its thunder.

00:17:50 ◼   ► - All right, Jon, can you give me some context

00:17:53 ◼   ► behind iTunes Match, Apple Music, and DRM, please?

00:17:55 ◼   ► - Talked about it last week,

00:17:56 ◼   ► and I had tried my best to describe what the caveats are.

00:18:01 ◼   ► If you had iTunes Match and you cancel

00:18:03 ◼   ► and you just have Apple Music when you're done,

00:18:04 ◼   ► what does that mean for you?

00:18:06 ◼   ► And I was mostly going off a very recent Threads post

00:18:10 ◼   ► by Matthew Panzareno that seemed authoritative

00:18:13 ◼   ► and he has good sources,

00:18:14 ◼   ► so I basically just said what he said.

00:18:16 ◼   ► But it turns out that Sylvan Germer says

00:18:19 ◼   ► that wasn't entirely true.

00:18:21 ◼   ► Regarding DRM and iTunes Match versus Apple Music,

00:18:23 ◼   ► since 2017, Apple Music has also been providing DRM-free

00:18:27 ◼   ► access to songs you have in your personal library.

00:18:29 ◼   ► And we'll put a link to an iMore article

00:18:31 ◼   ► from, I guess, 2017, describing Apple rolling this out.

00:18:33 ◼   ► So the difference that I had said

00:18:35 ◼   ► that Matthew said last week was,

00:18:37 ◼   ► if iTunes matches your song and you have iTunes Match,

00:18:41 ◼   ► you will get a DRM-free version of it

00:18:43 ◼   ► if you download it on some other device.

00:18:44 ◼   ► But if you just had Apple Music,

00:18:45 ◼   ► you would download the DRM version.

00:18:47 ◼   ► And I think that was true at one point,

00:18:48 ◼   ► but apparently not true now.

00:18:50 ◼   ► Well, another thing I want to clarify

00:18:51 ◼   ► that people were asking about is,

00:18:52 ◼   ► what if I have something in my iTunes library

00:18:54 ◼   ► but iTunes can't match it because iTunes doesn't have it,

00:18:56 ◼   ► some obscure thing that they just don't have?

00:18:58 ◼   ► Yeah, then you'll get essentially your file,

00:19:00 ◼   ► 'cause what else could they give you?

00:19:01 ◼   ► Like, whatever your file was that got uploaded

00:19:03 ◼   ► and synced into your library from, you know,

00:19:05 ◼   ► whatever thing that you ripped it from

00:19:06 ◼   ► that Apple has never heard of,

00:19:08 ◼   ► you will get that file back down.

00:19:09 ◼   ► But if they can match it,

00:19:10 ◼   ► that's where the question comes in.

00:19:12 ◼   ► If they match it, will they give me their version

00:19:14 ◼   ► of the file, and will that version have DRM or not?

00:19:18 ◼   ► So apparently you are, I haven't actually tested this,

00:19:21 ◼   ► but these are the two warring theories,

00:19:24 ◼   ► Matthew Panzareno versus Sylvan Germer.

00:19:26 ◼   ► - Indeed.

00:19:28 ◼   ► And then Tacked writes,

00:19:30 ◼   ► regarding the Ask ATP question about adding music

00:19:32 ◼   ► to an iOS device without a Mac or PC,

00:19:35 ◼   ► I went through the same struggle

00:19:36 ◼   ► trying to add custom ringtones to my iPhone.

00:19:38 ◼   ► I found it so frustrating that I wrote up a blog post,

00:19:40 ◼   ► half for myself, as documentation,

00:19:41 ◼   ► half hoping it would save someone else a week of searching.

00:19:46 ◼   ► I quickly read through this and holy crap,

00:19:50 ◼   ► it is something. - It was ridiculous.

00:19:51 ◼   ► - It is utterly nuts,

00:19:52 ◼   ► and it involves a lot of tapping about in GarageBand,

00:19:55 ◼   ► which is not where I saw this going.

00:19:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, Apple really needs a better solution to this.

00:19:59 ◼   ► Like, I really wish they would sort of rationalize

00:20:01 ◼   ► their whole music situation,

00:20:02 ◼   ► but talk about something with historical baggage,

00:20:04 ◼   ► just that whole thing.

00:20:06 ◼   ► It has so much baggage from so many years.

00:20:09 ◼   ► I mean, there's been a bunch of articles going around

00:20:10 ◼   ► this week about the sunsetting of the iTunes brand

00:20:13 ◼   ► and the fact that iTunes still exists for Windows,

00:20:15 ◼   ► although they're breaking that up too,

00:20:16 ◼   ► and the iTunes store will be going away

00:20:17 ◼   ► and folding stuff into the existing TV app and everything.

00:20:21 ◼   ► Like there's just so much baggage there,

00:20:23 ◼   ► and they're still trying to rationalize it.

00:20:25 ◼   ► For a while, we were talking about,

00:20:26 ◼   ► they're gonna break up iTunes on the Mac

00:20:28 ◼   ► and split it into its separate apps, and they did that,

00:20:30 ◼   ► and it's still cumbersome and confusing.

00:20:33 ◼   ► And the part of that is the fault of Apple Music.

00:20:35 ◼   ► Apple Music was kind of a chance to rationalize all of this,

00:20:37 ◼   ► but that chance was only partially realized.

00:20:41 ◼   ► There's still a ways to go.

00:20:43 ◼   ► - Indeed, and then John, your favorite,

00:20:46 ◼   ► well, one of your favorite bugs of late, it's still a thing.

00:20:49 ◼   ► Tell me about Error Network Changed, please.

00:20:52 ◼   ► - This is Chrome or the Chromium web browser engine

00:20:56 ◼   ► pitching a fit with its net double colon

00:20:59 ◼   ► or underscore network underscore changed error

00:21:01 ◼   ► that appears when it thinks something has changed

00:21:04 ◼   ► about the network, and then it kills

00:21:06 ◼   ► all outstanding HTTP requests, which really ruins your day.

00:21:10 ◼   ► I had said that I thought this was happening

00:21:11 ◼   ► because I was running Docker.

00:21:13 ◼   ► We have gotten some additional feedback from people

00:21:16 ◼   ► that are not running Docker,

00:21:18 ◼   ► and it's happening to them as well.

00:21:19 ◼   ► So here's the Jesus fish saying,

00:21:21 ◼   ► "I have the same issue from Chrome.

00:21:23 ◼   ► "Mine stems from being connected to PiVPN.

00:21:26 ◼   ► "If I'm connected to the PiVPN,

00:21:28 ◼   ► "Chrome will throw Error Network Changed constantly,

00:21:30 ◼   ► "even though it's not changing.

00:21:31 ◼   ► "It's not just Docker.

00:21:32 ◼   ► "Chromium is just overly sensitive to network stuff.

00:21:35 ◼   ► "It drives me up the wall."

00:21:36 ◼   ► A fellow named Steven Hackett sent a screenshot,

00:21:41 ◼   ► which is of Discord, the app,

00:21:44 ◼   ► which uses Electron or whatever under the covers,

00:21:46 ◼   ► saying, "A JavaScript error occurred in the main process.

00:21:48 ◼   ► "Uncalled exception, Error, Net,

00:21:51 ◼   ► "Error, Net, Error Network Changed at blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:21:55 ◼   ► "Anything that uses the Chromium browser engine

00:21:57 ◼   ► "under the covers is apparently susceptible

00:21:59 ◼   ► "to this Error Network Changed."

00:22:00 ◼   ► So you might not think of Discord,

00:22:01 ◼   ► you say, "I don't use Chrome, but do you use Discord?"

00:22:03 ◼   ► Well, then you're susceptible to it too.

00:22:05 ◼   ► And I think Steven Hackett was also not running Docker

00:22:08 ◼   ► when he did this.

00:22:09 ◼   ► Final bit here from Mort.

00:22:12 ◼   ► "That Chrome Error Network Changed issue

00:22:13 ◼   ► "is so damn annoying.

00:22:14 ◼   ► "We had an embedded Linux computer running Chrome U

00:22:17 ◼   ► "in kiosk mode for the UI with a local web server.

00:22:20 ◼   ► "We got bug reports from users where Chromium

00:22:22 ◼   ► "randomly failed to load the HTML from local host

00:22:25 ◼   ► "because the 4G connected or the Wi-Fi disconnected.

00:22:27 ◼   ► "It's the most puzzling engineering decision

00:22:29 ◼   ► "for our browser engine.

00:22:30 ◼   ► "We eventually replaced Chromium with native code

00:22:33 ◼   ► "for many reasons, but this was absolutely among them."

00:22:35 ◼   ► So that's Chromium loading stuff from local host.

00:22:39 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know if they were loading it

00:22:40 ◼   ► off the local disk or connecting

00:22:41 ◼   ► to the local host network interface,

00:22:43 ◼   ► but again, this does not seem like socially acceptable

00:22:46 ◼   ► behavior for a web browser engine.

00:22:48 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:22:50 ◼   ► What is it about the network that's changing,

00:22:52 ◼   ► that's upsetting it?

00:22:53 ◼   ► I mean, maybe, when I thought it was Docker,

00:22:55 ◼   ► because maybe it was just a timing coincidence,

00:22:57 ◼   ► when I thought it was Docker, I'm like,

00:22:58 ◼   ► okay, well, Docker does weird stuff with networking.

00:22:59 ◼   ► Maybe, like, whatever, this is an edge case.

00:23:02 ◼   ► But so many people are reporting,

00:23:03 ◼   ► they're not running Docker,

00:23:04 ◼   ► they don't even know what Docker is,

00:23:05 ◼   ► and they have this problem.

00:23:06 ◼   ► And in fact, I stopped running Docker here,

00:23:09 ◼   ► and I see the error too.

00:23:10 ◼   ► Not as much, but I have seen the error

00:23:12 ◼   ► when not running Docker.

00:23:13 ◼   ► And not running the engine, not doing it, like,

00:23:16 ◼   ► I don't, so, I don't, so here's the thing, like,

00:23:18 ◼   ► so what is it then?

00:23:19 ◼   ► I'm still tracking this down in my typical,

00:23:21 ◼   ► you know, years long bug hunting things.

00:23:24 ◼   ► I think it mostly started happening around Sonoma,

00:23:26 ◼   ► but this is one of those things

00:23:27 ◼   ► where I'm just trying to go based on my memory,

00:23:29 ◼   ► like, maybe this was happening before I didn't notice,

00:23:31 ◼   ► and then when I ran Docker, I noticed it more,

00:23:33 ◼   ► because I was looking at the JavaScript console.

00:23:35 ◼   ► Anyway, I'm here to say that this error network change thing

00:23:39 ◼   ► is real, it is a Chrome/Chromium thing,

00:23:43 ◼   ► it is affecting people who don't run Docker

00:23:45 ◼   ► to varying degrees, and it has been around

00:23:47 ◼   ► for apparently years based on, you know,

00:23:49 ◼   ► the stuff that we read last week.

00:23:51 ◼   ► So I hope they fix this, because again,

00:23:53 ◼   ► even if you don't run Chrome, you're like,

00:23:54 ◼   ► I don't run any of that stuff,

00:23:55 ◼   ► you might run an Electron app that uses the same engine

00:23:57 ◼   ► under the covers, and it could be dying for the same reason.

00:24:00 ◼   ► And like I said, when this error occurs,

00:24:01 ◼   ► it kills the outstanding connections,

00:24:03 ◼   ► and unless the application is very resilient against that,

00:24:06 ◼   ► it can get angry and throw up scary error dialogues

00:24:09 ◼   ► and just fail to work,

00:24:10 ◼   ► and there's seemingly nothing you can do about it.

00:24:12 ◼   ► I tried so many solutions, by the way, since last week,

00:24:14 ◼   ► I've been like, disable IPv6, enable it, disable IPv4,

00:24:18 ◼   ► enable it, enable Wi-Fi, disable Wi-Fi,

00:24:20 ◼   ► like just everything that you could possibly imagine,

00:24:22 ◼   ► you know, change your DNS, dump the IF config

00:24:25 ◼   ► to see if the network really is changing,

00:24:27 ◼   ► like so many different commands,

00:24:28 ◼   ► it was a bunch of commands that I'd never even heard of

00:24:30 ◼   ► that someone was sending me to try to debug the problem.

00:24:32 ◼   ► Eventually they exhausted their ideas

00:24:35 ◼   ► and said they couldn't figure it out either.

00:24:37 ◼   ► Chrome, fix this.

00:24:38 ◼   ► Whoever, Chromium people, like just be like Safari.

00:24:43 ◼   ► Safari doesn't get upset when apparently

00:24:45 ◼   ► the network changes, it just keeps doing its job.

00:24:47 ◼   ► How about you do that?

00:24:49 ◼   ► - This is, having read the bug reports

00:24:53 ◼   ► before we recorded last week,

00:24:55 ◼   ► this seems like one of those things where

00:24:58 ◼   ► if you take a developer's like purely academic

00:25:02 ◼   ► view of the world, I'd slightly understand

00:25:05 ◼   ► what the Chromium developers are saying,

00:25:07 ◼   ► hey, you know, something happened with the network,

00:25:08 ◼   ► it changed, you know, we don't know

00:25:10 ◼   ► what the state of the world is now,

00:25:11 ◼   ► maybe we should tell the user and do something about it,

00:25:13 ◼   ► which again, like academically or on the surface, okay.

00:25:16 ◼   ► I mean, I'm not sure I agree, but I can understand that.

00:25:19 ◼   ► But the moment you think about this bug pragmatically,

00:25:22 ◼   ► it is so clearly completely freaking busted.

00:25:25 ◼   ► And this is like the most frustrating kind of developer

00:25:30 ◼   ► to deal with when, and all of us do this

00:25:33 ◼   ► at some time or another, so we're all guilty,

00:25:36 ◼   ► myself included, but when somebody is too focused

00:25:38 ◼   ► on the what is the way things should work

00:25:41 ◼   ► rather than what is the way things actually do work,

00:25:45 ◼   ► or in this case, don't work.

00:25:47 ◼   ► And I don't know, if you're a younger developer,

00:25:49 ◼   ► this is perhaps a lesson for you,

00:25:51 ◼   ► because it is very frustrating to users.

00:25:54 ◼   ► And if users are frustrated,

00:25:57 ◼   ► I guess you could try to educate the users

00:26:00 ◼   ► and explain to the users how they're wrong.

00:26:01 ◼   ► But in my experience, that doesn't often end well.

00:26:04 ◼   ► So you should probably think about meeting the users

00:26:06 ◼   ► where they are and just fixing the darn bug.

00:26:09 ◼   ► - Well, so the thing is that we don't actually know

00:26:10 ◼   ► what the cause of this, like if it is Sonoma related,

00:26:13 ◼   ► it's the type of thing, maybe they have to talk

00:26:14 ◼   ► to Apple and say, hey, did something change in Sonoma

00:26:17 ◼   ► where something that we detect as a network change

00:26:19 ◼   ► is happening much more often?

00:26:21 ◼   ► If you ever looked in the Mac OS console,

00:26:23 ◼   ► there's so much stuff going on there.

00:26:24 ◼   ► And one of the, it's kind of like a medical student disease

00:26:27 ◼   ► when you learn about all the different things

00:26:28 ◼   ► that can go wrong with the human body,

00:26:29 ◼   ► you start thinking you have all of them.

00:26:31 ◼   ► If you ever look in the Mac OS console

00:26:33 ◼   ► and you see all the lines that are going there,

00:26:35 ◼   ► you'll believe that whatever line jumps out at you,

00:26:36 ◼   ► like that must be my problem,

00:26:38 ◼   ► 'cause I don't know what that is, and it looks weird to me.

00:26:40 ◼   ► So this is what happens, you have a problem with your Mac,

00:26:43 ◼   ► you go to console, you see just so many messages

00:26:46 ◼   ► and you latch onto one of them that you think is like,

00:26:47 ◼   ► that one looks funny, that seems like it's probably

00:26:50 ◼   ► causing my thing, and you get obsessed

00:26:51 ◼   ► with whatever that message is,

00:26:52 ◼   ► and that message may be totally unrelated

00:26:54 ◼   ► and totally benign, but you don't know,

00:26:56 ◼   ► you're just looking for a cause.

00:26:57 ◼   ► And so there are a bunch of those that I've looked at

00:27:01 ◼   ► and chased down to say, is this related to it?

00:27:03 ◼   ► It's hard to say, but anyway,

00:27:04 ◼   ► if something has changed in Mac OS,

00:27:06 ◼   ► maybe that's the problem, maybe the chromium people,

00:27:08 ◼   ► I'm not saying it's something that they need to fix it,

00:27:10 ◼   ► like, well, it worked before and now it's not working,

00:27:12 ◼   ► that's not our problem, Apple should stop changing

00:27:14 ◼   ► the network, but maybe the thing they're looking for

00:27:17 ◼   ► to detect network changes is not what they should

00:27:20 ◼   ► be looking at, it's like, well, what is the intent?

00:27:22 ◼   ► Are you supposed to look, do you only care

00:27:24 ◼   ► if the default route changed?

00:27:26 ◼   ► If that's the case, you should be looking here

00:27:28 ◼   ► and not there, because in Sonoma X and Y change, right?

00:27:30 ◼   ► So it's not even clear where the bug is,

00:27:32 ◼   ► but you'll never find out where the bug is

00:27:35 ◼   ► if you don't investigate it and you just think,

00:27:37 ◼   ► well, this is just an edge case and yeah,

00:27:39 ◼   ► this is happening to you, but tough luck,

00:27:40 ◼   ► it's the only sane thing we can do

00:27:41 ◼   ► when the network changed, but if suddenly people

00:27:44 ◼   ► can't use your product and there's no work around

00:27:46 ◼   ► because request, you know, 50% of your requests fail,

00:27:50 ◼   ► that is a problem that you need to get to the bottom of,

00:27:52 ◼   ► even if it's not quote unquote your fault.

00:27:55 ◼   ► - We are sponsored this episode by Adblock Pro,

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00:29:47 ◼   ► - So since we recorded, some things have happened.

00:29:54 ◼   ► No, Apple did not buy Nintendo, not this time,

00:29:57 ◼   ► but they did release a third Apple Pencil,

00:30:00 ◼   ► and what the hell is going on here?

00:30:05 ◼   ► - Well, the best thing about the new Apple Pencil

00:30:06 ◼   ► is that it appears to replace

00:30:08 ◼   ► either of the existing Pencils.

00:30:10 ◼   ► - Right, and it's a mix of their capabilities.

00:30:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, very careful distinction there.

00:30:14 ◼   ► Third Apple Pencil, not Apple Pencil 3.

00:30:16 ◼   ► Because the rumors were Apple Pencil 3 is coming,

00:30:20 ◼   ► but what we got instead was a third Apple Pencil,

00:30:21 ◼   ► and its place in the line, despite the feature set,

00:30:24 ◼   ► which we'll discuss in a moment,

00:30:25 ◼   ► its place in the line is clear.

00:30:27 ◼   ► It's the cheapest.

00:30:28 ◼   ► It's $79, and the Apple Pencil first generation is 99,

00:30:31 ◼   ► and the Apple Pencil second generation is 130.

00:30:34 ◼   ► So this is the cheapest Pencil,

00:30:35 ◼   ► but it is not the Apple Pencil 3.

00:30:37 ◼   ► - No, or the Apple Pencil third generation.

00:30:38 ◼   ► No, instead it's called Apple Pencil USB-C.

00:30:41 ◼   ► - Such a good name.

00:30:41 ◼   ► - Which makes perfect sense, because--

00:30:44 ◼   ► - It's got USB-C.

00:30:45 ◼   ► - But the Apple Pencil second generation

00:30:47 ◼   ► works with all USB-C iPads.

00:30:49 ◼   ► - But it does not have USB-C.

00:30:51 ◼   ► - I know, this is all very confusing.

00:30:53 ◼   ► Oh, and the Apple Pencil first generation

00:30:55 ◼   ► has an adapter that you can use

00:30:57 ◼   ► with the new USB-C 10th generation iPad.

00:30:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, so this Apple Pencil is the perfect Apple Pencil

00:31:03 ◼   ► for the current iPad product line,

00:31:05 ◼   ► because it is just as confusing as the product line.

00:31:08 ◼   ► It fits right in.

00:31:09 ◼   ► It is an absolute mess.

00:31:10 ◼   ► So this one, this cheapest Apple Pencil

00:31:13 ◼   ► doesn't have pressure sensitivity,

00:31:16 ◼   ► wireless pairing or charging,

00:31:18 ◼   ► double-chap to change tools,

00:31:19 ◼   ► which is so weird, is the accelerometer that expensive?

00:31:21 ◼   ► But anyway, no double-tap, and also no free engraving.

00:31:24 ◼   ► That just seems punitive.

00:31:26 ◼   ► How much, just a little laser.

00:31:27 ◼   ► Like, you can't get Casey Apple Pencil put on it,

00:31:30 ◼   ► but it does have hover support.

00:31:32 ◼   ► - Deep cut, deep cut.

00:31:32 ◼   ► - It does have hover support.

00:31:35 ◼   ► And the compatibility matrix is like,

00:31:37 ◼   ► so okay, if you have an Apple Pencil,

00:31:39 ◼   ► this should be a question.

00:31:40 ◼   ► If we had like a quiz show,

00:31:41 ◼   ► like asking Apple pundits who follow the company,

00:31:44 ◼   ► tell me what the Apple Pencil 2 is compatible with.

00:31:47 ◼   ► It's like, they would not get this grid.

00:31:48 ◼   ► So the Apple Pencil 2 works with iPad Air,

00:31:51 ◼   ► iPad Mini, and iPad Pro.

00:31:53 ◼   ► The Apple Pencil USB-C works with all iPad models

00:31:55 ◼   ► with a USB-C port, and the Apple Pencil 1

00:31:58 ◼   ► works with iPad 10, iPad, and iPad 9,

00:32:01 ◼   ► and a USB-C and Apple Pencil adapter is needed

00:32:03 ◼   ► for pairing and charging with the iPad 10,

00:32:05 ◼   ► but it's included in the box.

00:32:06 ◼   ► - Oh my gosh.

00:32:07 ◼   ► - And iPad 10 and iPad 9 are both still for sale,

00:32:10 ◼   ► so that's why they have to clarify.

00:32:11 ◼   ► I mean, this is, there's been a lot of good stuff

00:32:14 ◼   ► said about this, and the upgrade this week

00:32:16 ◼   ► was very good on this, but good for them

00:32:18 ◼   ► for making the Pencil that is cheaper

00:32:20 ◼   ► and more people will buy, I guess.

00:32:21 ◼   ► But this, I mean, you look at the entire iPad lineup,

00:32:24 ◼   ► and like this Pencil is just a microcosm

00:32:26 ◼   ► of the entire lineup where like,

00:32:28 ◼   ► you know, they currently sell six different iPads,

00:32:32 ◼   ► four of which are about the same size, but not quite.

00:32:36 ◼   ► They have wildly different details

00:32:39 ◼   ► and capabilities between them.

00:32:41 ◼   ► It is a really weird and messy product line.

00:32:45 ◼   ► They have been updated from all different time,

00:32:48 ◼   ► you know, all different times of updating,

00:32:50 ◼   ► have all different accessories that work with each of them

00:32:52 ◼   ► because they're all subtly different sizes.

00:32:55 ◼   ► They have all these different exceptions.

00:32:57 ◼   ► Well, this one has this, but this one has this,

00:32:58 ◼   ► this one doesn't have this, even though this one's newer.

00:33:00 ◼   ► And like, it is a confusing mess.

00:33:03 ◼   ► Meanwhile, they seem to be slated to go all of 2023

00:33:07 ◼   ► without releasing a single new iPad of any line.

00:33:10 ◼   ► The iPad's in a really weird place hardware-wise right now.

00:33:13 ◼   ► And it's not necessarily because the hardware is bad.

00:33:15 ◼   ► On the contrary, most of it's actually very good.

00:33:18 ◼   ► It's just like, it's a weird place in terms of,

00:33:21 ◼   ► you know, when are updates happening?

00:33:23 ◼   ► What has been half updated?

00:33:26 ◼   ► Like, certain features have come to some of them,

00:33:29 ◼   ► and some of the best features are on

00:33:31 ◼   ► some of the lowest end models.

00:33:32 ◼   ► The iPad Pro, the highest end model,

00:33:34 ◼   ► hasn't been really touched in a while.

00:33:36 ◼   ► They are still selling both 9th Gen and 10th Gen

00:33:40 ◼   ► low-end iPad, both called iPad,

00:33:42 ◼   ► and they're both about the same size,

00:33:44 ◼   ► but both very different machines.

00:33:46 ◼   ► You know, the low-end iPad that they are still selling

00:33:48 ◼   ► still has not only a lightning port,

00:33:50 ◼   ► which on the iPad is pretty old now,

00:33:52 ◼   ► but still has a home button,

00:33:54 ◼   ► and the old screen shape, and the old case shape.

00:33:58 ◼   ► I mean, the whole thing, the whole lineup is just a mess.

00:34:03 ◼   ► Different parts of it seem like the people

00:34:06 ◼   ► who make different iPad hardware decisions

00:34:09 ◼   ► don't talk to each other.

00:34:11 ◼   ► And I know that probably isn't the case,

00:34:13 ◼   ► but that's how it looks, because everything is,

00:34:14 ◼   ► like, certain ones, like the 10th Gen iPad,

00:34:18 ◼   ► which is the kind of, the current generation cheap one,

00:34:22 ◼   ► even though it is not the cheapest one,

00:34:23 ◼   ► 'cause they're still selling the old cheapest one,

00:34:25 ◼   ► because the cheapest one wasn't cheapest enough.

00:34:27 ◼   ► So the 10th Gen cheap iPad has some of the best features

00:34:32 ◼   ► in terms of, like, it moves the camera to the side,

00:34:35 ◼   ► but they move the camera to the side,

00:34:36 ◼   ► and that means it can't charge a pencil over there,

00:34:38 ◼   ► which is part of the reason this new pencil has to exist.

00:34:40 ◼   ► Well, why wasn't maybe a new pencil designed

00:34:44 ◼   ► with that in mind?

00:34:45 ◼   ► Like, I just, oh my God, there's so much

00:34:48 ◼   ► that it just seems like one hand's

00:34:49 ◼   ► not talking to the other here,

00:34:51 ◼   ► in the entire iPad hardware lineup.

00:34:53 ◼   ► One hand is not talking to the other.

00:34:54 ◼   ► - And what they've learned from the Apple Pencil,

00:34:56 ◼   ► by the way, is it's not like they've learned nothing,

00:34:58 ◼   ► because, like, the Apple Pencil 2 learned a lot

00:35:00 ◼   ► from the Apple Pencil 1.

00:35:00 ◼   ► No more cap that you can lose,

00:35:02 ◼   ► no more sticking it in the port, magnetic,

00:35:04 ◼   ► like, the Apple Pencil 2 was just a clean win.

00:35:06 ◼   ► We saw that came out, it's like, great,

00:35:07 ◼   ► you learned from the Apple Pencil 1,

00:35:09 ◼   ► you made a better pencil, everybody loved it,

00:35:11 ◼   ► no more ports, beautiful device,

00:35:13 ◼   ► has lots of cool features,

00:35:14 ◼   ► sticks to the side of your iPad Pro,

00:35:15 ◼   ► which was then new at the time, thumbs up.

00:35:17 ◼   ► This new one, I mean, obviously it's the low-end one,

00:35:20 ◼   ► so it's not gonna be super fancy, that's fine.

00:35:21 ◼   ► It learned some stuff, no more cap that you can lose.

00:35:23 ◼   ► This one instead has a little slidey-uppy thing

00:35:26 ◼   ► that doesn't come off, hopefully.

00:35:27 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:35:29 ◼   ► But underneath the slidey-uppy thing

00:35:31 ◼   ► is a sideways USB port.

00:35:33 ◼   ► So you spear this thing kinda like the mouse to charge it.

00:35:36 ◼   ► And why does it need to have a port?

00:35:38 ◼   ► Well, because it doesn't charge magnetically,

00:35:40 ◼   ► despite the fact that I believe

00:35:41 ◼   ► it does have magnets inside it,

00:35:43 ◼   ► and does have flat sides, and does to attach to the iPad,

00:35:45 ◼   ► but it doesn't charge or pair that way.

00:35:47 ◼   ► It is just a physical connection type thing.

00:35:51 ◼   ► And I'm not saying this is the wrong feature set

00:35:54 ◼   ► or the wrong price balance.

00:35:56 ◼   ► And by the way, this new Apple Pencil

00:35:58 ◼   ► is not the same size as either of the existing pencils,

00:36:00 ◼   ► because of course it isn't.

00:36:01 ◼   ► Why would it be the same size?

00:36:02 ◼   ► That's madness.

00:36:03 ◼   ► I think it's like 7% shorter or something

00:36:06 ◼   ► than the Apple Pencil's second generation.

00:36:08 ◼   ► I don't know if they're not talking to each other,

00:36:10 ◼   ► or if this is just fallout from the edict

00:36:12 ◼   ► that you must never make a new product

00:36:15 ◼   ► when you can conceivably continue selling the old one,

00:36:19 ◼   ► which is why the Apple Pencil first generation

00:36:20 ◼   ► is still hanging around,

00:36:21 ◼   ► and they still kept making products

00:36:22 ◼   ► that not only used it, but required it.

00:36:25 ◼   ► It's like, well, we already have that.

00:36:27 ◼   ► We already paid for those machines.

00:36:28 ◼   ► We already had to make this thing.

00:36:29 ◼   ► It's cheaper to do that.

00:36:30 ◼   ► Why wipe the slate clean and upgrade everybody

00:36:33 ◼   ► to Apple Pencil's second generation?

00:36:34 ◼   ► Maybe Apple Pencil's second generation is very expensive.

00:36:37 ◼   ► It costs more to manufacture.

00:36:38 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:36:39 ◼   ► There doesn't seem to be a coherent division.

00:36:42 ◼   ► Or if there is a coherent division,

00:36:44 ◼   ► their schedule got messed with really badly.

00:36:47 ◼   ► Like maybe they wanted these all to come out

00:36:48 ◼   ► at the same time.

00:36:49 ◼   ► This Pencils of the Neem come out at the same time

00:36:51 ◼   ► as the iPads that it is the best match for.

00:36:54 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:36:56 ◼   ► But let alone like fixing the whole line.

00:36:58 ◼   ► So anyway, we'll be watching for this.

00:36:59 ◼   ► I don't think it's terrible that the iPad line

00:37:01 ◼   ► is updated in parallel,

00:37:02 ◼   ► but I think there's so many transitions going on.

00:37:05 ◼   ► The transition to USB-C, which as you noted,

00:37:06 ◼   ► Marco, is still not over in the iPad line,

00:37:08 ◼   ► despite going on for years now.

00:37:10 ◼   ► The tradition from the round pencil to the flat,

00:37:12 ◼   ► which is still not over,

00:37:14 ◼   ► 'cause they're still selling the round one,

00:37:15 ◼   ► but at least this one is also flat.

00:37:17 ◼   ► The transition away from the home button,

00:37:19 ◼   ► also still not over.

00:37:20 ◼   ► Like there's just kind of this long slow motion.

00:37:23 ◼   ► We see the finish line.

00:37:24 ◼   ► We see like they'll all have flat sides.

00:37:26 ◼   ► They'll have magnetically attached pencil

00:37:27 ◼   ► where they charge and pair with it.

00:37:29 ◼   ► They'll all have the camera and the landscape orientation.

00:37:33 ◼   ► Like we'll get there eventually.

00:37:34 ◼   ► And then you have to progress.

00:37:37 ◼   ► Like if we ever get to a homogenous line,

00:37:39 ◼   ► still probably the pros will be the first

00:37:42 ◼   ► and only ones with the OLED screens for a long time

00:37:44 ◼   ► because they're expensive, right?

00:37:45 ◼   ► So it's not like we expect them

00:37:46 ◼   ► to always be exactly the same,

00:37:47 ◼   ► 'cause why would you have to have some differentiation?

00:37:50 ◼   ► But we've gone beyond differentiation

00:37:52 ◼   ► and now it's just like this long trail of hardware history

00:37:57 ◼   ► that Apple continues to sell.

00:37:58 ◼   ► - It's just remarkable.

00:38:00 ◼   ► I mean, the Apple Pencil 2 came out

00:38:03 ◼   ► with the 2018 iPad Pro five years ago.

00:38:07 ◼   ► - And it was good.

00:38:08 ◼   ► And we liked it. - Yes, it was great.

00:38:08 ◼   ► - And it's still good.

00:38:10 ◼   ► And yet today they had to introduce another pencil

00:38:14 ◼   ► because the Apple Pencil 2, which we still need,

00:38:18 ◼   ► is not still compatible with all the iPads in the lineup

00:38:21 ◼   ► five years later.

00:38:23 ◼   ► That's ridiculous.

00:38:24 ◼   ► What they need, obviously, is a much simpler iPad lineup

00:38:29 ◼   ► in a large sense, on a lot of different levels.

00:38:32 ◼   ► You should be able to go to an Apple store

00:38:35 ◼   ► and there should be a consistent line of iPads

00:38:38 ◼   ► of different sizes and capabilities.

00:38:40 ◼   ► And look, yeah, you're right.

00:38:40 ◼   ► Differentiate on screen size, on screen type,

00:38:43 ◼   ► OLED, HDR versus non-HDR, fine.

00:38:46 ◼   ► Those are all easy things to differentiate on.

00:38:48 ◼   ► - And the SOC and RAM and all the normal stuff that you--

00:38:51 ◼   ► - Yes, that's all fine.

00:38:53 ◼   ► They should all have the same port on the bottom.

00:38:56 ◼   ► They should all be a small number of total sizes.

00:39:01 ◼   ► There should only be a very small number of keyboards

00:39:05 ◼   ► and pencils that should work with all of them.

00:39:07 ◼   ► Ideally, the number is one keyboard per screen size

00:39:10 ◼   ► and one pencil total across the whole lineup.

00:39:12 ◼   ► That's ideal.

00:39:13 ◼   ► If they really have to have these differentiated features

00:39:17 ◼   ► with a pencil for cost reasons,

00:39:18 ◼   ► then have a pencil and a pencil Pro and that's it.

00:39:21 ◼   ► And this lineup, oh god, it's so far from that right now.

00:39:26 ◼   ► I'm hoping, again, there have been no new iPads

00:39:29 ◼   ► in all of 2023 so far and they seem like

00:39:31 ◼   ► they're not going to be.

00:39:32 ◼   ► And that's its own oddity.

00:39:35 ◼   ► But, I mean, jeez, what re-isn't in a minute.

00:39:39 ◼   ► Can you imagine telling us of a couple years ago

00:39:43 ◼   ► during the bad days of the Mac,

00:39:45 ◼   ► telling us that in 2023 there would be zero iPads released,

00:39:49 ◼   ► but possibly two generations of MacBook Pro?

00:39:52 ◼   ► - I would not have believed you.

00:39:56 ◼   ► Zero chance.

00:39:56 ◼   ► - And you mentioned having a pencil and a pencil Pro.

00:39:59 ◼   ► If they did this right, and at this point,

00:40:01 ◼   ► they're gonna have to come out

00:40:02 ◼   ► with the Apple Pencil 3rd generation

00:40:03 ◼   ► because apparently the Apple Pencil 2

00:40:05 ◼   ► is not gonna work with landscape camera

00:40:06 ◼   ► due to the way they arrange stuff.

00:40:07 ◼   ► So, you know, bad on them for not thinking of that in 2018,

00:40:10 ◼   ► but whatever.

00:40:11 ◼   ► If they had a pencil and a pencil Pro,

00:40:13 ◼   ► ideally both of those pencils

00:40:17 ◼   ► would work with every single iPad.

00:40:18 ◼   ► You just, you know, the Pro would have more features.

00:40:20 ◼   ► It would have the pressure sensitivity to have whatever.

00:40:22 ◼   ► Like the Pro Pencil would be better,

00:40:24 ◼   ► but it's not like, oh, well, you have an iPad Pro,

00:40:26 ◼   ► you can't use the non-Pro Pencil and vice versa.

00:40:27 ◼   ► No, all the pencils should work with all the things.

00:40:29 ◼   ► It's just what's inside the pencil is fancier

00:40:32 ◼   ► if you buy the good one.

00:40:33 ◼   ► - Imagine, imagine that world.

00:40:35 ◼   ► - This whole world is such a mess.

00:40:39 ◼   ► And it's so unnecessary.

00:40:40 ◼   ► Like, again, hopefully this is transitional.

00:40:42 ◼   ► Hopefully we're nearing the end of this massive,

00:40:45 ◼   ► weird number of transitions in the iPad lineup.

00:40:47 ◼   ► But if it took, if we're five years into the Pencil 2

00:40:50 ◼   ► and it still doesn't work with everything,

00:40:52 ◼   ► I don't know that they care.

00:40:54 ◼   ► I like, look at the iPad lineup.

00:40:56 ◼   ► They obviously don't care about consistency

00:40:59 ◼   ► or simplicity or anything.

00:41:01 ◼   ► It's kind of hard to tell what they do care about

00:41:03 ◼   ► with the iPad hardware choices across the whole thing.

00:41:05 ◼   ► I mean, this looks like a Samsung lineup.

00:41:07 ◼   ► It looks like spray and pray.

00:41:08 ◼   ► Like it looks ridiculous, honestly.

00:41:11 ◼   ► And except Samsung, let's keep them up to date.

00:41:13 ◼   ► - At least the iPad operating system situation

00:41:15 ◼   ► is well sorted out, right?

00:41:16 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:41:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know.

00:41:22 ◼   ► I don't feel like we need to believe this any further.

00:41:24 ◼   ► It's just too bad because the iPad hardware,

00:41:28 ◼   ► I know we've said this a thousand times,

00:41:29 ◼   ► the iPad hardware is so good in general,

00:41:32 ◼   ► but it's just strewn in so many different directions

00:41:35 ◼   ► and we don't need to open the software can of worms

00:41:38 ◼   ► one more time.

00:41:39 ◼   ► But I don't use my iPad heavily

00:41:43 ◼   ► and I don't use it for particularly

00:41:46 ◼   ► computationally intensive things.

00:41:48 ◼   ► But I do still really like my iPad.

00:41:50 ◼   ► It's one of those things where if you asked me

00:41:53 ◼   ► to make a pros and cons list or charts about why I like it,

00:41:57 ◼   ► I don't know that I could or do a convincing job

00:42:00 ◼   ► of explaining why I like it, but I really do.

00:42:02 ◼   ► I really do like having that iPad available to me.

00:42:06 ◼   ► And yet I just, I feel like this is such a mess.

00:42:09 ◼   ► And they talked a lot on upgrade about how this is,

00:42:12 ◼   ► I think in no small part, an after effect of Apple's

00:42:16 ◼   ► penchant or however you pronounce the word,

00:42:20 ◼   ► their love of keeping old stuff around

00:42:23 ◼   ► in order to make it cheaper.

00:42:24 ◼   ► And that's your cheaper stuff.

00:42:25 ◼   ► Rather than bespoke cheap things,

00:42:27 ◼   ► it's just old things that they can now make cheaply.

00:42:29 ◼   ► And now that eventually can lead you to this situation.

00:42:32 ◼   ► And it's a mess.

00:42:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, unlike the laptops before,

00:42:35 ◼   ► like you mentioned you like your iPad.

00:42:37 ◼   ► I like my iPad too.

00:42:38 ◼   ► That's the thing about the line.

00:42:39 ◼   ► I think the individual products are probably well liked

00:42:41 ◼   ► by the people that buy them.

00:42:42 ◼   ► This is not the same problem as when they were making

00:42:44 ◼   ► bad laptops that had no ports and crappy keyboards

00:42:46 ◼   ► that didn't work.

00:42:47 ◼   ► The individual products are mostly okay.

00:42:50 ◼   ► It's when you step back and look at the range of products

00:42:53 ◼   ► that they're offering.

00:42:54 ◼   ► For example, if you're a customer saying,

00:42:55 ◼   ► "Which one should I buy?"

00:42:57 ◼   ► That's the problem.

00:42:58 ◼   ► Eventually when you get down to an iPad

00:42:59 ◼   ► and you buy it, you'll probably be pretty happy with it.

00:43:01 ◼   ► Because in general, the iPads are pretty good

00:43:02 ◼   ► at what they do and what people ask them to do

00:43:04 ◼   ► is not that much.

00:43:05 ◼   ► And maybe the pro users are cranky at this point

00:43:06 ◼   ► because the iPad pros haven't been updated.

00:43:08 ◼   ► But the individual products are not disasters.

00:43:10 ◼   ► Again, setting aside the software.

00:43:12 ◼   ► But the line, the line is a mess.

00:43:14 ◼   ► And now the peripherals are actually a mess.

00:43:17 ◼   ► Again, not that any individual peripheral is bad,

00:43:19 ◼   ► but they're so expensive and so limiting

00:43:21 ◼   ► and so unclear about which peripherals

00:43:24 ◼   ► that can even work with your thing

00:43:25 ◼   ► versus which peripherals you like

00:43:27 ◼   ► versus which iPads they work with.

00:43:29 ◼   ► It makes the experience of selecting which product you want

00:43:32 ◼   ► or upgrading your existing product

00:43:33 ◼   ► to a quote unquote better one way too fraught.

00:43:36 ◼   ► Even if the individual product you end up getting,

00:43:38 ◼   ► you end up being satisfied with.

00:43:40 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:43:41 ◼   ► All right, so there is indeed an Apple event.

00:43:43 ◼   ► It's going to be on Hell Night,

00:43:45 ◼   ► as it was called when I was a kid.

00:43:47 ◼   ► - What? - On October 30th.

00:43:48 ◼   ► Yeah, this was the thing.

00:43:50 ◼   ► - Or Devil's Night sometimes, right?

00:43:52 ◼   ► Really? - Yep.

00:43:52 ◼   ► - I've never heard that. - I like that.

00:43:53 ◼   ► - So it's an East Coast thing.

00:43:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, well.

00:43:55 ◼   ► - I don't know if it's an East Coast thing,

00:43:56 ◼   ► but anyway, we're both from East Coast

00:43:57 ◼   ► and we both know it.

00:43:58 ◼   ► - Well, it wasn't an Ohio thing.

00:44:00 ◼   ► - You said H-E double hockey sticks there, I know.

00:44:02 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:44:04 ◼   ► - Well done.

00:44:05 ◼   ► Anyway, there's an event on October 30th,

00:44:07 ◼   ► the night before Halloween.

00:44:10 ◼   ► It's at eight o'clock at night Eastern,

00:44:12 ◼   ► which I don't have a problem with,

00:44:14 ◼   ► but is very, very unusual.

00:44:16 ◼   ► What is going on there?

00:44:17 ◼   ► - It's spooky.

00:44:18 ◼   ► - I guess so.

00:44:19 ◼   ► It is, you could say it's scary late.

00:44:21 ◼   ► I mean, scary fast apparently.

00:44:23 ◼   ► - I love this because first of all,

00:44:26 ◼   ► the rumor mill has been very consistent

00:44:29 ◼   ► over the last few months saying,

00:44:31 ◼   ► no new max for the rest of the year.

00:44:33 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:44:34 ◼   ► - But there were some naysayers.

00:44:36 ◼   ► As the date approaches, there's always somebody

00:44:39 ◼   ► who's willing to put their stake down and say,

00:44:40 ◼   ► actually, no, before I said there wasn't,

00:44:41 ◼   ► but now there is gonna be.

00:44:42 ◼   ► And I think, I forgot who it was that says that,

00:44:44 ◼   ► but they were right, here it is.

00:44:45 ◼   ► And they even said it was gonna be,

00:44:46 ◼   ► I think it was Germin who said,

00:44:47 ◼   ► no, actually, there's gonna be an event.

00:44:48 ◼   ► It's gonna be October 30th and 31st,

00:44:50 ◼   ► despite what people, you know.

00:44:52 ◼   ► So it's been confusing, but yeah,

00:44:54 ◼   ► there was so many consistent rumors

00:44:55 ◼   ► that there either wasn't gonna be event

00:44:57 ◼   ► or nothing good would be announced in it.

00:44:58 ◼   ► But so the invitation, the little invitation image

00:45:00 ◼   ► that you get, it says it's got a spooky black Apple logo

00:45:03 ◼   ► and it says scary fast.

00:45:05 ◼   ► And if you go to Apple's website

00:45:06 ◼   ► to their Apple events thing,

00:45:07 ◼   ► you can see a little animation

00:45:08 ◼   ► where the Apple logo turns into,

00:45:10 ◼   ► I love seeing people describe this.

00:45:12 ◼   ► Some people say it's the Finder logo

00:45:14 ◼   ► because of course it is the little face

00:45:15 ◼   ► that you see in the icon for the Finder

00:45:17 ◼   ► at the end of your doc.

00:45:19 ◼   ► It was also the originally the macOS logo back in the day

00:45:23 ◼   ► and classic macOS.

00:45:25 ◼   ► Now it lives on as the Finder icon.

00:45:27 ◼   ► But either way, both of those things say Mac.

00:45:30 ◼   ► So if you're wondering what they're going to announce

00:45:32 ◼   ► at the event on the 30th,

00:45:33 ◼   ► they're gonna announce Mac stuff.

00:45:35 ◼   ► Maybe there'll be other stuff too,

00:45:37 ◼   ► but this is straightforward.

00:45:38 ◼   ► Like there's, you know, and reading into the graphic,

00:45:41 ◼   ► it's dark and spooky.

00:45:43 ◼   ► That's all we get from it.

00:45:44 ◼   ► It's happening at 8 p.m.

00:45:44 ◼   ► That's spooky and Mac.

00:45:46 ◼   ► So that leaves us in a weird place

00:45:48 ◼   ► because as you noted, Mark,

00:45:49 ◼   ► are everyone saying, yeah, all the M3 stuff

00:45:52 ◼   ► that you thought was supposed to come this year,

00:45:53 ◼   ► not only did it not come in the spring or summer,

00:45:56 ◼   ► it's not even gonna come in the fall.

00:45:58 ◼   ► Forget it, it's all pushed to next year.

00:46:00 ◼   ► But this Mac logo says some of it's not pushed to next year.

00:46:03 ◼   ► They're gonna announce something with the Mac.

00:46:05 ◼   ► And here's the second thing.

00:46:06 ◼   ► It says scary fast.

00:46:08 ◼   ► I don't think that Apple would use the phrase scary fast

00:46:12 ◼   ► if they were only releasing Mac stuff

00:46:14 ◼   ► that have existing M2 whatever processors in it.

00:46:18 ◼   ► So that means they're announcing Mac stuff

00:46:21 ◼   ► with M3 something in something.

00:46:24 ◼   ► And I think when they originally released the M2 Max

00:46:28 ◼   ► and M2 Pro, they also use scary fast.

00:46:31 ◼   ► They said scary fast for the M2 Pro

00:46:33 ◼   ► and scary faster or something for the M2 Max.

00:46:37 ◼   ► That doesn't mean anything

00:46:37 ◼   ► 'cause they're just reusing marketing terms or whatever.

00:46:39 ◼   ► But I'm actually kind of excited

00:46:41 ◼   ► because they can't put a scary fast,

00:46:44 ◼   ► you know, call it a scary fast event

00:46:46 ◼   ► and say Mac stuff is coming and not have M3 something.

00:46:49 ◼   ► And I had, because of the rumors,

00:46:51 ◼   ► I pretty much resigned myself.

00:46:52 ◼   ► Oh, no M3 stuff this year.

00:46:54 ◼   ► We'll have to wait until next year.

00:46:55 ◼   ► So I'm kind of excited.

00:46:57 ◼   ► - No, I'm very excited.

00:46:58 ◼   ► - I'm really curious to see like what is this?

00:47:02 ◼   ► 'Cause there's so much about it that is surprising so far.

00:47:06 ◼   ► We don't even know what it is yet.

00:47:07 ◼   ► But the kind of suddenness of this being announced

00:47:11 ◼   ► out of nowhere is surprising.

00:47:13 ◼   ► The timing is surprising.

00:47:14 ◼   ► The time of day being 5 p.m. Pacific, 8 p.m. Eastern,

00:47:19 ◼   ► that's surprising.

00:47:20 ◼   ► And then the fact that the rumor mill was so sure

00:47:22 ◼   ► until two seconds ago that none of this stuff

00:47:25 ◼   ► was coming this year.

00:47:26 ◼   ► Now all of a sudden we have pretty strong indicator

00:47:28 ◼   ► that something about fast Macs is happening.

00:47:31 ◼   ► And so we can think about like what does that mean?

00:47:33 ◼   ► And so the latest quote rumors, at this point,

00:47:36 ◼   ► who knows whether this is leaks or speculation or whatever.

00:47:39 ◼   ► Everyone thinks this might be about an update to the iMac

00:47:43 ◼   ► and possibly the MacBook Pro.

00:47:46 ◼   ► And that I think would make sense.

00:47:50 ◼   ► Some people are speculating it might be gaming related.

00:47:53 ◼   ► I was getting my hopes up like maybe this is gonna be

00:47:56 ◼   ► some kind of new product size or shape or whatever.

00:48:01 ◼   ► Whether it's like a new laptop, maybe a 12 inch or whatever.

00:48:03 ◼   ► There was a loose rumor about that.

00:48:05 ◼   ► But this doesn't seem to have any kind of in person

00:48:08 ◼   ► invitations going out.

00:48:09 ◼   ► It seems like it's virtual only.

00:48:11 ◼   ► I haven't heard of anybody in the press getting

00:48:13 ◼   ► an in person invitation to go out there.

00:48:15 ◼   ► And that means no hands on.

00:48:17 ◼   ► The lack of a hands on experience seemingly

00:48:20 ◼   ► probably suggests no new form factors of products.

00:48:24 ◼   ► No new shapes and sizes.

00:48:26 ◼   ► We can probably rule out things like,

00:48:29 ◼   ► are they gonna do a 12 inch MacBook Pro or whatever.

00:48:32 ◼   ► A 12 inch MacBook or whatever.

00:48:33 ◼   ► And I think that might also rule out a giant iMac.

00:48:38 ◼   ► You know like a replacement for the iMac Pro.

00:48:40 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, I don't even think there's good rumors

00:48:42 ◼   ► about that.

00:48:43 ◼   ► I mean the only rumors about that is that's still a thing

00:48:44 ◼   ► that Apple's gonna eventually make to make me win

00:48:46 ◼   ► my one dollar bet with Marco.

00:48:47 ◼   ► But not eminently.

00:48:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, so the safest bet here is probably,

00:48:54 ◼   ► again I'm with you John, I think they probably

00:48:57 ◼   ► wouldn't emphasize fast if they were using chips

00:49:00 ◼   ► they've already launched.

00:49:02 ◼   ► Like Gruber's guess was maybe this is just M2

00:49:05 ◼   ► update to the iMac.

00:49:06 ◼   ► And I think one thing that the most conservative guess

00:49:10 ◼   ► I think for this could be, maybe they're bringing

00:49:14 ◼   ► not only the M2 to the iMac which still has the M1

00:49:17 ◼   ► as we discussed last week.

00:49:18 ◼   ► Maybe they're gonna offer like an M2 Pro configuration

00:49:21 ◼   ► with the same iMac case that we have now.

00:49:24 ◼   ► You know there is some precedent for that.

00:49:25 ◼   ► Obviously it's a bigger power envelope than the M1

00:49:28 ◼   ► to have like the Pro configuration with the more cores.

00:49:30 ◼   ► But it doesn't go as far as the Macs.

00:49:31 ◼   ► And they did that with the Mac Mini.

00:49:33 ◼   ► The Mac Mini you can buy now with the M2 or M2 Pro

00:49:37 ◼   ► but not M2 Macs.

00:49:38 ◼   ► And it's still the same size.

00:49:41 ◼   ► So maybe they're taking an existing product line

00:49:44 ◼   ► that is currently M2 only and giving it an M2 Pro option.

00:49:49 ◼   ► That would enable them to still not mess with TSMC's

00:49:52 ◼   ► three nanometer capacity and everything for the M3

00:49:54 ◼   ► or whatever else.

00:49:55 ◼   ► That I think is the most conservative approach.

00:49:56 ◼   ► And that could be, I'm thinking either the iMac

00:49:58 ◼   ► or maybe the 15 inch MacBook Air.

00:50:01 ◼   ► Because the 15 inch MacBook Air seems to not be selling well

00:50:06 ◼   ► by a lot of reports which is honestly surprising to me.

00:50:09 ◼   ► I think it looks amazing.

00:50:10 ◼   ► But maybe that product has slightly missed the market

00:50:15 ◼   ► and maybe they're gonna juice it up with the higher end

00:50:18 ◼   ► config with the M2 Pro chip, who knows.

00:50:21 ◼   ► Maybe that replaces the weird 13 inch MacBook Pro

00:50:24 ◼   ► with the touch bar that is still being made.

00:50:26 ◼   ► - No, they'll never replace that.

00:50:28 ◼   ► That's like whatever that last Mac was

00:50:30 ◼   ► with the optical drive or whatever.

00:50:31 ◼   ► They're gonna keep selling that forever.

00:50:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, the MD101.

00:50:34 ◼   ► That's gonna be around for, oh my God.

00:50:38 ◼   ► The existence of that computer makes me so upset

00:50:40 ◼   ► on so many levels.

00:50:41 ◼   ► 'Cause from what I've heard, they do sell a ton of them.

00:50:45 ◼   ► But I think the reason they sell a ton of them

00:50:46 ◼   ► is because it's called MacBook Pro

00:50:49 ◼   ► and it's way cheaper than the 14 inch.

00:50:51 ◼   ► - And people who don't yet know

00:50:52 ◼   ► that they're not interested in the touch bar.

00:50:53 ◼   ► Or people, all right, fine.

00:50:54 ◼   ► People who are legitimately interested in touch bar

00:50:56 ◼   ► but let's be honest, it's not that many of them.

00:50:57 ◼   ► - I honestly think if it was not named MacBook Pro,

00:51:01 ◼   ► the sales would drop to almost nothing.

00:51:04 ◼   ► I literally think that's the reason people buy it

00:51:06 ◼   ► and that's not a small reason.

00:51:08 ◼   ► And it drives me nuts.

00:51:09 ◼   ► - On the scary fast thing,

00:51:10 ◼   ► here's the confusing part of this.

00:51:12 ◼   ► 'Cause we agree that scary fast,

00:51:14 ◼   ► it's gotta be something more than a chip

00:51:15 ◼   ► that they have already released.

00:51:16 ◼   ► It'll probably be M3 something or other.

00:51:18 ◼   ► This is why a show or two ago,

00:51:20 ◼   ► I had mentioned the possibility of like,

00:51:22 ◼   ► can you imagine if M3 based MacBook Pros came out

00:51:26 ◼   ► before plain old M3 based laptops?

00:51:30 ◼   ► Like that's not the order they've done it

00:51:32 ◼   ► with the M1 or the M2.

00:51:32 ◼   ► And it's generally not the order

00:51:34 ◼   ► as we've discussed in the past.

00:51:35 ◼   ► The CPUs go, they tend to do the lower power,

00:51:37 ◼   ► smaller ones first before you make them

00:51:39 ◼   ► more complex higher power ones,

00:51:40 ◼   ► just because that's how manufacturing works.

00:51:42 ◼   ► It's easier to make the smaller simpler chip

00:51:44 ◼   ► when you're first getting started on the process

00:51:46 ◼   ► than to jump to the big one.

00:51:47 ◼   ► But I mean, part of what we're getting is like the M3,

00:51:51 ◼   ► if you look at the schedules of when Apple released the M1

00:51:54 ◼   ► and the M2, the M3 quote unquote

00:51:57 ◼   ► should already be here by now, but it's not.

00:51:59 ◼   ► And there are vague rumors that like,

00:52:01 ◼   ► oh, the M3 has been canceled.

00:52:04 ◼   ► - What? - What does that even mean?

00:52:04 ◼   ► Are they not gonna make an M3?

00:52:06 ◼   ► No, of course they're gonna make an M3.

00:52:07 ◼   ► But whatever they were planning on making

00:52:10 ◼   ► and calling the M3 didn't arrive when we thought it would.

00:52:12 ◼   ► So that leads into a lot of questions with this event.

00:52:16 ◼   ► Obviously 24-inch iMac is a great candidate

00:52:19 ◼   ► and that's one of the strongly rumored ones.

00:52:21 ◼   ► Germin is flat out saying

00:52:22 ◼   ► there's gonna be a new 24-inch iMac.

00:52:23 ◼   ► And case is the same, although he's said some stuff

00:52:25 ◼   ► about maybe the colors are different

00:52:27 ◼   ► and maybe how they attach the stand is different

00:52:28 ◼   ► or something, but anyway, that product.

00:52:31 ◼   ► That could be with an M2-based thing,

00:52:32 ◼   ► but then what would be the M3-based thing?

00:52:34 ◼   ► M3 Pro and M3 Macs based MacBook Pros,

00:52:36 ◼   ► same form factor, no need for a hands-on.

00:52:39 ◼   ► They're scary fast, fits the bill.

00:52:41 ◼   ► But the difficulty of figuring all this out is like,

00:52:43 ◼   ► all right, what happened to the M3 again?

00:52:46 ◼   ► Like why don't we have that?

00:52:48 ◼   ► It's gonna be three, we have the A17 Pro,

00:52:50 ◼   ► which is three nanometer,

00:52:51 ◼   ► and we keep talking about the various TSMC processes

00:52:55 ◼   ► and not being able to remember the name.

00:52:56 ◼   ► So I wrote them down this time so we can discuss them.

00:52:58 ◼   ► So here's the deal.

00:52:59 ◼   ► - Hold on though, before you get there,

00:53:01 ◼   ► I don't think an M3 is going to be three nanometer

00:53:03 ◼   ► necessarily because the M2 is based on the A15,

00:53:06 ◼   ► not the A16.

00:53:08 ◼   ► So that means the M3 would be based on the iPhone 14's A16.

00:53:13 ◼   ► God, there's so many numbers.

00:53:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, but they did the same thing with the M2.

00:53:16 ◼   ► Like I think you're right about the core base,

00:53:19 ◼   ► but the GPU is gonna be the new Ray Tracey GPU, I think.

00:53:22 ◼   ► So that's that.

00:53:23 ◼   ► And I think it will be on the new process.

00:53:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, I mean, a lot of people assume that like,

00:53:27 ◼   ► oh, because the M1 was based on A15 or whatever,

00:53:31 ◼   ► but the A series chips for the iPhone

00:53:34 ◼   ► come out every single year.

00:53:35 ◼   ► They have a very fixed 12 month cycle.

00:53:39 ◼   ► The Mac chips don't need to follow that.

00:53:41 ◼   ► Macs typically follow more like an 18 month upgrade cycle.

00:53:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think they've followed exactly an 18 month cycle

00:53:47 ◼   ► for the M1 and M2, which is why we all expect

00:53:49 ◼   ► for the M3 to be here, especially when you consider

00:53:51 ◼   ► that the M1 and M2 spanned like the onset of COVID era

00:53:55 ◼   ► when everything was madness,

00:53:56 ◼   ► you would think things would be getting more,

00:53:58 ◼   ► and they'd be getting more regular,

00:54:00 ◼   ► but of course we're going to three nanometers,

00:54:01 ◼   ► which is the big wild card here.

00:54:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, so basically they're gonna skip some of the A cores

00:54:06 ◼   ► to make M chips, like they're not gonna use them all,

00:54:08 ◼   ► and that's fine.

00:54:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, and so I do think that they're gonna be three nanometer

00:54:12 ◼   ► but the three nanometer thing has been a source of confusion

00:54:14 ◼   ► because of the different processes.

00:54:16 ◼   ► Here they are from TSMC's website,

00:54:18 ◼   ► I'll put some links in the show notes.

00:54:20 ◼   ► The one that the A17 Pro is using is their very first one.

00:54:25 ◼   ► It's N3B, it's TSMC's baseline N3 node.

00:54:28 ◼   ► I don't know if the B stands for baseline,

00:54:30 ◼   ► but it's a nice way to remember it.

00:54:32 ◼   ► And here's some description of it.

00:54:33 ◼   ► It uses up to 25 EUV, which is extreme ultraviolet layers,

00:54:36 ◼   ► with some expensive EUV double patterning,

00:54:39 ◼   ► allowing higher transistor density,

00:54:40 ◼   ► but at higher costs and fewer customers.

00:54:42 ◼   ► So this is what the iPhones are using.

00:54:44 ◼   ► It's their very first run at this,

00:54:47 ◼   ► it's very sophisticated, it's very expensive,

00:54:50 ◼   ► and people have been speculating that the only chip

00:54:55 ◼   ► that they'll ever make with this process is the A17 Pro

00:54:59 ◼   ► because Apple has bought all their capacity for this process

00:55:01 ◼   ► and it's their first baseline process.

00:55:04 ◼   ► And the reason they think that maybe the only A17 Pro

00:55:06 ◼   ► will be the only one, or at least the only one

00:55:07 ◼   ► that Apple ever buys from them using this process

00:55:09 ◼   ► is because the next process is more attractive

00:55:13 ◼   ► to more customers, so that's N3E.

00:55:16 ◼   ► And this is, again, from an article like the show notes,

00:55:18 ◼   ► more clients have opted for the more cost efficient

00:55:20 ◼   ► N3E process technology with up to 19 EUV layers,

00:55:24 ◼   ► no EUV double patterning, offering lower logic density,

00:55:27 ◼   ► but better yields and a wider process window.

00:55:29 ◼   ► So this is actually worse than N3B,

00:55:33 ◼   ► but cheaper, better yields, worse as in you can't do

00:55:36 ◼   ► as many layers, it has lower logic density,

00:55:39 ◼   ► but it's easier to manufacture, so it'll be cheaper.

00:55:43 ◼   ► And this is CC Wei, the chief executive of TSMC

00:55:47 ◼   ► on the October 19th earnings call, I think it was.

00:55:51 ◼   ► He says, "N3E has passed qualification

00:55:54 ◼   ► "and achieved performance and yield targets

00:55:56 ◼   ► "that will start volume production

00:55:57 ◼   ► "in the fourth quarter of this year."

00:55:59 ◼   ► Fourth quarter of this year.

00:56:01 ◼   ► - It's kinda now, isn't it?

00:56:03 ◼   ► - Right, and so N3E seems ready for someone

00:56:08 ◼   ► to make a chip that doesn't require as much logic density,

00:56:12 ◼   ► but is cheaper.

00:56:13 ◼   ► And when I look at that, what I think is like,

00:56:15 ◼   ► so was the M3 originally going to be on the N3B process?

00:56:21 ◼   ► But N3B ended up either not having as much capacity

00:56:25 ◼   ► or being too expensive, and so that's why we didn't get

00:56:27 ◼   ► the M3 chip on schedule, but now that N3E is here,

00:56:31 ◼   ► the Mac can handle a chip that is a little bit bigger,

00:56:35 ◼   ► you know, lower logic density means

00:56:36 ◼   ► there's fewer transistors per unit area.

00:56:39 ◼   ► The Mac can support that because you're not jamming

00:56:41 ◼   ► into a tiny little phone,

00:56:42 ◼   ► there's a little bit more room there.

00:56:43 ◼   ► And if it's cheaper, that means, okay,

00:56:46 ◼   ► if we manufacture an M3, sorry for the enunciation,

00:56:50 ◼   ► I hope the audio compression doesn't kill us,

00:56:52 ◼   ► if we manufacture an M3 processor using the N3E process,

00:56:57 ◼   ► then that will be cheap enough to put into a 24 inch iMac

00:57:02 ◼   ► based on the M3.

00:57:03 ◼   ► There are two more processes out in the future.

00:57:05 ◼   ► One is N3P, I know this is so bad, EBP, N3P,

00:57:09 ◼   ► which is an optical shrink of N3E offering

00:57:13 ◼   ► enhanced performance, reduced power consumption,

00:57:15 ◼   ► and increased transistor density compared to N3E,

00:57:18 ◼   ► all on maintaining compatibility with N3E's design rules.

00:57:21 ◼   ► This is, it's not entirely clear to me

00:57:22 ◼   ► how much design tweaking you would have to do

00:57:24 ◼   ► between these processes, but at least N3P

00:57:26 ◼   ► is explicitly saying, hey, if you design for N3E,

00:57:29 ◼   ► when we go to N3P, you don't have to mess with it too much,

00:57:32 ◼   ► you should be able to manufacture it.

00:57:33 ◼   ► And then finally, there's N3X, yay,

00:57:35 ◼   ► a different number that doesn't have the same vowel sound

00:57:38 ◼   ► in it, a different letter rather.

00:57:39 ◼   ► N3X, as you would imagine from the coolest letter,

00:57:42 ◼   ► is for high clock speeds, higher voltages,

00:57:44 ◼   ► for high performance CPUs.

00:57:46 ◼   ► Maybe someday the M3 Ultra will be based on this,

00:57:49 ◼   ► or maybe Apple will never use it.

00:57:50 ◼   ► But anyway, that is the roadmap.

00:57:52 ◼   ► N3B, shipping now, it's in your phone,

00:57:54 ◼   ► if you're interested in it.

00:57:55 ◼   ► N3E, volume production in the fourth quarter,

00:57:57 ◼   ► and I don't know about schedules for P and X.

00:58:00 ◼   ► So given all of this, it makes sense that eventually

00:58:05 ◼   ► when the M3 Pro and Max come,

00:58:06 ◼   ► whether that's on October 30th or in the future,

00:58:09 ◼   ► they will use N3E.

00:58:10 ◼   ► And I think N3E also makes sense for a plain old M3

00:58:14 ◼   ► to go into an iMac.

00:58:16 ◼   ► I still don't understand why,

00:58:18 ◼   ► what happened to the M3 based MacBook Air?

00:58:20 ◼   ► Is N3E not good enough for the MacBook Air?

00:58:24 ◼   ► Have they decided, like we did last week,

00:58:26 ◼   ► that the 24 inch iMac is more desperately

00:58:29 ◼   ► in need of an update than the MacBook Air?

00:58:32 ◼   ► As the MacBook Air has been updated kind of recently

00:58:34 ◼   ► and it's fine with the M2.

00:58:36 ◼   ► These are all the mysteries that will be revealed.

00:58:38 ◼   ► It's not like Apple's gonna put up slides and say,

00:58:40 ◼   ► I'm our new M3 whatever processor uses the N3E.

00:58:43 ◼   ► No, they're not gonna mention that,

00:58:44 ◼   ► but we'll be able to figure it out eventually.

00:58:46 ◼   ► And if N3B like really is just too expensive

00:58:52 ◼   ► and no one wants to pay for it,

00:58:53 ◼   ► and probably not even Apple,

00:58:54 ◼   ► except for the iPhone that just,

00:58:56 ◼   ► as you know, DeMarco must ship on a yearly basis,

00:58:59 ◼   ► Apple's probably like, we don't like this, it's expensive,

00:59:02 ◼   ► and we wish it wasn't,

00:59:03 ◼   ► and we want everything to be on N3E as fast as we can,

00:59:05 ◼   ► but it's the only thing available to us,

00:59:06 ◼   ► so we'll just get it.

00:59:07 ◼   ► It is kind of disappointing to me that N3E

00:59:09 ◼   ► is like essentially worse, like not as good

00:59:12 ◼   ► in many ways that you would care about.

00:59:14 ◼   ► But cheapness is a feature.

00:59:16 ◼   ► So I think, you know, I would not be shocked

00:59:21 ◼   ► if MacBook Pros came out with M3 Macs and M3 Pros.

00:59:24 ◼   ► I would be shocked if they came out

00:59:26 ◼   ► and there was still no plain old M3.

00:59:28 ◼   ► Like the very first and only M3 chips

00:59:32 ◼   ► that they would ship would be,

00:59:33 ◼   ► we've got the Pro and the Macs,

00:59:34 ◼   ► and they don't even mention a plain old M3.

00:59:36 ◼   ► That would be surprising to me,

00:59:38 ◼   ► despite the fact that I can kind of understand

00:59:40 ◼   ► the rumors of the plain old M3 being quote unquote canceled,

00:59:42 ◼   ► because maybe they wanted to do an N3B

00:59:44 ◼   ► and it just didn't make financial sense.

00:59:46 ◼   ► But part of the rumor about the 24-inch iMac, by the way,

00:59:49 ◼   ► is like, oh yeah, they've been manufacturing them since June

00:59:51 ◼   ► and they're all ready to go.

00:59:53 ◼   ► What?

00:59:53 ◼   ► They've been manufacturing them since June?

00:59:56 ◼   ► Well, that doesn't mean they're in N3E,

00:59:57 ◼   ► because N3E is just going into volume production now.

01:00:00 ◼   ► June is not the fourth quarter.

01:00:02 ◼   ► So I am very confused by the set of rumors that we have.

01:00:06 ◼   ► Again, I'm glad last week we talked about

01:00:08 ◼   ► what machines should be updated or need to be updated.

01:00:11 ◼   ► The MacBook Pros are not on that list,

01:00:13 ◼   ► but I'm not gonna complain about M3 Pro or M3 Macs,

01:00:16 ◼   ► MacBook Pros, if they are released.

01:00:18 ◼   ► - So let me try to tie this together.

01:00:19 ◼   ► There's a few little tidbits that I think

01:00:21 ◼   ► might make this make more sense.

01:00:23 ◼   ► Number one, there was a rumor recently

01:00:25 ◼   ► that next year's iPhones will both use A18-based chips.

01:00:30 ◼   ► So in other words, that they won't drop the A17 Pro

01:00:35 ◼   ► down to the non-Pro phone next year.

01:00:37 ◼   ► That was a recent rumor.

01:00:39 ◼   ► So basically the A17 Pro appears to be

01:00:43 ◼   ► the only A17 series chip that may exist.

01:00:46 ◼   ► And maybe that's why it's called Pro.

01:00:47 ◼   ► That might also indicate that, for instance,

01:00:49 ◼   ► it doesn't go into iPads.

01:00:50 ◼   ► - I agree that they're gonna brand it as A18-18 Pro.

01:00:53 ◼   ► Well, I shouldn't agree, because that makes

01:00:54 ◼   ► too much sense for Apple's naming.

01:00:55 ◼   ► But that would make sense for the naming.

01:00:57 ◼   ► It doesn't mean that our earlier speculation

01:01:00 ◼   ► about a cut-down version of the A17 Pro,

01:01:03 ◼   ► that may be what the A18 is.

01:01:04 ◼   ► It's just the A17 Pro with some cores missing or whatever.

01:01:08 ◼   ► But they'll call the A18, and if you look at it,

01:01:10 ◼   ► you say, well, it has a different number of cores.

01:01:11 ◼   ► Of course it's not the A17 Pro.

01:01:12 ◼   ► It's a totally different chip.

01:01:14 ◼   ► - I'm guessing N3B process, the one that the A17 Pro

01:01:18 ◼   ► is made on for the iPhone 15 Pro,

01:01:21 ◼   ► I'm guessing the iPhone 15 Pro is the only Apple product

01:01:26 ◼   ► to ever receive that process in a chip.

01:01:28 ◼   ► I think the N3E process is what they are using

01:01:32 ◼   ► for the M3-based things.

01:01:33 ◼   ► 'Cause it wouldn't make sense to put M3 on N3B.

01:01:36 ◼   ► God, these names.

01:01:38 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:01:38 ◼   ► - Well, as long as we have these Macs

01:01:40 ◼   ► that have the Pro Max in them.

01:01:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, but if that process is kind of a dead end

01:01:45 ◼   ► and is very expensive, Apple doesn't wanna be using

01:01:49 ◼   ► that for years.

01:01:50 ◼   ► The M series chips are used for years.

01:01:53 ◼   ► Whatever chip is in the Pro iPhone is used for one year.

01:01:57 ◼   ► Or at least only needs to be used for one year.

01:01:59 ◼   ► - And by the way, that phrase dead end,

01:02:01 ◼   ► like every one of the TSMC's processes

01:02:03 ◼   ► and also like the manufacturer,

01:02:04 ◼   ► like the five nanometer had a bunch of these little names

01:02:08 ◼   ► that we couldn't remember as well.

01:02:09 ◼   ► And I imagine seven nanometer did as well.

01:02:11 ◼   ► Like when you go to a new process node,

01:02:13 ◼   ► at least with TSMC and probably with other companies,

01:02:15 ◼   ► you're always climbing that ladder.

01:02:16 ◼   ► Yeah, once they make a quote unquote better process,

01:02:18 ◼   ► you stop using the other one.

01:02:20 ◼   ► So it makes perfect sense that N3B, the first one,

01:02:22 ◼   ► would be left behind as soon as there's something better.

01:02:25 ◼   ► It is a little bit odd that the one

01:02:26 ◼   ► that is supposedly better is not better in all ways.

01:02:29 ◼   ► It's better in yields and manufacturability.

01:02:32 ◼   ► And that's good.

01:02:33 ◼   ► That's why people are gonna go to it.

01:02:35 ◼   ► But, you know, it's not,

01:02:37 ◼   ► N3B is no more of a dead end than N5P.

01:02:41 ◼   ► I don't know what the hell the letters were,

01:02:43 ◼   ► but there were five nanometer ones that Apple used

01:02:46 ◼   ► and then moved on from them

01:02:47 ◼   ► because better five nanometer processes came out.

01:02:49 ◼   ► They weren't dead ends.

01:02:50 ◼   ► They were just a stepping stone

01:02:52 ◼   ► on the way to better five nanometer process.

01:02:53 ◼   ► In fact, I believe one of their five nanometer processes

01:02:56 ◼   ► was like N4 something,

01:02:57 ◼   ► kind of like the 5G that wasn't really 5G.

01:03:00 ◼   ► - 5GE.

01:03:01 ◼   ► - Nevermind the fact that, by the way,

01:03:02 ◼   ► that, you know, as many people point out

01:03:03 ◼   ► when we discuss this,

01:03:04 ◼   ► and I think we talked about it ages ago,

01:03:06 ◼   ► the number that we're talking about,

01:03:08 ◼   ► three nanometers, five nanometers,

01:03:10 ◼   ► what does that refer to?

01:03:11 ◼   ► And the answer is not anything sane anymore.

01:03:14 ◼   ► It used to refer to something that made sense.

01:03:17 ◼   ► Now, it's not entirely a marketing term

01:03:19 ◼   ► because things are getting smaller

01:03:21 ◼   ► and you can fit more transistors per unit area,

01:03:23 ◼   ► but there's no good measurement,

01:03:25 ◼   ► which is why you can get away with the, you know,

01:03:26 ◼   ► 5G in quotes thing, or like the N4 process

01:03:29 ◼   ► that's not like the N5.

01:03:31 ◼   ► Is it still five nanometer?

01:03:32 ◼   ► Well, it's N4.

01:03:33 ◼   ► Is it four nanometer?

01:03:34 ◼   ► It's like, well, what does this terms even mean?

01:03:36 ◼   ► It's complicated because of the way they arrange

01:03:38 ◼   ► all the things in the little transistors in 3D space

01:03:41 ◼   ► to actually say what the number means.

01:03:42 ◼   ► So all these things are essentially marketing terms

01:03:45 ◼   ► for real technologies, which is like,

01:03:47 ◼   ► how good are we getting at building chips

01:03:49 ◼   ► with this process technology?

01:03:50 ◼   ► And yeah, N3B, its whole deal is it's good, but expensive.

01:03:55 ◼   ► And it wouldn't surprise me

01:03:57 ◼   ► if only the richest technology company in the world

01:03:59 ◼   ► could afford to buy all of their N3B capacity

01:04:02 ◼   ► for the must ship, cannot miss this date iPhone.

01:04:06 ◼   ► And you know, it doesn't bode well for Apple

01:04:08 ◼   ► if it really did cost a lot,

01:04:09 ◼   ► but although I think the screen

01:04:10 ◼   ► is still more expensive than the SOC.

01:04:12 ◼   ► So N3B is not a dead end.

01:04:15 ◼   ► N3B is the baseline and we will move on from it

01:04:17 ◼   ► just like we did from the baseline N5 process.

01:04:21 ◼   ► - I think what we're most likely to see

01:04:23 ◼   ► in this spooky event is iMacs and MacBook Pros

01:04:29 ◼   ► because I think it is totally plausible

01:04:31 ◼   ► when you look at the timing of these,

01:04:32 ◼   ► if the cheaper higher yield N3E process

01:04:37 ◼   ► is shipping in fourth quarter, which is now,

01:04:41 ◼   ► that would line up with a few things.

01:04:42 ◼   ► Number one, it would make sense

01:04:44 ◼   ► why they can start deploying the M3 now

01:04:47 ◼   ► because they would want the M3 based chip family,

01:04:50 ◼   ► which will last for years in various products.

01:04:52 ◼   ► They want that to be on a high yield, lower cost process

01:04:56 ◼   ► that seems to have a brighter future.

01:04:58 ◼   ► Number two, that would line up with Ming-Shi Kuo's thing,

01:05:02 ◼   ► originally saying this isn't gonna happen till next year

01:05:05 ◼   ► and now saying, well, it can happen now,

01:05:08 ◼   ► but it would be very low volume to start.

01:05:11 ◼   ► That would make sense for a process

01:05:12 ◼   ► that's just coming online this quarter.

01:05:14 ◼   ► They probably can't make a lot of them

01:05:16 ◼   ► and I think that is why we won't see the M3 yet

01:05:21 ◼   ► because the M3 that goes in all their higher volume products

01:05:26 ◼   ► they're not gonna wanna spend the yield on that.

01:05:28 ◼   ► If they only have low yield on the N3E process

01:05:31 ◼   ► to start in this quarter, they're gonna wanna put it in

01:05:33 ◼   ► high price, low volume products like the MacBook Pro.

01:05:38 ◼   ► - But the 24 inch iMac is also a low volume product.

01:05:40 ◼   ► In fact, I think it's lower volume than the MacBook Pros.

01:05:43 ◼   ► - Look, maybe we still won't even get the 24 inch iMac,

01:05:46 ◼   ► who knows, but--

01:05:47 ◼   ► - They made them in June and August, Mark,

01:05:49 ◼   ► or they're sitting there waiting to be shipped.

01:05:51 ◼   ► I love those rumors.

01:05:52 ◼   ► - I call BS on that.

01:05:54 ◼   ► - Apple does not keep stock that long

01:05:57 ◼   ► of giant things like iMacs.

01:05:58 ◼   ► - I mean, who knows, things are so weird,

01:06:00 ◼   ► but if they had said they had already started manufacturing

01:06:03 ◼   ► them, like all right, I'll buy that rumor or whatever,

01:06:05 ◼   ► but they made them in June?

01:06:06 ◼   ► What chips did they put in there?

01:06:08 ◼   ► I mean, again, maybe if they sell so few 24 inch iMacs

01:06:11 ◼   ► that what they put in them was just the very first run

01:06:14 ◼   ► of N3E because the thing was like,

01:06:16 ◼   ► start volume production in the fourth quarter.

01:06:19 ◼   ► But those iMacs, that wasn't volume production.

01:06:21 ◼   ► - But why would they do that?

01:06:23 ◼   ► The iMac still has the M1 and no one cares except us.

01:06:27 ◼   ► Like, there's not this big rush.

01:06:29 ◼   ► - That is a thing that we'll talk about after the event,

01:06:31 ◼   ► is the main thing that I care about with the iMac

01:06:33 ◼   ► is SSD space and RAM.

01:06:35 ◼   ► I don't actually care whether it has the M3.

01:06:38 ◼   ► I just wanna see them update those things in the same way.

01:06:41 ◼   ► We'll see if they do that.

01:06:42 ◼   ► But I also believe that it's gotta be the MacBook Pros

01:06:45 ◼   ► 'cause they're the only thing that's scary fast.

01:06:47 ◼   ► There's not any ultra stuff coming.

01:06:48 ◼   ► They're not gonna say the scary fast Mac Mini

01:06:50 ◼   ► or with the M3 Pro in it or something.

01:06:52 ◼   ► It's gotta be the MacBook Pros.

01:06:53 ◼   ► And I know those are much lower volume

01:06:55 ◼   ► than the cheaper laptops,

01:06:56 ◼   ► but they're Apple's most popular Pro products.

01:07:01 ◼   ► And so, I don't know.

01:07:02 ◼   ► It's just, I'm excited by new Macs.

01:07:06 ◼   ► If the 20-inch iMac comes out and has an M2 in it,

01:07:09 ◼   ► I won't care if it has reasonable RAM and SSD.

01:07:11 ◼   ► And the MacBook Pros, like, we're in a place where

01:07:15 ◼   ► there's nothing that desperately needs to be fixed

01:07:18 ◼   ► about them if they just have better SOCs

01:07:20 ◼   ► capable of higher performance and maybe more RAM capacity

01:07:24 ◼   ► with better GPUs in exactly the same case

01:07:26 ◼   ► that no one needs to have a hands-on a pay-up.

01:07:28 ◼   ► That's great.

01:07:29 ◼   ► I mean, the big question mark is still the whole thing

01:07:32 ◼   ► of like, what are we getting out of three nanometers?

01:07:34 ◼   ► Are we getting the gains that we thought we'd be getting

01:07:36 ◼   ► in terms of power efficiency and all that?

01:07:38 ◼   ► And so, maybe Jonathan Dietz will write in

01:07:40 ◼   ► to defend the honor of the M3 when it comes out.

01:07:42 ◼   ► So, yeah, it gets hotter still,

01:07:44 ◼   ► but you can get your work done faster

01:07:46 ◼   ► so the hotness lasts less time.

01:07:48 ◼   ► - You can burn your battery much faster.

01:07:49 ◼   ► - It's not true, but the efficiency is saying like,

01:07:51 ◼   ► it's like race to sleep, right?

01:07:52 ◼   ► You actually get the work done faster

01:07:54 ◼   ► so it is better for your battery.

01:07:55 ◼   ► That's what higher efficiency means.

01:07:57 ◼   ► But using more power means there may be

01:07:59 ◼   ► a higher peak temperature from all those YouTubers

01:08:02 ◼   ► who point their thermal guns at their laptops.

01:08:05 ◼   ► - What do you think gets lifted first?

01:08:08 ◼   ► The base eight gigs of RAM on most Macs

01:08:11 ◼   ► or the five gigs of free iCloud storage?

01:08:14 ◼   ► - Base eight gigs of RAM.

01:08:15 ◼   ► - One hundred percent.

01:08:16 ◼   ► - It's gonna have five gigs of iCloud storage forever,

01:08:18 ◼   ► banner is up somewhere at Apple.

01:08:20 ◼   ► - I agree.

01:08:22 ◼   ► What happens if this is a Mac Pro announcement?

01:08:24 ◼   ► I know we just got one,

01:08:25 ◼   ► but what if they did something fun to the Mac Pro, Jon?

01:08:28 ◼   ► - What could they possibly do to the Mac Pro

01:08:30 ◼   ► that would be fun?

01:08:31 ◼   ► - The very first M3 series chip available

01:08:34 ◼   ► is the M3 Mega, it's the quad.

01:08:36 ◼   ► It's the only one they make.

01:08:37 ◼   ► - Oh my word.

01:08:38 ◼   ► - And it's built on M3B so it costs $70,000.

01:08:40 ◼   ► - Yeah. (laughs)

01:08:41 ◼   ► - Can you imagine?

01:08:43 ◼   ► - That would be scary.

01:08:44 ◼   ► - But that's not the way these things work though.

01:08:45 ◼   ► Like, you have to make the simpler chips first.

01:08:48 ◼   ► - I know.

01:08:48 ◼   ► - And the A17 Pro is a good, it's small,

01:08:51 ◼   ► like it's not simple,

01:08:52 ◼   ► but like it's in terms of how many transistors,

01:08:54 ◼   ► it doesn't have the billions and billions and billions

01:08:55 ◼   ► of transistors that the Ultra is in, let alone the quad.

01:08:58 ◼   ► So yeah, no rumors of that.

01:09:00 ◼   ► Maybe we'll get that in M3X in five years

01:09:03 ◼   ► on the typical Mac Pro upgrade cycle.

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01:10:57 ◼   ► - All right, Marco.

01:11:02 ◼   ► I don't care what either of you says.

01:11:05 ◼   ► The time has come.

01:11:06 ◼   ► It has been decreed.

01:11:08 ◼   ► I wanna know about your Sonos experiments,

01:11:10 ◼   ► as long as they were positive, 'cause if they're negative,

01:11:12 ◼   ► I don't wanna know.

01:11:13 ◼   ► - I have some negative Sonos experiences for you, KZ.

01:11:16 ◼   ► - Why do you gotta, why do you do this to me?

01:11:18 ◼   ► I'm so excited.

01:11:19 ◼   ► Why you gotta bring me down?

01:11:20 ◼   ► - 'Cause I am apparently the king of the bugs.

01:11:22 ◼   ► - Oh, God.

01:11:24 ◼   ► - I have the Sonos Toblerone, which I really enjoy.

01:11:26 ◼   ► I take it to the shower with me,

01:11:27 ◼   ► listen to the podcast, it's great, love it.

01:11:28 ◼   ► - The Roam.

01:11:29 ◼   ► - What I don't love about it

01:11:30 ◼   ► is that every single time I do that,

01:11:32 ◼   ► I take my iPhone, hit the little thingy,

01:11:34 ◼   ► and I pick the output device to be Sonos.

01:11:36 ◼   ► I think it uses AirPlay, I don't know.

01:11:37 ◼   ► But it's that little menu that you pick

01:11:39 ◼   ► where you want the sound to go from your phone.

01:11:41 ◼   ► - That's AirPlay.

01:11:42 ◼   ► - I pick my Sonos thing.

01:11:44 ◼   ► And then I hit play, and what I hear is something,

01:11:46 ◼   ► ah, like, eh, eh, eh, ah, cut, ah.

01:11:50 ◼   ► - Oh, yeah, that happens to me,

01:11:52 ◼   ► but I feel like if I just pause the iPhone,

01:11:56 ◼   ► give it a two count, and then start again, it's fine.

01:11:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I've, you know,

01:11:59 ◼   ► this has been going on for a while now,

01:12:01 ◼   ► and it's like, well, maybe if I pause it

01:12:02 ◼   ► and start it again, it'll work.

01:12:03 ◼   ► I've come up with a procedure that I now just do blindly

01:12:06 ◼   ► every time this happens, which is turn off the Sonos device

01:12:10 ◼   ► by holding down the power button,

01:12:11 ◼   ► which is very hard to press, for way too long

01:12:13 ◼   ► until it makes the I am turning off sound,

01:12:16 ◼   ► and then power it back up, and then reconnect.

01:12:19 ◼   ► Sometimes it works.

01:12:20 ◼   ► If that doesn't work, restart the phone.

01:12:23 ◼   ► - What?

01:12:24 ◼   ► - And I don't think I've ever had a situation

01:12:27 ◼   ► where restarting both of them didn't fix it,

01:12:29 ◼   ► but yeah, restarting the phone.

01:12:30 ◼   ► Sometimes restarting the Sonos fixes it.

01:12:32 ◼   ► Sometimes I have to restart both the Sonos and the phone.

01:12:35 ◼   ► - Ugh.

01:12:36 ◼   ► - Madness.

01:12:37 ◼   ► I don't know whose fault this is.

01:12:37 ◼   ► Is it Sonos' fault?

01:12:39 ◼   ► Is it Apple's fault?

01:12:40 ◼   ► It's been happening for a long time, and I'm annoyed.

01:12:42 ◼   ► Anyway, Marco, how much are you

01:12:43 ◼   ► enjoying your Sonos experience?

01:12:44 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:12:46 ◼   ► - All right, well, actually, before you get into that,

01:12:48 ◼   ► can we set the stage a little bit?

01:12:49 ◼   ► So I genuinely don't recall where we left things.

01:12:54 ◼   ► So the last I remember, you were considering

01:12:58 ◼   ► potentially embracing the home theater lifestyle

01:13:01 ◼   ► in terms of, I'm sorry, in terms of audio

01:13:03 ◼   ► in the main room at the beach,

01:13:05 ◼   ► but I might have that all wrong.

01:13:06 ◼   ► So what problems did you set out to solve,

01:13:09 ◼   ► which knowing you, are very different problems

01:13:11 ◼   ► than you actually ended up solving

01:13:13 ◼   ► when it all was said and done?

01:13:14 ◼   ► So can you give me a lay of the land, if you don't mind,

01:13:16 ◼   ► from before you dipped your toe into the Sonos pool, please?