ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► So, I need this to be a relatively short show, which means we're going to go three-plus hours.

00:00:05 ◼   ► Do you ever start a show by saying anything other than that, Casey? It's always like, "You've got somewhere else to be."

00:00:10 ◼   ► I need this to be a short show because I need to go fight crime in the neighborhood, like you're secretly Batman.

00:00:14 ◼   ► Jon, you have thoughts about your iPad Pro with the M4 processor. Tell me more.

00:00:21 ◼   ► I've been using it every day, as I do with my iPad. Not too much to note, just a few things. One, screen. Screen's real good.

00:00:29 ◼   ► I have seen some people make some complaints about the screen online, that they think areas that are just barely not black look a little speckly or dithery.

00:00:40 ◼   ► They might have way better vision than I do, but if you look real close at an OLED TV, when it's in a region of the screen that is really dark gray, you'll see the same thing.

00:00:51 ◼   ► I can't see whatever it is that they're seeing on the screen with any of my corrective lenses or uncorrected eyes, so it's nice to be almost 50, I guess.

00:01:00 ◼   ► The brightness is not too bright, which I was glad about because it can go super duper bright, but when I'm in a dark bedroom, I can still turn it down to be reasonable.

00:01:09 ◼   ► Loving that OLED. A lot of the shows I watch have the black bars, letterbox top and bottom, and those just disappear into the room.

00:01:17 ◼   ► I did also see some people who had, "Oh, the blacks aren't really black on my OLED."

00:01:21 ◼   ► That will happen if the thing that is projecting the image on the display doesn't specify black for those regions.

00:01:27 ◼   ► What I told those people is, make yourself a black image that you know is 100% black, and just fill the screen with that, like in the Photos app or something.

00:01:34 ◼   ► It should be completely black, and mine is. If the screen is entirely black on my iPad in the dark bedroom, it's indistinguishable from it being off.

00:01:43 ◼   ► Because guess what? They just don't send any power to any of the pixels. They're literally off.

00:01:47 ◼   ► If it doesn't look like that to you, it's because your video player is not projecting black in those areas.

00:01:52 ◼   ► It's projecting really dark gray, which is a bummer, but it can happen.

00:01:55 ◼   ► Face ID. Yes, it's the landscape camera and the landscape face ID thing, and I have to say, in the weird scrunched up, totally unergonomic position that I watch television shows on my iPad in bed, Face ID on the side could see my face better.

00:02:09 ◼   ► Really? That's surprising. It's not a condemnation of the position of the thing. They put it in the right place. It is better where it is. No one should sit like I'm sitting.

00:02:19 ◼   ► I'm just saying it's a practical matter. The Face ID on the side could see my face a little bit better. Sometimes I have to make an adjustment.

00:02:27 ◼   ► I certainly block it with my hands a lot less now. That's absurd. It was odd to me to think that there shouldn't be any difference.

00:02:33 ◼   ► They just move to the top and drag it. It should have a better view, but for whatever reason, it's a little bit crankier about my face.

00:02:37 ◼   ► The final thing is volume controls. For several years now, there was a thing where Apple introduced dynamic volume buttons on the iPad, where when you had it in landscape, the volume buttons would switch to match the little bar graph that fills on the screen.

00:02:52 ◼   ► So when you had it in landscape mode, the right button would make the white part fill the volume bar, basically making the volume go up, and the left volume button would make it go down.

00:03:00 ◼   ► When you made it vertical, the up button would make the thing go up. That was in settings for years. It was like, "Do you want it to do that?"

00:03:09 ◼   ► Or do you just want it to say, "This is volume up and this is volume down no matter how you orient the iPad."

00:03:12 ◼   ► So I got my new iPad, I'm watching it in bed, I go to turn the volume up, instead the volume goes down. I'm like, "Oh, I've got to change that setting."

00:03:19 ◼   ► Guess what? Setting's gone. Modern iPads do not give you that setting. It's almost as if they went to natural scrolling and they didn't give you the option.

00:03:29 ◼   ► And they didn't give you the option anymore on New Max. I just have to get used to the new setting. It's arbitrary, which is volume up and which is volume down.

00:03:36 ◼   ► I see the logic in the dynamic controls, but on new iPads, not just the M4s, I think the most recent two generations of iPads, that dynamic volume control stuff is mandatory.

00:03:47 ◼   ► There is no more option for it, so get used to dynamic volume buttons, I guess.

00:03:51 ◼   ► I can tell you one thing. I have had that for a long time, since the last iPad update I did a while a few years back. I hate not having that option because I got so accustomed to the old way of doing it, and I'm not enough of an iPad power user anymore to have gotten used to the new way.

00:04:07 ◼   ► So every time I do it, I do it wrong. Every single time.

00:04:10 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm assuming I'll just get used to it. I mean, it makes sense the way they do it. It's just jarring because I'm so used to it the other way, but I use it every day and I think I will come around on it.

00:04:21 ◼   ► Is that it? That's all you got? That was quick. I'm surprised.

00:04:23 ◼   ► That's it. I mean, it's working great. Love the adjustable stand. Love watching my stories. It's exactly what I wanted from a new iPad. I'm very satisfied with this product. Oh, and I also enabled the 80% battery thing, which I don't know why I didn't do it on the other one. Maybe it wasn't an option back on the M1 iPad.

00:04:41 ◼   ► But anyway, 80% battery is perfect for me because this thing spends all its time on my nightstand plugged in. I never need more than the 80% battery, and if I do, I can just switch that off and charge you the rest of the way.

00:04:50 ◼   ► Fair enough. Well, that's pretty cool. I'm glad you're liking it. I know you've been waiting for it a long time.

00:04:56 ◼   ► Alright, we have further follow-up and feedback. The MKBHD magnets reel, which I think I might have brought up. Somebody brought it up last week.

00:05:04 ◼   ► And apparently I misrepresented it because Odin writes in to say, "The reason MKBHD's magnet diagram doesn't show any of the rail of magnets in the back of the new iPad Pro is because there aren't any. The two rails are entirely within the back of the new Folio cover itself."

00:05:17 ◼   ► I guess I fabricated that memory. That is my mistake.

00:05:19 ◼   ► Your memory is so bad. Now that was me that made this mistake, as I was saying that there was a mistake at the end of the YouTube short or reel or whatever it was.

00:05:26 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right.

00:05:27 ◼   ► Where they showed, "Here's where all the magnets are." I'm like, "They didn't put in the rails." Because they were showing the back of the iPad, not the cover. So I regret the error. The video was correct.

00:05:35 ◼   ► The offending party has been sacked. Alright, iPad Pro bending. As everyone expected, we put the iPad Pro through all sorts of bends and twists and turns.

00:05:49 ◼   ► Because why wouldn't you destroy a thousand plus dollar device for clicks on YouTube? And a bunch of people have done this, including JerryRigEverything.

00:05:57 ◼   ► And The Verge had some coverage about it. And the conclusion The Verge came to was, "Even with some aggressive bending, the central spine helps resist horizontal bends."

00:06:06 ◼   ► So that's if you're holding it in landscape, is that correct? And trying to bend it in towards yourself.

00:06:12 ◼   ► Vertical bends, so you're holding it in portrait and you're trying to bend it in towards itself or towards you or what have you.

00:06:17 ◼   ► Vertical bends don't do as well, though. The Pro cracks right at the charging point, port, which appears to be the main structural weakness of the device. Whoopsie-dopsies.

00:06:25 ◼   ► As predicted, there wasn't a lot of scientific rigor to the YouTube bending. I saw some people trying to use a force meter.

00:06:31 ◼   ► Is there ever? Yeah, they were trying to use a force meter or weights or whatever, but they were doing it in such a bad way.

00:06:36 ◼   ► The central question is, is this more bendy than the past one? I haven't seen any videos that have really answered this scientifically.

00:06:43 ◼   ► They've answered it kind of like, "Well, it feels like it's kind of the same. Maybe it's better, maybe it's good." But the upshot is, it's definitely not worse.

00:06:49 ◼   ► So if it was catastrophically worse, like, "Oh, this is so much worse," that would be in the videos.

00:06:55 ◼   ► All the videos said it's either kind of the same, a little bit better, maybe a little bit worse in one direction or the other, but I think Apple has safely avoided any kind of bendy gate.

00:07:04 ◼   ► Because none of the videos I saw, and I watched so many videos of people bending this thing, came away saying, "This is so much worse than the past one!"

00:07:11 ◼   ► Because it's not. And so the spine really helps. Again, only one direction, but I think that made a big difference.

00:07:18 ◼   ► And I think, actually, the millimeter wave thing, people didn't really mention this, but the millimeter wave little cutout side thing is another weak point for bending in that direction.

00:07:27 ◼   ► And the fact that this doesn't have one, I think, helps it. Like, when you see them all break at the USB-C port, it's like, yeah, because the sidewall is thin there and that's the weakest part and that's where the break begins.

00:07:37 ◼   ► But you don't see that happening at the millimeter wave thing because there's no hole for that or whatever. So that's an interesting side effect of them ditching that feature.

00:07:45 ◼   ► Good job, Apple, making a stiff little iPad.

00:07:48 ◼   ► All right, Quinn Nelson had a genuinely mind-blowing video, or at least it blew my freaking mind, on Threads. I think Quinn has mostly divorced himself from Mastodon, which, whatever, that's fine.

00:08:03 ◼   ► I have an Mastodon link. It's a Mastodon link to a Threads link.

00:08:07 ◼   ► Right, exactly. It's Mastodon to Threads.

00:08:09 ◼   ► Can I just interrupt here and just throw something real quick for the record? I know we literally just updated our theme song to reflect that we're all on Mastodon now.

00:08:16 ◼   ► And Mastodon is the place that I am if I'm anywhere, but I've recently been spending a lot more time on none of these services and just doing my work and being in my life instead.

00:08:30 ◼   ► Whoa, doing your work? Are you feeling all right?

00:08:32 ◼   ► This is not mutually exclusive. You can do your work and also read Threads or Mastodon.

00:08:37 ◼   ► Well, maybe one can. How about we say that?

00:08:40 ◼   ► Yes, right. That's a better way to put it, because I think I've shown over the years that I maybe cannot do this combination of things.

00:08:46 ◼   ► The person who wrote Quitter and has deleted Twitter from his phone occasionally.

00:08:50 ◼   ► Yes, exactly. And I think Threads, I probably should have gotten more into Threads, but didn't because I couldn't use the Tweetbot-style apps with it.

00:09:00 ◼   ► Yeah, the client apps. The client is not as good.

00:09:02 ◼   ► And so I just didn't get into it, and it's been pretty fine for my life, especially in an election year. Oh my God.

00:09:12 ◼   ► To be not there and not constantly in all the constant dialogue everyone has about every little thing, every little thing that we're mad about today that's going on in tech, every little thing that's news-breaking today.

00:09:25 ◼   ► I miss most of it until I just get the summary version later. It's glorious.

00:09:30 ◼   ► This is the least involved I have been in social media in probably ten years, and pretty much everything in my life is better, and I'm missing nothing of value.

00:09:41 ◼   ► So just putting that out there. If you're thinking, "What would it be like to not be constantly involved and have this information hose connected directly to my veins?"

00:09:52 ◼   ► I can tell you that it's actually nice and fine to be less involved with it, and it's totally fine.

00:09:58 ◼   ► With that said, let's talk about what Quinn put on Threads. So I'm going to attempt to describe this. John, feel free to interrupt and do a better job.

00:10:10 ◼   ► But Quinn noticed that when you're using, I forget if it was Freeform or something else, but one of the things...

00:10:16 ◼   ► No, that's just Apple Notes.

00:10:17 ◼   ► Okay, thank you. It was Apple Notes. You can select different pens and pencils and whatnot, and what Quinn had selected was a fountain pen.

00:10:24 ◼   ► And Quinn noticed that when you do the little hover thing, and I presume it continues while you're actually making a stroke,

00:10:31 ◼   ► but one way or another, when you're doing a hover, you'll see the little dot where the pen will draw.

00:10:37 ◼   ► Fine. I have that in my lowly 2021 or 2020, whatever it is, iPad Pro, the M2 iPad Pro.

00:10:44 ◼   ► What makes the new one interesting, though, is that you get a full shadow on the screen of the writing implement the pencil is acting as.

00:10:54 ◼   ► So in this example, you see a shadow of the fountain pen presented on the screen. It is bananas.

00:11:03 ◼   ► It's worth pausing the podcast and quickly watching this 90-second video or whatever that he put up.

00:11:08 ◼   ► It is absolutely bananas and super, super cool. Necessary? Absolutely not, but super freaking cool.

00:11:16 ◼   ► He might be in Freeform there because the fountain pen might not be in Notes, but I tried it in Notes to confirm all this.

00:11:22 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it's in anything that has Apple's pencil kit, kind of standard pencil input.

00:11:27 ◼   ► And when you watch this video, turn the sound on. So the first time I watched it, I didn't have the sound on,

00:11:32 ◼   ► and so I just thought he was showing off, like, look, when you turn the pen, the little, you know, the hovering cursor of the mark you're about to make that turns.

00:11:41 ◼   ► And I was like, OK, yeah, that's really nice, but we saw that in the keynote video. That wasn't new.

00:11:45 ◼   ► I didn't really get the appeal, and I rewatched it again today with sound.

00:11:49 ◼   ► As he's pointing at the shadow, I'm like, oh, the shadow of the whole pen. That's really cool.

00:11:55 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. And so doing this is interesting that they spent the CPU resources and time to involve this because the shadow only really appears when you get real close with the tip.

00:12:05 ◼   ► And also when you're using the pencil, the pencil kind of blocks your view of the shadow.

00:12:10 ◼   ► Obviously, he's taking like video of it from the side. It's easier to see it that way.

00:12:14 ◼   ► So this probably also explains why a lot of people didn't notice it. I certainly didn't, because when you're drawing, I mean, you don't the pencil blocks it.

00:12:23 ◼   ► Like I wanted to see the cool like, you know, tip of the thing when I rotated it. Like the one I was using was like the like the really pointy markers, you know, those markers that have a really thin metal thing with a little marker thing.

00:12:34 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. I was using that because it's so differently shaped than the pencil.

00:12:38 ◼   ► You can really see that this is obviously not the shadow of the pencil. And obviously it doesn't care about light sources and stuff like that.

00:12:43 ◼   ► Like it's not physically accurate or realistic, but it is a fun, whimsical thing.

00:12:48 ◼   ► And it's so weird that they, that they spent it, apparently it's updating at like 120 frames per second and everything.

00:12:53 ◼   ► And it's based on like 3D models of the drawing instruments. So when you rotate the pen, pencil, the shadow also rotates.

00:13:00 ◼   ► Like it's not just a 2D cutout or whatever. Very well done for something that it's actually really difficult to see if you're the one drawing with the pencil.

00:13:08 ◼   ► Yeah. Super cool stuff. And so Sebastian DeWitt from Halide Camera wrote, "I love that people were like, 'Wah, I never use all the power in my iPad Pro for anything.'

00:13:18 ◼   ► So Apple designers and engineers went, 'Sick! That means we can render high poly 3D tools with this new Apple Pencil Pro to cast dynamic shadows at 120 frames per second.'"

00:13:26 ◼   ► Yeah. And apparently someone dug out the 3D model. If you click through on that, that toot, you can see the, the whatever USD file or .obj file or whatever.

00:13:35 ◼   ► You can see how detailed the 3D model is of a fountain pen, for example.

00:13:39 ◼   ► Alright, moving right along. Marco, a lot of people wrote in, which apparently you were too busy to see because you were too busy actually getting work done.

00:13:47 ◼   ► I'm really, I'm really not comfortable with this whole new world.

00:13:49 ◼   ► No, some of them actually emailed me, so I, so we actually did, I actually did see a bunch of them.

00:13:54 ◼   ► But anyways, a bunch of people wrote in and Steve Stutz was maybe the first or perhaps the most thorough, but Steve writes, "I would like to let Marco know that you can in fact opt out of connecting to audio when joining a Zoom meeting."

00:14:06 ◼   ► And quick aside, this was relevant because of your town meetings and I guess you have an iPad, is that right? That's up by you or wanted to have an iPad?

00:14:13 ◼   ► Yeah, like my idea, yeah, because like the soundboard is not like where I'm able to sit and so I control it remotely basically. Like, so there's a laptop at the soundboard hosting the Zoom call and then I can be anywhere else in the room with what is either an iPad or a laptop being a participant.

00:14:31 ◼   ► And then like I promote myself to co-host so I have full control over like kicking people out who are spamming it and stuff like that. And my problem was I wanted to use an iPad for that because it's a small role, but I couldn't get the iPad to not play any volume at all.

00:14:48 ◼   ► And because I said like even if you turn the volume all the way down, the iPad will cap the minimum at the first square of volume. Like it will not let you set zero volume. Apparently somebody wrote in to say this is actually a problem with anything that uses the iOS call kit framework.

00:15:04 ◼   ► So anything that provides VoIP kind of calling, you know, even like the audio calls in other apps like Slack or WhatsApp or things like that, like anything that uses call kit to make calls on iPhones, apparently they all have this problem.

00:15:19 ◼   ► But yeah, so basically I couldn't figure out a way to not have any audio play out of the iPad when in a Zoom call. But apparently if you just join without audio or you can like disconnect audio if you quit and rejoin without it, apparently that gives you that option.

00:15:35 ◼   ► So I haven't had a chance to try that yet, but everyone wrote in to tell me that so I assume it works.

00:15:39 ◼   ► Yeah, so just to finish Steve Stuss's feedback, you know, this can be done by one toggling on the don't connect audio option or two if you forget to turn on the don't connect audio toggle, you can tap on or click more which is the ellipsis and then tap or click on disconnect audio.

00:15:55 ◼   ► Granted you will not be able to hear the meeting nor be heard in the meeting with audio not connected. However, you can still make yourself co-host of the meeting and either admit or remove people from the meeting.

00:16:03 ◼   ► Zoom also has some useful settings on their website if you have access to the account you use, you can turn on an option that allows you to request to unmute and mute participants when they join a Zoom meeting.

00:16:12 ◼   ► You can also disable participants from being able to unmute themselves at any time during a meeting and you can also prevent ones who have been removed from meetings to be able to rejoin the Zoom meetings, all of which sounds like stuff you might be interested in.

00:16:23 ◼   ► Yes, most of those I actually use, so thank you for that.

00:16:26 ◼   ► We have some breaking news with regard to Delta. This is the extremely good and cool emulator for iOS. Riley Tested, who is the primary author of Delta said that "womp womp, they're in legal trouble."

00:16:41 ◼   ► But, not from who you would think. It turns out that Adobe was threatening legal action because they think their logos are too similar and so they had to release, Delta had to release an emergency update to change it.

00:16:53 ◼   ► It's a little wonky what they changed it to, but I can concede that they are fairly similar. The original logo and the Adobe logos are pretty similar.

00:17:02 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like an A, like a triangle A with a little foot on the bottom. If you know what the Adobe logo looks like and you look at the Delta symbol, you're like "oh yeah, I see it, they're similar" and the new version is just chopped off of the A and having it rotated.

00:17:13 ◼   ► But I'm pretty sure that little symbol in Delta is from the way they wrote the A in the Game Boy Advance logo, because remember it was like GBA for iOS originally.

00:17:23 ◼   ► So it's just a coincidence that Adobe's A logo is the same as the A in Game Boy Advance from ages ago. Anyway, better than getting a legal challenge from Nintendo.

00:17:34 ◼   ► Also, the Greek letter Delta, which I always used as shorthand for change, which is an engineering thing I thought, so John, I would assume you were aware of this.

00:17:44 ◼   ► Anyways, that's a triangle, so I think that's also where this kind of like, I think it's a combination of everything, right? It's the GBA stuff and Delta being a triangle.

00:17:53 ◼   ► It was definitely not inspired by Adobe, but it is essentially the same logo.

00:17:56 ◼   ► But obviously, yeah, there's a lot of triangular things in the world. Adobe doesn't own triangles, but they do kind of own triangles with this particular kind of notch cut out of them in the computer space.

00:18:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:07 ◼   ► Indeed. Alright, so let's talk about, speaking of Delta, why a GameCube or Wii emulator is not possible in the iOS App Store.

00:18:16 ◼   ► It may not be possible. You can't say anything definitive about the App Store, of course.

00:18:19 ◼   ► Well, fair.

00:18:20 ◼   ► Just make it and submit it and we'll let you know.

00:18:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:23 ◼   ► Yeah, right?

00:18:24 ◼   ► Do you know that story about Delta, by the way? Did you hear he was on a podcast recently?

00:18:27 ◼   ► Yes.

00:18:28 ◼   ► He went to like a lab at WWDC and said, "Hey, I'm thinking of making this emulator. Will the App Store allow this?" And at the lab they said, "Yeah, sure."

00:18:35 ◼   ► So he spent a year making it and then he submitted it and then like, "Yeah, no, we're not accepting that."

00:18:39 ◼   ► Yeah, and in large part, that was the motivation to start Alt Store because that was such like, and just advice for those of you out there, you know, as we approach WWDC, and presumably there will be probably one of those app review lab Slack channels that they have had before.

00:18:53 ◼   ► Those people who are in those channels oftentimes know a lot. They usually mean well. But they are not Phil Schiller.

00:19:01 ◼   ► And the reality is with the way the App Store works, if Phil Schiller does not want an app to be approved, it will not be approved.

00:19:08 ◼   ► So unless you hear directly from Phil Schiller that your app idea is okay, it won't be necessarily. Like, you're taking that risk.

00:19:15 ◼   ► And if you're somewhere, if you're kind of like, you know, in like a vague boundary of the rules or you're pushing a little past some, you know, previously established ground, like if you're going into new territory and you think your idea might not make it, it probably won't make it.

00:19:30 ◼   ► Or at least you shouldn't depend on it. And no matter what anybody in one of those labs tells you, they're not going to be Phil Schiller. And so they really can't say for sure, "Yes, we will definitely allow that."

00:19:40 ◼   ► Well, this is why Apple has that policy of not telling you whether it will be submitted yet. They always just say submit it and find out, which sounds terrible, but it is actually the only reasonable solution given the way Apple runs the App Store.

00:19:50 ◼   ► Because unless they're going to sign a contract with you that says, "We guarantee, according to these long specifications, that if you submit an app that works exactly like this, we'll approve it," which obviously they're never going to do because that's a huge amount of legal work and it's ridiculous.

00:20:02 ◼   ► There's no way to guarantee because you could talk to Phil Schiller and he could say, "Please submit it," but a year later, so much can change in a year. And should you be shocked to see that even though they said, you know, you've got the most authoritative person who said, "Yes, a year ago, things change in a year."

00:20:17 ◼   ► If you're on those, you know, the fringes, or even if you're not, even if you think you're dead center but Apple makes such a strategic change or something in the world changes, that's one of the weaknesses of having a channel where your thing has to be approved by a company that you don't control.

00:20:33 ◼   ► Unless you literally have a legal contract with a lot of detail and it says your thing as you get through, you're only going to find out when you submit. Now, most of the time, if you're making a to-do list app, you'll probably be fine, right? It's not like it's just this mystery, we never know what's going to be accepted.

00:20:48 ◼   ► But there are categories that, you know, if you're asking that question at a lab, "Hey, would you accept this app?" It's probably because you already kind of know that your app is close to the edges of what Apple accepts.

00:20:59 ◼   ► And it's not like, "Apple should just tell me and then keep their promises." That's not feasible either for a big company or individual or anything. It just, we can't predict the future. Things change, the landscape changes, the laws change, the Apple strategic direction changes.

00:21:14 ◼   ► So, as painful as it is to think, "Well, you just have to do the work first and then submit it and cross your fingers," that's the way it is. But hey, if you're in the EU and Apple doesn't accept it, you have other options.

00:21:23 ◼   ► So anyway, coming back to GameCube and Wii emulators. So it may, John, not be possible because of Just-In-Time compilation.

00:21:31 ◼   ► So, Dolphin OS developer OatmealDome explained how a Dolphin Code fork, which, I'm sorry, I'm reading from Ars Technica,

00:21:40 ◼   ► a Dolphin Code fork, which ports the popular GameCube and Wii emulator to Apple's smartphone OS, uses Just-In-Time compilation to translate the PowerPC instructions from those retro consoles into ARM-compatible iOS code.

00:21:50 ◼   ► But Apple's App Store regulations against apps that "install executable code," which is Section 3.3.1b, generally prevent JIT or Just-In-Time recompilation on iOS with very limited exceptions such as web browsers.

00:22:03 ◼   ► That restriction may have some valid security reasoning behind it, but it can also get in the way for developers of tools like third-party browser engines, except recently in the EU.

00:22:12 ◼   ► So basically, without Just-In-Time recompilation, it's just not fast enough, and in that blog post, OatmealDome shows a video of the no Just-In-Time recompilation playing a flavor of Mario Kart, I forget which one, and it is just achingly slow.

00:22:30 ◼   ► And then the same app, well, effectively the same app running on the same device, but this time with Just-In-Time recompilation turned on, and it runs easily as well, if not better than it did on the original hardware.

00:22:41 ◼   ► So, yeah, sad times.

00:22:43 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, Apple could do some kind of work to try to make a somewhat safer version of this, but just a free-for-all Just-In-Time compilation, it basically makes it impossible for Apple to validate, for example, that you're not using private APIs or whatever,

00:22:56 ◼   ► because the app that they approved didn't use private APIs, but Just-In-Time compilation means that any time it can download new data and compile that data into executable code and run it,

00:23:07 ◼   ► and the same way that Apple doesn't allow you to download pieces of your app at runtime and run them, that's against the rules, this is the same type of thing.

00:23:15 ◼   ► Obviously what they're doing here is they're taking a GameCube game and using that code as data and Just-In-Time recompiling it into ARM, and that should be fine, it's not like you're using that to get at secret Apple APIs or whatever, but Apple doesn't know,

00:23:31 ◼   ► and so that's why they have this rule, again, possibly for security reasons, of like, we don't want you to be able to conjure up arbitrary code at runtime that does whatever you want it to do that we can never approve, because that is happening in the future.

00:23:44 ◼   ► So, in this case, the rule against Just-In-Time compilation does make some sense, but it's such an essential part of doing things fast, like say running JavaScript and browser engines,

00:23:53 ◼   ► that Apple really should work towards getting a properly sandboxed, confined environment in which it is safe to Just-In-Time compile code, because these things just want to run games, like they're not trying to use Just-In-Time compilation to hack into the OS or whatever,

00:24:07 ◼   ► so this is a situation where there actually are technical barriers to allowing apps to do this if Apple wants to maintain the level of security they have.

00:24:15 ◼   ► Obviously you can run these on a Mac or on a PC and the same exact "security problems" exist, but everyone's just okay with it, so it could just be a mindset change, but we'll see how this goes,

00:24:24 ◼   ► because running Delta, using Nintendo 64 games, NES games, Super NES, stuff like that, those are super old.

00:24:34 ◼   ► You can get away with doing those without Just-In-Time compilation, but as you get closer and closer to modern consoles, you kind of start to need this,

00:24:41 ◼   ► and so even though we're all enjoying all "Wow, look at all these emulators you can get even in the regular App Store,"

00:24:47 ◼   ► that party is going to, if not end, then at least get a little bit more tame as time marches on and people want to play their "retro" Switch games, for example, in 5 to 10 years.

00:24:58 ◼   ► All right, so it's time for me to have a little laugh at your expense, and I feel slightly bad doing this, but after all you've put me through, not that bad. Mark Gurman writes,

00:25:13 ◼   ► "No new Mac Studio," yeah, okay, whatever, "and no Mac Pro until mid-2025. I have avoided this pain, or I will avoid this pain for like another year. I could not be more excited."

00:25:27 ◼   ► So, Mark Gurman writes, or excuse me, MacRumors recaps what Gurman wrote, and MacRumors writes, "Gurman says that Apple's current schedule does not include the launch of a new Mac Studio or Mac Pro model until the middle of next year.

00:25:40 ◼   ► All other Macs, with the exception of the MacBook Air, should be available with M4 series chips by the end of 2024, but Gurman does not anticipate any new models being unveiled at WWDC in June, making 2022 and 2023 exceptions for recent mid-year Mac releases."

00:25:53 ◼   ► I would love to hear your comments on this, but all kidding aside, this is kind of stinky, and as much as I snark and I joke, I don't love that the Mac Studio, which I think is a very important Mac for the company,

00:26:05 ◼   ► it's the MacBook Pro of desktops, if you will, and I'm sure Jon will correct me in a second, but it's kind of the, you know, it's anyone's desktop for people who want something strong and powerful.

00:26:21 ◼   ► And the Mac Mini is pretty strong and pretty powerful, but if you want more, then you can get a Mac Studio. And the Mac Pro, like, as much as, again, I joke, it kind of bums me out the way the Mac Pro is now, because it's a Mac Pro in name and very little else.

00:26:33 ◼   ► So, Jon, I'm sorry, tell me what's going on here.

00:26:37 ◼   ► I mean, this is not a change, this was always the rumor, but, you know, hey, rumors, they hadn't been sort of solidified, like, for example, Germin had not come flat out and said this is definitively what it's going to be until recently, but the rumor always was, hey, if you're looking at the M4 line of chips, the M4 is going to come out, and then there's going to be M4 Pro and Macs, and maybe a model just for the Mac Pro, and those timelines were always into next year, right?

00:27:00 ◼   ► So the question always was, okay, well, then what happens to WWDC, because the WWDC, especially before the M4 rumor started for the iPad, the expectation was, well, surely at WWDC, that'll be the time for the Mac Studio to get an update, and maybe the Mac Pro, set aside the Mac Pro, but the Mac Studio, it was due for an update, right, because we had the M3, M3 Pro, M3 Max, where's the Mac Studio with an M3 Max in it, right?

00:27:20 ◼   ► And maybe there'll be an M3 Ultra, and we talked about that before, about the Interposer, and was it on the die, and will there be an M3 Ultra, will there not be? Obviously the M4 threw a monkey wrench into all of that, this is like, well, wait a second, they just introduced an M4 iPad, are they really going to introduce a Mac Studio with anything that has an M3 in front of the name, now that the M4 exists?

00:27:38 ◼   ► What are they going to do, is there going to be an M3 Ultra in the Mac Studio, or maybe the M4 Max and Ultra already sooner than we thought, and Germin is here to say no, there will not be an M3 Ultra or M3 Max, Max Studio, there will not be an M4 Max Studio at WWDC, there'll be no Max Studio at WWDC, and obviously no Mac Pro.

00:28:00 ◼   ► That's disappointing, because that's going to mean the Max Studio and the Mac Pro are stuck on the M2, which as soon as the M4 Pro and M4 Max MacBook Pros come out, they're probably going to be embarrassing the Max Studio and the Mac Pro, because we know the M4 already beats it in single core on my freaking iPad with no fan in it, so it's, I mean, jeez.

00:28:25 ◼   ► Not that you should feel bad if you had a Max Studio, if you bought the M2 Max or M2 Ultra when it was new, fine, but don't buy a Max Studio now, right? You just gotta wait, and the Mac Pro has always been a little bit sad.

00:28:37 ◼   ► Yeah, I was really curious about what they were going to do there, but honestly, if they had produced an M3 Ultra Max Studio, I think that would have been a fine product to hold us over until the M4 ones come, but instead they're just going to let them languish. The Mac Pro is used to that, the Mac Pro is used to being constantly in a state of fighting for its life and in limbo, but the Max Studio, I felt like, they updated that to the M1, they updated to the M2, it's like, yeah, the Max Studio, it's nice, you know, it's the Mac Pro for people who don't want a gargantuan thing,

00:29:06 ◼   ► and especially now with the current Mac Pro, it's basically a Mac Pro without the card slots, it's a good little computer, and I felt like they should be as dedicated to it as they are to all their other computers, but they're not this year.

00:29:19 ◼   ► Maybe because of the whole M3B thing, and they really wanted to get off it as fast as possible, and they didn't want to make an Ultra, and they didn't want to put out a Max Studio without an Ultra, like, maybe if it topped out at the M3 Max, that would be boring, but anyway, that, you know, that's what I was looking forward to at M3.

00:29:35 ◼   ► I was looking forward to at WWDC, but, you know, I was looking forward to seeing what they would do, and the answer is nothing, so I guess we'll spend all our time at WWDC talking about AI stuff.

00:29:44 ◼   ► - You get nothing, good day, sir.

00:29:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I think what you said a minute ago is correct, like, they probably didn't want to do or couldn't reasonably price do the Ultra version of the M3, and they wouldn't update the Max Studio to the M3 generation and have just a Max and not an Ultra.

00:30:02 ◼   ► So that's probably, like, the leading reason they didn't do it.

00:30:05 ◼   ► - Oh, it's a shame, because an M3 Max Max Studio is still a great little computer.

00:30:09 ◼   ► - I mean, yeah, like, I'm saying this, you know, from my 16 inch M3 Max MacBook Pro that's in desktop mode right now.

00:30:15 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:30:16 ◼   ► - So, you know, not to make Max Studio people feel too bad about this, but, you know, two things.

00:30:22 ◼   ► Number one, like, if you want to make sure you always have the cutting edge chips, use the MacBook Pros, because they always get them, because they're the high-volume products.

00:30:30 ◼   ► - That's true.

00:30:31 ◼   ► - And number two--

00:30:32 ◼   ► - Well, they don't get the Ultra.

00:30:33 ◼   ► - Well, and that's true, that's fair.

00:30:34 ◼   ► But number two, you know, the Max Studio, I continue to think that this was a branding mistake that Apple made.

00:30:43 ◼   ► The Max Studio is just the Mac Pro.

00:30:45 ◼   ► Like, that's the new Mac Pro, that's the Apple Silicon Mac Pro.

00:30:48 ◼   ► The Max Studio, just think of it like there's two Mac Pros.

00:30:51 ◼   ► One of them has a big case that has card slots, and the other one has a small case with no card slots.

00:30:56 ◼   ► Those are two configurations of the same computer, and it's the Mac Pro.

00:30:59 ◼   ► Now, if you use that computer and like that computer, that's great for you.

00:31:04 ◼   ► However, you bring to that all the burdens that the Mac Pro has always had.

00:31:10 ◼   ► It is a high-end, low-volume desktop that Apple makes.

00:31:15 ◼   ► Not a lot of people seem to choose the Max Studio/Mac Pro for their needs.

00:31:20 ◼   ► So, it's never really gonna be that high of a priority for Apple.

00:31:24 ◼   ► Yeah, they'll get to it when they can reasonably without too much sweat off their back.

00:31:29 ◼   ► But, you know, if there's anything competing for those factors, like if they have to bend over backwards to try to get some kind of economy working with low chip yields of a new process,

00:31:43 ◼   ► or if their engineering resources are tight and they have to redesign other more high-volume computers first,

00:31:49 ◼   ► the Mac Pro/Studio is always going to be kind of lower priority than everything else,

00:31:54 ◼   ► because they just sell, I think they sell way fewer of them than the other high-end Macs.

00:31:58 ◼   ► And so, I think that's the reality.

00:32:01 ◼   ► If you're going to be a high-end Mac desktop user, you're gonna have pretty much the same problems that most Mac high-end desktop users have always had,

00:32:09 ◼   ► which is you are a small market to them, and they still care about you, thank God, but you're a small market to them.

00:32:15 ◼   ► And as, I'm telling you, as laptops have gotten better at being used as desktops, I can strongly recommend,

00:32:20 ◼   ► if you want something that is updated more frequently, and that's a big if, if you don't, that's fine.

00:32:25 ◼   ► If you want something that's updated more frequently and is driving you nuts as a Mac Studio owner,

00:32:29 ◼   ► that like the laptops have been faster than your computer in certain ways for, you know, eight months or whatever,

00:32:35 ◼   ► consider switching to MacBook Pros, it works really well.

00:32:38 ◼   ► If you don't want to do that, then that's great, the Mac Studio is a great computer,

00:32:42 ◼   ► but you're gonna have to deal with a slow update cycle, just like high-end desktops have always had.

00:32:46 ◼   ► Yeah, what you have to basically do is, like, you know, not everyone buys a new computer every year, right?

00:32:50 ◼   ► So, if you buy a new computer every three years, you have to buy on the year that the Mac Studio or Mac Pro is just updated,

00:32:57 ◼   ► because you don't want to buy, "Oh, I buy a new computer every three years for my work," right?

00:33:01 ◼   ► Do not buy the M2 Mac Studio like two days before the M4 one's coming out, you know what I mean?

00:33:06 ◼   ► Like, you have to sync up your cycle with the not-so-frequent release cycle.

00:33:12 ◼   ► And if you do that, you're not losing out, because, again, if you don't buy a new computer every year,

00:33:16 ◼   ► it's not important to you that, "Oh, this year the MacBook Pros have the new chip sooner."

00:33:19 ◼   ► It's like, you weren't gonna buy a new computer anyway. You're gonna buy, you know, an M4 Mac Studio on the day it comes out,

00:33:24 ◼   ► and you're gonna keep it for three years. And then when the M6 Mac Studio comes out, then you're gonna buy that one.

00:33:29 ◼   ► Whatever upgrade cycle you're on, you need to buy on the release of whatever big desktop Mac you want.

00:33:35 ◼   ► Same thing with the iMac, obviously. You shouldn't have bought an M1 iMac two days before the M3 ones came out, or whatever, you know what I mean?

00:33:41 ◼   ► Like, if you are buying one of the Mac models that Apple is not interested in updating frequently because they're low volume or whatever,

00:33:48 ◼   ► try to sync up with that, which, if you listen to this show, you know when it's happening.

00:33:52 ◼   ► But if you don't, you just wander into an Apple store, you could end up buying, you know, again,

00:33:56 ◼   ► don't buy an M2 Mac two days before the M4 version one comes out.

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00:36:00 ◼   ► All right, so we have an interesting thing to cover.

00:36:08 ◼   ► And before you just mash on the chapter skip button, I'd encourage you to give us a chance here.

00:36:13 ◼   ► So Microsoft has... Is it Build that's going on right now? Is that right?

00:36:18 ◼   ► Yeah, well this was an event the day before Build started.

00:36:20 ◼   ► Sorry, that's right. Yes, yes, yes.

00:36:22 ◼   ► Anyways, one way or another, Microsoft is in the midst of their Build event, which is kind of their WWDC.

00:36:28 ◼   ► But like Jon just said, a day before that they had kind of a keynote sort of thing

00:36:33 ◼   ► where they announced a whole bunch of new hardware that Microsoft amongst others are making.

00:36:41 ◼   ► And I got to tell you, I watched this when it appeared in the show notes.

00:36:45 ◼   ► I didn't pay that much attention to it before then.

00:36:47 ◼   ► It's a little over an hour. I mean, I watched it at 2x, but it wasn't particularly boring.

00:36:53 ◼   ► And in fact, I would go so far as to say it was actually really interesting because this is Microsoft.

00:36:58 ◼   ► Yeah, in a lot of ways they're aping Apple's style and whatnot.

00:37:02 ◼   ► But in terms of what they were announcing, it was a lot of stuff that I thought was really interesting.

00:37:08 ◼   ► And some of it looked really compelling.

00:37:11 ◼   ► So I don't know how we want to go through this.

00:37:14 ◼   ► Jon, if you want me to start reading bullets that we have in our show notes,

00:37:17 ◼   ► or if you have an opening statement or something, but how do you want to handle this?

00:37:21 ◼   ► Well, let me just read the first line item and paragraph here because then I'll have something to say.

00:37:25 ◼   ► So this is the kickoff with The Verge story about this.

00:37:28 ◼   ► And their headline was, "Inside Microsoft's Mission to Take Down the MacBook Error."

00:37:33 ◼   ► Straightforward, pretty provocative title there from the post.

00:37:38 ◼   ► "Microsoft is confident that it finally nailed the transition to ARM chips.

00:37:41 ◼   ► So confident that this time around the company spent an entire day pitting its new hardware against the MacBook Air."

00:37:46 ◼   ► All right, so we've talked about on the show many times in the past about Windows on ARM and PCs on ARM chips.

00:37:55 ◼   ► Very often it's in the context of everyone's favorite topic, the Mac Pro.

00:38:00 ◼   ► Because what I always say about the Mac Pro and ARM-based Mac Pros,

00:38:03 ◼   ► and we ask ATP questions about it or whatever, they're like, "Hey, are you going to game on your Mac Pro?

00:38:07 ◼   ► When you get a Mac Pro with ARM in it, do you care about GPU?

00:38:10 ◼   ► What are you going to use all that GPU for if there's no games or whatever?"

00:38:12 ◼   ► And what I've always been saying for years and years is, "Hey, Windows runs on ARM."

00:38:17 ◼   ► Microsoft did Windows RT or whatever years and years ago.

00:38:20 ◼   ► Windows runs on ARM, and ARM CPUs are more widespread than they used to be.

00:38:26 ◼   ► I have always been rooting for the PC world, the Windows PC world, to make a transition to ARM.

00:38:34 ◼   ► Mostly for selfish reasons because I want all the PC games to be compiled for ARM

00:38:38 ◼   ► so that I can run them at native speeds on my future ARM Mac Pro.

00:38:42 ◼   ► But even setting that aside, it's just nicer for everybody when Macs and PCs use the same architecture.

00:38:50 ◼   ► We had this beautiful golden period where Macs were x86 and Windows was x86.

00:38:56 ◼   ► And as a Mac user, that meant you could run virtual PC -- or probably not virtual PC --

00:39:00 ◼   ► VMware or Parallels or whatever, and run Windows at full native speed with really good compatibility.

00:39:08 ◼   ► Just to briefly interrupt here, I don't think I would be a Mac user right now if it wasn't for that

00:39:14 ◼   ► because I had been a PC user my entire life.

00:39:17 ◼   ► Granted, I had some time with Linux on the desktop. I had my college period, if you will.

00:39:22 ◼   ► But anyways, I needed a way to ease into the transition.

00:39:28 ◼   ► And I, like so many other people, had convinced myself, "I can't do everything I want on Mac OS."

00:39:36 ◼   ► Or OS X, as it was called at the time.

00:39:39 ◼   ► To be honest, you could probably call it OS X.

00:39:41 ◼   ► I don't think I did, but I'm not above it.

00:39:44 ◼   ► So anyway, I needed a way to ease into it.

00:39:48 ◼   ► I needed to be able to walk into the shallow end, or wade into the shallow end.

00:39:52 ◼   ► And VMware Fusion is what I happened to choose, but that's what I did.

00:39:56 ◼   ► And then that allowed me to use certain apps that, and I don't even remember what they were now,

00:40:02 ◼   ► but that I didn't think I could live without.

00:40:04 ◼   ► And then, it wasn't long after I started using a Mac that I realized, "Oh my god, this is so much better than my PC."

00:40:09 ◼   ► I really kind of want to use this for everything, not just personal stuff.

00:40:13 ◼   ► I could just use VMware Fusion and make a VM that is my work computer.

00:40:21 ◼   ► And I can use my work computer inside my Mac.

00:40:24 ◼   ► You know, "Hey dog, I hear you like computers, let's put a computer in your computer."

00:40:27 ◼   ► And so, that's what I ended up doing.

00:40:29 ◼   ► And for a long time at work, I was using a personal Mac with a VM, a Windows VM.

00:40:34 ◼   ► And it ran really well.

00:40:36 ◼   ► I mean, it wasn't perfect, but it was really good.

00:40:39 ◼   ► And I don't think I would be a Mac user today, and I suspect that's true of a lot of people, if it wasn't for that.

00:40:45 ◼   ► And this was, my understanding was, this was garbage when you were trying to cross a processor architecture.

00:40:51 ◼   ► And that's kind of where we are right now.

00:40:54 ◼   ► Yeah, and so, Microsoft did have Windows on Arm from ages ago, but they didn't really have a good compatibility story of how to run x86 apps or whatever.

00:41:02 ◼   ► And Windows RT was not particularly popular.

00:41:05 ◼   ► They had all the PC makers making Windows RT devices, but most PCs were still x86.

00:41:13 ◼   ► Certainly most games were x86, you know.

00:41:15 ◼   ► And this is kind of their second, I don't know, maybe I'm missing the counts, but it is a subsequent run at the same idea.

00:41:23 ◼   ► Now here's the thing about Microsoft and Arm and Windows.

00:41:26 ◼   ► Unlike Apple, Microsoft just can't say, "Guess what? We're transitioning to Arm."

00:41:31 ◼   ► Because Microsoft doesn't make all the PC hardware in the world.

00:41:34 ◼   ► They make some PC hardware, which is a change from years ago, right?

00:41:38 ◼   ► But they don't make most of the PC hardware.

00:41:40 ◼   ► Apple makes all the Mac hardware.

00:41:41 ◼   ► So if they wanted the Mac to transition to Arm, guess what?

00:41:43 ◼   ► They just stopped selling the x86 ones, and the Mac is transitioned to Arm, right?

00:41:47 ◼   ► Microsoft can't do that.

00:41:49 ◼   ► So they have to convince the PC makers to make Arm PCs, which is relatively easy because the PC makers rely on Microsoft, right?

00:41:58 ◼   ► But then they have to convince the customers to buy them.

00:42:01 ◼   ► And their second run at this, their way of convincing them is twofold.

00:42:05 ◼   ► One, we're going to make good laptops.

00:42:08 ◼   ► You know the MacBook Air that everybody loves?

00:42:10 ◼   ► We're going to make a laptop like that.

00:42:12 ◼   ► And people like that, right?

00:42:13 ◼   ► So now you want to buy this, right?

00:42:15 ◼   ► And it's better than the Intel laptops for all the reasons that the MacBook Air is better than the Intel laptops.

00:42:19 ◼   ► Better performance, lower power draw, all these wonderful features, right?

00:42:24 ◼   ► So we're going to make hardware that you like.

00:42:26 ◼   ► And also, we're going to do, or try to do, an Apple-style backward compatibility thing.

00:42:31 ◼   ► Every time Apple has done a processor transition, and they've done it three times on the Mac,

00:42:35 ◼   ► they always have a way for you to essentially run your old applications in a way that's good enough that you don't care, right?

00:42:41 ◼   ► And every single time they've done this, amazingly, they say, "Hey, do you have an old 68K application?

00:42:46 ◼   ► Your PowerPC Mac will run it faster than the 68K one ever ran before.

00:42:50 ◼   ► You have an old PowerPC app and you want to run it on Intel? We can do that for you too."

00:42:54 ◼   ► And then same thing with running x86 now on ARM.

00:42:57 ◼   ► It's not ideal.

00:42:58 ◼   ► Eventually you want everyone to port their apps.

00:43:00 ◼   ► You want to support fat binaries, universal binaries, blah, blah, blah, right?

00:43:04 ◼   ► But you really can't sell someone a new computer and new architecture and say,

00:43:09 ◼   ► "Yeah, most of your old apps won't work. Sorry about that.

00:43:12 ◼   ► You have to provide a smooth RAM," and they're trying to do that this time.

00:43:15 ◼   ► But the way they're doing it is they're not saying that this presentation wasn't,

00:43:20 ◼   ► "Oh, this is Microsoft announcing that ARM is the future and all PCs have changed ARM."

00:43:25 ◼   ► That's not the presentation they gave.

00:43:27 ◼   ► They can't give that presentation.

00:43:28 ◼   ► They shouldn't give that presentation.

00:43:30 ◼   ► They didn't give that.

00:43:31 ◼   ► Instead, they said, "Here are some amazing new PCs that we hope you'll really like."

00:43:35 ◼   ► And they look, certainly by Microsoft standards, they're pretty amazing, actually.

00:43:40 ◼   ► So, yeah, reading from The Verge, "Microsoft is confident it finally nailed the transition to ARM chips.

00:43:46 ◼   ► So confident that this time around the company spent an entire day pitting its new hardware against MacBook Air.

00:43:50 ◼   ► So let's start with performance.

00:43:51 ◼   ► Over the past two years, Microsoft has worked in secret with all of its top laptop partners

00:43:56 ◼   ► to ready a selection of ARM-powered Windows machines that will hit the market this summer."

00:44:01 ◼   ► So, back, quick aside.

00:44:03 ◼   ► They launched, I think like a year ago now, they launched something called Copilot.

00:44:07 ◼   ► Or maybe it was a GitHub that launched it.

00:44:09 ◼   ► One way or another, Microsoft related.

00:44:11 ◼   ► No, it was a Microsoft thing.

00:44:12 ◼   ► That was their AI branding from multiple years ago, I think, maybe.

00:44:16 ◼   ► Okay, and I love that.

00:44:18 ◼   ► I think it's great.

00:44:19 ◼   ► I really genuinely do.

00:44:20 ◼   ► I think, you know, Copilot is a way to assist you in getting your work done.

00:44:23 ◼   ► I think it's great.

00:44:24 ◼   ► And so kudos to them for that.

00:44:26 ◼   ► It's a surprisingly good name, especially for Microsoft.

00:44:30 ◼   ► So, coming back, "Machines that will hit the market this summer known as Copilot Plus PCs."

00:44:36 ◼   ► They were doing so well.

00:44:39 ◼   ► They were doing so well.

00:44:40 ◼   ► So this name, you have to read this three times to be like, wait, what?

00:44:44 ◼   ► That's the name.

00:44:46 ◼   ► These new kinds of PCs that Microsoft is promoting here,

00:44:50 ◼   ► they have a name that's applied to them that, you know, not just Microsoft sells them.

00:44:54 ◼   ► Anybody who sells one of these things, Dell, Asus, whatever,

00:44:57 ◼   ► they are selling a Copilot, then a Plus symbol, then a PC.

00:45:02 ◼   ► Do you have a Copilot Plus PC?

00:45:04 ◼   ► Yeah, I have a Dell one of those.

00:45:05 ◼   ► I have a Microsoft one of those.

00:45:06 ◼   ► It's a Copilot Plus PC.

00:45:08 ◼   ► Terrible name.

00:45:10 ◼   ► But you can see the reason they did it, and it's also a terrible reason,

00:45:14 ◼   ► but you can see why, right?

00:45:15 ◼   ► Because what they want to say about these laptops,

00:45:18 ◼   ► there's a new kind of laptop in the PC world that's called the Copilot Plus PC,

00:45:22 ◼   ► and what they want to say about them is these PCs can do AI stuff,

00:45:27 ◼   ► because Copilot is our AI thing.

00:45:29 ◼   ► It helps you along with your work, right?

00:45:31 ◼   ► Why it's called Copilot Plus PC is not just called Copilot PC,

00:45:34 ◼   ► but anyway, they're going to say this is what distinguishes these laptops.

00:45:37 ◼   ► They can do AI stuff.

00:45:38 ◼   ► AI stuff is novel.

00:45:39 ◼   ► Lots of people haven't seen it, and only these can do it

00:45:42 ◼   ► because for reasons that we'll get into shortly, right?

00:45:44 ◼   ► I get that AI and Copilot is a popular brand or whatever,

00:45:49 ◼   ► but I can almost guarantee you that the main reason people are going to buy these laptops

00:45:54 ◼   ► has nothing to do with Copilot.

00:45:56 ◼   ► So by calling them Copilot Plus PCs, I hope they're not --

00:46:01 ◼   ► I mean, they'll probably just change their mind,

00:46:02 ◼   ► but you don't want to be stuck with that name,

00:46:04 ◼   ► because as far as I'm concerned and as far as I think the world is concerned,

00:46:06 ◼   ► it's like, oh, these are the PCs that are good like Macs are good, right,

00:46:11 ◼   ► in terms of laptops' size, weight, performance, battery life, right?

00:46:15 ◼   ► These are the PCs that aren't burdened by Intel falling behind on x86, right?

00:46:21 ◼   ► That's what these PCs actually are,

00:46:23 ◼   ► but Microsoft is entirely branding them based on AI features that, frankly,

00:46:29 ◼   ► I think are of speculative usefulness to customers.

00:46:33 ◼   ► I know people are interested in them, and there's buzz around them,

00:46:35 ◼   ► and they're novel, but I don't think the market has shown that they're so important

00:46:42 ◼   ► that people are willing to buy a different PC with a different architecture

00:46:47 ◼   ► just to get access to AI features that they've never used before

00:46:50 ◼   ► but that Microsoft tells them will be super useful.

00:46:53 ◼   ► So bummer on the branding, bummer on the name,

00:46:57 ◼   ► but you can see how they got there.

00:46:59 ◼   ► It's like when a company has something like, this is the future,

00:47:02 ◼   ► and we should -- it's like if they named, like, I don't know,

00:47:06 ◼   ► it's like if they named the new line of Macs to be like --

00:47:11 ◼   ► I'm trying to think of a good example of, like, you know --

00:47:14 ◼   ► They could use their Siri branding, which has been their machine learning brand so far.

00:47:20 ◼   ► All our Macs from now on are going to be Siri Macs, because Siri is so important.

00:47:24 ◼   ► Siri plus Macs.

00:47:26 ◼   ► Or Macs plus Siri.

00:47:28 ◼   ► Now, I think you're right that the AI stuff and copilot stuff

00:47:33 ◼   ► is perhaps not enough to sell these machines, even though it did look pretty slick to me,

00:47:37 ◼   ► but there is a lot here that is good, because it turns out

00:47:41 ◼   ► that making a full-bore computer out of an ARM-based processor

00:47:46 ◼   ► has some benefits. Who knew?

00:47:48 ◼   ► So known as copilot plus PCs, they're meant to kickstart a generation

00:47:53 ◼   ► of powerful, battery-efficient Windows laptops

00:47:57 ◼   ► and lay the groundwork for an AI-powered future.

00:47:59 ◼   ► So the minimum specs for a copilot plus PC --

00:48:03 ◼   ► and I think these are the only three things that were ever enumerated,

00:48:05 ◼   ► maybe there's more -- but you need 16 gigs of RAM or more,

00:48:09 ◼   ► you need a 256-gig hard drive or more, and you need a NPU,

00:48:13 ◼   ► or I guess neural processing unit, is that right, capable of 40 tops.

00:48:17 ◼   ► They talked about tops all the time, all over and over again, tops.

00:48:21 ◼   ► So these minimum specs apply to everybody who wants to use the copilot plus PC's branding.

00:48:26 ◼   ► This is how Microsoft is essentially trying to herd the PC market in a direction.

00:48:29 ◼   ► "Hey, Microsoft's going to put a lot of money into marketing this terrible name."

00:48:32 ◼   ► Do you want to be able to say that you're selling a copilot plus PC?

00:48:36 ◼   ► They went to all their PC hardware vendors and said,

00:48:38 ◼   ► "We want you all to make copilot plus PCs. We're going to market this.

00:48:42 ◼   ► You're going to sell these things. You're going to do it. We're going to do it together."

00:48:45 ◼   ► But to get the copilot plus PC branding, you have to meet this minimum spec,

00:48:50 ◼   ► 16 gigs of RAM, 256, blah, blah, blah.

00:48:53 ◼   ► 16 gigs of RAM as a minimum spec for a copilot plus PC

00:48:56 ◼   ► is yet another slap in the face of Apple and their stupid 8-gigabyte RAM

00:49:00 ◼   ► based on so many of their models.

00:49:03 ◼   ► Now, you might say, "Well, it's because Windows uses so much more memory

00:49:05 ◼   ► and the AI stuff uses so much more memory, and Apple is more memory efficient,

00:49:08 ◼   ► so they only need 8 gigs, yada, yada, yada."

00:49:10 ◼   ► The point is that Apple puts too little RAM in its things.

00:49:13 ◼   ► And so the minimum spec being 16 really is starting to slap our app.

00:49:18 ◼   ► A 256-gig hard drive is a little small, but whatever.

00:49:21 ◼   ► The NPU thing, we talked about this last week, 40 trillion operations per second.

00:49:26 ◼   ► What kind of operations?

00:49:28 ◼   ► 8-bit integer operations? 64-bit floating-point operations? 32-bit integer operations?

00:49:34 ◼   ► No one ever wants to specify.

00:49:36 ◼   ► But based on what we saw last week of how Apple's own numbers changed

00:49:40 ◼   ► from the M3 being 18 tops to the M4 being 38 tops,

00:49:44 ◼   ► and that being because, oh, that was 18 16-bit tops, but it's 38 8-bit tops,

00:49:51 ◼   ► I have to think this 40 number is 8-bit, but Microsoft didn't specify.

00:49:55 ◼   ► If you're trying to compare tops, it's a bad, it's not really a unit,

00:49:59 ◼   ► because you don't know what they're operating on.

00:50:02 ◼   ► How many 1-bit operations can you do per second? You can do even more.

00:50:05 ◼   ► And for people who don't know about SIMD instructions,

00:50:08 ◼   ► it's basically like you have a certain amount of space to put a bunch of numbers in,

00:50:13 ◼   ► and you could put two 8-bit numbers or one 16-bit number.

00:50:17 ◼   ► If you put two 8-bit numbers and you add that value,

00:50:20 ◼   ► "Oh, I just did two additions," but if you put one 16-bit number, you just did one addition.

00:50:24 ◼   ► In either case, you added those things to another set of those things.

00:50:29 ◼   ► So it's a little bit fudging of these numbers and what tops means,

00:50:32 ◼   ► and I'm really not happy about tops being a thing that manufacturers are touting,

00:50:37 ◼   ► because none of them seem interested in telling us what those operations were performed on.

00:50:42 ◼   ► Maybe there's some kind of unification about them always touting the biggest number,

00:50:45 ◼   ► which I guess everyone's decided going smaller than 8-bit seems kind of cheap,

00:50:51 ◼   ► maybe it's 40 trillion 8-bit operations, but we don't know.

00:50:54 ◼   ► But anyway, this is basically saying you've got to have some kind of neural engine to use AppleSpeak

00:51:00 ◼   ► that has decent performance to be a Copilot Plus PC.

00:51:04 ◼   ► It doesn't seem like this is just a bunch of BS,

00:51:07 ◼   ► that they're actually inferior hardware, that they're just pumping up at the stats.

00:51:13 ◼   ► It seems from the tests they've shown so far, of course, with all the caveats that these are demo tests from a keynote or whatever,

00:51:20 ◼   ► it seems like this is actually likely to be real competition for Apple's M chips.

00:51:26 ◼   ► And that's fantastic.

00:51:28 ◼   ► Well, the M4 was 38 tops, and this is 40. So yeah, ballpark.

00:51:32 ◼   ► Right, and so far the rest of the performance seems like it's actually theoretically going to actually provide a really good competition.

00:51:39 ◼   ► And for me, even though I'm a huge Apple fan, and especially of the Mac,

00:51:45 ◼   ► I hope these are faster than the M chips.

00:51:49 ◼   ► Because Apple is at its best when there's really good competition.

00:51:53 ◼   ► And there are parts of Apple that are extremely complacent recently.

00:52:00 ◼   ► Now the thing is, the Mac hardware division really is not among them.

00:52:03 ◼   ► The Mac hardware is great, and it's better than it's ever been, and it's updated,

00:52:07 ◼   ► despite earlier conversations about the Mac Studio and Mac Pro,

00:52:11 ◼   ► the overall Mac hardware lineup is updated pretty well now.

00:52:15 ◼   ► And pretty much every model of Mac now is in a really good place, for the most part.

00:52:21 ◼   ► And so I wouldn't say Mac hardware is being complacent or slacking off or taking their foot off the gas.

00:52:29 ◼   ► I would say Mac software is.

00:52:32 ◼   ► And I would say certainly we'll see what happens with Apple

00:52:37 ◼   ► and any of their modern AI features that may or may not be announced in a few weeks.

00:52:43 ◼   ► We'll see. That remains to be seen how that goes.

00:52:46 ◼   ► But what I love about this announcement is that it looks like Microsoft

00:52:50 ◼   ► and all the various partners therein,

00:52:53 ◼   ► it looks like they're actually going to really provide strong competition

00:52:57 ◼   ► for the first time in a long time, at least in some areas, in the hardware areas.

00:53:02 ◼   ► And to attack the MacBook Air with what looks like a pretty strong attack,

00:53:08 ◼   ► I think that's fantastic. That's great for the industry.

00:53:12 ◼   ► That's how we get really good change coming.

00:53:14 ◼   ► That's how we get really good improvements.

00:53:16 ◼   ► That's how we get 16 gigs of frickin' RAM.

00:53:18 ◼   ► That's how we get everything getting better for the customers.

00:53:21 ◼   ► It happens when Apple is forced not to be complacent, when there's actually real competition.

00:53:26 ◼   ► And this will be a theme, I think, throughout the next few years.

00:53:30 ◼   ► I suspect, granted, again, we have yet to see what Apple has in response to the recent AI mania.

00:53:39 ◼   ► I suspect whatever they unveil at WWDC is going to underwhelm most of us in that area.

00:53:46 ◼   ► I think they're going to be way behind.

00:53:48 ◼   ► I think they're going to take a very, very conservative approach to any kind of "AI-based features."

00:53:54 ◼   ► And I bet the companies that were there earlier and have invested more heavily in it,

00:53:59 ◼   ► basically Google and Microsoft especially,

00:54:02 ◼   ► I bet Google and Microsoft are going to be way ahead of Apple in AI-based features for a long time,

00:54:09 ◼   ► possibly for a decade.

00:54:11 ◼   ► I think this is a direct assault on Apple's core businesses, even the iPhone.

00:54:16 ◼   ► And I think that's fantastic. I think Apple needs that more than anything.

00:54:20 ◼   ► Because I have not kept quiet that I really do think there's a lot more parallels between Tim Cook and Steve Ballmer

00:54:27 ◼   ► than most Apple fans are willing to admit.

00:54:29 ◼   ► Steve Ballmer did not make Microsoft unsuccessful.

00:54:33 ◼   ► He made Microsoft miss the next big thing.

00:54:36 ◼   ► I think that's substantially at risk here with Apple.

00:54:40 ◼   ► I think Apple may have missed/be missing a lot of new tech around these new AI techniques and models

00:54:48 ◼   ► that their competition is investing very heavily into and developing very quickly.

00:54:54 ◼   ► They're iterating quickly. They're turning things around quickly.

00:54:57 ◼   ► A lot of it's still vaporware. A lot of it's still not as good as it demos.

00:55:02 ◼   ► But there's a lot of value there that Apple is so far not capturing.

00:55:05 ◼   ► Again, it remains to be seen. What will happen? What will they show us in a few weeks?

00:55:10 ◼   ► And how will that stage out the rest of the year into various products and releases?

00:55:14 ◼   ► We'll find out.

00:55:15 ◼   ► But I have a feeling the most likely outcome of all that is their way behind

00:55:22 ◼   ► and dipping their toe in very conservatively while their competitors are pushing really hard.

00:55:26 ◼   ► And that's a threat to the iPhone. That's a big deal if that's the case.

00:55:31 ◼   ► So I think this is going to be a really exciting time.

00:55:35 ◼   ► Not because I want Apple to lose, but because they're going to have really strong competition,

00:55:42 ◼   ► stronger than they've had in a long time.

00:55:44 ◼   ► And they're going to start seeing actual disruption in their core product lines

00:55:49 ◼   ► because their competitors are going to be doing substantial things that either have matched areas

00:55:54 ◼   ► that Apple's had a lead in for a while, like some of this hardware from Microsoft and Qualcomm and everything,

00:55:59 ◼   ► or their competitors are going to be doing things that Apple just can't keep up with

00:56:04 ◼   ► in the areas of AI and AI-based features.

00:56:07 ◼   ► I think this is going to be a really exciting time for computers and for Apple fans

00:56:12 ◼   ► because we're going to start actually getting punched here and there.

00:56:15 ◼   ► We're going to start losing some things.

00:56:17 ◼   ► And that's going to make Apple wake up in some areas that they need to be woken up in

00:56:22 ◼   ► and actually get them to make some really good stuff again in a lot of these complacent areas.

00:56:28 ◼   ► Yep, so as we continue, Ars Technica writes that right now, the requirement of 16 gigs RAM,

00:56:34 ◼   ► 256 gig hard drive, and NPU capable of 40 trillion operations per second, or 40 tops,

00:56:40 ◼   ► that can only be met by a single chip in the entire Windows PC ecosystem.

00:56:45 ◼   ► The Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite, god, I'm fumbling all over my mouth here

00:56:51 ◼   ► because these are so dangerous.

00:56:53 ◼   ► Oh, they're terrible names.

00:56:55 ◼   ► All of a sudden, just like M4.

00:56:57 ◼   ► Right, Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and X+, which I'm assuming are Xs, maybe they're Xs, who even knows.

00:57:04 ◼   ► But those are the only chips that are capable of doing it,

00:57:08 ◼   ► and I think that basically only one of these two is out today or something along those lines?

00:57:12 ◼   ► No, I think they're both available.

00:57:14 ◼   ► So this Qualcomm Snapdragon things, we've been hearing about this chip for a while now,

00:57:18 ◼   ► for like months now, people are saying this is going to be the M--

00:57:20 ◼   ► first it was going to be the M2 killer, then it was going to be the M3 killer,

00:57:23 ◼   ► now it's the M4 killer because Apple keeps releasing new chips.

00:57:26 ◼   ► This is from Qualcomm, Apple's friendly neighborhood supplier of cell modems

00:57:33 ◼   ► and other things that Apple wants to replace in its hardware.

00:57:36 ◼   ► Qualcomm bought Nuvia in 2021 for $1.4 billion.

00:57:42 ◼   ► Nuvia was a startup making ARM chips, I think they were making like ARM server chips.

00:57:47 ◼   ► Nuvia was started by a bunch of Apple Silicon people that left Apple

00:57:52 ◼   ► and formed their own company to make ARM chips that Apple was interested in making.

00:57:56 ◼   ► So Qualcomm essentially bought a bunch of the people who helped Apple make all of its--

00:58:03 ◼   ► the M series chips and the A series chips or whatever.

00:58:05 ◼   ► That was a wise move because Qualcomm's ARM SOCs were not as good as Apple's for many, many years,

00:58:12 ◼   ► and this seems to be the first fruit of the Nuvia acquisition,

00:58:18 ◼   ► which is an ARM chip that is in the conversation with Apple's ARM chips,

00:58:22 ◼   ► and it's the Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus, which is not great naming.

00:58:27 ◼   ► The Plus has a 10-core CPU and goes up to 3.4 gigahertz,

00:58:31 ◼   ► and the Elite has a 12-core CPU that clocks higher.

00:58:34 ◼   ► It goes up to 3.8 with a "dual-core boost" to 4.2 gigahertz,

00:58:40 ◼   ► and they both have 136 gigabits per second memory bandwidth.

00:58:43 ◼   ► The M4--remember from past show--the M4 just broke the 100 gigabytes per second barrier

00:58:49 ◼   ► because the M1, M2, and M3 were all 100 gigabytes per second.

00:58:52 ◼   ► M4 is 120 gigabytes per second.

00:58:55 ◼   ► The Snapdragon X chip is 136 gigabytes per second.

00:59:00 ◼   ► So spec-wise, clockwise, these are a little bit slower than the M4 as well,

00:59:04 ◼   ► but if you look at these chips and you're like,

00:59:07 ◼   ► "Well, just based on this part of the specs,

00:59:10 ◼   ► I can see how this potentially could be in the conversation with Apple stuff."

00:59:14 ◼   ► Now, when the rumors were going for the Snapdragon X,

00:59:18 ◼   ► the main ding against these chips and the rumors was,

00:59:21 ◼   ► "Okay, so the specs are comparable to an M2 or better than an M2,

00:59:26 ◼   ► comparable to an M3, and now maybe within shouting distance of an M4,

00:59:31 ◼   ► but we don't know how much power they take."

00:59:33 ◼   ► That was kind of the ding on the Intel chips before the ARM ones.

00:59:36 ◼   ► You could get Intel laptops that had CPUs that could match or beat

00:59:42 ◼   ► the CPUs in Apple's laptops, but they used so much more power

00:59:46 ◼   ► and their battery life was awful, and some of them even,

00:59:48 ◼   ► when they weren't plugged in, they would clock themselves down

00:59:51 ◼   ► and get even worse performance.

00:59:53 ◼   ► So it was like, "Okay, we can't just look at whether you can beat a Mac in performance.

00:59:58 ◼   ► If your battery life is half as long, nobody wants your laptop."

01:00:01 ◼   ► So that was always the ding in the rumors against the Snapdragon X things.

01:00:04 ◼   ► "Oh, they're probably going to be comparable,

01:00:06 ◼   ► but I bet they're going to get way worse battery life."

01:00:09 ◼   ► But this presentation spent a long time trying to say that that's not the case,

01:00:15 ◼   ► that these laptops are not only MacBook Air caliber performance,

01:00:20 ◼   ► which is so weird that they're judging against the MacBook Air,

01:00:22 ◼   ► which is not Apple's most performant laptop.

01:00:26 ◼   ► Well, it's their top seller.

01:00:27 ◼   ► It's probably Microsoft's top competition for anything in this price range.

01:00:30 ◼   ► Right, but if you're doing it, you would think what you'd be doing

01:00:32 ◼   ► if you're competing against the MacBook Air is just showing battery life things, whatever,

01:00:35 ◼   ► but they want to show that it has the speed.

01:00:37 ◼   ► And it's a little bit like--so obviously the MacBook Air only has the M3.

01:00:41 ◼   ► Apple rolled out the M4, but it's not in a MacBook Air yet,

01:00:44 ◼   ► so this is the time to strike, because when the M4 MacBook Air is out,

01:00:47 ◼   ► maybe the comparisons won't be as favorable,

01:00:49 ◼   ► because the M4 looks pretty darn good.

01:00:51 ◼   ► But anyway, that's what they were comparing against.

01:00:53 ◼   ► Now, the one thing they do have going for them is these are PCs,

01:00:58 ◼   ► which you would presume they're going to be less expensive with better specs than Apple stuff.

01:01:03 ◼   ► Now, Microsoft's PCs, because Microsoft doesn't make hardware,

01:01:06 ◼   ► Microsoft's PCs historically have not actually been super cheap.

01:01:11 ◼   ► You could always get cheaper models with similar specs from other PC makers.

01:01:15 ◼   ► Microsoft, from the beginning with its whole self-branded surface line of Microsoft PCs,

01:01:22 ◼   ► has been trying to be the Apple of PC hardware,

01:01:25 ◼   ► right down to their hardware very often looking a lot like Apple hardware.

01:01:29 ◼   ► And so they have a new laptop they call the Surface Laptop 7th Edition,

01:01:33 ◼   ► at least they didn't call it 7th Generation.

01:01:35 ◼   ► And so there's been a lot of Surface laptops before,

01:01:38 ◼   ► but this is the good Surface laptop,

01:01:41 ◼   ► because it comes with this ARM processor that is potentially M3 or M4 class.

01:01:47 ◼   ► So looking at the pricing just at a broad level,

01:01:50 ◼   ► because remember, this starts at 16 gigs,

01:01:52 ◼   ► and what I wanted to see was, okay, it starts at 16 gigs,

01:01:55 ◼   ► you know you can't, the base MacBook Air doesn't start at 16 gigs,

01:01:59 ◼   ► but you can get it up to that, I think.

01:02:01 ◼   ► So what do the price comparison looks like?

01:02:03 ◼   ► So the base model 13-inch Surface laptop with 16 gigs of RAM and 256 gigs of SSD is $1,000.

01:02:11 ◼   ► You cannot buy a MacBook Air with 16 gigs of RAM for $1,000.

01:02:16 ◼   ► You haven't been able to ever,

01:02:18 ◼   ► and it's a shame because that extra 8 gigs of RAM is not that big a deal.

01:02:22 ◼   ► If you want a MacBook Air with that, I think you have to pay an additional $300,

01:02:25 ◼   ► which doesn't sound like a lot extra,

01:02:27 ◼   ► but in a $1,000 computer, that's like a third of the price you just added

01:02:31 ◼   ► to go from 8 gigs of RAM to 16 gig, and your SSD is still tiny.

01:02:35 ◼   ► So it doesn't seem like, oh, look, they're in the same ballpark,

01:02:39 ◼   ► $300, $300 is nothing.

01:02:41 ◼   ► It's a big bump on a $1,000 computer.

01:02:43 ◼   ► If you want to go 16, 512, that's $1,400 on the Surface.

01:02:48 ◼   ► Oh, it looks like Microsoft has learned something about SSD pricing from Apple.

01:02:51 ◼   ► Adding 256 gigs of SSD space does not cost $400,

01:02:56 ◼   ► but in Microsoft and Apple Land, it does,

01:02:58 ◼   ► and so now the MacBook Air is only $100 more expensive.

01:03:01 ◼   ► In 1500, if you go 16 gig, 1 terabyte, again,

01:03:04 ◼   ► there's only a $100 price difference between the MacBook Air and the Surface.

01:03:08 ◼   ► The MacBook Air would obviously be $100 more expensive,

01:03:10 ◼   ► and if you go 32 gig, 1 terabyte, the MacBook Air is actually cheaper,

01:03:13 ◼   ► but you can't get the MacBook Air with 32.

01:03:15 ◼   ► You can only get it with 24, so it's $100 less expensive.

01:03:19 ◼   ► So pricing-wise, they are similar to MacBook Air.

01:03:23 ◼   ► That's their competition.

01:03:25 ◼   ► They undercut it significantly at the low end.

01:03:27 ◼   ► Like, to be able to get for $1,000 to a machine with 16 gigs of RAM,

01:03:30 ◼   ► that's the way the world should be, and it's only not that way

01:03:33 ◼   ► because of Apple's stubbornness about getting off 8 gigs.

01:03:37 ◼   ► But all the rest of the prices look like, all right,

01:03:39 ◼   ► I see what you're pricing this at.

01:03:41 ◼   ► You're pricing this like a MacBook Air.

01:03:43 ◼   ► All the other makers who make these, because I think there's a whole bunch

01:03:45 ◼   ► of PC makers that do, presumably will undercut them.

01:03:48 ◼   ► But the Microsoft ones want to be the good ones.

01:03:52 ◼   ► Again, I think this is fantastic competition.

01:03:55 ◼   ► Finally, this is great.

01:03:57 ◼   ► I think the problem here, or the challenge here that Microsoft is going to have,

01:04:03 ◼   ► which I think we'll get to in a moment, is Microsoft is clearly trying to sell

01:04:08 ◼   ► this to MacBook Air customers.

01:04:11 ◼   ► And I think they will do a pretty good job of giving Apple a run for their money

01:04:14 ◼   ► for certain target audiences.

01:04:17 ◼   ► The question is, Microsoft has tried before to sell good next generation ARM hardware,

01:04:26 ◼   ► but Microsoft's customers didn't want it.

01:04:29 ◼   ► Their customers wanted something that was what we always buy and cheap and easy

01:04:34 ◼   ► and works with everything, because it turns out that not every customer base

01:04:39 ◼   ► is the same and wants the same things and has the same priorities.

01:04:42 ◼   ► Microsoft here is making a product line that looks like it will actually be

01:04:48 ◼   ► pretty competitive with Apple customers, but whether they can get their customers

01:04:53 ◼   ► to buy it is a very different story.

01:04:55 ◼   ► Well, their customers just want to be able to run their apps,

01:04:57 ◼   ► and I think that's the story they're telling them here,

01:04:59 ◼   ► because I don't think obviously the pricing is out of whack in this.

01:05:01 ◼   ► I think people who like Windows PCs, like for example the corporate world,

01:05:05 ◼   ► a lot of Windows PCs get sold into the corporate world.

01:05:08 ◼   ► All those people have had to endure now what, three years of going to meetings

01:05:13 ◼   ► with their Mac using co-workers and seeing just how much better battery life

01:05:19 ◼   ► the Mac users get and how much nicer their laptops are.

01:05:23 ◼   ► But they don't want a Mac, they want a PC.

01:05:25 ◼   ► They just want it to be nice.

01:05:27 ◼   ► But they don't want it, so okay, we can get you one of these Windows RT laptops.

01:05:31 ◼   ► People are like, oh, they're slow, and they're worse.

01:05:34 ◼   ► They're slow, the battery life isn't even that good,

01:05:36 ◼   ► and they have compatibility problems.

01:05:38 ◼   ► So Microsoft I think is talking to those people and saying,

01:05:40 ◼   ► it's now safe for you to buy a Windows laptop that's good like the MacBook Air,

01:05:45 ◼   ► and it will run all your stuff.

01:05:46 ◼   ► That is the thing that needs to get them over.

01:05:48 ◼   ► It's not so much the pricing, because again,

01:05:50 ◼   ► there are cheaper brands to buy from than this.

01:05:52 ◼   ► It's the safety of saying, this will just work just like your Windows laptop

01:05:55 ◼   ► that you have now.

01:05:56 ◼   ► There's no excuses we have to make, no compromise.

01:05:59 ◼   ► It's not, well, it gets good battery life, but half is slow.

01:06:03 ◼   ► But hey, battery life is like, no, it's faster.

01:06:05 ◼   ► It's like the M1 pitch.

01:06:07 ◼   ► It's faster, it runs all your old software, and the battery life is amazing.

01:06:10 ◼   ► It's an easy sell.

01:06:11 ◼   ► And you're right that Microsoft is selling to the people

01:06:14 ◼   ► who are buying the high end of that,

01:06:16 ◼   ► but Dell is going to sell PCs with similar specs at the low end of that.

01:06:20 ◼   ► They're uglier, cheaper, but more appealing to people.

01:06:23 ◼   ► So I think they have -- I don't think they're trying to like, you know,

01:06:27 ◼   ► let's poach all the Mac users or whatever.

01:06:29 ◼   ► I think they're just finally trying to give all the Windows users

01:06:31 ◼   ► who have been suffering with inferior laptops

01:06:33 ◼   ► since the introduction of the M1 to say, now you're free.

01:06:38 ◼   ► Now you can have a good laptop again.

01:06:40 ◼   ► Don't even tell them there's an ARM CPU in there.

01:06:43 ◼   ► They won't even need to know.

01:06:45 ◼   ► It just runs all your stuff, and you don't need to know about it.

01:06:48 ◼   ► All you know is my battery life is better and my performance is better.

01:06:51 ◼   ► It's the same pitch as the M1 was over x86.

01:06:54 ◼   ► So let's talk compatibility because I think that is -- that's key here.

01:06:59 ◼   ► Because you're right that what everybody wants in the Windows world is

01:07:03 ◼   ► we want to do things the way we've always done them.

01:07:06 ◼   ► We want to run the software we've always run.

01:07:08 ◼   ► We want to have it work with all the tools we already use,

01:07:11 ◼   ► all the things we already know.

01:07:12 ◼   ► We want it to integrate with all of our enterprise systems.

01:07:14 ◼   ► We want it to run all of our enterprise software

01:07:16 ◼   ► and have all of our enterprise licenses transfer over to it.

01:07:18 ◼   ► And we want it to be really cheap and easily dealt with in a fleet.

01:07:21 ◼   ► That's what Microsoft's customers want.

01:07:24 ◼   ► And so does this actually deliver that in the compatibility realm, you think?

01:07:30 ◼   ► Yeah, so their claim is that it's twice as fast as their previous extremely bad emulation.

01:07:35 ◼   ► Right, that doesn't mean anything.

01:07:37 ◼   ► They name-checked Rosetta.

01:07:39 ◼   ► In the presentation, they literally name-checked Rosetta.

01:07:41 ◼   ► They said it's just as efficient as Apple's Rosetta.

01:07:44 ◼   ► Their target is 100% what Apple did with the M1.

01:07:48 ◼   ► They've got software makers on board, even better than Apple did,

01:07:51 ◼   ► because Microsoft actually knows how to talk to third parties,

01:07:53 ◼   ► where the browser vendors have promised our version of their stuff.

01:07:56 ◼   ► Photoshop is there. Obviously, Office is there,

01:07:58 ◼   ► because Microsoft knows how to port its own apps.

01:08:00 ◼   ► And like Apple, their compatibility story is good.

01:08:03 ◼   ► They put a claim in the presentation that was like --

01:08:05 ◼   ► I've seen it, they used both 87 and 90 because I think they're just rounding.

01:08:08 ◼   ► This is 87.

01:08:10 ◼   ► Microsoft believes 87% of the total app minutes spent on a Co-Pilot Plus PC

01:08:16 ◼   ► will be inside native apps.

01:08:17 ◼   ► So they're not saying that 87% of the apps will have been ported.

01:08:21 ◼   ► They're saying, look, the apps that people use every day,

01:08:23 ◼   ► 87% of their time, they're going to be using a native app.

01:08:26 ◼   ► But as we know from the M1, that doesn't even matter.

01:08:28 ◼   ► If you have Rosetta caliber emulation,

01:08:31 ◼   ► the apps that aren't native, unless they're performance-critical,

01:08:33 ◼   ► people won't even notice.

01:08:35 ◼   ► So their claim and their demos essentially say,

01:08:38 ◼   ► this is an M1 situation.

01:08:40 ◼   ► Most of the apps that you care about,

01:08:42 ◼   ► most of your day is going to be spent in a native app.

01:08:44 ◼   ► We made sure we ported our apps,

01:08:46 ◼   ► and the ones that aren't native, you won't even notice.

01:08:48 ◼   ► That's their pitch.

01:08:51 ◼   ► Unlike the hardware side, on the software side,

01:08:53 ◼   ► they can deliver on that, both by porting their software,

01:08:56 ◼   ► because honestly, lots of people who use Windows

01:08:58 ◼   ► use Microsoft software a lot of the time,

01:09:00 ◼   ► and by getting third parties on board,

01:09:01 ◼   ► which they seem to have done a pretty good job of.

01:09:03 ◼   ► So we'll see what the market thinks about it,

01:09:06 ◼   ► and there are other wrinkles that we'll get to in a little bit.

01:09:07 ◼   ► But that's what makes this time different.

01:09:10 ◼   ► Well, two things.

01:09:11 ◼   ► One, they have a good SOC made by ex-Apple people,

01:09:14 ◼   ► and two, they actually have a compatibility story

01:09:16 ◼   ► that appears to be Apple-caliber.

01:09:18 ◼   ► You know they're confident

01:09:19 ◼   ► when they're literally name-checking, like, Rosetta.

01:09:21 ◼   ► They said MacBook Air, they said Apple, they said Rosetta.

01:09:24 ◼   ► You don't throw up those names.

01:09:26 ◼   ► You don't invite those comparisons

01:09:28 ◼   ► if you know you're going to look terrible.

01:09:30 ◼   ► So they are at least confident that they have met that bar.

01:09:33 ◼   ► -Indeed.

01:09:35 ◼   ► We should probably go back and talk a little bit about specifics.

01:09:38 ◼   ► The Surface laptop is 13.8 inches.

01:09:41 ◼   ► It is a 201-PPI screen at 120 hertz, or --

01:09:46 ◼   ► -Now, let's just stop there.

01:09:48 ◼   ► You know, in the PC world,

01:09:49 ◼   ► they're not shy about giving you technology that is modern.

01:09:52 ◼   ► They don't say, "Oh, well, this is the 13-inch low-end laptop,

01:09:56 ◼   ► so we're not going to give them 120-hertz screen.

01:09:59 ◼   ► That's a pro feature."

01:10:00 ◼   ► No. They just give it to you

01:10:01 ◼   ► because it's a part that they can buy,

01:10:03 ◼   ► and it doesn't actually cost that much more than the 60-hertz part.

01:10:06 ◼   ► So it has a slightly bigger screen than the MacBook Air,

01:10:09 ◼   ► slightly lower PPI, but it's 120 hertz.

01:10:12 ◼   ► This is like a MacBook Air with ProMotion and Apple parlance.

01:10:15 ◼   ► -Oh, and by the way, they're all touch screens with pencil support.

01:10:17 ◼   ► -Yeah. Of course they are.

01:10:18 ◼   ► -Every single one of them.

01:10:20 ◼   ► -Then there's the 15-inch, which is also 201-PPI.

01:10:23 ◼   ► This is in comparison to the MacBook Air,

01:10:26 ◼   ► both of which are 224 points per inch.

01:10:29 ◼   ► Is it pixels or points in this context?

01:10:31 ◼   ► -It's points. Yeah. -Okay.

01:10:33 ◼   ► There are two USB-C ports, which are USB 4,

01:10:37 ◼   ► and wouldn't you know it, there's one USB-A port,

01:10:40 ◼   ► which is USB 3.1 on all of these.

01:10:42 ◼   ► -Yeah. It is interesting that they didn't --

01:10:44 ◼   ► I mean, obviously, the MacBook Air doesn't have Thunderbolt, right?

01:10:47 ◼   ► They're USB and the MacBook Air, as well?

01:10:49 ◼   ► -No, I thought they were Thunderbolt.

01:10:50 ◼   ► -No, it's Thunderbolt. Everything's Thunderbolt now.

01:10:52 ◼   ► Everything after the MacBook 1,

01:10:54 ◼   ► everything after the 12-inch was real Thunderbolt.

01:10:57 ◼   ► -Oh, I do see that.

01:10:58 ◼   ► -Anyway, Thunderbolt is an interesting

01:11:00 ◼   ► Apple differentiator because --

01:11:02 ◼   ► I know this is the whole USB 4 thing versus Thunderbolt.

01:11:05 ◼   ► It's not that big a deal, but Thunderbolt still seems to be

01:11:07 ◼   ► a thing that only Mac users really care about.

01:11:09 ◼   ► But anyway, Microsoft does give you two ports,

01:11:12 ◼   ► plus that A port with USB 3.1 for the people who need it.

01:11:16 ◼   ► -Indeed. There's a headphone jack.

01:11:18 ◼   ► They all support three external 4K monitors,

01:11:21 ◼   ► plus the laptop screen.

01:11:23 ◼   ► Let me tell you, of all the complaints I've heard

01:11:26 ◼   ► about modern Apple laptops,

01:11:28 ◼   ► I think the only one I've heard with any regularity is,

01:11:32 ◼   ► "What do you mean I can't run a second screen?"

01:11:34 ◼   ► Which I think that -- Wasn't that changed?

01:11:36 ◼   ► -And now you can close the lid. You want to run it?

01:11:38 ◼   ► Just close the lid.

01:11:40 ◼   ► And, again, if you don't want to watch this presentation,

01:11:43 ◼   ► be assured that they weren't just doing this as, like,

01:11:46 ◼   ► "And Apple users will know what this means."

01:11:48 ◼   ► They were calling out the MacBook, like,

01:11:50 ◼   ► three external 4K monitors plus the laptop screen.

01:11:53 ◼   ► This is because they know that this is a weakness of the Mac.

01:11:56 ◼   ► We've talked about this for multiple generations

01:11:58 ◼   ► of the MacBook Air.

01:11:59 ◼   ► Is this the one where they're going to do, you know,

01:12:01 ◼   ► "Oh, they decided not to put the display drivers forward.

01:12:03 ◼   ► It actually has a hardware limitation.

01:12:04 ◼   ► This is how they've chose to apportion,

01:12:06 ◼   ► you know, for power usage and all these reasons

01:12:08 ◼   ► why Apple didn't do this."

01:12:09 ◼   ► And Microsoft is capitalizing by saying,

01:12:12 ◼   ► "We don't just support one external monitor,

01:12:14 ◼   ► three 4K monitors plus the laptop screen at the same time."

01:12:18 ◼   ► -Indeed. There is Wi-Fi 7.

01:12:21 ◼   ► There are touch screens, as previously mentioned.

01:12:23 ◼   ► It goes up to 600 nits with "HDR," has Dolby Vision IQ.

01:12:28 ◼   ► There is no notch.

01:12:30 ◼   ► -They said that in the presentation.

01:12:32 ◼   ► Literally, they said, "Hey, our camera is built into the,

01:12:35 ◼   ► you know, the frame of the monitor."

01:12:37 ◼   ► No notch.

01:12:38 ◼   ► And why are they saying no notch?

01:12:40 ◼   ► Because Apple's laptops have notches.

01:12:42 ◼   ► They're calling out every single thing that is weird

01:12:45 ◼   ► or bad or wrong about it.

01:12:47 ◼   ► "Wi-Fi 6, does it max out that?"

01:12:48 ◼   ► "No, Macs don't have Wi-Fi 6.

01:12:49 ◼   ► We've got 7, rather.

01:12:51 ◼   ► We have 6E because Apple has not always been

01:12:55 ◼   ► on the cutting edge of these standards."

01:12:56 ◼   ► This has been true forever for PCs,

01:12:58 ◼   ► but now this is like a PC worth paying attention to,

01:13:00 ◼   ► and it's got all that PC stuff, and that PC stuff is,

01:13:03 ◼   ► "Hey, whatever the latest standard is for the stuff,

01:13:05 ◼   ► even on the lowest-end laptop, of course it's got Wi-Fi 7

01:13:08 ◼   ► because that's the current version of Wi-Fi,

01:13:09 ◼   ► and we're a PC, and PCs have the newest stuff,

01:13:11 ◼   ► and then when you buy a new PC."

01:13:13 ◼   ► The screen, which they claim is HDR, I'm like,

01:13:15 ◼   ► "Really? They put an HDR screen in this?"

01:13:17 ◼   ► "No, it's 600 nits."

01:13:18 ◼   ► Don't get too excited about the HDR.

01:13:20 ◼   ► It's HDR in the same way as the Mac Studio's display is HDR.

01:13:25 ◼   ► 600 nits is not HDR.

01:13:27 ◼   ► And by the way, double vision IQ is the thing where,

01:13:30 ◼   ► again, Dolby Vision with 600 nits max.

01:13:33 ◼   ► Anyway, double vision IQ is the thing

01:13:35 ◼   ► where it just does ambient light sensing to adjust the thing,

01:13:38 ◼   ► but honestly, this is not a very bright screen.

01:13:40 ◼   ► But it is 120 hertz.

01:13:42 ◼   ► The PPI is a little low at 201 versus 224.

01:13:47 ◼   ► The resolution is a little bit lower than the MacBook,

01:13:49 ◼   ► a little bit lower than the MacBook Air.

01:13:51 ◼   ► It's 2,300 instead of 2,500 across, right?

01:13:54 ◼   ► So this is kind of like a --

01:13:55 ◼   ► The pixels are a little chunkier.

01:13:57 ◼   ► The screen's a little bit bigger.

01:13:58 ◼   ► But as Marco said, it's a touchscreen.

01:14:00 ◼   ► It has pen support.

01:14:01 ◼   ► 600 nits is not bad.

01:14:03 ◼   ► And no notch. And how did they do it with no notch?

01:14:05 ◼   ► They just made the bezels a little bit thicker.

01:14:06 ◼   ► It's not that much thicker. Look at it. It's fine.

01:14:08 ◼   ► Apple could have done this, but they didn't.

01:14:10 ◼   ► So, yeah. This next one kills me.

01:14:13 ◼   ► -There's a micro SDXC card reader,

01:14:15 ◼   ► but only on the 15-inch.

01:14:16 ◼   ► -Look at that.

01:14:17 ◼   ► -There's an SD card slot on the MacBook Air.

01:14:19 ◼   ► You believe that, Apple? Has that ever been done before?

01:14:21 ◼   ► Oh, it has been done before on the MacBook Air.

01:14:23 ◼   ► -On the -- I believe the -- Didn't the 11-inch have it?

01:14:26 ◼   ► I know the 13-inch did. I think the 11 might have had it.

01:14:30 ◼   ► -And, again, we celebrated when the SD card came

01:14:32 ◼   ► to the MacBook Pro line.

01:14:34 ◼   ► And at the time, I said, "You know, they're --

01:14:36 ◼   ► Like, you could put this on the MacBook Air,

01:14:38 ◼   ► but, like, we're just so happy to have it on the MacBook Pro.

01:14:40 ◼   ► Thank you, Apple. But here is competitive pressure.

01:14:42 ◼   ► Hey, in a MacBook Air-class machine,

01:14:44 ◼   ► can you fit an SD card slot?"

01:14:46 ◼   ► Yeah, you can. Apple's done it before.

01:14:48 ◼   ► They can do it again.

01:14:49 ◼   ► Microsoft just did it only on the 15-inch.

01:14:51 ◼   ► -There is a fan, and there's a daring firewall post about this.

01:14:55 ◼   ► There's a fan, which, you know, that's fine.

01:14:58 ◼   ► I'm not near as bothered by this as I think you two are,

01:15:00 ◼   ► but it is there.

01:15:02 ◼   ► -Yeah, this is -- So, we'll start getting into this

01:15:04 ◼   ► a little bit now.

01:15:05 ◼   ► Like, the rumor for the Snapdragon X thing was like,

01:15:08 ◼   ► "Okay, it'll be competitive, but it'll use more power."

01:15:10 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, fans."

01:15:12 ◼   ► You know, like, there's a different power class of ship.

01:15:14 ◼   ► Like, the direct comparison really should be

01:15:16 ◼   ► with the base MacBook Pro and not the MacBook Air,

01:15:18 ◼   ► not the fanless MacBook Air.

01:15:21 ◼   ► But as we'll see, there's some conflicting info.

01:15:24 ◼   ► Like, Microsoft is clearly targeting the MacBook Air.

01:15:27 ◼   ► They're saying this is the MacBook Air-class machine.

01:15:29 ◼   ► It does have a fan, and the MacBook Air doesn't,

01:15:31 ◼   ► so that's leaning us a little bit in the direction

01:15:33 ◼   ► of maybe this is using a little bit more power

01:15:35 ◼   ► than the MacBook Air's SOC.

01:15:37 ◼   ► That's what led me to say, "Okay, well,

01:15:39 ◼   ► if this thing really is using more power,

01:15:42 ◼   ► let's look at the battery size.

01:15:43 ◼   ► Let's look at the battery capacity."

01:15:44 ◼   ► Because the claims they make about the battery life

01:15:46 ◼   ► are MacBook Air caliber,

01:15:48 ◼   ► but maybe it just has a bigger battery.

01:15:50 ◼   ► Like, maybe this is a more power-hungry SOC.

01:15:52 ◼   ► They put a bigger battery in it,

01:15:54 ◼   ► and that's how it can match the MacBook Air in battery life.

01:15:58 ◼   ► But the battery sizes are almost exactly MacBook Air.

01:16:02 ◼   ► So in the 13-inch, it's 54-watt hours,

01:16:04 ◼   ► and the MacBook Air is 52.6.

01:16:06 ◼   ► In the 15-inch, it's 66-watt hours,

01:16:08 ◼   ► and the MacBook Air is 66.5.

01:16:10 ◼   ► Like, these batteries --

01:16:11 ◼   ► It's like when car manufacturers produce a car

01:16:14 ◼   ► that competes with some other company's car

01:16:17 ◼   ► in the same sort of model category,

01:16:19 ◼   ► and you look at the specs, and you're like,

01:16:21 ◼   ► "Wow, the wheelbase is 1-inch different.

01:16:23 ◼   ► The rear seat room is, like, 1-inch dif--"

01:16:25 ◼   ► Like, it's so clear that they target each other,

01:16:27 ◼   ► and they just match each other's specs exactly

01:16:29 ◼   ► because they don't want to be rejected in the market

01:16:32 ◼   ► because they fall down in one category.

01:16:34 ◼   ► So just, you know,

01:16:35 ◼   ► "Whatever the Toyota Camry does, we're gonna do,

01:16:37 ◼   ► because we're making a Accord Camry or whatever."

01:16:39 ◼   ► Like, you look at these specs, and you're like,

01:16:41 ◼   ► "This is not near the airline limit of, like, 100-watt hours,

01:16:43 ◼   ► so it's not like they all ended up at 100

01:16:45 ◼   ► because they were at the limit."

01:16:46 ◼   ► These specs, like, they're targeting the MacBook Air.

01:16:48 ◼   ► They put the same-sized batteries to MacBook Air.

01:16:50 ◼   ► So that is, once again, arguing towards that this SoC

01:16:54 ◼   ► might be MacBook Air caliber in terms of power efficiency.

01:16:57 ◼   ► -Yeah, this is very promising for competition.

01:17:01 ◼   ► Again, I'm so excited about this.

01:17:03 ◼   ► Like, I really hope that Windows customers

01:17:08 ◼   ► actually start making this transition for lots of reasons.

01:17:11 ◼   ► It's better for so many reasons that they do this.

01:17:14 ◼   ► And number one for me is,

01:17:16 ◼   ► this is gonna be a really exciting competition.

01:17:19 ◼   ► -Indeed. So, continuing on,

01:17:20 ◼   ► I don't even know what the source of this is anymore.

01:17:22 ◼   ► I think it was the Verge. -It's the Verge article, I think.

01:17:24 ◼   ► -Okay. For years, the MacBook Air has been able to smoke

01:17:27 ◼   ► ARM-powered PC chips and Intel-based ones, too,

01:17:29 ◼   ► except this time around, the Surface pulled ahead

01:17:31 ◼   ► on the first test, then it won another test,

01:17:34 ◼   ► and another after that.

01:17:35 ◼   ► The results of these tests are why Microsoft believes

01:17:37 ◼   ► it's now in a position to conquer the laptop market.

01:17:40 ◼   ► So, here we go.

01:17:42 ◼   ► Microsoft's claims for the Snapdragon 10 or X Elite --

01:17:45 ◼   ► See, it's actually X, I think, but I just said 10.

01:17:47 ◼   ► It's Snapdragon X Elite.

01:17:49 ◼   ► Up to 23% faster in peak multithreaded performance

01:17:54 ◼   ► and up to 58% faster in sustained multithreaded performance.

01:17:58 ◼   ► -The second spec you read, you know what that spec says?

01:18:02 ◼   ► "Aarb laptops have a fan."

01:18:04 ◼   ► That's the translation of that thing.

01:18:05 ◼   ► -Fair enough. -Why is it 50% faster

01:18:07 ◼   ► in sustained multithreaded?

01:18:08 ◼   ► Because the MacBook Air thermal throttles.

01:18:11 ◼   ► This is the "our laptop has a fan" spec,

01:18:13 ◼   ► because the 23% faster --

01:18:14 ◼   ► We'll get to that in a little bit.

01:18:15 ◼   ► Like, it has more cores than the M3, so, okay.

01:18:18 ◼   ► Like, I get it.

01:18:19 ◼   ► That's not much of a bragging right.

01:18:21 ◼   ► It has more cores.

01:18:22 ◼   ► It's using more power during that time, I'm sure, right?

01:18:24 ◼   ► 58% faster in sustained multithreaded?

01:18:27 ◼   ► What does that mean? It just means we have a fan.

01:18:29 ◼   ► They blow air on it, so it doesn't throttle,

01:18:32 ◼   ► and that's why it's crushing the MacBook Air,

01:18:34 ◼   ► which is, again, I don't blame the MacBook Air for that.

01:18:36 ◼   ► I love that it's fanless.

01:18:38 ◼   ► Apple has other computers with fans

01:18:40 ◼   ► that are better competition for this,

01:18:42 ◼   ► but that is them literally calling out their fan

01:18:46 ◼   ► in a specific slide.

01:18:48 ◼   ► So, getting numbers on these things,

01:18:50 ◼   ► I was trying to look up, like, the Geekbench.

01:18:52 ◼   ► They put some Geekbench numbers up in their presentation.

01:18:54 ◼   ► It's hard to find Geekbench numbers for the M4.

01:18:56 ◼   ► There's tons of entries.

01:18:57 ◼   ► Like, what do you mean it's hard?

01:18:59 ◼   ► There's tons of entries, but they vary so much.

01:19:01 ◼   ► So I'm like, "Well, what is --

01:19:02 ◼   ► Like, is one of these things sitting on top of a block of ice

01:19:05 ◼   ► that's cooling it? Are these real numbers?"

01:19:07 ◼   ► So I'm -- You know, the same thing with the Snapdragon thing.

01:19:11 ◼   ► We just have preliminary numbers from Microsoft.

01:19:13 ◼   ► People don't have these in their hands,

01:19:14 ◼   ► so take all this with a tiny grain of salt,

01:19:16 ◼   ► but here's what the Geekbench things look like.

01:19:18 ◼   ► So the Snapdragon X Elite, this is a 12-core CPU.

01:19:23 ◼   ► It's 2,700 single, 14,000 multi, right?

01:19:27 ◼   ► The M3 is an 8-core CPU.

01:19:30 ◼   ► So the fact that it's, "Oh, we get 23% faster and multithreaded,"

01:19:33 ◼   ► well, you got a lot more cores there.

01:19:34 ◼   ► So that's not surprising.

01:19:36 ◼   ► And, again, the M4 isn't out of the MacBook Air yet,

01:19:38 ◼   ► so this is time to pounce with your comparison.

01:19:40 ◼   ► But the M3 still beats it in single-core,

01:19:43 ◼   ► 3,100 compared to 2,700,

01:19:45 ◼   ► and multi-core, it's 11,000 versus 14,000.

01:19:48 ◼   ► The M4-ish modified by "This isn't an iPad,"

01:19:51 ◼   ► yada, yada, yada,

01:19:53 ◼   ► the M4 just crushes all of this in single-core.

01:19:56 ◼   ► We talked about this before.

01:19:57 ◼   ► Last show, I think we said it was, like, 3,700 single-core,

01:19:59 ◼   ► which would be the champ for any Mac ever.

01:20:01 ◼   ► Now the numbers are in the 4,000s,

01:20:03 ◼   ► if you look at Geekbench.

01:20:05 ◼   ► 4,000 single-core versus 2,700,

01:20:07 ◼   ► the M4 is smooshing the Snapdragon X Elite.

01:20:11 ◼   ► But, again, the M4 is not in the MacBook Air,

01:20:13 ◼   ► so fair comparison.

01:20:15 ◼   ► And multi-core, the M4 is a 10-core SOC,

01:20:18 ◼   ► the CPU part of it.

01:20:20 ◼   ► 10-core versus 12-core Snapdragon X Elite,

01:20:23 ◼   ► it's basically matching it.

01:20:25 ◼   ► So I think the Snapdragon X Elite

01:20:27 ◼   ► is probably M3 performance caliber,

01:20:31 ◼   ► not as good in single-core,

01:20:32 ◼   ► a little bit better in multi-core.

01:20:34 ◼   ► It's got to end up using more power than the M3

01:20:36 ◼   ► because it's got more cores,

01:20:37 ◼   ► so when you crank up all those 12 cores,

01:20:39 ◼   ► it's going to use more than the 8-core.

01:20:42 ◼   ► But the M4 essentially bests it

01:20:46 ◼   ► with two fewer cores in multi-core

01:20:48 ◼   ► and crushes it in single-core.

01:20:50 ◼   ► So I think Apple is not like,

01:20:51 ◼   ► "Oh, they've made the SOC that's going to crush us,"

01:20:54 ◼   ► but what they have done is they've made a competitive SOC.

01:20:58 ◼   ► It is competitive.

01:21:00 ◼   ► Its specs, its performance look good.

01:21:02 ◼   ► Its power envelope,

01:21:03 ◼   ► if you are to believe Microsoft's battery life claims,

01:21:08 ◼   ► its power envelope is also competitive.

01:21:10 ◼   ► I think when they test this,

01:21:12 ◼   ► they're going to find that the Apple one's still bested

01:21:14 ◼   ► in battery life because the batteries are the same size

01:21:16 ◼   ► and it's clear that the M3 uses less power,

01:21:19 ◼   ► only because it's 8-core versus 12-core,

01:21:21 ◼   ► so watch for the benchmarks

01:21:22 ◼   ► when people get these in their hands.

01:21:23 ◼   ► But I think essentially that the rumors

01:21:26 ◼   ► about the Snapdragon X were true,

01:21:28 ◼   ► that it has comparable performance,

01:21:29 ◼   ► but it uses a little bit more power.

01:21:31 ◼   ► I think that the tests are going to bear that out.

01:21:33 ◼   ► And because these laptops don't have bigger batteries,

01:21:36 ◼   ► they're going to get slightly worse battery life

01:21:38 ◼   ► than the MacBook Air.

01:21:39 ◼   ► But on the other hand, they will beat them in multi-core

01:21:41 ◼   ► because they have a fan and won't thermal throttle.

01:21:43 ◼   ► - Indeed.

01:21:44 ◼   ► All right, we already talked about compatibility.

01:21:46 ◼   ► Then third-party support.

01:21:48 ◼   ► Many of the biggest apps now natively support ARM chips.

01:21:52 ◼   ► Photoshop, Dropbox, Zoom, Spotify,

01:21:54 ◼   ► and other top entertainment apps like Prime and Hulu

01:21:56 ◼   ► are all native ARM64 apps now.

01:21:58 ◼   ► Google and many other browser makers are moving to ARM64,

01:22:01 ◼   ► a native version of Chrome launched recently,

01:22:03 ◼   ► followed by Opera just last week.

01:22:05 ◼   ► Then also Firefox, Vivaldi, Brave, and Microsoft Edge

01:22:09 ◼   ► are all ARM64 native.

01:22:12 ◼   ► Overall, Microsoft believes --

01:22:13 ◼   ► and we talked about this a minute ago --

01:22:15 ◼   ► that 87% of total app minutes spent on these copilot-plus PCs

01:22:19 ◼   ► will be inside native apps.

01:22:21 ◼   ► And then we also should mention

01:22:23 ◼   ► that there's a Microsoft-approved --

01:22:25 ◼   ► it's not, like, sponsored by Microsoft,

01:22:26 ◼   ► but it's a Microsoft-approved website

01:22:28 ◼   ► that tracks how Windows games -- games, specifically --

01:22:30 ◼   ► play on ARM.

01:22:32 ◼   ► This is worksonwa.com.

01:22:35 ◼   ► What is WA? Windows on ARM?

01:22:36 ◼   ► - Windows on ARM. It's a terrible name.

01:22:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, okay.

01:22:38 ◼   ► - Works on Windows on ARM.

01:22:39 ◼   ► - Whoa.

01:22:40 ◼   ► - But this is the website that I want to be keeping an eye on

01:22:42 ◼   ► because one of the reasons I want ARM PCs?

01:22:44 ◼   ► I want all those PC games to be ported to ARM.

01:22:46 ◼   ► Now, this is a tough sell.

01:22:47 ◼   ► I understand that because lots of PC games are old.

01:22:49 ◼   ► They're never gonna get ported on, you know, whatever.

01:22:51 ◼   ► But, like, going forward, I would love it

01:22:53 ◼   ► if modern PC games were cross-compiled for x86 and ARM.

01:22:57 ◼   ► And this website is tracking,

01:22:58 ◼   ► "Hey, if you buy one of these ARM PCs,

01:23:02 ◼   ► you can check if this game runs natively on ARM."

01:23:05 ◼   ► And if it doesn't, it might still run fine in emulation,

01:23:07 ◼   ► as many Mac games did when Apple made the transition.

01:23:10 ◼   ► But, yeah, it's not as if game makers

01:23:13 ◼   ► are entirely ignoring ARM.

01:23:14 ◼   ► We'll see how that goes as time goes on.

01:23:17 ◼   ► - Indeed. And then AI.

01:23:20 ◼   ► These copilot-plus PCs are equipped

01:23:22 ◼   ► with a neural processing unit from Qualcomm

01:23:24 ◼   ► that hits 45 trillion operations per second

01:23:27 ◼   ► of compute for AI tasks.

01:23:29 ◼   ► That results in more AI task operations per watt

01:23:31 ◼   ► than a MacBook Air M3 and NVIDIA's RTX 4060.

01:23:34 ◼   ► The M4 is 38 tops. M3 is 18 tops.

01:23:38 ◼   ► We already discussed.

01:23:39 ◼   ► - But, again, the 8 versus 16 bit is tops this crappy number.

01:23:43 ◼   ► Tops is a crappy way to talk about these things.

01:23:45 ◼   ► - Indeed. But here we are.

01:23:46 ◼   ► They did a few demonstrations.

01:23:48 ◼   ► They did a demo of a four-person --

01:23:50 ◼   ► I don't know if it was literally Zoom.

01:23:52 ◼   ► It probably was Teams.

01:23:54 ◼   ► But a four-person chat or a conference, if you will,

01:23:57 ◼   ► a meeting, and everyone was speaking a different language,

01:23:59 ◼   ► and it was translating the --

01:24:01 ◼   ► It was subtitling, basically, live as they were talking.

01:24:04 ◼   ► It was very impressive.

01:24:05 ◼   ► And then they also did a draw-along image generation thing

01:24:08 ◼   ► where a woman drew, like, some mountains and some flowers,

01:24:12 ◼   ► and you could crank how creative the AI got.

01:24:15 ◼   ► Like, did it stick with basically what she drew,

01:24:18 ◼   ► or did it get totally off the wall?

01:24:20 ◼   ► And they were -- The draw-along thing --

01:24:22 ◼   ► I mean, I'm not an artist, so that was like, yeah, whatever.

01:24:24 ◼   ► But the multi-language live translation,

01:24:26 ◼   ► that was pretty slick.

01:24:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, so, again, these things are called Copilot+PCs,

01:24:32 ◼   ► and these are the features they demonstrated.

01:24:34 ◼   ► There are obviously way more.

01:24:36 ◼   ► There's way more things that Copilot does,

01:24:37 ◼   ► and there's some other demos of these,

01:24:39 ◼   ► but they were leaning heavily on, like, the live translation

01:24:41 ◼   ► and the draw-along stuff.

01:24:43 ◼   ► In Microsoft Build, they talked about this more,

01:24:45 ◼   ► but the pitch for what they've done with Windows

01:24:49 ◼   ► to add AI to it is that there's an API,

01:24:53 ◼   ► there's libraries they can use or whatever,

01:24:55 ◼   ► but essentially Apple -- I keep saying Apple --

01:24:57 ◼   ► what Microsoft said was that they are running

01:24:59 ◼   ► 40 different AI models within Windows

01:25:03 ◼   ► to provide all these services.

01:25:04 ◼   ► It's not just, like, one large language model

01:25:06 ◼   ► that they're running locally.

01:25:07 ◼   ► It's not like they send all requests out to open AI.

01:25:09 ◼   ► They're running 40 different models locally,

01:25:12 ◼   ► plus also sending stuff out to presumably open AI things,

01:25:16 ◼   ► and there's, like, a software story

01:25:18 ◼   ► for application developers to do this type of stuff.

01:25:21 ◼   ► This is kind of --

01:25:24 ◼   ► This kind of sets the bar for Apple,

01:25:26 ◼   ► because they're adding features to Windows

01:25:28 ◼   ► that if you want to make an application on Windows

01:25:30 ◼   ► and you want to leverage some of these features

01:25:31 ◼   ► that are available to you,

01:25:32 ◼   ► and then Windows itself has these things woven throughout it

01:25:36 ◼   ► where it's -- you know, you've seen so many

01:25:39 ◼   ► AI-branded things where it's like,

01:25:42 ◼   ► "In some random application,

01:25:44 ◼   ► there's a text box where you can send a string

01:25:46 ◼   ► and we'll send it to ChatGPT and tell you what it sent back,"

01:25:48 ◼   ► or send it to an image generator and tell you what it sent back.

01:25:50 ◼   ► There was even that whole thing

01:25:51 ◼   ► with, like, the Logitech mouse drivers adding,

01:25:53 ◼   ► "Oh, this feature in the mouse driver,

01:25:55 ◼   ► click the mouse button and we'll open a text box

01:25:57 ◼   ► wherever your cursor is,

01:25:59 ◼   ► and you can send a message to ChatGPT."

01:26:01 ◼   ► That is so sort of bolt-on,

01:26:04 ◼   ► not understanding what the value might be.

01:26:05 ◼   ► Microsoft is trying to say,

01:26:07 ◼   ► "Here are the things you could do that you couldn't do before."

01:26:10 ◼   ► Now, any audio that plays anywhere on the system --

01:26:13 ◼   ► because, again, they make Windows,

01:26:15 ◼   ► so they can make this happen --

01:26:16 ◼   ► any audio anywhere on the system in any app,

01:26:18 ◼   ► you can just say,

01:26:20 ◼   ► "Turn on live translation so it subtitles this,"

01:26:22 ◼   ► and it doesn't do every language.

01:26:23 ◼   ► I think it translates everything to English.

01:26:25 ◼   ► It supports, like, 40 languages, blah, blah, blah.

01:26:26 ◼   ► But, like, that's an OS-level feature

01:26:29 ◼   ► that apps don't have to, like, add support for or whatever.

01:26:32 ◼   ► It just exists on the system.

01:26:33 ◼   ► That's the type of thing that we were hoping --

01:26:35 ◼   ► that we hope Apple will do with its rolling AI out.

01:26:39 ◼   ► And it's not just like, "Oh, we just have one model,

01:26:41 ◼   ► and we run everything through it, and it does what it does."

01:26:43 ◼   ► They have many models working in tandem.

01:26:44 ◼   ► So anything with a draw-along thing,

01:26:46 ◼   ► you have to give it a prompt, and then you start drawing,

01:26:48 ◼   ► and it copies it, and this is questionable usefulness.

01:26:51 ◼   ► That's a little bit more like,

01:26:52 ◼   ► "Let's send something to an image generation."

01:26:54 ◼   ► But, again, there are APIs for that.

01:26:57 ◼   ► So I'm sure at Build,

01:26:59 ◼   ► they had way more story on the AI angle,

01:27:01 ◼   ► but for laptops that are, again, branded as AI-friendly,

01:27:04 ◼   ► branded as AI PCs,

01:27:06 ◼   ► the part that at least everyone on this show is most excited about

01:27:09 ◼   ► has nothing to do with the AI and everything to do with,

01:27:11 ◼   ► "These look like they're good laptops."

01:27:13 ◼   ► Finally, after, you know, since the M1 came out,

01:27:16 ◼   ► PC laptops have been not good

01:27:18 ◼   ► compared to everything that Apple makes,

01:27:20 ◼   ► and now this line of laptops appear to be good.

01:27:24 ◼   ► -Yeah, they really do look impressive.

01:27:26 ◼   ► -I'm excited about both aspects, though.

01:27:29 ◼   ► Like, you know, when I look at

01:27:31 ◼   ► AI features of various platforms so far,

01:27:33 ◼   ► you know, Google had their vaporware keynote

01:27:36 ◼   ► where they demoed a whole bunch of stuff that you can't use.

01:27:38 ◼   ► I'm sure Apple's gonna give us a similarly vapor-y keynote

01:27:41 ◼   ► in a couple of weeks.

01:27:42 ◼   ► -But Apple will ship the stuff that it shows, probably.

01:27:44 ◼   ► Maybe in spring.

01:27:45 ◼   ► -Yeah, I have a feeling a lot of Apple's announcements

01:27:47 ◼   ► are probably gonna be like, "Later this year,

01:27:48 ◼   ► and coming next year," you know, like, a lot of that, you know.

01:27:51 ◼   ► But I have not seen a ton of "AI features"

01:27:57 ◼   ► that actually hold up in practice and reality

01:28:00 ◼   ► that are really compelling.

01:28:01 ◼   ► But I have seen some, and for every person,

01:28:04 ◼   ► it's only gonna take, like, you know,

01:28:06 ◼   ► one or two of those really killer features

01:28:09 ◼   ► before they're like, "Oh, I have to have that."

01:28:11 ◼   ► Like, "I will buy new hardware

01:28:13 ◼   ► or possibly even change platforms

01:28:15 ◼   ► just to get that one thing that is very high value to me."

01:28:19 ◼   ► And that's why, like, I really hope

01:28:21 ◼   ► Apple's taking this seriously,

01:28:23 ◼   ► because this is gonna have a lot of disruption.

01:28:26 ◼   ► It already is doing some level of disruption,

01:28:28 ◼   ► and it's only going to get more so

01:28:30 ◼   ► as the platform integrates this,

01:28:31 ◼   ► 'cause, like, here's what's gonna happen.

01:28:33 ◼   ► Google is going to go all in

01:28:36 ◼   ► on LLM-based and generative-based features

01:28:40 ◼   ► in Android system-wide.

01:28:43 ◼   ► Microsoft is going all in on AI things

01:28:46 ◼   ► in Windows system-wide.

01:28:49 ◼   ► Apple is going to face a lot of pressure

01:28:52 ◼   ► to do that same thing in their OSes,

01:28:54 ◼   ► because, you know, the system integration

01:28:58 ◼   ► is where so much of this value can get unlocked.

01:29:01 ◼   ► There's a lot of amazing functionality

01:29:03 ◼   ► that people will not only really enjoy

01:29:06 ◼   ► and will very highly value,

01:29:08 ◼   ► but they'll come to expect it.

01:29:10 ◼   ► You know, imagine if you had a phone today,

01:29:13 ◼   ► if you wanted to make a phone platform today

01:29:15 ◼   ► that didn't have a basic voice assistant functionality.

01:29:18 ◼   ► Like, every platform has had voice assistants now

01:29:21 ◼   ► for so long, people take it for granted.

01:29:23 ◼   ► People assume, "Of course I can, you know,

01:29:25 ◼   ► talk to my phone,

01:29:26 ◼   ► and it'll try to make sense of what I said and do something."

01:29:29 ◼   ► That same expectation is going to arise

01:29:33 ◼   ► in phone and PC operating systems,

01:29:37 ◼   ► whether Apple makes it there or not with theirs.

01:29:40 ◼   ► And if they don't start matching some of those features

01:29:43 ◼   ► in compelling ways, they're gonna fall behind,

01:29:46 ◼   ► and they're gonna start losing people,

01:29:48 ◼   ► and they're gonna have a hard time attracting new people.

01:29:50 ◼   ► That's why, like, this is disruptive,

01:29:52 ◼   ► even though I think we can all look at

01:29:54 ◼   ► a lot of these features that are out there today and say,

01:29:56 ◼   ► "Yeah, that kind of sucks,"

01:29:57 ◼   ► or, "That thing they did, that failed,"

01:29:59 ◼   ► or, "That gave them a wrong answer."

01:30:00 ◼   ► Yeah, that's gonna happen. That's gonna keep happening.

01:30:03 ◼   ► But not everything fails, and not everything sucks,

01:30:06 ◼   ► and not everything is wrong.

01:30:07 ◼   ► Some of those things--

01:30:08 ◼   ► Everyone is throwing so much spaghetti at the wall right now

01:30:11 ◼   ► because there is so much value to be had,

01:30:14 ◼   ► and, yeah, most of it's not gonna turn into anything.

01:30:17 ◼   ► Most of it's gonna flop.

01:30:18 ◼   ► Most of it is going to suck or fail

01:30:20 ◼   ► or be better done with simpler Tools.

01:30:22 ◼   ► But there are gonna be some of those things that stick.

01:30:25 ◼   ► It's gonna happen. It's already starting to happen.

01:30:27 ◼   ► So, to me, what is exciting is seeing Google and Microsoft

01:30:32 ◼   ► go straight for OS integration,

01:30:34 ◼   ► go right for the jugular,

01:30:36 ◼   ► go right--like, make Apple do this at OS level.

01:30:39 ◼   ► Make Apple integrate all this good stuff into Siri.

01:30:42 ◼   ► The crown jewel is, like, get this into Siri.

01:30:46 ◼   ► Whether Apple is doing that,

01:30:48 ◼   ► I think, remains a huge open question.

01:30:51 ◼   ► I don't think anybody has any solid rumors or intel

01:30:54 ◼   ► either direction on that.

01:30:55 ◼   ► We've only heard, like, little bits and pieces,

01:30:57 ◼   ► like, "Oh, they might be improving it."

01:30:59 ◼   ► - There is. We'll get to it in overtime.

01:31:00 ◼   ► - Oh, good, okay.

01:31:01 ◼   ► Because, like, that, to me, is like,

01:31:04 ◼   ► all this stuff wants to be OS-level integrated,

01:31:08 ◼   ► and in the phone especially,

01:31:10 ◼   ► it all wants to be integrated into the system voice assistant.

01:31:13 ◼   ► And Siri is just dying for this,

01:31:16 ◼   ► and I hope Apple knows that

01:31:18 ◼   ► and has already started taking lots of action in that direction.

01:31:21 ◼   ► But until then, we're gonna see some really exciting stuff

01:31:24 ◼   ► for Microsoft and Google, and that's awesome.

01:31:26 ◼   ► Like, as Apple fans, again, that's great for us,

01:31:29 ◼   ► not only because they're gonna do stuff that Apple won't

01:31:31 ◼   ► and can't for a long time,

01:31:33 ◼   ► but then that'll force Apple to get better on their end.

01:31:35 ◼   ► That'll make for great stuff for everybody.

01:31:37 ◼   ► So, again, if you're looking at this AI stuff and saying,

01:31:39 ◼   ► "Eh, nobody needs any of that,"

01:31:41 ◼   ► trust me, that's gonna be a short-sighted view.

01:31:44 ◼   ► This is not cryptocurrency. This is real.

01:31:46 ◼   ► This actually has real value to more people.

01:31:50 ◼   ► It's similarly inefficient in terms of energy resource usage,

01:31:54 ◼   ► which we should get to, but there is real value here

01:31:58 ◼   ► that is being created whether you're on this train or not,

01:32:01 ◼   ► so, you know, just be ready for it, and I hope Apple is.

01:32:05 ◼   ► I think--I mean, obviously, we don't know

01:32:07 ◼   ► what Apple's gonna put out because W3C hasn't come yet,

01:32:09 ◼   ► but I think the rumored Apple approach here

01:32:11 ◼   ► and what I expect them to do

01:32:13 ◼   ► is a comfortable position for Apple,

01:32:15 ◼   ► because Google and Microsoft

01:32:16 ◼   ► are throwing everything against the wall.

01:32:18 ◼   ► I think the "AI" features that will be compelling,

01:32:22 ◼   ► that will stick, that will become the new normal

01:32:25 ◼   ► are essentially the ones that, if you showed them to somebody,

01:32:28 ◼   ► they would have no idea that it's AI-branded at all,

01:32:30 ◼   ► so to give an example that essentially everybody has now.

01:32:33 ◼   ► Background removal in photos.

01:32:35 ◼   ► Apple's had that on the last two versions of its OS, right?

01:32:38 ◼   ► That's touted as an AI feature powered by neural engine,

01:32:41 ◼   ► blah, blah, blah, but from a practical perspective,

01:32:44 ◼   ► people using it don't have to know or care anything about AI.

01:32:47 ◼   ► They just know, and it's, you know,

01:32:49 ◼   ► this will be a differentiator for these Copilot Plus PCs.

01:32:51 ◼   ► I'm just used to the idea that any time I see an image,

01:32:54 ◼   ► I can tear the person off of the background, right?

01:32:57 ◼   ► That just becomes a feature that I expect to exist,

01:32:59 ◼   ► and if somebody buys a Copilot Plus PC

01:33:01 ◼   ► and they've never used this ability before

01:33:03 ◼   ► and now they have the ability to easily separate people

01:33:05 ◼   ► from the background or remove objects from the images

01:33:07 ◼   ► or just some other things that people have demoed,

01:33:09 ◼   ► like Adobe's new Lightroom has, you know, everyone has that now,

01:33:12 ◼   ► and yeah, they brand it with AI or whatever,

01:33:14 ◼   ► but users are just like,

01:33:16 ◼   ► "Oh, this is now a thing I can do with my computer."

01:33:18 ◼   ► So if you have a Copilot Plus PC

01:33:19 ◼   ► and you're used to any time system-wide

01:33:21 ◼   ► that you see an image,

01:33:22 ◼   ► you can pull the person off the background,

01:33:24 ◼   ► and then you try to use your coworker's

01:33:26 ◼   ► Intel-powered Windows laptop

01:33:28 ◼   ► that they bought at the same time you got the Copilot Plus PC,

01:33:31 ◼   ► and you literally can't do that

01:33:33 ◼   ► because I believe Microsoft is gating some of these features

01:33:35 ◼   ► Apple-style on the presence of the NPU.

01:33:38 ◼   ► Like, "Oh, we could do it with the Intel things,

01:33:40 ◼   ► and it would be slower and yada-yada,

01:33:42 ◼   ► but let's artificially, semi-not-really-artificially

01:33:45 ◼   ► gate this on the NPU."

01:33:47 ◼   ► You're going to be like, "Well, your PC is broken.

01:33:49 ◼   ► It's going to feel like I do on my Intel

01:33:51 ◼   ► when there's some feature that -- Intel Mac,

01:33:53 ◼   ► when there's some feature that comes out

01:33:55 ◼   ► that's only available on Apple Silicon Macs,"

01:33:57 ◼   ► you know what I mean?

01:33:58 ◼   ► Some of it's legit, some of it's not legit,

01:34:00 ◼   ► but it's a way to get people to say, like,

01:34:02 ◼   ► "I want a PC that can do that,"

01:34:04 ◼   ► because they just expect it to be done.

01:34:06 ◼   ► The multi-language translation -- is that AI, large language?

01:34:09 ◼   ► You don't need to know how that's implemented.

01:34:11 ◼   ► You just know, "Oh, in the new version of Windows,

01:34:13 ◼   ► anywhere there's audio, I can see it subtitled,

01:34:16 ◼   ► in any app with no support from it."

01:34:18 ◼   ► That doesn't look like an AI feature.

01:34:20 ◼   ► That's not you drawing a picture and AI completing it.

01:34:22 ◼   ► That's not you chatting with a large language model

01:34:24 ◼   ► like it's your friend.

01:34:26 ◼   ► That is just a feature of the operating system,

01:34:29 ◼   ► and you don't have to know that they're using

01:34:31 ◼   ► a large language model or if they're doing it on-device

01:34:33 ◼   ► or if they're sending it --

01:34:34 ◼   ► like, you don't have to know any of that.

01:34:36 ◼   ► It just becomes, like, the status quo,

01:34:38 ◼   ► you know, give examples from Apple's operating system.

01:34:40 ◼   ► "Oh, now, anywhere there's text and an image on a Mac,

01:34:43 ◼   ► you can pull it out,"

01:34:45 ◼   ► because that's a feature Apple added.

01:34:47 ◼   ► What do they use to implement that?

01:34:48 ◼   ► We don't care.

01:34:49 ◼   ► You just eventually get used to the idea

01:34:51 ◼   ► that in the system-wide image viewer,

01:34:52 ◼   ► if there's text and an image,

01:34:54 ◼   ► you can select it, and it will try to OCR it, right?

01:34:56 ◼   ► You know, and there have been third-party products

01:34:58 ◼   ► that did that before, but you just get used to that

01:35:00 ◼   ► being a feature.

01:35:01 ◼   ► I think that's where Apple is going to concentrate.

01:35:03 ◼   ► My big question is -- and we'll get to, again,

01:35:05 ◼   ► maybe in overtime -- is, "What about the things

01:35:07 ◼   ► that clearly are AI?"

01:35:08 ◼   ► Where you describe a picture, and it draws it for you.

01:35:11 ◼   ► You're chatting with a chatbot or whatever.

01:35:13 ◼   ► What is the utility of those?

01:35:15 ◼   ► Will Apple feel like it has to compete in that area?

01:35:17 ◼   ► But, like, to your point, Marco,

01:35:19 ◼   ► about these things being useful,

01:35:20 ◼   ► these are just going to be features

01:35:22 ◼   ► of an operating system that we just assume

01:35:24 ◼   ► that every Mac and PC can do, and it's already happening.

01:35:27 ◼   ► We just don't notice,

01:35:28 ◼   ► because the branding isn't as in-your-face.

01:35:30 ◼   ► But under the covers, a lot of these translation --

01:35:33 ◼   ► You know, for example, I think their translation

01:35:35 ◼   ► is using LMs to do translation,

01:35:37 ◼   ► and the background image processing

01:35:39 ◼   ► is using the AI-powered image, whatever stuff.

01:35:42 ◼   ► Those are the features that I think will stick.

01:35:45 ◼   ► I have a lot of questions about the, you know,

01:35:47 ◼   ► chat GPT-type things, even though they get all the press.

01:35:49 ◼   ► Like, "Oh, that's what AI means."

01:35:51 ◼   ► That's not the most slam-dunk, sure thing,

01:35:56 ◼   ► AI-powered features.

01:35:58 ◼   ► And Microsoft and Google, probably,

01:36:00 ◼   ► they're just going to do them all.

01:36:01 ◼   ► And, you know, the bad ones will fade away,

01:36:03 ◼   ► and the good ones will stick.

01:36:04 ◼   ► Apple thus far has only been doing the features

01:36:06 ◼   ► that are clearly useful and will stick.

01:36:09 ◼   ► Like, the ones they've already implemented

01:36:10 ◼   ► that I mentioned already, they called them ML,

01:36:13 ◼   ► but, like, the branding wasn't that big of a deal.

01:36:15 ◼   ► But the bottom line is, they're useful features that are Macs

01:36:17 ◼   ► that we all just get used to existing,

01:36:18 ◼   ► and if they went away, we would be sad about them.

01:36:20 ◼   ► And there is some, you know,

01:36:22 ◼   ► "AI/ML tech" behind them, so it's legit.

01:36:25 ◼   ► So I think that's what Apple's going to end up doing,

01:36:27 ◼   ► is just do the features that stick

01:36:30 ◼   ► and let everyone else throw the spaghetti at the wall,

01:36:32 ◼   ► and they'll just pay attention to what actually does stick.

01:36:35 ◼   ► - Well, and, again, like, you can look all over the system.

01:36:37 ◼   ► You can see so many features that are already there now,

01:36:41 ◼   ► but that could be done better with an LLM-based approach.

01:36:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's what we said

01:36:45 ◼   ► when we were talking about the AI sauce.

01:36:46 ◼   ► There's many things that Apple's trying to do, not well.

01:36:49 ◼   ► - Right, and, you know, and look,

01:36:50 ◼   ► they already mentioned, like, last summer in the

01:36:54 ◼   ► "We won't say AI" WWDC keynote,

01:36:56 ◼   ► where they mentioned things like

01:36:57 ◼   ► that they're using a transformer-based autocorrect

01:37:01 ◼   ► for the keyboard, and some of the dictation features

01:37:04 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

01:37:05 ◼   ► Yeah, autocorrect for the keyboard.

01:37:06 ◼   ► That is a great application for LLM-based, you know, algorithms.

01:37:11 ◼   ► Dictation, of recognizing what you're saying

01:37:13 ◼   ► just through the dictation microphone thing on the keyboard.

01:37:16 ◼   ► Again, huge opportunity there,

01:37:18 ◼   ► which some of us are already doing,

01:37:20 ◼   ► for improvements using modern AI techniques

01:37:22 ◼   ► and modern AI models.

01:37:24 ◼   ► - Translation, which Apple has a translation API, right?

01:37:26 ◼   ► That could be better, use LMs.

01:37:28 ◼   ► - Translation is huge.

01:37:29 ◼   ► That's a massive possible application there.

01:37:33 ◼   ► And then, again, think of Siri.

01:37:35 ◼   ► Even if all they do with the LLMs is make Siri--

01:37:40 ◼   ► - Make Siri do what it's already supposed to do.

01:37:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, make Siri have an LLM front end, maybe.

01:37:46 ◼   ► Forgive me, I'm not an LLM expert yet,

01:37:49 ◼   ► I swear I'm gonna get to it one of these days.

01:37:51 ◼   ► But suppose they can have a model in front.

01:37:54 ◼   ► First of all, there's gonna be some modern AI techniques

01:37:57 ◼   ► involved in figuring out what you say.

01:37:59 ◼   ► But Siri's actually pretty good at figuring out

01:38:01 ◼   ► what you say a lot of the time.

01:38:02 ◼   ► It's what it does with it that is oftentimes the problem.

01:38:04 ◼   ► Well, what if you can use a model to help parse

01:38:07 ◼   ► what you say and choose what other back end service

01:38:11 ◼   ► or model should answer this question that you said?

01:38:14 ◼   ► You know, there's opportunities there.

01:38:16 ◼   ► What if they can, if you ask it a factual question

01:38:19 ◼   ► and right now they just say, I found these results

01:38:22 ◼   ► on the web, you can view them on your iPhone or whatever.

01:38:24 ◼   ► Like, what if, in the background, it says one moment

01:38:26 ◼   ► and it actually fetches those three web pages that it found

01:38:29 ◼   ► and it uses AI summarization to roughly try to tell you

01:38:33 ◼   ► the answer to your question via voice like you asked it for.

01:38:36 ◼   ► There are so many opportunities there where existing features,

01:38:40 ◼   ► things like transcribing the contents of voicemails,

01:38:44 ◼   ► basic stuff that we have already in the system

01:38:47 ◼   ► that could be made better here.

01:38:48 ◼   ► And then, of course, as we talked about about a month ago,

01:38:51 ◼   ► the idea of replacing a lot of the Siri intent

01:38:56 ◼   ► shortcuts kind of API surface with let the app just say

01:39:01 ◼   ► what this thing does and have Siri be able to see that.

01:39:05 ◼   ► And then if somebody asks, hey, give me a list of the chapters

01:39:09 ◼   ► of the current podcast in Overcast.

01:39:11 ◼   ► Without ever having created a shortcut to do that,

01:39:13 ◼   ► it can look and see, okay, Overcast Vens, this action,

01:39:16 ◼   ► this action, and this action.

01:39:17 ◼   ► This one says get list of chapters.

01:39:19 ◼   ► To be able to map that and then give a response

01:39:22 ◼   ► without ever having created a shortcut or set anything up,

01:39:25 ◼   ► there is so much opportunity for things like that

01:39:28 ◼   ► that are not anything like generate me an image

01:39:32 ◼   ► that won't offend anybody.

01:39:33 ◼   ► - Or ask me an arbitrary question that'll answer you

01:39:35 ◼   ► with this weird chat thing, right?

01:39:37 ◼   ► - Right, or write me a paper for my fifth grade homework.

01:39:40 ◼   ► There's so many opportunities for modern AI-based approaches

01:39:46 ◼   ► and models to make existing and only slightly advanced

01:39:51 ◼   ► features better on the operating system that already exist

01:39:54 ◼   ► that we use all the time.

01:39:55 ◼   ► And again, as John was saying a few minutes ago,

01:39:57 ◼   ► you don't even think of that as AI.

01:39:59 ◼   ► You think of it as I'm typing on my phone

01:40:01 ◼   ► or I'm dictating to my phone or my phone is telling me

01:40:03 ◼   ► what this voicemail message said or whatever.

01:40:04 ◼   ► You think of that or you think I just asked Siri a thing

01:40:07 ◼   ► and it worked somehow, which is a rare thing sometimes.

01:40:12 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:40:13 ◼   ► You don't care if that's AI.

01:40:15 ◼   ► You just want this to work better.

01:40:16 ◼   ► And every year, or every few years,

01:40:18 ◼   ► Apple does usually revamp some of these systems.

01:40:20 ◼   ► Hey, we found a new ML-based approach

01:40:22 ◼   ► to do this better or whatever.

01:40:24 ◼   ► This is just the next step of that.

01:40:26 ◼   ► This is a big step.

01:40:27 ◼   ► This has really, really big gains when used well.

01:40:31 ◼   ► And that's what we're hoping Apple's going to do

01:40:34 ◼   ► is use this well.

01:40:35 ◼   ► And I don't care if they don't match every feature

01:40:39 ◼   ► that everyone else is trying.

01:40:40 ◼   ► That's not their style.

01:40:41 ◼   ► They never have it, they never will.

01:40:42 ◼   ► I just want them to match the good ones

01:40:44 ◼   ► or maybe get there before, maybe be first

01:40:46 ◼   ► to some of the good ones.

01:40:47 ◼   ► And that's the part, like,

01:40:48 ◼   ► I really hope they're not sleeping on this

01:40:51 ◼   ► because there is so much opportunity

01:40:54 ◼   ► for the stuff they've already decided is important to them

01:40:58 ◼   ► to just get better or work more reliably.

01:41:00 ◼   ► That's what I want at least to start

01:41:02 ◼   ► and then we can start getting more exciting stuff

01:41:04 ◼   ► down the road.

01:41:05 ◼   ► - One brief little bit of hardware

01:41:07 ◼   ► before we move on to this final thing.

01:41:08 ◼   ► I know we're running long here.

01:41:09 ◼   ► As we said, a bunch of PC makers are making Copilot+ PCs

01:41:13 ◼   ► which is good.

01:41:14 ◼   ► They also announced the new Surface Pro

01:41:16 ◼   ► which is their name for their sort of convertible tablet thing.

01:41:19 ◼   ► It's like an iPad but with a keyboard or whatever.

01:41:21 ◼   ► It's got an OLED, it's 13 inch, it's 267 PPI

01:41:24 ◼   ► which is close to the iPad Pros, 264 PPI.

01:41:27 ◼   ► The screen is a little bit higher res.

01:41:29 ◼   ► It's got two USB-C ports on an iPad, on a tablet.

01:41:32 ◼   ► Are you allowed to do that?

01:41:33 ◼   ► Microsoft did it.

01:41:34 ◼   ► Wi-Fi 7, are you allowed to do that on an iPad?

01:41:36 ◼   ► Yes, you are.

01:41:37 ◼   ► Bluetooth 5.4, iPad Pro just has 5.3

01:41:39 ◼   ► because this is a PC, it has the latest version of everything.

01:41:42 ◼   ► Detachable keyboard with trackpad,

01:41:44 ◼   ► integrated haptic pen, let me know if this sounds familiar to you.

01:41:47 ◼   ► They use carbon fiber in their keyboard.

01:41:49 ◼   ► They have something they call a bold keyset

01:41:51 ◼   ► which makes the text on the keycaps bolder

01:41:53 ◼   ► so they're easier to see.

01:41:54 ◼   ► Imagine that, Apple did everything fine and low contrast

01:41:56 ◼   ► because it looks beautiful and elegant.

01:41:58 ◼   ► And unlike the software where you can turn on increased contrast,

01:42:01 ◼   ► you can't turn that on in the hardware.

01:42:03 ◼   ► Microsoft will turn it on the hardware for you

01:42:05 ◼   ► by putting bold on the keysets.

01:42:06 ◼   ► Kudos to Microsoft.

01:42:08 ◼   ► - Very quickly, maybe this has been a thing for a while

01:42:11 ◼   ► and I just didn't realize it,

01:42:12 ◼   ► but I was not aware of the detachable part

01:42:15 ◼   ► of the detachable keyboard for their tablets,

01:42:17 ◼   ► and that is very slick.

01:42:19 ◼   ► So because they believe in kickstands,

01:42:21 ◼   ► which I'm not a big kickstand person,

01:42:23 ◼   ► like I don't love that, but here's the advantage of it.

01:42:26 ◼   ► You can stand up the "iPad," the Surface Pro, on its own,

01:42:32 ◼   ► and then you can have the keyboard somewhere

01:42:34 ◼   ► that's more ergonomic and/or convenient,

01:42:36 ◼   ► and it has a little tray in it for the pencil

01:42:38 ◼   ► or whatever they call their stylus.

01:42:40 ◼   ► Imagine that.

01:42:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, their pencil is flat, which is not a great idea,

01:42:44 ◼   ► but the advantage is, hey, where am I supposed to put the pencil?

01:42:47 ◼   ► Instead of magnetically connecting the pencil

01:42:49 ◼   ► to the side of their tablet,

01:42:50 ◼   ► they have a little slot for it in the detachable keyboard.

01:42:54 ◼   ► I think this is not the right choice

01:42:56 ◼   ► because I think I'd rather have a round pencil while drawing

01:43:00 ◼   ► rather than, you know, and stow it somewhere else

01:43:02 ◼   ► rather than--because I feel like you spend more of your time drawing.

01:43:05 ◼   ► If you actually use the pencil,

01:43:06 ◼   ► the drawing time is the important time, not the storage time.

01:43:09 ◼   ► - Now, this pencil seems optimized for storage,

01:43:11 ◼   ► but it is convenient,

01:43:13 ◼   ► especially if you don't plan on using the pencil a lot,

01:43:15 ◼   ► if there is a place to put it where it is securely kept.

01:43:17 ◼   ► And this is the keyboard that Marco wanted.

01:43:19 ◼   ► It just unplugs.

01:43:20 ◼   ► It doesn't have a weird flappy thing around the back.

01:43:22 ◼   ► Why? Because in this case, he said it doesn't need to hold up the iPad.

01:43:25 ◼   ► It doesn't need to hold up the tablet part.

01:43:27 ◼   ► The tablet part holds itself up with the kickstand,

01:43:29 ◼   ► which I'm also not a big kickstand fan, but this is the advantage.

01:43:32 ◼   ► The kickstand lets the tablet part stand on its own,

01:43:35 ◼   ► and the keyboard can just detach and attach very easily.

01:43:38 ◼   ► It even has a little foldable triangle thing to prop up the keyboard, right?

01:43:41 ◼   ► And you may be wondering,

01:43:44 ◼   ► "What operating system does this thing run?"

01:43:46 ◼   ► It just runs Windows, because Windows works with touch.

01:43:49 ◼   ► Windows works with the pen.

01:43:50 ◼   ► - This can just be your laptop,

01:43:52 ◼   ► and it can be both a tablet and a laptop,

01:43:54 ◼   ► because it has a touchscreen, and it runs a PCOS and everything.

01:43:57 ◼   ► It can just be your one thing, as long as that one thing is Windows.

01:44:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is not like a separate product from, like,

01:44:02 ◼   ► "Oh, you said the Surface Laptop,

01:44:03 ◼   ► but the Surface Pro must run a different OS that's more limited."

01:44:06 ◼   ► No, it just runs Windows.

01:44:07 ◼   ► And this has been Microsoft's thing since forever,

01:44:09 ◼   ► since Windows 8 or whatever.

01:44:10 ◼   ► Their whole idea is, "Hey, we have an OS that works with touch,

01:44:13 ◼   ► it works with this, it works with that."

01:44:14 ◼   ► They don't have a separate mobile operating system for phones.

01:44:18 ◼   ► They used to. Poor Microsoft.

01:44:19 ◼   ► They don't have a phone operating system.

01:44:21 ◼   ► And their tablet operating system is just Windows.

01:44:24 ◼   ► So think of it as a convertible Mac laptop with a 13-inch OLED screen.

01:44:29 ◼   ► It's not a dual-- Is it a dual layer?

01:44:31 ◼   ► I don't know. I didn't see the specs on it.

01:44:32 ◼   ► - I don't think so.

01:44:33 ◼   ► - I don't think it's a dual layer.

01:44:34 ◼   ► But anyway, just FYI, in the PC world, they make different--

01:44:39 ◼   ► And this runs a Snapdragon, the whole nine yards

01:44:41 ◼   ► that we were talking about.

01:44:42 ◼   ► But they have an iPad Pro competitor as well,

01:44:45 ◼   ► and it is pretty strong hardware-wise.

01:44:47 ◼   ► - You know, what I like about Microsoft's hardware

01:44:50 ◼   ► is that Apple, for a lot of Apple's designs,

01:44:56 ◼   ► they're very opinionated, of course.

01:44:59 ◼   ► And a lot of that comes with the priority of design purity

01:45:05 ◼   ► over practicality.

01:45:07 ◼   ► We've talked about this before.

01:45:08 ◼   ► It was much worse, I think, in the end of the Johnny Ive era.

01:45:11 ◼   ► But a lot of times, the design purity for Apple

01:45:15 ◼   ► is more important, and they are willing to sacrifice usefulness

01:45:19 ◼   ► in order to achieve it if necessary.

01:45:21 ◼   ► And so examples of that are getting rid of old ports

01:45:25 ◼   ► because they just feel dirty,

01:45:27 ◼   ► or they can't make it quite as thin with the old port

01:45:30 ◼   ► or whatever.

01:45:31 ◼   ► The notch is a huge compromise in that way

01:45:33 ◼   ► because they don't want the top of the screen bezel

01:45:35 ◼   ► to be thicker than the side bezels.

01:45:37 ◼   ► All these new Microsoft displays--

01:45:38 ◼   ► - Asymmetry makes Johnny Ive cry.

01:45:40 ◼   ► - Right, all these new Microsoft displays

01:45:41 ◼   ► that have no notch because the top bezel

01:45:44 ◼   ► is thicker than the side bezels.

01:45:45 ◼   ► - Like they used to be on Apple laptops.

01:45:47 ◼   ► - Right, like these were everything,

01:45:48 ◼   ► for that reason, to fit a webcam.

01:45:51 ◼   ► So Microsoft is willing to say, you know what?

01:45:54 ◼   ► We will sacrifice the visual design purity

01:45:57 ◼   ► to give our customers what they want.

01:46:00 ◼   ► - Like the bold keycaps.

01:46:01 ◼   ► - Right, like Microsoft is willing to do that.

01:46:03 ◼   ► Like Apple will not sacrifice design purity

01:46:07 ◼   ► or say economics in a lot of cases

01:46:11 ◼   ► that really would benefit their customers,

01:46:13 ◼   ► but Apple said, no, we don't want to make that,

01:46:16 ◼   ► so we just won't.

01:46:17 ◼   ► Whereas Microsoft is willing to let customers

01:46:20 ◼   ► drive the design a little more.

01:46:22 ◼   ► And sometimes that's bad and sometimes that's good.

01:46:25 ◼   ► And again, I think that forms the basis

01:46:28 ◼   ► for great competition.

01:46:29 ◼   ► If so many people are saying,

01:46:32 ◼   ► just over the last few weeks with the new iPad release,

01:46:34 ◼   ► so many people are saying, hey, we would love

01:46:36 ◼   ► if the iPad was pushed a little bit more towards the Mac

01:46:39 ◼   ► in terms of certain capabilities or whatever else,

01:46:41 ◼   ► Microsoft is saying, we'll give you both.

01:46:43 ◼   ► Here, it's one thing that runs our full PCOS.

01:46:46 ◼   ► You can do everything with this one thing.

01:46:48 ◼   ► People want Apple to make touchscreen Macs.

01:46:50 ◼   ► Microsoft's been making touchscreen PCs for what,

01:46:52 ◼   ► 12, 15 years at least, more than that.

01:46:54 ◼   ► Like there's, Microsoft is willing to,

01:46:56 ◼   ► and the PC world in general, but I think Microsoft

01:46:58 ◼   ► does a good job of it, they're willing to

01:47:01 ◼   ► meet customer needs where they are.

01:47:05 ◼   ► If a customer says, hey, we want this thing

01:47:07 ◼   ► to do everything and be everything,

01:47:09 ◼   ► and as a result it has to look just a little bit

01:47:12 ◼   ► like the Homer Simpson car, Microsoft will say, fine.

01:47:14 ◼   ► Here, this is what you want.

01:47:16 ◼   ► We will give you what you want.

01:47:17 ◼   ► - Or PC vendors, even if Microsoft, not, right?

01:47:19 ◼   ► Because they're not the only ones who make the hardware.

01:47:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

01:47:22 ◼   ► - Although what you were saying about competition, though,

01:47:24 ◼   ► you said this multiple times, that you're so excited

01:47:26 ◼   ► for competition, but you also just,

01:47:28 ◼   ► what you just said now should sort of dampen your hopes.

01:47:31 ◼   ► - Thanks.

01:47:32 ◼   ► - Because, right, so like, I also agree

01:47:35 ◼   ► that this is good competition and I hope it wakes Apple up

01:47:38 ◼   ► and makes them do things that they otherwise wouldn't do

01:47:40 ◼   ► like with the RAM and stuff like that, but here's the thing.

01:47:42 ◼   ► Historically speaking, back when both Windows

01:47:45 ◼   ► and the Mac operating system were on x86,

01:47:48 ◼   ► during that golden period, when the performance,

01:47:52 ◼   ► battery life, everything of the laptops

01:47:54 ◼   ► was essentially comparable because they were all using

01:47:55 ◼   ► the same Intel chips, right?

01:47:57 ◼   ► During that time, Apple removed so much stuff

01:48:00 ◼   ► in their laptops and made them so bad

01:48:02 ◼   ► and there was tons of PC competition

01:48:05 ◼   ► that was exactly comparable power-wise

01:48:07 ◼   ► because they were literally using the same Intel chips

01:48:09 ◼   ► and that did not motivate Apple to change.

01:48:12 ◼   ► Like, we were like, oh, if we get to a period

01:48:14 ◼   ► where the PC laptops are competitive,

01:48:16 ◼   ► that'll make Apple change its ways

01:48:18 ◼   ► and do better with its laptops.

01:48:19 ◼   ► Like, they were being crushed in terms of feature set,

01:48:22 ◼   ► like when they went to like the all USB,

01:48:24 ◼   ► all Thunderbolt ports or whatever,

01:48:25 ◼   ► no SD card slot, no HDMI or whatever.

01:48:27 ◼   ► You could buy a million PC laptops

01:48:29 ◼   ► that had exactly the same performance,

01:48:31 ◼   ► that had all the ports you ever wanted,

01:48:33 ◼   ► that had higher resolution screens,

01:48:34 ◼   ► that had like faster versions of the same CPU,

01:48:38 ◼   ► that were cheaper, that had more RAM,

01:48:39 ◼   ► that had more SSDs, and it was just like

01:48:41 ◼   ► Apple's to Apple's comparison, they were all on Intel,

01:48:43 ◼   ► and that did not motivate Apple to change.

01:48:46 ◼   ► And so I want to believe that they're gonna see this

01:48:49 ◼   ► and feel motivated to like,

01:48:50 ◼   ► oh, we gotta keep up with Microsoft here.

01:48:53 ◼   ► But I've just lived through a period

01:48:55 ◼   ► in which Apple did not feel compelled to compete

01:48:58 ◼   ► and in fact continued to make its laptops worse and worse

01:49:01 ◼   ► and more and more limited

01:49:02 ◼   ► while the exactly comparable or better PC laptops

01:49:06 ◼   ► were not so constrained.

01:49:08 ◼   ► So I don't, now that was a different Apple.

01:49:10 ◼   ► Johnny Ive was there at the time.

01:49:11 ◼   ► It was a different regime, right?

01:49:14 ◼   ► Before Apple's recommitment to the Mac,

01:49:16 ◼   ► which we applaud, before Apple Silicon,

01:49:18 ◼   ► it's not, I know today's Apple is different,

01:49:20 ◼   ► but I'm not 100% confident that Apple will see this

01:49:24 ◼   ► and say, we need to keep up with the Joneses.

01:49:28 ◼   ► We should rethink the base RAM on,

01:49:31 ◼   ► not the M4 MacBook Air, but on the M5 MacBook Air.

01:49:34 ◼   ► Let's think about 16 gigs.

01:49:36 ◼   ► Are they gonna do that because of these,

01:49:38 ◼   ► or were they gonna do that anyway?

01:49:40 ◼   ► It's like, we'll see.

01:49:42 ◼   ► They've never felt compelled to be like,

01:49:43 ◼   ► oh, we gotta have Wi-Fi 7 because PCs do.

01:49:45 ◼   ► No, Apple has never done that.

01:49:47 ◼   ► They're like, oh, we're always a little bit behind,

01:49:49 ◼   ► but it's fine, right?

01:49:50 ◼   ► That is more of the Apple way.

01:49:52 ◼   ► I hope these laptops light a fire under their butt,

01:49:56 ◼   ► but again, Surface Pro has existed for ages.

01:49:58 ◼   ► It's just now it's way better

01:49:59 ◼   ► because of the Snapdragon SOC.

01:50:01 ◼   ► But convertible PCs with touch screens and pens,

01:50:04 ◼   ► like, oh, that's been a, this is not a new product.

01:50:06 ◼   ► And has that improved the iPad Pro?

01:50:08 ◼   ► Maybe, maybe that's why the iPad Pro has gotten better

01:50:10 ◼   ► in the ways that it has, but it almost seems like,

01:50:13 ◼   ► I mean, from our sort of Insular Apple world perspective

01:50:16 ◼   ► and maybe also from Apple's Insular perspective being Apple,

01:50:19 ◼   ► that the only thing that seems to motivate Apple to change

01:50:22 ◼   ► are its own customers.

01:50:24 ◼   ► Like, I really do feel like the reason

01:50:27 ◼   ► Apple's laptops got better is because of the sadness

01:50:32 ◼   ► of Apple's laptop customers, you know what I mean?

01:50:34 ◼   ► Like, it was because Apple customers were saying

01:50:37 ◼   ► Mac laptops used to be good,

01:50:39 ◼   ► but now I'm unhappy with this one.

01:50:40 ◼   ► And it doesn't matter what was going on

01:50:42 ◼   ► in the PC laptop world almost.

01:50:44 ◼   ► It's like the only thing that can change Apple

01:50:46 ◼   ► are its own customers.

01:50:48 ◼   ► The sadness of its own customers,

01:50:50 ◼   ► they're saying, we feel like the Mac has been abandoned.

01:50:52 ◼   ► We think the laptop should have an HDMI port, an SD.

01:50:55 ◼   ► I'm not saying like we on this podcast,

01:50:57 ◼   ► but Apple's customers writ large.

01:51:00 ◼   ► I think that's what has motivated Apple

01:51:02 ◼   ► to come around on the Mac

01:51:04 ◼   ► to make all the improvements that they have made

01:51:06 ◼   ► to rededicate themselves to the Mac.

01:51:08 ◼   ► And it wasn't the fact that the PC laptops

01:51:10 ◼   ► had existed for years and years

01:51:12 ◼   ► that were better in all the ways that Apple's laptops

01:51:14 ◼   ► were bad during the Intel era.

01:51:16 ◼   ► -All right, before we go,

01:51:18 ◼   ► we should bring up Microsoft Recall,

01:51:20 ◼   ► 'cause this has been kind of a pet thing

01:51:22 ◼   ► for the three of us over the last few months.

01:51:24 ◼   ► Jon, what is Microsoft Recall?

01:51:25 ◼   ► -It's been longer than a few months.

01:51:27 ◼   ► So, you may be familiar with this feature

01:51:30 ◼   ► because we've talked about it on the show many times.

01:51:32 ◼   ► We talked about it -- we called it "Lifestreams,"

01:51:34 ◼   ► which is a feature that I've wanted for years.

01:51:35 ◼   ► And then there was a feature for the Mac called "Rewind"

01:51:38 ◼   ► that would form a similar function.

01:51:40 ◼   ► Microsoft calls it "Recall."

01:51:42 ◼   ► If you heard our past shows about Rewind on the Mac,

01:51:45 ◼   ► you know what this is.

01:51:46 ◼   ► If you know what Timeline was in Windows 10,

01:51:49 ◼   ► if you happen to be a Windows user,

01:51:50 ◼   ► you know the idea here.

01:51:52 ◼   ► Keeps track of stuff that happens on your computer

01:51:55 ◼   ► so you can retrieve it later.

01:51:57 ◼   ► The Rewind approach on the Mac was that it would

01:51:59 ◼   ► essentially take a screenshot of your screen every few seconds

01:52:02 ◼   ► and OCR it and store it in a big database

01:52:04 ◼   ► so that you can ask questions later

01:52:06 ◼   ► and it could look it up in your Timeline

01:52:08 ◼   ► and, you know, do translation --

01:52:10 ◼   ► not translation, transcription of things

01:52:12 ◼   ► that happen in voice calls and, you know,

01:52:14 ◼   ► the Rewind feature, right?

01:52:16 ◼   ► Microsoft is building this into their operating system.

01:52:18 ◼   ► Again, they tried to build a feature like this

01:52:20 ◼   ► into Windows 10 called Timeline.

01:52:22 ◼   ► That one didn't work out as well

01:52:23 ◼   ► because it required application developers

01:52:25 ◼   ► to integrate with it,

01:52:26 ◼   ► and Microsoft does have a little bit of a tough time

01:52:28 ◼   ► getting its application developers

01:52:30 ◼   ► to integrate new APIs in a timely manner.

01:52:33 ◼   ► So that one didn't catch on,

01:52:34 ◼   ► but they're taking another run at it,

01:52:35 ◼   ► and they are essentially using the Rewind approach.

01:52:38 ◼   ► They're gonna screenshot the screen.

01:52:40 ◼   ► They're gonna OCR it.

01:52:41 ◼   ► They're gonna throw large language models at it.

01:52:43 ◼   ► They have a cool interface scrubbing through your Timeline,

01:52:45 ◼   ► and they've even gotten one better than Rewind

01:52:47 ◼   ► because guess what? They're Microsoft.

01:52:48 ◼   ► They make Windows.

01:52:49 ◼   ► So not only can you see stuff from your past

01:52:52 ◼   ► and search for it, but also, like,

01:52:54 ◼   ► they give an example of, like,

01:52:55 ◼   ► "Oh, there was some text that's like,

01:52:57 ◼   ► 'Oh, it turns out that text was in a PowerPoint slide.'"

01:52:59 ◼   ► You can click on it in the Recall Timeline,

01:53:01 ◼   ► and it will jump you right into PowerPoint to that slide,

01:53:05 ◼   ► application-level integration, which Rewind can't do

01:53:08 ◼   ► because they don't make the operating system

01:53:09 ◼   ► and they don't make PowerPoint,

01:53:10 ◼   ► but Microsoft can do it, and they did.

01:53:13 ◼   ► Surprisingly, to me, anyway, PC users

01:53:16 ◼   ► and people who don't listen to this show

01:53:18 ◼   ► and have no idea what Rewind is

01:53:19 ◼   ► and don't know what a livestream is

01:53:21 ◼   ► are flipping out about this for privacy reasons.

01:53:23 ◼   ► I feel like on this show,

01:53:24 ◼   ► we've had the privacy discussion before many times.

01:53:27 ◼   ► It's the same privacy story as Rewind, essentially.

01:53:29 ◼   ► "Oh, it's all local. It's encrypted.

01:53:31 ◼   ► You can turn it off. You can exclude applications."

01:53:34 ◼   ► There's no smarts in it to automatically exclude,

01:53:36 ◼   ► like, passwords and stuff, which is flipping people out.

01:53:38 ◼   ► I'm assuming you can just turn this feature off.

01:53:40 ◼   ► This is one of those features that, obviously,