00:00:08 ◼ ► Unreal AFM, this is Upgrade, Episode 484 for October 31st, Halloween, the spookiest episode of the year.
00:00:20 ◼ ► This episode is brought to you by Lada, Delete Me Notion, and vitally I am the man previously known as Mike Hurley.
00:00:40 ◼ ► Because it's spooky for no reason, as we have learned over the last 24 hours that there is absolutely zero point for it.
00:00:53 ◼ ► I have a Snell Talk question for you, Jason Snell, that comes from Jimmy, who wants to know Jason.
00:00:59 ◼ ► Did you write the Six Colors articles about the Apple event last night from your cold garage, or from Studio B?
00:01:17 ◼ ► I wrote my article about the Apple event last night, yesterday, at a hotel room in New York City.
00:01:44 ◼ ► So you had the opportunity to go to a place in New York and have some conversations and take a look at some products.
00:01:55 ◼ ► The event that we're talking about. We had a selection of people ask questions along this line.
00:02:00 ◼ ► And it is also very important to work note, because people ask, this all happened after draft stuff.
00:02:15 ◼ ► understand that Jason has a bit more information than your average, because he's seen it.
00:02:25 ◼ ► I've actually tried to get my fingerprints on the thing that has the reduced fingerprints.
00:02:44 ◼ ► We were shown the products and allowed to get our hands on them and talk to Apple representatives
00:03:01 ◼ ► I asked some questions I got very satisfying answers from, and others that they're not going
00:03:06 ◼ ► to talk about, and I knew they were not going to talk about it, but sometimes you got to ask.
00:03:19 ◼ ► and you can send one in to help us start a future episode. Thank you, Jimmy, for your question.
00:03:31 ◼ ► and I just wanted to make a little programming note. So next week's episode, we'll be talking
00:03:36 ◼ ► about Apple's quarterly results. And my plan is that hopefully we'll be able to talk about all
00:03:40 ◼ ► the stuff that came out in the 17.2 beta, because there was actually quite a lot of stuff, including
00:03:45 ◼ ► the journaling app and tap backs, and I want to talk about all of that. But obviously we don't
00:03:50 ◼ ► have the space for that today, but that will hopefully form part of next week's episode.
00:04:08 ◼ ► I was talking to Adina about this last night, because she wanted to know how I'd done in the
00:04:12 ◼ ► draft. And basically the way that I look at what happened in this draft is essentially the result
00:04:21 ◼ ► of the ideal, right? Like the ideal draft scenario is kind of what happened, which is that we were
00:04:31 ◼ ► operating on our own knowledge, our own guesses and rumors that have been occurring for a while.
00:04:41 ◼ ► And if we would have read Mark Gurman's report, half of the things that we picked would not have
00:04:45 ◼ ► been in the draft. And I would say there was still some mystery, but I would say if we had done
00:04:51 ◼ ► eight picks instead of four, we would have gotten a winner, right? Because we would have been forced
00:04:58 ◼ ► to pick more esoteric things, and some of those would have hit and missed. But it was a mini draft,
00:05:03 ◼ ► and so we didn't. And then the big moment, and I actually thought about it about a minute after
00:05:07 ◼ ► I made my selection, is you picked a 13-inch MacBook Pro thing. And I thought to myself,
00:05:12 ◼ ► "Oh, geez, I think there will be a 13." And so I picked also a 13-inch MacBook Pro thing. We,
00:05:17 ◼ ► in fact, got somebody on Mastodon who was like, "That doesn't seem fair to Jason." It's like,
00:05:20 ◼ ► "Look, I did it to myself, but I decided that I was going to try to block you, and that if you
00:05:26 ◼ ► got a point for the 13-inch MacBook Pro, I was going to too." And a minute later, I'm like,
00:05:31 ◼ ► "Why did I do that? I'm not sure there's going to be a 13-inch MacBook Pro." But it was too late.
00:05:38 ◼ ► Yeah, my bathroom, my shower thoughts. Yeah, yeah. Things you think of in the shower. Well,
00:05:45 ◼ ► - Well, we'll talk about it, but I actually think you were on the right lines, but just
00:05:56 ◼ ► scored two points for the 24-inch iMac introduced and 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models
00:06:01 ◼ ► introduced. There was no 13-inch MacBook Pro, so no longer has touch bar mag safe. There is no
00:06:08 ◼ ► product anymore. There is an element of a way that pic could have been written that could have
00:06:13 ◼ ► been correct, right? If you had just been like the entry-level MacBook Pro. Now we're getting into
00:06:24 ◼ ► - I did not score for peripherals updated of USB-C. I did not score for a new 13-inch MacBook Pro.
00:06:52 ◼ ► I did score for the iMacs have the same colors. I was frantically checking that while the video
00:06:57 ◼ ► was occurring last night. Neither of us scored picks for our game demo or Creative Professional
00:07:12 ◼ ► but they didn't have a person from a game studio. - And they had an ad where people were showing,
00:07:28 ◼ ► - Yeah, and the tiebreaker was, I set it a little too low. The event was just a few seconds,
00:07:34 ◼ ► I believe over 30 minutes long. So if I had set it at 30, which was my initial thought,
00:07:40 ◼ ► you still would have gotten it, but I set it even lower than that. So I would have had to set it at
00:07:44 ◼ ► 31 for you to, and you still would have taken me over and I would have won, but it's fine.
00:08:13 ◼ ► I wanted to do some kind of bigger thoughts about the event itself. I kind of alluded to it a little
00:08:21 ◼ ► bit in my weird opening. I feel like the result of the question of why are they doing this in
00:08:29 ◼ ► the evening was not answered, which I think was the most likely thing. There was no reason,
00:08:37 ◼ ► - But even then, they didn't need to do the Halloween theme because they kind of didn't
00:08:49 ◼ ► Suruji said, "Welcome to my lab." Outside of that, I feel like if you're gonna do this,
00:09:03 ◼ ► there was a werewolf sound that was like, "Oh, excellent." And then it was just Tim Cook,
00:09:22 ◼ ► in the cold light of day today. It didn't happen. I think the answer is that somebody sold them on
00:09:29 ◼ ► Halloween theme, and they said, "Okay," and then they put it into their regular content
00:09:38 ◼ ► - Yes, that there were presenters. Every presenter had a costume, and then they're like,
00:09:54 ◼ ► pro stuff happens at night, but they do this for the iPhone too. They just turn all the lights off,
00:10:15 ◼ ► - Tim signs out, and Josw signs in, and they meet in the lobby of Cafe Max, and Tim says,
00:10:22 ◼ ► "Even in Josw?" And Josw says, "Even in Tim?" And then they pass, and then Josw is in charge at
00:10:31 ◼ ► the evening event, I do agree with this being an event. I was seeing a lot of people on Mastodon,
00:10:40 ◼ ► the whole thing, we're going to talk about all of it, obviously, worthy of there being a video.
00:10:45 ◼ ► - I don't understand people sometimes, Mike. I mean, I think the truth is that people have
00:10:51 ◼ ► unreasonable expectations, and they complain that things aren't events. They complain that things
00:10:58 ◼ ► are events. They complain that events are too long and boring and padded. They complain that
00:11:07 ◼ ► know what they want. I'll tell you this. Apple introduced its entire M3 chip architecture.
00:11:14 ◼ ► That's not a press release. That's it. That's all you need to know. And if you're thinking about
00:11:20 ◼ ► the products, okay, MacBook Pro, super important product in certain product categories. But if you
00:11:25 ◼ ► don't want to think about that, and the iMac is nice, sure, think of it this way. Those products
00:11:30 ◼ ► are the vessels used to launch M3, M3 Pro, M3 Macs. And that's what this event was about. And that's
00:11:38 ◼ ► super important to Apple. It sets the stage for the next year plus of the Mac, which is also very
00:11:43 ◼ ► important. Let's them brag. Let's them boast about their three nanometer process. There's a lot of
00:11:48 ◼ ► stuff going on here. That's why this event exists. It's not a hard one at all. I did, at one point,
00:11:56 ◼ ► I think I put this in my story. At one point, the phrase came out that was, "It's the M3 Pro with
00:12:03 ◼ ► MacBook Pro." - Yeah, that was in your conclusion. Like you kind of mentioned that. - It's not quite
00:12:09 ◼ ► right, but yet it is kind of what this is, right? It's like, this is actually, it's the chips with
00:12:15 ◼ ► a computer attached. 'Cause that's, again, in the end, they're launching products, but what they're
00:12:20 ◼ ► really doing is launching their whole Mac chip line. And that's worth an event. Bottom line.
00:12:31 ◼ ► which in regards to the gaming, when we're talking about the draft, this is just a complete aside.
00:12:36 ◼ ► I was very surprised and kind of pleased with the fact that the game that they did choose to feature
00:12:44 ◼ ► was Baldur's Gate 3, which is one of the Game of the Year contenders this year. And it's just super
00:12:51 ◼ ► surprising, and maybe this is a sign of the times, that a current Game of the Year contender is
00:12:57 ◼ ► running on a Mac. Like, I've been playing it on my MacBook Air. Now it's nowhere near as good as when
00:13:03 ◼ ► I play it on my gaming PC, but it runs. And like, it would run even better on these new M3 machines,
00:13:09 ◼ ► obviously, especially on the bigger ones, so the bigger graphics chips. And I genuinely hope that
00:13:15 ◼ ► this is the start of that. And also, as James is pointing out, it's not in the absolute, this is
00:13:21 ◼ ► on Steam. So like, the way you get Baldur's Gate 3 is you need to get Steam first. And so I just
00:13:26 ◼ ► thought that that was, I'm always looking for these signs that Apple is paying attention to
00:13:31 ◼ ► gaming. And the fact that they chose Baldur's Gate 3 and not Resident Evil again, especially
00:13:38 ◼ ► because Resident Evil came out yesterday on the iPhone, right? So like, the fact that they chose
00:13:44 ◼ ► to show Baldur's Gate, that is a good sign for me of like, they're paying attention. So just a random
00:13:51 ◼ ► aside on gaming that I wanted to mention there, because we don't come up with it again. Alright,
00:13:55 ◼ ► but I agree with you. People, I think that the issue with this stuff is like, the people that
00:14:00 ◼ ► are complaining are probably not the same people all the time, so you just got each camp complaining.
00:14:05 ◼ ► But I just think this was the right way to do it. They spent time talking about it. Press release
00:14:08 ◼ ► wouldn't have given it the justice. Just go for it. Last thing I wanted to mention, I spotted this
00:14:13 ◼ ► at the end and then didn't really think much of it and then saw a lot of people talking about it,
00:14:18 ◼ ► that the event was shot on an iPhone and edited on a Mac. And I found a couple of posts on threads,
00:14:23 ◼ ► one from Tyler Stallman and then a couple from Halide, where I'm assuming that Apple PR gave
00:14:29 ◼ ► these creators and developers imagery that shows how they produced the event. And it is awesome and
00:14:38 ◼ ► hilarious to look at the size of the equipment that these iPhones were put into. Like these huge
00:14:46 ◼ ► camera arms and rigs and all this lighting and stuff. It's very funny. But I think that this is
00:14:53 ◼ ► kind of incredible that they did it, even though they did it with all of the help that they had.
00:15:06 ◼ ► it's pretty cool. - Yeah, I think that's great. And the point is, look, the point is not,
00:15:12 ◼ ► hey, everybody, you can just hold an iPhone. Of course they're using professional everything.
00:15:18 ◼ ► And of course there's a lot of CGI going on here too. But the point is that they're using
00:15:23 ◼ ► the image capturing itself is on the iPhone and that is good enough to generate that output.
00:15:29 ◼ ► That's the point. And yeah, good for them. - Also one of the shots from the Halide thing,
00:15:38 ◼ ► disappeared where this stuff came from, which is weird and interesting. It was on Apple's YouTube
00:15:43 ◼ ► channel, but not anymore. I don't know why they did that. But there's a shot of from behind Tim
00:15:50 ◼ ► Cook showing the crew, there is so many people, so many people there. There must be like 50 people,
00:15:58 ◼ ► 60 people, maybe more that you can kind of make out in the, I don't know what you'd call it.
00:16:09 ◼ ► kind of fascinating. - Yeah, well, I don't know if you've seen it because it's in sports in America,
00:16:22 ◼ ► And it's the same thing with the same kind of rigs. And it's like, I believe it's her real video,
00:16:29 ◼ ► but the version of it that's in the Apple ad also shows them shooting it using these similar kind of
00:16:36 ◼ ► rigs in an iPhone 15. And this is clearly part of their marketing messages. The iPhone 15, again,
00:16:41 ◼ ► yeah, you can use it to shoot a music video or an Apple thing, but the point is that even like this
00:16:49 ◼ ► level of professional video, you can't tell that it was shot on an iPhone because the iPhone
00:16:54 ◼ ► video is that good at this point. That's the point. - I hope that this little behind the scenes
00:16:59 ◼ ► video pops up again, because I would like to see more about it. I just think it's kind of cool
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00:18:51 ◼ ► So let's start by talking about the M3 family of chips. Apple will use the word family a lot in the
00:19:02 ◼ ► press releases and stuff like that. So I think that's like a good way to talk about them. The
00:19:08 ◼ ► majority of the family introduced at once, I guess all that is left would be the ultra chip, right?
00:19:14 ◼ ► Which is probably just two maxes connected. So fundamentally not really a new chip, just a new
00:19:21 ◼ ► I don't know, collection of a pair of chips, but it's gonna be two existing M3 maxes almost certainly.
00:19:28 ◼ ► Do you have any kind of feeling about why you think they chose to do it this way? Here's the whole
00:19:34 ◼ ► thing. Here's all the M3. It's a good question. I think that from a marketing standpoint, I think
00:19:42 ◼ ► it's actually stronger to go out with your whole line than to go out with your weakest product,
00:19:47 ◼ ► right? We've reached the point now where you can impress, like the M1 impressed us, but the pro
00:19:55 ◼ ► and the max are where you really see them at their best. And at this point you come out with the M3
00:20:01 ◼ ► and we're all gonna be like, okay, what's the pro and max. So I think there's a marketing argument
00:20:06 ◼ ► here, but I think the truth is they were already at the same time. I think the truth is they were
00:20:10 ◼ ► all going into production on this new three nanometer process and are all available now.
00:20:16 ◼ ► And so they're gonna launch them now. I do think it comes down to that, that they're ready now.
00:20:27 ◼ ► what products they go in based on the volumes that they can manage. I think that the reason that it's
00:20:31 ◼ ► an iMac and a low-end MacBook Pro and not a MacBook Air is that the MacBook Air sells a lot
00:20:37 ◼ ► of volume. Although the low-end MacBook Pro may be too, but the way they've done it, and we'll get to
00:20:41 ◼ ► that, we'll move the volume around and won't be like the old 13-inch MacBook Pro, which was their
00:20:46 ◼ ► second best-selling computer. So I think they chose these vessels carefully in a way. Like the iMac,
00:20:56 ◼ ► it had gone a long time since an update, so why not? And then on the MacBook Pro side, clearly
00:21:02 ◼ ► their strategy is to use all three. This is the first time that Apple has sold what we will call
00:21:08 ◼ ► one computer that comes in different configurations using all three of the Apple Silicon chips.
00:21:18 ◼ ► you kind of need to have all of them come out at once. So I think it worked out this way,
00:21:26 ◼ ► and it probably has something to do with chip production, that they were all available now,
00:21:29 ◼ ► rather than them sort of like, "Ah, finally we got the M3 off the assembly line. We can get to the
00:21:34 ◼ ► M3 Pro." I don't think that was how it worked this time. Yeah, I will say I personally,
00:21:40 ◼ ► I like this strategy of doing it in one go, rather than the way they've done it previously,
00:21:53 ◼ ► just from our perspective of just working out what the ramifications are for any of these product
00:21:58 ◼ ► releases. I think it is, and it will be more helpful and interesting to see reviews and
00:22:04 ◼ ► benchmarks of all of them at the same time, rather than like, "We get the M3, and then we have to try
00:22:10 ◼ ► and extrapolate what we think that might mean for the M3 Pro a little later on down the line."
00:22:14 ◼ ► I'm happy that we will see the entire line all in one go. I also just think from a product release
00:22:21 ◼ ► standpoint, I think that there is just, it makes sense to do this, to have multiple products at
00:22:26 ◼ ► once that are receiving these chips. I also really do like the idea that, and I hope that we'll see
00:22:33 ◼ ► more of this in the future, way more flexibility for what chip can go inside of a machine, right?
00:22:40 ◼ ► Like that 14-inch MacBook Pro is very versatile. It's the most versatile machine that Apple has
00:22:47 ◼ ► shipped under Apple Silicon, right? That like, it can house all three, which when it comes down to
00:22:54 ◼ ► it are vastly different from each other from a power perspective. And this one machine has been
00:23:00 ◼ ► designed and built to be able to fit from the lowest to the nearly highest end. I would love
00:23:09 ◼ ► one day for there to be a laptop that will take all four, like that would be cool, right? They do
00:23:15 ◼ ► a MacBook Pro that could take an ultra, but I don't know if they would ever do that. That would
00:23:19 ◼ ► just be kind of fun. Do you think that this is likely to occur again in the future, that they
00:23:25 ◼ ► would do it this way? I mean, I do hope so, but do you think it's possible? Yeah, I think it's going
00:23:39 ◼ ► And we'll just have to see how that goes. It tells a better story, I think, from their perspective.
00:23:45 ◼ ► It does, but again, if you're in a situation where you have the M4 and the M4 Pro and the M4
00:23:50 ◼ ► Macs are not going to be ready, I think they're not going to stop and not introduce an M4 Mac,
00:23:56 ◼ ► right? I think that they will still do it, but this feels like a better approach because it lets
00:24:03 ◼ ► them tell the whole story at once. So these are three nanometer chips. There was a lot of
00:24:08 ◼ ► questions. We were getting quite a lot of follow-up and people writing in to us because we were
00:24:13 ◼ ► assuming it was going to be three nanometers, but they were saying, "Oh, but it'll be based
00:24:17 ◼ ► on the previous, the A16 chip, not the A17 chip." Well, ha-ha, it was three nanometers.
00:24:23 ◼ ► Yeah, here's what you need to know is the A series is on an annual cycle and the M series is on an
00:24:29 ◼ ► 18-month cycle and we're in number three, so your choice is either to go back a year or you have now
00:24:35 ◼ ► synced up again to the fourth chip. And so I think that's exactly what we've gotten is M1 was A14,
00:24:41 ◼ ► M2 was A15, M3 is A17, A16, forget about it. To me, it just seemed pretty simple. The fact that
00:24:48 ◼ ► they said the words three nanometer when they introduced the iPhone to me just said that was
00:24:52 ◼ ► what it was going to be for the Mac. Yeah. It wasn't necessary to talk about three nanometers
00:24:57 ◼ ► with the iPhone. Like it kind of just wasn't. And I feel like you wouldn't, I wouldn't, if I was them,
00:25:03 ◼ ► want to talk about that so specifically and then can't put it in my computers. It's also just
00:25:09 ◼ ► boasting. I mean, and it's bragging, right? We're like, we're the first, they said we're the first
00:25:14 ◼ ► three nanometer chip in a phone and now it's our first three nanometer chip in a computer. That's,
00:25:18 ◼ ► they get to brag about that because they've got their deal with TSMC and they feel like they are
00:25:22 ◼ ► out on the cutting edge of chip design for these devices and you know, you got to brag about that.
00:25:28 ◼ ► That's good, that's good marketing. So the three nanometer process allows for them to get more
00:25:34 ◼ ► speed increases. I'm really intrigued about how this continues over time because they keep making
00:25:41 ◼ ► these chips faster but like, is that something you can keep doing forever? Like I wonder when they're
00:25:48 ◼ ► going to start to hit some walls of that but they haven't this time. So I'm going to give you some
00:25:53 ◼ ► info here. Apple is saying that the efficiency cause on the M3 family of chips is 50% faster than
00:26:00 ◼ ► the M1 and 30% faster than the M2. The performance cores are 30% faster than the M1 and 15% faster
00:26:08 ◼ ► than the M2 and the neural engine is 60% faster than the M1 and 15% faster than the M2. And as you
00:26:16 ◼ ► put in your article, the proof will come in the testing, not the press releases. Those are stats
00:26:21 ◼ ► from the press release but basically that doesn't really tell you too much about what it's going to
00:26:26 ◼ ► do for your work load or your use case just to say that like the capability is there in these machines
00:26:33 ◼ ► to be faster. Right, I think a 15% increment over generation is pretty reasonable and that seems to
00:26:39 ◼ ► be what they've gone here. This is, and they're comparing it to M1 which adds some confusion but
00:26:44 ◼ ► at the same time, cause it's like right, as somebody chronicling sort of like what change
00:26:49 ◼ ► in the Apple chips you want to detail it based on like the last generation. But the truth is that in
00:26:58 ◼ ► terms of upgrades, people are coming more likely coming from M1 and Intel. And so you want to do
00:27:06 ◼ ► those comparisons, but it also makes bigger numbers which makes Apple feel better. Whereas we are all
00:27:11 ◼ ► kind of focused on M2 just because that tells a different, not for the purpose of upgraders of
00:27:17 ◼ ► products, but for the purpose of kind of telling the story of how this chip family progresses over
00:27:24 ◼ ► the previous one. So we'll have to see. Remember these are all up to whatever percent faster and
00:27:30 ◼ ► what is that up to means it's from what zero or slower to faster like, and it will entirely depend
00:27:36 ◼ ► on seeing these in real context and not in Apple's. I've said this before, I'll say it again. Apple's
00:27:44 ◼ ► performance marketing is based on real numbers. In fact, the performance marketing is people I know
00:27:48 ◼ ► who used to work in Mac world. They're in that group, like they're real numbers, but it is
00:27:54 ◼ ► marketing. And so they're going to pick the good numbers, but they're not fake numbers. They're
00:27:58 ◼ ► real numbers. It's just that you're taking their word for it and they're selling you something. So
00:28:03 ◼ ► you can't take their word for it. We have to check. And so we will. - As a community of testing,
00:28:08 ◼ ► people will get the numbers. I think from a presentation perspective, I agree that it is
00:28:13 ◼ ► best for Apple to talk about the M1 and Intel. I don't think it is that helpful for them when
00:28:19 ◼ ► marketing the product is to compare it to last year for the Mac. - Yeah, I'd say it's when you're
00:28:25 ◼ ► talking about chips, I care more about last year. When you're talking about products. - We do.
00:28:31 ◼ ► - Right. Well, yeah, but I'm saying regular consumers don't care about chips, right? When
00:28:36 ◼ ► you're marketing the product, your product claims compared to older models is a stronger argument.
00:28:42 ◼ ► But when you're just talking about the chips, I don't accept the argument that like, well,
00:28:46 ◼ ► regular people, because regular people don't care about the chips. - No, and it's good that we get,
00:28:53 ◼ ► perspective, it would be confusing if they gave two different sets of speed increases during the
00:28:58 ◼ ► same presentation, right? Like if they want to compare the MacBook Pro to the M1 MacBook Pro,
00:29:05 ◼ ► that's going to be one set of statistics. And if they compare the M3 to the M2, it's another set
00:29:09 ◼ ► of statistics, and I think it's a little bit much. But they give us the information for as much as
00:29:13 ◼ ► they're going to give it, right? Like we have the numbers, but now it's about actually putting them
00:29:18 ◼ ► to the test. - Sure, and what they've chosen to do with the chips is put them in the context of M1
00:29:23 ◼ ► and M2, so it's the march of Apple Silicon progression. In the individual product areas,
00:29:28 ◼ ► they talk about Intel. - Yeah. - Because there you've got a bunch of upgraders coming from Intel,
00:29:33 ◼ ► and so the Intel numbers are relevant there. They didn't do that in the chip area because
00:29:37 ◼ ► that's not the story they're telling. They're really just telling about the Apple Silicon
00:29:40 ◼ ► chips getting faster. They leave the Intel comparisons to the individual product categories.
00:29:46 ◼ ► - So the GPU also got a bunch of time. They've put more features into Apple's graphics processing
00:29:54 ◼ ► pipeline, so they now have hardware accelerated mesh and ray tracing, so mesh shading and ray
00:30:00 ◼ ► tracing. - Right, both of which are in the iPhone Pro chip. - So we expected it here. This is like
00:30:05 ◼ ► an expectation that they were gonna do this, but they also introduced something called dynamic
00:30:09 ◼ ► caching. My simplified way of explaining this is it's all about how memory is being allocated
00:30:15 ◼ ► to the GPU from the system. - Yeah, you're simplifying something that I simplified from
00:30:19 ◼ ► somebody who's very smart who told me about this that I'm not supposed to talk about because it's
00:30:23 ◼ ► all on background, but somebody very smart who might work at Apple, explain to me a little bit
00:30:30 ◼ ► more about this. Anyway, so let me try to explain it again. Dynamic caching is, let's be honest here,
00:30:36 ◼ ► dynamic caching is a marketing term that Apple has come up with to try and explain why they're
00:30:42 ◼ ► getting more GPU bandwidth than just what you'd expect from the chip speed improvements themselves.
00:30:53 ◼ ► How do you get a real improvement in GPU performance and efficiency? And you have to be
00:31:04 ◼ ► really motivated, since this is something that no, according to Apple anyway, I mean, no chip
00:31:08 ◼ ► designers have done this before. They came up with this approach because they're really trying
00:31:16 ◼ ► to wring as much performance out of their GPUs as possible. So the way it was explained to me is,
00:31:23 ◼ ► and again, it's simplifying, but there are threads that are being used by the GPU to do tasks.
00:31:30 ◼ ► And there are a few ways that you can set up how much memory essentially you want to use for
00:31:36 ◼ ► a particular thread of a task. And there are a couple approaches you can take. So think about it
00:31:41 ◼ ► that way. Think about you're doing a game or whatever, but you've got lots and lots and lots
00:31:44 ◼ ► and lots of threads and you're pumping them into a GPU. The way traditionally it's done is generally
00:31:51 ◼ ► you either look at what the peak amount of memory that you're going to need for this thread is,
00:31:56 ◼ ► and you allocate that much memory to it because you don't want to run out of memory. Or,
00:32:02 ◼ ► alternately, you're careful about the memory you use and you set it to a specific amount,
00:32:08 ◼ ► but you know that if you use it all, it is going to create a bottleneck where you've used it all,
00:32:15 ◼ ► and so everything is going to back up and slow down because you can't allocate more memory to
00:32:20 ◼ ► that thread. The thread has to wait. That's the general idea. And if you think about it that way,
00:32:26 ◼ ► and they did their little graphic with the peak, there's inefficiency. On one side, on the kind of
00:32:33 ◼ ► bottleneck side, you get a bottleneck. That's not great. But on the other side, you have memory
00:32:39 ◼ ► reserved for this one thread all the time that's only used at the peak moment. And then it goes
00:32:46 ◼ ► down from there and that memory is sort of sitting there, allocated but unused. And if you think
00:32:51 ◼ ► about a GPU and about the whole pool of memory that the system has on a Mac, and you're doing
00:32:58 ◼ ► a really intensive task, one way you could be more efficient is to reclaim that space that's not being
00:33:06 ◼ ► used by that thread when it's not at peak. And similarly, if you've got a thread that's bottlenecked,
00:33:15 ◼ ► one way to make it move better would be to give it more memory. But it's bottlenecked. So what they
00:33:21 ◼ ► do is this thing, which they're calling dynamic caching, where essentially the system is looking
00:33:26 ◼ ► at the threads and is dynamically adjusting how much memory is allocated to them so that in a
00:33:32 ◼ ► bottleneck situation, the bottleneck can be opened, and that in a situation where memory is being
00:33:37 ◼ ► allocated for peak, when it's not at peak, they can take that memory back and give it to something
00:33:42 ◼ ► else. And so if you can imagine a bunch of threads hitting the GPU and they're all jostling, they all
00:33:50 ◼ ► need memory, and you've run out of memory, well, if a lot of them aren't at peak right now, you
00:33:56 ◼ ► actually do have memory if you can dynamically reassign that memory to a different thread.
00:34:01 ◼ ► That is the super simplified "don't ask me any questions" version of what this is. So it's an
00:34:09 ◼ ► idea where Apple's chip designers have worked really hard to squeeze out this extra memory
00:34:15 ◼ ► performance in order to make the GPU performance greater. And they're real proud of it. And again,
00:34:22 ◼ ► the impression I got is you wouldn't do this unless you were extremely motivated to increase
00:34:29 ◼ ► the efficiency of your GPU. And Apple is extremely motivated to do so. So it's an interesting idea.
00:34:40 ◼ ► I don't know if these things are related, but I know it's something that people find disappointing.
00:34:45 ◼ ► No, I mean, they're not related at all. Let me close the loop on the GPU thing and just say that
00:34:49 ◼ ► the big point here is that this is not an API. This is all at the system level. Developers of
00:34:56 ◼ ► software don't change anything. It just happens. So it's transparent, which is why in the end,
00:35:01 ◼ ► it's going to come out as being GPU speed or efficiency. That's how you're going to see it.
00:35:08 ◼ ► You're not going to see it as like, "Haha, we did this thing." It's going to be like, "Oh,
00:35:11 ◼ ► it is faster. It is more frames per second." Things like that. Okay. M3. So you said it.
00:35:19 ◼ ► One external monitor only, just like the M1 and the M2. And this is a story that now goes beyond
00:35:25 ◼ ► the M3 base model. Apple is, with this line, doing some really clear product differentiation. Like,
00:35:34 ◼ ► the M3, the M3 Pro, and the M3 Max are all getting even more distinct from one another.
00:35:41 ◼ ► I think it's most interesting in the M3 Pro. But the M3... So Intel has given everybody the idea
00:35:52 ◼ ► that low-end systems should support multiple external monitors, because Intel built their
00:35:57 ◼ ► chips that way. Now, Intel built their chips that way probably because they wanted them to be sold
00:36:03 ◼ ► to as many different companies for building into products as possible. And so they wanted the
00:36:07 ◼ ► flexibility there. Apple has decided, and it is a decision, Apple has decided that their low-end
00:36:13 ◼ ► chips don't... In order to save basically on money, but also to differentiate them from the other
00:36:21 ◼ ► chips, that it's going to have limited capabilities for video, and it's essentially only going to be
00:36:26 ◼ ► able to do two streams of video, which means that on a Mac Mini, you can run two displays,
00:36:30 ◼ ► but on an iMac, and presumably a MacBook Air, you can only run one external display because they've
00:36:34 ◼ ► got an internal display that is wired in. It's a decision that they make. I definitely... So here's
00:36:45 ◼ ► the hard thing. I think they should support two external displays on an M3. I think they should,
00:36:51 ◼ ► but they don't. I think they should... At the very least, they should engineer it so that if you're
00:36:55 ◼ ► on a laptop in lid closed, it can run two external displays. I get not three, right? Not the idea
00:37:03 ◼ ► that you have your laptop display and two external displays, but when the laptop screen is off or the
00:37:09 ◼ ► lid is closed, it sure would be nice if they had built that in, and they didn't again. So if you
00:37:22 ◼ ► Apple is doing market segmentation. Apple is saying, "If you are a sophisticated enough user
00:37:27 ◼ ► to require two external displays attached to your laptop, you should buy a pro chip." That's it.
00:37:35 ◼ ► That's what they're saying. We're not going to make it easy for you to buy a thousand dollar
00:37:41 ◼ ► laptop and have two external displays because you are a sophisticated enough user that you
00:37:45 ◼ ► should be giving us more money. That's what they're saying. Again, I don't hate that. I
00:37:51 ◼ ► understand it. That's business. What I hate is that they've made it so that even if the laptop
00:37:56 ◼ ► is closed, it can't drive two. That seems silly. And it's even sillier on the new, which we'll get
00:38:02 ◼ ► to in a little bit, the new 14-inch MacBook Pro base model, which still has an HDMI port on it,
00:38:09 ◼ ► but can still only drive one external display, not two. It's a little bit silly. I wish they
00:38:15 ◼ ► had done this. Maybe next time, but I wouldn't hold out too much hope because I feel like what
00:38:20 ◼ ► Apple's doing here is, and we can say artificially, but it's business. This is it. Apple has decided
00:38:25 ◼ ► to segment their products in this way. And I know that Intel is doing something different,
00:38:29 ◼ ► but until Apple feels like, "Oh no, we're losing MacBook Air sales to Intel or Qualcomm-based
00:38:38 ◼ ► laptops because so many people want to do two external displays," that's never going to happen.
00:38:44 ◼ ► I think they'll just keep doing it. - I mean, this is one of the things where I think it would
00:38:48 ◼ ► be nice if they did it for the people that want it, but I do agree with, like, I feel like this is
00:38:54 ◼ ► pretty niche for people that want this particular computer. Like, if you do want to do this that
00:39:02 ◼ ► badly, there are many computers that you can buy or can be provided that will do it. And
00:39:07 ◼ ► if it's that important for your work and your work is not providing it, then they need to change what
00:39:12 ◼ ► they're providing you. You know what I feel like? Why can't a MacBook Pro drive 15 displays?
00:39:18 ◼ ► Like, why not, right? - I feel for somebody who just wants a MacBook Air but also wants to run
00:39:23 ◼ ► three displays. But like, David in our chat just said, "It's a serious choice of Apple's at this
00:39:28 ◼ ► point. Three displays is pro feature and then a smiley that's not smiling." And I think the
00:39:34 ◼ ► implication that David is making there is, "Come on, Apple." I would say, if you're running three
00:39:39 ◼ ► displays, you're a pro user. Three displays is an uncommon, very, very, very uncommon use case.
00:39:48 ◼ ► And I know it's your use case, so 100% of you personally are using it that way. - And you may 100%
00:39:54 ◼ ► not want to buy the Pro machine, but this is kind of just the way it rolls. - But look, if Apple knew
00:39:59 ◼ ► that MacBook Airs were not being sold because everybody wants to hook them up to two external
00:40:04 ◼ ► displays, they would have changed it. But it's just not true. It's just not true. And it is like
00:40:09 ◼ ► saying, "Well, I want more ports. I want the newest Thunderbolt. I want the..." They're artificially
00:40:17 ◼ ► withholding the HDR, that XDR screen from the MacBook Air. It's like, they're not artificially
00:40:22 ◼ ► withholding it. It costs a lot of money. MacBook Air has a very specific price point. And if you
00:40:29 ◼ ► want the nicer thing, you got to pay more money for it. That's business. So there's a business
00:40:35 ◼ ► decision going on here. I think it's amplified by the fact that Intel made everybody believe that
00:40:40 ◼ ► that was a table stakes feature. And so it was in Apple's laptops when they were on Intel.
00:40:45 ◼ ► Apple clearly doesn't think it is. And it's saving... I will also say this. Apple is saving
00:40:50 ◼ ► money in the design of the low-end chip by not having it be capable of more external displays.
00:40:56 ◼ ► It's saving money. It is cutting corners there because that is, and I know it's not fun to hear
00:41:00 ◼ ► this, the budget chip. That's what it is. It's a budget chip. I know it's Apple, so budget is
00:41:05 ◼ ► bigger than it would be for other computer makers, but still it is their low-end model and it's
00:41:11 ◼ ► differentiated in that way. Like I said, I still think they should at the very least support two
00:41:16 ◼ ► displays in lid closed mode. I don't think that's too weird, but I understand it. - I think in lid
00:41:22 ◼ ► closed mode for sure. I agree with that. I think that that just makes logical sense to me.
00:41:31 ◼ ► "Oh, I think this chip does this, this chip does that." No, it's actually very complicated.
00:41:35 ◼ ► M3 supports one external display. That means two total displays. M3 Pro is two external displays
00:41:45 ◼ ► in some resolutions and one external display in other resolutions, but that can mean a total of
00:41:50 ◼ ► three total displays. The M3 Max can support four external displays and then again, a bunch of
00:41:59 ◼ ► different caveats for if different resolutions will be different amounts, but that means the
00:42:09 ◼ ► because you can have the laptop open. Very confusing, but would be better if that M3 could do
00:42:16 ◼ ► two always. They always could be open or closed, all of them, and that either grants you the
00:42:23 ◼ ► ability to use it open or to use it closed and have a display take its place. That would be good
00:42:29 ◼ ► if they did that. - I get people saying, "Well, but I wish that the thing that I bought for less
00:42:33 ◼ ► did more." I get it, and I totally do get it, but the fact is that also I have to say, this is Apple
00:42:42 ◼ ► segmenting their market. There's talk in our Discord now about, "In corporate life, two
00:42:48 ◼ ► mediocre displays is a very common thing." It's like, "Okay, two mediocre displays hooked up to a
00:42:54 ◼ ► Mac is a very common thing." Well, if that's true, I think in corporate life, I think what Apple would
00:42:59 ◼ ► probably say is, "Hey, corporation, if that's your setup, you need to give us more money. If that's
00:43:06 ◼ ► the way you're doing it, give us more money." Because in the end, that's what they're saying is,
00:43:14 ◼ ► I get your wish, but I'm also trying to understand what Apple's doing here, which is saying, "No,
00:43:20 ◼ ► pay us." Look, we talk about rounding up and then going up higher with Apple stuff. Apple makes a
00:43:28 ◼ ► lot of money, and it has huge profit margins, and this is one of the reasons why. They're going to
00:43:35 ◼ ► differentiate their products, and the cheapest product is not going to be the most capable.
00:43:39 ◼ ► It's just not. I want to run through some stats, some statistics for you, if you don't mind,
00:43:47 ◼ ► about the different chips. All right, so the M3 still has an eight-core CPU, which is the same as
00:43:54 ◼ ► the M2. It has four performance, four efficiency. This is the same. Maximum of 10 GPU cores and a
00:44:01 ◼ ► maximum of 24 gigabytes of RAM. The M3 Pro still has a 12-core CPU, but it is now six performance,
00:44:11 ◼ ► six efficiency, shifting from eight and four in the M2. It has a maximum of 18 GPU cores,
00:44:18 ◼ ► which is down one, and a maximum of 36 gigabytes of RAM, up from 32 gigabytes of RAM. I've been
00:44:29 ◼ ► seeing a lot of people very upset about that number, 36, that it doesn't make sense to them,
00:44:34 ◼ ► which is interesting. The M3 Max has a 16-core CPU that is 12 performance, four efficiency,
00:44:42 ◼ ► up from eight and four. The maximum GPU spec is 40 cores, up from 38. The maximum RAM is 128
00:44:49 ◼ ► gigabytes, up from 96 gigabytes. It's just a bunch of numbers. - Thank you for the numbers.
00:44:59 ◼ ► but this is a podcast, and so you get a verbal chart. - It's a verbal chart. You gotta draw it
00:45:04 ◼ ► in your brain. - It is. So here's what's going on. So M3, low-end, didn't change it. It's on the new
00:45:11 ◼ ► architecture, but pretty much the same idea, four performance, four efficiency. Now, we should note,
00:45:16 ◼ ► and Apple has talked about this, it's true, Apple's efficiency cores are pretty fast. The idea here
00:45:21 ◼ ► is that you're doing your day-to-day life, you may never even need the performance cores until you
00:45:25 ◼ ► really tax your computer, and the efficiency cores are super power efficient. So they're the ones
00:45:30 ◼ ► that give you the great battery life. But it's a very familiar setup. It's pretty much the M2.
00:45:36 ◼ ► We talked about the displays and all of that. They made the decision to really not do a lot
00:45:42 ◼ ► to the base model. They're kinda keeping it where it is, just on this new three-nanometer process,
00:45:48 ◼ ► and it's the new cores, and it's the new neural engine, and it's faster in all those ways,
00:45:51 ◼ ► according to Apple. But it's not a rethink of what an M3 should be. It is what we know.
00:46:00 ◼ ► The max is, to go jump up to the max, the max is really interesting because they are putting their,
00:46:11 ◼ ► Eight performance cores? How about 12?" That's what they did. The same number of efficiencies,
00:46:18 ◼ ► four. But they went from eight to 12. So huge CPU boost there. This is why it's gonna be so
00:46:24 ◼ ► much faster than an M1 max. It is my poor little M1 max in my Mac Studio. They increased the GPU
00:46:30 ◼ ► cores a little bit. They increased the max RAM, which is gonna make a lot of people happy to go
00:46:33 ◼ ► 128. They did a bunch of stuff. And as we know, the GPU cores are also, they should all be a lot
00:46:39 ◼ ► faster, and so that's gonna be a big boost. Now, also keep in mind, that's the maximum of the max
00:46:45 ◼ ► chip. You have to pay a lot of money to get up there. There are going to be other configurations
00:46:50 ◼ ► with fewer cores on GPU and CPU. And of course, you have to pay a lot of money for that much RAM.
00:46:56 ◼ ► That's Apple. But the edges of high performance are there, and they're further out than they used
00:47:03 ◼ ► to be, especially those 12 performance cores. That's gonna be like a CPU monster. Okay.
00:47:08 ◼ ► This leaves us with the Pro chip. And I think, and I knew, we've learned a little bit more since
00:47:15 ◼ ► my briefing, 'cause my briefing, I get what Apple gives me, but I don't get anything else. I don't
00:47:20 ◼ ► have the website. I'm not digging through all the details. I have the press release, and I have what
00:47:23 ◼ ► they told me. But even with that, I started to have an inkling while I was talking to them that
00:47:30 ◼ ► something's going on with the M3 Pro. The M3 Pro used to feel like a baby brother of the M3,
00:47:39 ◼ ► or the M2 Pro and the M1 Pro felt like they were lesser maxes. And this feels like it is detached
00:47:49 ◼ ► entirely from the max and is drifting toward the M3, in the sense that I think Apple is doing some
00:47:57 ◼ ► more, they're more confident with Apple Silicon. They're doing more chip differentiation. And the
00:48:03 ◼ ► M3 Max, and the way they position it in their marketing, and if you pay attention to that event,
00:48:16 ◼ ► And they're coming up with new ways of describing the kind of work that goes into it, medical
00:48:22 ◼ ► imaging and all this stuff. And they're like, when you speak, hear Apple speak in the context
00:48:27 ◼ ► of the M3 Max, they are talking about the most demanding users. I think they're doing that for
00:48:37 ◼ ► but that's gonna be a really expensive chip. And they anticipate that most people are gonna use
00:48:41 ◼ ► the Pro chip or the base chip, but those are the ones that are gonna get used, is the Pro and the
00:48:47 ◼ ► base chip, not the Max. And so what have they done with the Pro? It feels to me like what they've
00:48:54 ◼ ► done with the Pro is make it more affordable or more profitable or some combination thereof.
00:49:04 ◼ ► It feels like it's not, the foot is not on the floor with the Pro. The Pro is sort of like,
00:49:12 ◼ ► it's not even hanging where it was. It's sort of like drifting back a little bit away from the Max
00:49:18 ◼ ► toward the M3. And the best example of this is it only has six performance cores instead of eight,
00:49:36 ◼ ► all else being equal, it would be a slower chip. I'm sure it's gonna not be because it's M3,
00:49:58 ◼ ► The GPU core is a weird one, 19, 18, whatever. Max RAM is up, that's good. The memory bandwidth
00:50:07 ◼ ► is down, which is really interesting. Also, by the way, the Max 36 gigs of RAM is divisible by three.
00:50:15 ◼ ► Apparently there are three RAM banks instead of two. So it's 12, 12, 12, and we're used to having
00:50:20 ◼ ► two, but now it's three. So your math changes. Anyway, I am fascinated by the M3 Pro because
00:50:26 ◼ ► it feels to me like what Apple is doing is like trying to position it in a way where they've got a
00:50:42 ◼ ► again, so it can hit a price point. And you can say, is that to make it cheaper or is that to
00:50:49 ◼ ► make Apple have a bigger profit margin? My guess is it's a little of both, which is why I would say
00:50:53 ◼ ► to hit a price point. They think this is also probably, this one is gonna ship in way more
00:51:00 ◼ ► volume than the Max. And so there's probably something about that too, that this is a thing
00:51:06 ◼ ► they can make in volume, maybe in the Max is a little more special and specialized and expensive.
00:51:12 ◼ ► So I just think it's fascinating. I don't think it's necessarily fundamentally good or bad,
00:51:16 ◼ ► but now before I used to think of that Apple had a low-end chip and some different flavors of high-end
00:51:24 ◼ ► chip. And now I think Apple has a low chip, a mid-range chip, and a high-end chip. And that is
00:51:30 ◼ ► because the pro chip is not, to me, it doesn't feel like it did before. And I wonder if this goes back
00:51:37 ◼ ► to what we were talking about a minute ago with the external displays, which is like, we can cast
00:51:42 ◼ ► our eye on these things as much as we like and try and understand what they are, who they're meant
00:51:47 ◼ ► for, what they do, what the decisions are. Apple does have way more data and information than we
00:51:52 ◼ ► could ever imagine. This may be that we want to create the chip that most people buying this
00:52:02 ◼ ► product maybe are going to buy. And we think that it should be more balanced. That they're like,
00:52:09 ◼ ► most people are doing most of their work on the MacBook Pro, which I reckon is the case
00:52:13 ◼ ► on the pro chips, right? Like you were saying, they are using the efficiency cores for 90%
00:52:25 ◼ ► I would come at this as also as a different level, which is they know what people are buying.
00:52:28 ◼ ► And they look at this and they think, okay, think of it this way. Let's say, and I'm just making
00:52:34 ◼ ► this up, but let's say that the M2 Pro chip costs 10 QWATUs, and the M2 Max chip costs 15 QWATUs
00:52:50 ◼ ► to manufacture. And they look at it and they say, oh my God, everybody buys the M2 Pro chip,
00:52:55 ◼ ► but we have these customers who desperately want maximum performance and we have to have a high-end
00:53:00 ◼ ► chip for them. And it's the basis of the ultra, which is in our Mac Pro. And we have to have the
00:53:05 ◼ ► high-end chip for them. So we can't skimp on our high-end chip, but most people don't want the
00:53:11 ◼ ► high-end chip. They want this pro. And then you end up with a decision that looks like is what
00:53:15 ◼ ► they made here, which is, okay, here's what we're gonna do. The M3 Max is gonna cost 20 QWATUs.
00:53:21 ◼ ► And the M3 Pro, we're gonna keep it 10 or we're gonna make it eight or seven. And then we're gonna
00:53:29 ◼ ► keep our prices the same and we're gonna make more money on those. But whatever it is, sorry,
00:53:33 ◼ ► it's QWATUs, it's a "Star Trek" thing. Anyway. - I will say, you know how we were kind of poking
00:53:38 ◼ ► fun at me earlier for the amount of numbers that I said? - Yeah. - You made that so much more
00:53:43 ◼ ► complicated for me. - I just did the QWATUs. - But instead of just saying dollars. - Well,
00:53:48 ◼ ► but it doesn't 10 dollars. It doesn't cost 10 dollars. - Yeah, but it also is 10 QWATUs, Jason.
00:53:52 ◼ ► I can confirm that to you as well. - You don't know the QWATU dollar exchange rate, Mike. Fight me.
00:53:55 ◼ ► So this is my point is Apple's in a position where I think they analyze the sales of their products
00:54:02 ◼ ► in these days of Apple Silicon and say, "Ah, this is what we need to do." We need to take the Max
00:54:06 ◼ ► chip and continue to make it super awesome. And it's gonna be expensive, but the people who want
00:54:10 ◼ ► it are gonna pay for it. But this Pro chip, right? Like it's very popular, but they don't
00:54:17 ◼ ► really need all the stuff that's in the Max. So we gotta, let's back it off a little bit,
00:54:23 ◼ ► because that will allow us to either hold the prices the same or whatever, maintain our margins,
00:54:30 ◼ ► make more of them, whatever it is. And that seems to be what's going on here. I just think it's
00:54:34 ◼ ► really interesting. 'Cause like I said, my impression of the first couple of generations
00:54:37 ◼ ► was more that the Pro was just sort of a lesser Max. And that is not what's happening now. Like
00:54:42 ◼ ► the Pro is a mid range chip that I think is powerful enough for most Pros to be very happy
00:54:48 ◼ ► with it. And the Max is becoming like, you gotta be the most, like they said, the most demanding
00:54:54 ◼ ► users will pay up and get the Max. And then you're not buying a $2,000 laptop, right? Then you're
00:54:59 ◼ ► buying a $4,000 laptop. And that's the difference. We say that these are MacBook Pros and they're all
00:55:04 ◼ ► the same. But the truth is like the $2,000 laptop is a Pro chip. When you get to the Max chip,
00:55:13 ◼ ► you are now a three or $4,000 laptop. It's a very different proposition that the people for whom
00:55:19 ◼ ► it's worth spending that extra money, they'll do it. But a lot of people, most people will be like,
00:55:24 ◼ ► you know, that Pro chip is just fine. And in a laptop, like you said, more efficiency cores,
00:55:35 ◼ ► - Some real time follow up Apple has now made public again, the behind the scenes shot on iPhone
00:55:41 ◼ ► video. So that'll be in the show notes. I will also now just note if you were one of the helpful
00:55:52 ◼ ► I would like to say thank you. And now you know why I didn't say thank you to you when you sent
00:55:58 ◼ ► it to me. 'Cause I'm just convinced that people will be sending it to us having heard the first
00:56:08 ◼ ► and we've got it in and I've got it in my watch later queue on YouTube now. I'm looking forward
00:56:12 ◼ ► to watching it later on. This episode is brought to you by Delete Me. Everyone wants to keep their
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00:58:56 ◼ ► I know now that we've done the chips, we can now do... This is very Apple, right? It's like,
00:59:03 ◼ ► So we did get the same year revision of the 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pro, right? They were revised to
00:59:09 ◼ ► the M2 in January, and then in October, here's the M3 versions. So they're late. I mean, more and more
00:59:17 ◼ ► now it's very clear, because we thought that at the time that they were late, they were supposed
00:59:20 ◼ ► to be in the fall and they didn't come until January. January, an unusual time for Apple to
00:59:24 ◼ ► release products, by the way. Well, here we are. They seem to be on an annual schedule.
00:59:30 ◼ ► Yeah, the M1s were in October, right? We spoke about this on last... I think on the draft,
00:59:35 ◼ ► or maybe in last week's episode. The original M1 were in October, and then this was January,
00:59:40 ◼ ► and then we're back to October again, which would suggest that ideally next October will be the next
00:59:45 ◼ ► time. "Hey, maybe they'll do it in January, Jason." Well, it's if they have got an M4, but in this
00:59:51 ◼ ► case, they didn't get that... I think clearly the M2 Pro chip wasn't ready until January, and now
00:59:55 ◼ ► here we are with the M3 Pro chip. So that generation got laggy at the very least. So here we are,
01:00:01 ◼ ► in the same calendar year, and they are largely the same, right? Like there are some changes
01:00:09 ◼ ► with the one particular thing that we're going to talk about, about the low-end model, but they
01:00:15 ◼ ► are basically... They already redesigned them. That display, the curved edges, the whole thing,
01:00:21 ◼ ► they are what you think they are with a new chip in them. And as Apple said, they have a new color
01:00:29 ◼ ► for Pros that is unmistakably Pro, and they were starting to show it off, and I'm like, "Oh, it
01:00:34 ◼ ► will be like the titanium color, right?" Because that's what makes it like unmistakably Pro,
01:00:40 ◼ ► because we just did all of this, right, with the iPhone. No, it's space black. Space black.
01:00:47 ◼ ► Space black. A quote from jasonsnile6colors.com, "A new color that features a new anodization
01:00:53 ◼ ► seal process designed to reduce the visibility of fingerprints. I got my greasy monkey paws on
01:00:58 ◼ ► a space black laptop and can report that Apple's as good as its word in the sense that it seems
01:01:04 ◼ ► generally more resistant to fingerprints than other smudges. But I don't want to exaggerate
01:01:08 ◼ ► this feature. You can still see fingerprints. They just aren't as prominent. This is a progressive
01:01:12 ◼ ► improvement of something like a midnight M2 MacBook Air, but it's not a cure-all, and space black is
01:01:18 ◼ ► not actually as black as space. It's dark gray." Yeah, so a lot of asterisk here. I'll point out,
01:01:23 ◼ ► by the way, it wasn't just my greasy monkey paws. It was just a little behind-the-scenes thing.
01:01:30 ◼ ► pawed it as much as we could. And I'd love to say, "Oh, I pawed that thing, and you couldn't
01:01:38 ◼ ► see the fingerprints." You could see fingerprints on it. They were less visible, and it was harder
01:01:42 ◼ ► to leave them. My understanding is that they've done something chemical. Any sealing process of
01:01:47 ◼ ► the anodization that is creating something that is more repellent to liquids, including oil,
01:01:51 ◼ ► and the idea there is it's harder for things to stick, which means it's probably also easier
01:01:57 ◼ ► for you to wipe it off. But do not, again, I just have to say it, and Apple's not claiming that it
01:02:03 ◼ ► doesn't do fingerprints. Apple is claiming it is more resistant to fingerprints. It's a little bit
01:02:07 ◼ ► like how Apple gradually made iPhone and iPad screens more glare-resistant over time. It's not
01:02:15 ◼ ► like you can hold it with the sun behind you and not have a glare. There's still a glare there.
01:02:19 ◼ ► It's just less than it was. That is what is going on here. It's less fingerprinty. I love that
01:02:23 ◼ ► they're trying this, and I think it will be less fingerprinty. But just don't get your hopes up.
01:02:29 ◼ ► What I'm really saying is when they come out next week and there's that story that's like, "Gasp! I
01:02:35 ◼ ► can see fingerprints!" Of course you can see fingerprints. That's not the point. The point is
01:02:41 ◼ ► they tried to make some chemical changes to the anodization process to reduce fingerprints,
01:02:46 ◼ ► and I think they have reduced it, but they're still there. Then as for the color, and I know
01:02:51 ◼ ► it's upgrade. We love talking about color here. I saw so many people excited last night when this
01:02:57 ◼ ► event came out saying, "Oh, black MacBook! Blackbook! Yay! It's very exciting! I love it!
01:03:02 ◼ ► We're gonna get it!" You know what? You do you, but as somebody who has seen it in person,
01:03:18 ◼ ► closest thing to a black laptop Apple has made in years. This is not that close. It is darker than
01:03:24 ◼ ► space gray on the last generation or the low-end laptops. It's darker than that one, but it's still
01:03:38 ◼ ► Looking at the images on Apple's website, it doesn't look black anyway. You can tell me if
01:03:44 ◼ ► it looks like this, but I feel like if you just look, you can see it's dark gray. It seems pretty
01:03:48 ◼ ► obvious to me. Again, space black sends the message that it's black, and I think people
01:03:54 ◼ ► got a little too excited about it. I just want to put that warning out there. If you're expecting
01:03:59 ◼ ► this to be a black laptop, it's not. It is just a darker space gray, essentially. It is space grayer,
01:04:06 ◼ ► and that's okay, especially if you like your laptop, the darker the better. What could be more
01:04:12 ◼ ► pro than darker gray? I guess that says it all about Apple and color, but here we are. So just
01:04:18 ◼ ► be aware. Be aware. And if you want the darkest laptop possible, buy the MacBook Air in midnight,
01:04:25 ◼ ► because it's still the darkest laptop Apple makes. But more fingerprinty though, for sure.
01:04:30 ◼ ► For sure. I would just like to take this brief aside here to just ask, can we just put a moratorium
01:04:36 ◼ ► on Blackbook? Can we just stop that? Stop it. Can everyone just stop that? Just stop it. That's all
01:04:43 ◼ ► I want to say. I don't like the way it sounds. It's weird. Just stop it. Just stop it. It's a
01:04:50 ◼ ► black MacBook. That's what it is. We don't need to do that. That's my brief aside. That's that.
01:04:58 ◼ ► We have a new 14-inch MacBook Pro that replaces the 13-inch MacBook Pro. So the touch bar is gone,
01:05:05 ◼ ► by replacing that laptop completely. I wish I had one of those, you know, the New Year's like,
01:05:11 ◼ ► "Doo doo!" to celebrate the death of the 13-inch with touch bar. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. You
01:05:20 ◼ ► notice that that wasn't in the press release. I had to ask. I said, "Is the 13-inch gone?" And
01:05:24 ◼ ► they're like, "Yeah, it's gone. It's gone." Gone-er. So this now means that there was a $300
01:05:30 ◼ ► more expensive starting point for the MacBook Pro. So this puts further distance between it and the
01:05:38 ◼ ► MacBook Air. And I do feel like there is a warrant in its price increase because it has everything
01:05:46 ◼ ► that a 14-inch MacBook Pro has, right? Well, let me just, it's like everything in quotes, right?
01:05:53 ◼ ► Like it has the ports, it has the design, and it has... All right, go on then. If you're going to
01:05:59 ◼ ► keep doing that, just tell me why I'm wrong. Sorry. Well, yesterday I thought that it had
01:06:04 ◼ ► everything. It doesn't have everything, but it does have the most important feature of the MacBook Pro,
01:06:09 ◼ ► which is the screen. Yeah. Liquid Recna XDR ProMotion display is amazing. It's the best
01:06:16 ◼ ► screen Apple makes, and you can get it for not $2,000 now, for $1,600. It doesn't have all the
01:06:25 ◼ ► ports because it's got an M3 chip, and so it's missing a USB port. Oh, okay. On the... Dan Safert
01:06:33 ◼ ► from The Verge noticed this today, on the other side. So it only has the one side. So it's eight
01:06:38 ◼ ► gigs of RAM, which is not great, but again, you're just... It is the cheapest they've made this thing
01:06:43 ◼ ► with the great screen and all of that. And because it's an M3, it only supports the one external
01:06:47 ◼ ► display, and it doesn't have that extra port on the left side. Right. So it... Because... And this is
01:06:56 ◼ ► the same reason, right? Which is the M3 chip, like the M2 and the M1, have a limited number of lanes
01:07:03 ◼ ► for Thunderbolt and USB and for display. And that's why it doesn't do the external displays,
01:07:09 ◼ ► and it's why it's limited in the number of ports that it can have, just like the M1 and the M2. As
01:07:13 ◼ ► a result, while it's still a 14-inch MacBook Pro, it is a big asterisk because it doesn't even have
01:07:20 ◼ ► the same port configuration. It's slightly different. That all said... I wouldn't call that
01:07:25 ◼ ► a big asterisk. Like... Okay, it's a little asterisk. I mean... It's one USB-C port less.
01:07:32 ◼ ► When the ports change, it's a little bit different. But like, again, I just want to... I want to
01:07:36 ◼ ► disclaim all of that, but I want to say I agree with you. It is a real MacBook Pro because it's
01:07:43 ◼ ► got the most important stuff. Yes. Especially the screen, which I think is the most... And MagSafe.
01:07:50 ◼ ► And MagSafe, which the 13-inch MacBook Pro also didn't have, and not a touch bar, which is a very
01:07:56 ◼ ► important feature, I think, for a lot of people. Because if you would have told me that they were
01:07:59 ◼ ► going to do this, I would have assumed they would have changed the screen. Right? That it would not
01:08:04 ◼ ► have had the ProMotion, Liquid Retina, XS, the Oscar. That was our shower thought, right? Was
01:08:09 ◼ ► that it would be a 13-inch with a cheap screen, but it would look more like the 14-inch. And
01:08:13 ◼ ► they... Look, very clearly, first off, the 14-inch MacBook Pro has been out for a couple of years now,
01:08:27 ◼ ► manufacture has come down. So that lets Apple lower the price a little bit. And then they put
01:08:32 ◼ ► the cheaper chip in it. And they made the decision that they could bring it down to $1,599, but what
01:08:42 ◼ ► they weren't going to do is pull out the screen. And I think that's the right decision. So it
01:08:45 ◼ ► doesn't have a lot of RAM, it's missing a port. It's got the lesser chip in it. But you know what?
01:08:51 ◼ ► It's a MacBook Pro with an M3 chip, which will still be pretty fast for a lot of people, at a
01:08:57 ◼ ► much lower starting price. And it has that screen that is amazing. And I love this move on their
01:09:04 ◼ ► part because, first off, it's access to the modern MacBook Pro for under two grand, right? So it's
01:09:12 ◼ ► $1,599 you can get into a modern MacBook Pro. Up to now, it's been two grand to get into that. So
01:09:18 ◼ ► that's great. You mentioned it's $300 more expensive than that 13-inch that they took off
01:09:24 ◼ ► the line. If I had to theorize about this, and I do, I have a podcast there. I think Apple doesn't
01:09:35 ◼ ► expect all of those 13-inch MacBook Pro buyers, or doesn't want all those 13-inch MacBook Pro buyers
01:09:40 ◼ ► to buy the 14-inch. I think they would like as many of them as possible to buy the 14-inch,
01:09:50 ◼ ► It's great. But I had to guess, I would say they expect to maybe have that, keep in mind, second
01:09:58 ◼ ► best-selling Apple laptop after the 13-inch MacBook Air. Where do all those people go? I think
01:10:03 ◼ ► a bunch of them go to the 14-inch at $1,599, which while it is lesser in so many ways that we've
01:10:08 ◼ ► detailed, is such a better computer than that 13-inch was. Plus it's $300 in Apple's pocket.
01:10:15 ◼ ► And the rest of them, I think they hope they go to the 15 and the 13-inch Airs, especially that
01:10:20 ◼ ► 15. And if they can sell some people on like, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, you just get the MacBook
01:10:24 ◼ ► Air." I think they would be very happy with that. Because I think the truth is that most of the
01:10:29 ◼ ► people who are buying that 13-inch MacBook Pro would have been much better off with a MacBook Air.
01:10:33 ◼ ► But we'll see, because sometimes Apple makes these decisions and it turns out that they don't know
01:10:38 ◼ ► the market and the market really resists them. And they might still have a problem here, but
01:10:42 ◼ ► they must feel like going up to 2,000 was a bridge too far, which is why they had that cheaper MacBook
01:10:49 ◼ ► Pro. They must feel like $1,599 is not too far. And if they lose some people, they've now got not just
01:10:59 ◼ ► the 13, but that 15-inch Air, which I think is a very appealing computer. And it's got a pretty
01:11:05 ◼ ► good price too. So there's lots of choices now. You can get the 15 Air, you can get the 14 Pro,
01:11:15 ◼ ► but they're all good. And we'll have to see how it works. So even though this is very limited,
01:11:21 ◼ ► and I think there are a lot of nerds who are like MacBook Pro snobs who are gonna be like,
01:11:24 ◼ ► "This is not..." It's like, yeah, I know. I know it's not a MacBook Pro in certain ways,
01:11:32 ◼ ► but the old one wasn't either. This one's MacBook Pro in way more ways than the old one was while
01:11:38 ◼ ► still being under $2,000. So I think it's a great move on their part, even though it does mean that
01:11:44 ◼ ► there's basically a decontented 14-inch MacBook Pro that's available. Don't worry, MacBook Pro snobs,
01:11:52 ◼ ► they still make all of your computers too. They're all still available up for $2,000 and more.
01:11:58 ◼ ► And obviously, tech podcasters, we love nothing more than, Apple tech podcasts especially,
01:12:13 ◼ ► I don't believe in the four quadrant idea. I think that that idea has long since passed,
01:12:20 ◼ ► was good for then, but not for now. I just like there to be, I can look at a product page
01:12:25 ◼ ► and I can see all the products and they make sense to me. And when I look at the all Mac,
01:12:39 ◼ ► this makes sense to me that we have a 13-inch MacBook Air and we have a 15-inch MacBook Air
01:12:45 ◼ ► and we have a 14-inch MacBook Pro and we have a 16-inch MacBook Pro, and you can configure them
01:12:50 ◼ ► within themselves, but those four laptops, just it makes sense." And the old MacBook Pro just made
01:13:00 ◼ ► Yeah, it was from another era. One other note that I wanted to mention is color because the low end
01:13:10 ◼ ► MacBook Pro 14, the M3 MacBook Pro 14 doesn't come in space black. Oh, casp! It comes in silver and
01:13:20 ◼ ► the old space gray. I guess they had some old space gray laying around and if you want a pro,
01:13:25 ◼ ► the most pro color, you gotta spend two grand. - So basically it's like you're a fake pro, right?
01:13:37 ◼ ► you're telling on yourself, I guess, or something. - It also, that 14-inch MacBook Pro,
01:13:56 ◼ ► - I would love to see more at the same time. I think there's an argument to be made that
01:14:26 ◼ ► Apple's having us talk about $1,600 and the truth is, $1,599, whatever, they know that,
01:14:39 ◼ ► The people who are just buying the base model probably don't care about the eight gigs of RAM
01:14:57 ◼ ► And they'd say, oh, it's eight gigs of RAM. And some percentage of buyers will be like,
01:15:04 ◼ ► because somebody who says great, whatever probably doesn't really need more RAM, honestly.
01:15:11 ◼ ► Do you really need more RAM? Some people do, but lots of people don't. And the people who do care
01:15:15 ◼ ► will give Apple more money at a great profit margin for Apple to upgrade the RAM. And now
01:15:21 ◼ ► they're not buying a $1,600 computer anymore. Like the goal of that base is to just make that
01:15:32 ◼ ► But I do think that computer nerds overestimate regular people's use of their computers.
01:15:40 ◼ ► But I feel for all the corporate people who will get the $1,599 MacBook Pro given to them
01:15:46 ◼ ► and they'll struggle with the eight gigs of RAM and they'll be sad. I do feel for them.
01:16:03 ◼ ► keynote, it didn't surprise me. But then when I looked it up afterwards, was surprised that the
01:16:08 ◼ ► base 14 of M3 also gets 22 hours of battery life, which I think is like the perfect feature for that
01:16:14 ◼ ► laptop. Because what they're saying is it's like on video and this is like going back to like who
01:16:22 ◼ ► buy, who buys that laptop. And I think it's like a lot of people that they want to buy the pro
01:16:26 ◼ ► laptop. So they get the cheapest pro laptop and they're just using it for their life, right?
01:16:32 ◼ ► They're not using it to make videos and they're not using it to make music. They're like,
01:16:37 ◼ ► it's their laptop. So they're watching TV shows on it and they're doing the web browsing,
01:16:41 ◼ ► which is like a perfectly acceptable use of this computer. And now you get 22 hours of battery
01:16:46 ◼ ► life to do it. You can use it for longer than you can stay awake, which is just kind of awesome.
01:16:59 ◼ ► The video codec that's on like, it's the not H264. That makes a difference in battery life because
01:17:08 ◼ ► they do a lot of battery life. It's like video streaming, AV1, thank you, Joe Steele. In the,
01:17:13 ◼ ► right? Like one of the reasons that they can have long battery life for a lot of stuff is that the
01:17:19 ◼ ► chips are like, you're not using software. The hardware is doing the decoding of video formats.
01:17:25 ◼ ► And that was a video format that they had to software decode and now they don't. And so
01:17:30 ◼ ► if you've got like Netflix movies and stuff, those all hardware decode now. So you're going
01:17:36 ◼ ► to actually get more battery life for stuff like that. That's how you can end up with those long
01:17:39 ◼ ► battery life things. - I always like it when Apple decides to do something that actually benefits
01:17:45 ◼ ► what people are doing rather than trying to get everybody to do the thing that they want them to
01:17:49 ◼ ► do. - Right, right. I mean, it's not their codec and they don't love it, but they realize that
01:17:55 ◼ ► people are streaming it. So they built it into their chip. So now that it benefits them. My
01:18:01 ◼ ► favorite little bit of marketing in this whole thing is when they said that the battery life on
01:18:09 ◼ ► the MacBook Pro compared, or let me say the MacBook Pro compared to the last Intel MacBook Pro.
01:18:18 ◼ ► They said, it's got 11 hours more battery life and it's 11 times faster. And that made me laugh.
01:18:24 ◼ ► I thought that was pretty good. Also, I'll use this moment to say, I know that there are a lot
01:18:31 ◼ ► of people out there who are like, come on, why are they going to compare it to Intel? I roll my eyes
01:18:35 ◼ ► out a little bit too. I had the thought of like, at some point you got to stop comparing it to Intel.
01:18:39 ◼ ► But I will say, I get the impression that Apple is well aware that some of their products
01:18:48 ◼ ► have very long buying cycles. And I know somebody who is only now going to upgrade to Apple Silicon
01:19:02 ◼ ► from an Intel MacBook Pro. Like I know somebody who's a friend of mine, who's like that. I know
01:19:09 ◼ ► people who have old Intel iMacs. Those buying cycles are often five years, six years, seven
01:19:17 ◼ ► years. And so Apple, yes, it makes a big difference to compare it to an old Intel Mac. But I understand
01:19:27 ◼ ► why they're doing it. Is they feel like there still is a big audience out there that they can
01:19:31 ◼ ► speak to that says, hey, you can really get a better computer if you upgrade. And maybe now is
01:19:37 ◼ ► the time. Hey, it's 11 times faster with 11 hours more battery life. Maybe it's finally time to let
01:19:42 ◼ ► go of that late model Intel MacBook. There is a just an obscene amount of people in the Discord
01:19:53 ◼ ► Proving the point. Oh my God. I have multiple friends who have an Intel MacBook Pro. Everybody's
01:19:59 ◼ ► using Intel MacBook Pros. So this is my point is, and this is like a sub note to the whole idea of
01:20:04 ◼ ► what do you compare it to and comparing like a review. Like I did my iPhone review and I wrote
01:20:08 ◼ ► about how it was different from the 14 and the 13 and the 12, right? Like, and the 11, not just
01:20:14 ◼ ► from the 14 because regular people don't go in cycles like that. So while it is very beneficial
01:20:20 ◼ ► to Apple to compare to old Intel processors. Hey Jason, this isn't even regular people. This is
01:20:24 ◼ ► listeners of this show. I know. All right. All right. But let's also keep in mind the listeners
01:20:28 ◼ ► of the show are in an elite category compared to the rest of the world. So it benefits Apple
01:20:37 ◼ ► But what they're speaking to is their install base and saying, please, you know, make the move to
01:20:44 ◼ ► Apple Silicon. You need to get off of Intel, get off of it now. And it's just, it's very easy for
01:20:51 ◼ ► us to poo poo and be like Intel, come on old news, comparing it to a computer from 2019. But that's
01:20:57 ◼ ► what they're doing is saying, we know we still have a lot of people using computers from the 2010s
01:21:07 ◼ ► and they don't all switch every two years or three years. Sometimes it's four or five or six or seven.
01:21:13 ◼ ► My family, we had an iMac for like seven years before we updated it. And it was like a 2011,
01:21:23 ◼ ► 2010 iMac. And when we had it for seven years, right? Like that's all like, again, just perspective,
01:21:34 ◼ ► but there's also a message to be sent to there saying, hey, if you're still hanging on to an
01:21:38 ◼ ► Intel MacBook Pro, you should know that the best one we ever made, this is 11 times faster with
01:21:45 ◼ ► essentially double the battery life. And that's why they do that. They're not just doing that to
01:21:51 ◼ ► boast. They're doing that because they're trying to reach people who are at toward the end of the
01:21:57 ◼ ► life of their Intel Mac, trying to induce them to make the move now. And I wonder how many more
01:22:03 ◼ ► versions of Mac OS will be made for Intel. I still think it's going to happen for a few years. I mean,
01:22:09 ◼ ► there's a lot of them out there and they want to keep them on security and all of that. I think so,
01:22:15 ◼ ► but I think the new features will be very few. One last thing on the MacBook Pro that I thought
01:22:22 ◼ ► was pretty cool is that they have increased the brightness of the display. So a standard definition,
01:22:51 ◼ ► XDR display and it does high dynamic range and it peak brightness. It blows your eyes out and
01:22:59 ◼ ► it's all great. But what they did do is most of the time you're not looking at HDR content,
01:23:04 ◼ ► you're looking at standard dynamic range content. And that can now get brighter by 30%.
01:23:18 ◼ ► these have brighter screens. Even though it's not technically true with HDR, most of us do not work
01:23:25 ◼ ► in HDR. We work in SDR and occasionally you open a photo and you're like, whoa, or a movie. You're
01:23:32 ◼ ► like, ah, it's so bright. Oh no. But most of the time not. So it's brighter and it matches the
01:23:40 ◼ ► Yeah, that's pretty cool. I like that. I like that feature. It's just like a nice little detail.
01:23:54 ◼ ► It's the same colors, same stand. So those late rumors that we saw of some kind of stand change,
01:24:09 ◼ ► And in doing this, it just gains a bunch of additional features. So the maximum RAM you
01:24:16 ◼ ► can put in the machine is now being increased to 24 gigabytes. It gets Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.
01:24:23 ◼ ► These are just things that come along with the chipset, but the previous version didn't have that.
01:24:36 ◼ ► make sense on the iMac because there wasn't an M2 iMac. So they can just say it's twice as fast.
01:24:57 ◼ ► And the same price and same everything else. So again, I think those Intel iMac mentions,
01:25:04 ◼ ► like I said before, are good because there are a lot of Intel iMacs still in use. And so they
01:25:09 ◼ ► just want to make it clear these are way faster. And the M1 iMac was still good, because the M1,
01:25:16 ◼ ► we keep saying this, it's a good chip. It's a real good chip for regular people. It's really good.
01:25:21 ◼ ► But it did need a refresh. It was time for the iMac to get some love, and I'm glad it got it.
01:25:26 ◼ ► But it already got its big redesign, so there's nothing new here at all. They didn't even,
01:25:54 ◼ ► there were those rumors about a different stand attachment. And I don't think this is true,
01:26:02 ◼ ► It was not a shower thought. It was actually a jog. It was a running thought. I was running.
01:26:13 ◼ ► I-M-A-X, right, because Apple doesn't recognize its own product name. But I wanted to get it to
01:26:18 ◼ ► you. And my thought was the one change I wanted on the iMac that they didn't do was, why don't
01:26:24 ◼ ► they make the iMac like the studio display and sell it with the base foot stand or a vase amount
01:26:33 ◼ ► option or an adjustable stand like the studio display? And they didn't do that. And I think
01:26:39 ◼ ► it's too bad because although they would probably charge way too much for that adjustable stand,
01:26:45 ◼ ► wouldn't it be nice if the iMac at least could be sold with an adjustable stand like the
01:26:50 ◼ ► pro display or a studio display? That would be nice. But they didn't do it. So much for that
01:26:54 ◼ ► jogging thought, running thought. But I just think that this is a product that like kind of
01:26:59 ◼ ► fits this, I think. It's done. I mean, the truth is they just redesigned it. It's great. That design
01:27:07 ◼ ► is going to last a long time, and they're going to just keep updating the chip every couple of years,
01:27:15 ◼ ► the best world's best selling all-in-one. I don't know how many all-in-ones there are out there,
01:27:19 ◼ ► but this is one. And it's the best one. And I saw somebody complaining like, well, Halloween,
01:27:25 ◼ ► but there was not even an orange Mac. I'm like, yes, there was. Orange iMac, still there.
01:27:30 ◼ ► It's good looking. You can still get it. But what it didn't bring was USB-C accessories.
01:27:36 ◼ ► You get in the box, you get your lightning cable, your braided lightning cable for your
01:27:40 ◼ ► lightning accessories. Color matched for your color match lightning accessories. That is the surprise.
01:27:45 ◼ ► Okay. They need to update them at some point. There's no doubt about it. They clearly didn't
01:27:52 ◼ ► bother this time. Maybe they weren't ready. Maybe they're on a longer track. Maybe they got a bunch
01:27:57 ◼ ► of them in the factory and they need to sell them out before they replace them. Lots of answers here.
01:28:03 ◼ ► Maybe they so complicated the supply chain with all the color matched items for the iMac
01:28:11 ◼ ► that they can't change the color of the iMac because they've got all these keyboards and
01:28:18 ◼ ► I'm going to say this is another one of those areas where tech podcasters and people who listen
01:28:25 ◼ ► to tech podcasts are more concerned with the neatness of Apple's product lineup than Apple is
01:28:37 ◼ ► I get the argument that like we're getting rid of lightning everywhere. Why is it not gone here? I
01:28:42 ◼ ► would like them to revise these products, change where the mouse charges, put USB-C on them. That
01:28:48 ◼ ► all said, these are not travel products that you take with you when you go on a trip and need to
01:28:56 ◼ ► charge. These are sitting on a table somewhere products. For me, the need for them to be updated
01:29:10 ◼ ► off of lightning is it just feels so much less. It's like, yeah, they need to do it. Do I think
01:29:17 ◼ ► they need to do it right now? Do I think it's embarrassing that they haven't done it yet? I
01:29:21 ◼ ► don't. They need to do it. They will do it at some point. I would have loved for them to do it now.
01:29:27 ◼ ► But again, does it kill me every day that I use a trackpad that's attached via lightning
01:29:34 ◼ ► or charged via lightning? It does not. It's fine. It's fine. I would like the keyboard to get
01:29:41 ◼ ► redesigned to have the inverted T, but they had a chance the last time and they didn't do it.
01:29:47 ◼ ► They may not care about that. I would love a Touch ID trackpad. I don't think they're going to make
01:29:52 ◼ ► one, but if they do, it's not now. I would love them to change the charger on the mouse.
01:30:05 ◼ ► they know they need to do it eventually, but I don't think that every day that goes by that
01:30:09 ◼ ► there are lightning keyboards in iMac boxes that it's an embarrassment to Apple or that it makes
01:30:15 ◼ ► people's lives worse. I just don't. I think it's more that we all know that it's inevitable, but
01:30:21 ◼ ► Apple is, again, for complex reasons about the ability to redesign their accessories. We just
01:30:40 ◼ ► Having a pencil that works with your iPad and presumably having accessories that work with new
01:30:45 ◼ ► iPads next year is probably a higher priority than the thing you use to charge a keyboard that needs
01:30:52 ◼ ► charging once a month. I'm okay with it. I'm a little disappointed, but I think we can overreact
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01:33:50 ◼ ► Jason, I put a call out to the Upgradients and they have answered with questions. So the answer
01:33:57 ◼ ► is questions. And we have a lot of Ask Upgrade today to get through about the product. The first
01:34:03 ◼ ► question comes from Jeff. Jeff says, "It seems like there's a lot more configurations for the
01:34:09 ◼ ► new MacBook Pros, many different CPU and GPU configurations, a variety of memory options
01:34:14 ◼ ► exclusive to each configuration. Do you think this is just a downside of how Apple is binning
01:34:20 ◼ ► their chips or is there a strategic approach or user need that you think they're trying to solve?"
01:34:26 ◼ ► It's very complicated. So I'm on the page right now to customize a 14-inch MacBook Pro.
01:34:33 ◼ ► So I brought up that page and I can do the M3 Pro with 12 CPU, 18 GPU, or I can do 14 and 30
01:34:50 ◼ ► So then I look down to memory and there are six options for RAM, but only two of them are
01:34:55 ◼ ► available to me. And there are four options for storage, but only three of them are available to
01:35:01 ◼ ► me. And as I change the different CPU options, it then changes the amount of RAM that I'm able
01:35:08 ◼ ► to choose and the storage I'm able to choose. It is complicated now, way more than ever before,
01:35:31 ◼ ► And then the other part of it, I think, is that Apple, like the RAM is part of the chip,
01:35:46 ◼ ► So I think they are making certain configs with certain RAM, I think is what they're doing.
01:35:56 ◼ ► And so this goes with that and this goes with that. So it is more complex. It will be interesting to
01:36:03 ◼ ► see how they do it over time. I don't know where the binning fits in and whether they are binning,
01:36:10 ◼ ► if it's just binning that's going on, or if they're literally building different configurations
01:36:15 ◼ ► and tying them to different amounts. Also, again, the difference between Pro and Macs is that Pro
01:36:20 ◼ ► has the three memory banks instead of two on the Macs. And so the numbers are just, the math is
01:36:26 ◼ ► different if you go from Pro to Macs. So it's more complex and we'll have to learn what it is.
01:36:31 ◼ ► But I think that probably there's binning going on here and there are some choices that they're
01:36:37 ◼ ► making about how they're manufacturing these. And we don't know the whole backstory here, but
01:36:40 ◼ ► this is that brand new three nanometer process from TSMC. So who knows, like under the covers,
01:36:51 ◼ ► That's going to be interesting. Maybe some of that will leak or people will get these and tear
01:36:57 ◼ ► them apart and we'll start to get a better idea. - Yeah, this is super weird. Like I'm clicking
01:37:00 ◼ ► around now, right? And then as you click to certain configurations, the minimum RAM changes,
01:37:06 ◼ ► and then there are also, so like if I choose the 14 CPU, 30 core GPU, I now have two RAM options,
01:37:14 ◼ ► but it's 36 and 96, like the ones in the middle I can't choose. And like, I can also feel the,
01:37:48 ◼ ► sorry, the biggest one, the 16 core CPU, 40 core GPU. Then I can choose 48, 64 or 128. I can't get
01:37:56 ◼ ► 96. Like it is odd when you start clicking through this. - It is. - And I don't, like for me, like if
01:38:03 ◼ ► I was designing this page, I would not have the grayed out RAM visible on this page. - So it makes
01:38:11 ◼ ► me think that maybe Apple isn't binning here and is actually just making some different configs.
01:38:32 ◼ ► RAM configurations. And that's just how they've decided to do it. - I hadn't clicked around on
01:38:38 ◼ ► this page and it is much more daunting, I think, than I thought before. - Little whack-a-mole game,
01:38:46 ◼ ► right? - Yes, it is like that. - No, I want this one. No, no, it moved. It changed. Now the memory
01:38:51 ◼ ► is different. Why is it different? - Don't be silly. 48 gigabytes feels like such a high
01:39:01 ◼ ► you're already in. - You bought the Max Max, right? - Yeah, what do you want? - You bought the Max Max
01:39:05 ◼ ► at that point. So you should get it max. It's already maxed. - Max it out. They're helping you
01:39:10 ◼ ► out. They're helping you, well, it's not even maxed out, but it helps you max it a little bit.
01:39:13 ◼ ► - Yeah, I mean, at that point it's $36.99 to start. Like it's, yeah. - We've got about five or six
01:39:21 ◼ ► variations of the following question. Alex says, "With the M3's big focus on graphical performance,
01:39:27 ◼ ► it seems like the perfect fit for the Vision Pro with all the graphical computing that it has
01:39:31 ◼ ► to do. Do you think Apple might say, 'Just kidding, the Vision Pro is coming with the M3 chip rather
01:39:38 ◼ ► than the M2 chip.'" - I don't think so. I think they designed it like a year ago. I think that it's...
01:39:44 ◼ ► - I don't think it needs it. - It is what it is. - People, I've seen a lot of people, and again,
01:39:48 ◼ ► the questions and people online talking about it like, "Oh, surely it's going to be the M3. How
01:39:52 ◼ ► could they release it and say it has an M2?" Like, I just don't, they didn't build it for the M3.
01:39:58 ◼ ► Like also, do you know what? Like the Vision Pro has the R1 chip. Other computers don't have that,
01:40:03 ◼ ► right? Like there's two chips in this product that's powering it is what we know, right? And
01:40:12 ◼ ► I just feel like there's no need to desire a different chip in it than the one that it has.
01:40:18 ◼ ► Like they have made it with that in mind. And so... - And with the power envelope in mind and the
01:40:24 ◼ ► heat envelope in mind and all of those things about it, that's what it's for. Plus you're right,
01:40:27 ◼ ► it's got the R1 chip in there. And again, when the Vision Pro comes out, I doubt that people
01:40:32 ◼ ► are going to be like, "But M2." They're going to be like, "Oh, Vision Pro," right? Like that's,
01:40:37 ◼ ► it's, you know, that's what it's going to be. - But it's like, they also didn't put the M2 Max
01:40:42 ◼ ► in there, did they? You know, like, right? They had more power available to them if they wanted it,
01:40:49 ◼ ► but they decided to settle and build around a certain configuration. - About the M2. - Look,
01:40:59 ◼ ► I don't think it's worth worrying about, right? Like if, for example, if they'd never told you
01:41:05 ◼ ► that it had an M2 in it, then you wouldn't be worried, right? If they said like, it has an R1
01:41:10 ◼ ► and an F2 in it or whatever, you'd just be like, "Oh, well, they're the Vision Pro chips." Like,
01:41:15 ◼ ► you just wouldn't think about it. I don't have an M2 in my AirPods. You know, like it's like,
01:41:21 ◼ ► the products have what they have and they designed them for that. I wouldn't worry too much about one,
01:41:31 ◼ ► there's still going to be a lot of computers that still have an M2 in them, including the Mac Pro.
01:41:36 ◼ ► So that's going to stick around for a while, I expect. Jordan says, "For the M3 series,
01:41:45 ◼ ► why do you think Apple emphasized the power, savings, and efficiency when seemingly the
01:41:50 ◼ ► same process received no power saving mention in the A17 Pro chip for the iPhone? Could it be
01:42:02 ◼ ► Perhaps it could be meaningful for the iPad?" I think Apple is focused on comparing itself to
01:42:09 ◼ ► PC laptops and especially PC laptops, but also past Apple laptops and showing off the fact that
01:42:17 ◼ ► they, this is the game, right? Like they may not, some laptops may be able to beat them in GPU
01:42:29 ◼ ► it's for battery life and running it with not plugged in and being able to do it. And I think
01:42:35 ◼ ► it's just a key part of how they do Mac marketing is to do it that way. I think they're less
01:42:40 ◼ ► concerned about it for the iPhone than they are for the Mac. So I think it's, I do think it's
01:42:45 ◼ ► that simple. It is, you know, I've heard people say this and I think it is interesting that the
01:42:50 ◼ ► M3 process in the A17 Pro did not seem to change the efficiency of the iPhone. Like battery life
01:42:58 ◼ ► did not improve. But then also, you know, Ben Thompson's been talking about this a lot,
01:43:04 ◼ ► stuff that I don't completely understand, but that this M3, sorry, this three nanometer chip
01:43:16 ◼ ► - We don't know, but it sounds like it's possible that this is this new TSMC process that is going
01:43:22 ◼ ► to ship in the fall, which is now. It's possible that this is a different process than the A17
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01:45:02 ◼ ► and Relay FM. Next question comes from Carter. Do you think that Apple not updating the iMac
01:45:09 ◼ ► accessories of USB-C means that we might see a more significant revision of these accessories
01:45:20 ◼ ► why? And we should say a lot of people are like, but the EU banned Lightning. It's like,
01:45:29 ◼ ► that they want to have USB-C. Um, so it doesn't, they can keep these for as long as they want.
01:45:35 ◼ ► I think there's something to Carter's question here, which is Apple seems to want to only update
01:45:40 ◼ ► these when they are motivated to. And if you're going to go through a cycle, especially since we
01:45:43 ◼ ► know when you redesign a keyboard trackpad or mouse on for Apple, it's for like a decade.
01:45:49 ◼ ► They don't update them very often at all. Um, I think there have essentially only been two
01:45:55 ◼ ► generations of magic trackpad, right? And that goes back like 15 years. Um, so maybe even longer,
01:46:02 ◼ ► uh, 20 years, it, they last for ever. So when you do it, it should matter. Now they did update the
01:46:10 ◼ ► magic keyboard because they wanted to do touch ID. And so they did that. So I guess that's the
01:46:16 ◼ ► question is if Apple's going to make a new mouse, are they going to just put the USB-C hole in where
01:46:23 ◼ ► the lightning hole is? Are they going to be like, no, no, no, no, no, no new mouse. Let's make this.
01:46:30 ◼ ► What do we know about people using max today who have a mouse and what can we do there? And,
01:46:35 ◼ ► and trackpad the same way, like what about the magic trackpad that's current could be better.
01:46:40 ◼ ► Uh, is it the Bluetooth in it? Is it the, uh, this touch sensor? Is there something to be done there?
01:46:46 ◼ ► Could there be an under glass touch ID? Um, all of these things are possible. I'm sure they have
01:46:51 ◼ ► those conversations and yeah, I think there's something to that idea, Carter, that you don't
01:46:59 ◼ ► need to change them. And when you do change them, you very rarely get the opportunity. So if you're
01:47:04 ◼ ► going to do it, make it last and have it be a real update. Otherwise, why are you even doing it? But
01:47:11 ◼ ► I think that that could be the answer is that if all they were going to do with slap USB-C
01:47:17 ◼ ► ports onto the existing ones, they maybe could have done that. But at that point, you're opening
01:47:23 ◼ ► the box and you're changing the equipment inside and that, and you should probably do a more
01:47:28 ◼ ► substantive update than that. And please touch ID, you know, touch ID trackpad. Maybe that's why
01:47:34 ◼ ► we can, we can dream, you know, I mean, that's my dream is, is that all these rumors about Apple
01:47:39 ◼ ► trying to get touch ID to be under a surface were not for the iPhone, but they're, they're,
01:47:44 ◼ ► they're going to use that. They're going to deploy it in the one place where it really should be,
01:47:47 ◼ ► which is on the external trackpad. They're not going to do it, but would dream dare to dream.
01:47:52 ◼ ► Wouldn't that be nice? Jeff asks, we didn't see a bigger iMac nor bigger iPad this year.
01:47:58 ◼ ► Which do you think will be released first? Which do you think could be more appealing to customers
01:48:03 ◼ ► and which would be more appealing to you? Bigger Mac, bigger iMac, bigger iPad. So we'll say iMac
01:48:09 ◼ ► Pro, bigger iPad Pro. I am a user of a big iPad Pro. I am intrigued by the idea of a bigger iPad
01:48:20 ◼ ► Pro, although I don't think I would get it. And iMac, I have bought big iMacs in the past.
01:48:26 ◼ ► At this point, I'm pretty much in the studio display with a Mac Studio lifestyle or studio
01:48:31 ◼ ► display with a MacBook Air lifestyle. So I, I think a bigger iPad is likely to happen sooner
01:48:40 ◼ ► because, you know, Mark Gurman wrote about like bigger iPad is something that they're thinking
01:48:45 ◼ ► about and bigger iMac is something that they've sort of set aside and they might think about doing
01:48:49 ◼ ► it, but it's not going to be for a couple of years at least. I've heard through the grapevine that
01:48:53 ◼ ► like they ran the numbers and they're like, it doesn't make sense to make this product and they've
01:48:57 ◼ ► set it aside. But Gurman says they're still sort of thinking about it, but it's more like a 2025
01:49:02 ◼ ► thing. So I think maybe bigger iPad is going to happen sooner. I think more appealing to most
01:49:11 ◼ ► consumers is going to be a bigger iPad because I think that a giant, I mean, is a big iMac because
01:49:16 ◼ ► I think a giant iPad is a very specific use case. I think it could be cool for artists and, and,
01:49:22 ◼ ► you know, other people who want that giant canvas. But for most people, I think, you know, the,
01:49:57 ◼ ► I think that when it comes to Macs, people want laptops now, right? Primarily more than anything
01:50:06 ◼ ► else. And I think a big iPad could maybe be something that people would be excited about.
01:50:23 ◼ ► Swifty says, do you think we are finally starting to see hints of a regular update schedule for Macs
01:50:51 ◼ ► Yeah, I don't know if, if everything is almost everything on an 18 month schedule or not,
01:51:04 ◼ ► the MacBook pro coming out now less than a year is different. And the pro chips coming out now
01:51:13 ◼ ► and Macs chips instead of in the spring is different. We have more data, but I don't know if,
01:51:23 ◼ ► Apple's ideal is probably every 18 months for the Mac and laptops on that 18 month cycle
01:51:39 ◼ ► I'm still not sure, like, I'm still not sure. I thought the Mac studio wasn't going to get
01:51:44 ◼ ► updated in them too. And in fact they did, and they did the Mac pro. So is there an M three
01:51:49 ◼ ► pro and ultra or max and ultra max studio and Mac pro. I think I'm, I'm the kind of person
01:51:56 ◼ ► actually who believes that now that Apple has its own chips, Apple actually does want to update all
01:52:01 ◼ ► its computers with its new chips. I actually do believe that's the case. I think Apple wants,
01:52:06 ◼ ► if it's an 18 month cycle, Apple does want a new Mac pro every 18 months and does want a new
01:52:12 ◼ ► Mac studio every 18 months. I think that that's the ideal. And that when something like the iMac
01:52:17 ◼ ► goes a generation, I think it's because of timing reasons or because it's a lower priority and
01:52:22 ◼ ► something else came in front of it and the stuff that matters most to them, which is the Mac book
01:52:27 ◼ ► air and Mac book pro those are going to be in every single cycle. So we're starting to see it,
01:52:32 ◼ ► but there's still some noise in this. So, uh, but, but, but to answer, uh, Swifty's question
01:52:39 ◼ ► hints, I mean, we've seen hints of it, but like, I'm not positive, but it feels like Apple wants
01:52:46 ◼ ► this chip cycle to be 18 months and once all its major products updated within each cycle.
01:52:52 ◼ ► I hope, cause I just like it, but, and I, and I, and I'm confident that they would like it too,
01:52:59 ◼ ► but it doesn't seem like it's been smooth sailing, but the difference is when it isn't,
01:53:05 ◼ ► they have more levers they can pull than when it was with Intel, right? Like when Intel wasn't
01:53:09 ◼ ► smooth sailing, everything just came to a grinding halt for a long time. And at least Apple is able
01:53:15 ◼ ► to do whatever they're able to do, maybe have more leverage than they did in the Intel relationship
01:53:20 ◼ ► to make it work the way they want. But I think they'd be more than happy to just put their new
01:53:25 ◼ ► chip in, in every product in their line and every generation. I think that that is at least so far,
01:53:33 ◼ ► I think that's the goal that seems to be the goal and it may not always work out, but I think that's
01:53:38 ◼ ► the goal, right? It's hard not to look at the, all the accolades that they have thrown out there for
01:53:43 ◼ ► the M3 Max and not imagine that next year there will be an M3 Max Studio and an M3 Max Mac Pro,
01:53:51 ◼ ► like it's, or an M3 Ultra Mac Pro. It's just very hard to imagine that they would be like,
01:53:57 ◼ ► "No, no, no, no, we'll just wait for the M4." Like, I just, I don't think that's what they
01:54:02 ◼ ► want to do unless there's a problem, right? Something that comes up and I think that's what
01:54:07 ◼ ► happened with the iMac where they're like, "We just, you know, missed it." And now it's the
01:54:11 ◼ ► first of the next generation instead because we, that's where we are now. And finally, Tim wants
01:54:16 ◼ ► to know what we think the default laptop is going to be now for most people. Is it going to be this
01:54:21 ◼ ► M3 MacBook Pro or is it going to be the M2 MacBook Air? I think the default laptop is the MacBook Air
01:54:27 ◼ ► because of the price. I think it should be, like this is, I've been banging this drum for ages,
01:54:32 ◼ ► that I think the M2 MacBook Air is like the best computer ever and people should just use that.
01:54:37 ◼ ► I just don't know if corporate is going to change. Maybe the price will make them change, right?
01:54:43 ◼ ► But here's the thing, it's default laptop. Like the MacBook Air sells, sold better than the 13-inch
01:54:50 ◼ ► MacBook Pro did. The MacBook Air is the default laptop. I think there's nothing here in introducing
01:54:56 ◼ ► a more expensive MacBook Pro base model that will rest any, you know, championship built away from
01:55:07 ◼ ► the MacBook Air. It's still going to be the champion. In fact, I think it's going to be
01:55:11 ◼ ► more so the champion because some percentage of people who would have bought a 1399 or 1299 MacBook
01:55:18 ◼ ► Pro with a touch bar, some percentage of them are not going to buy that 1599 MacBook Pro 14-inch.
01:55:26 ◼ ► They're going to go to the MacBook Air and, you know, you've got 1299 for the 15-inch. So there's
01:55:36 ◼ ► your 1299 price point, right? It's the 15-inch Air and then there's the 13-inch Air at 1099.
01:55:44 ◼ ► And I realize there are going to be some buyers, people and corporations who don't want to buy a
01:55:47 ◼ ► MacBook Air and they're going to probably bite the bullet and go for that 1599 Pro. But like,
01:55:53 ◼ ► I think it's Apple's hope and I share this hope that some of those buyers look at that 15-inch
01:56:00 ◼ ► Air specifically because I think that there's, it's not just a bias against the Pro versus Air
01:56:04 ◼ ► name. I think it's a bias against small screens. So it's an Air but it's a 15-inch Air. I think
01:56:15 ◼ ► Apple's hoping that they will make some inroads into corporate sales with that product too.
01:56:20 ◼ ► - Yeah, that'd be funny, right? If this is how they sell the 15-inch Air is by introducing a
01:56:26 ◼ ► more expensive MacBook Pro. - Yeah, yeah. I would love to know the percentage of potential
01:56:31 ◼ ► MacBook Pro buyers at the low end who go to the more expensive Pro versus go to the 15-inch Air
01:56:38 ◼ ► versus go to the 13-inch Air. I wonder what that will be. But I do think that those buyers will
01:56:44 ◼ ► get scattered across those. I think that the Air is still the default and will in fact, yes, be
01:56:50 ◼ ► a higher percentage of Apple's total laptop sales than before because some of those MacBook Pro
01:56:57 ◼ ► buyers will fall out going from $1299 to $1599. They will fall out and go to the Air instead.
01:57:05 ◼ ► - If you would like to send us your questions for a future episode, please go to upgradefeedback.com.
01:57:11 ◼ ► You can also send in your follow-up for us there as well. You can check out Jason's articles about
01:57:17 ◼ ► these products and I'm sure more writing about them over the coming weeks over at sixcolors.com.
01:57:22 ◼ ► You can hear Jason's shows here on Relay FM and at the incomparable.com. You'll also find me here
01:57:27 ◼ ► on Relay FM and check out my work at cortexbrand.com. You can find us on Mastodon. Jason is at
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01:58:15 ◼ ► week it's Vitaly, Notion, Delete Me, and Ladda. We'll be back next week for some money money
01:58:22 ◼ ► money money talk because it's earnings time. Thank you for listening to this episode of Upgrade.