00:00:27 ◼ ► Isn't that an incredible thing, you know? The holidays will be here before you know it.
00:00:38 ◼ ► It has already begun. I actually have some information about something before the holidays,
00:00:42 ◼ ► a little bit later on in the show, but that's not what we're doing right now. Right now,
00:01:08 ◼ ► I know it. That goes back to the old TV talk machine days, one of my favorite podcasts of all
00:01:14 ◼ ► time. Paul, it was a bit. I was doing a bit there. Tim Cook doesn't listen to this podcast and
00:01:23 ◼ ► apparently his people don't listen or if they do listen, they don't care. I don't know. I was just
00:01:28 ◼ ► doing a bit because Cal was playing Auburn. I thought that was fun. I know you were doing a bit.
00:01:31 ◼ ► Stranger things have happened, right? I think I said something on the episode afterward
00:01:39 ◼ ► about just in passing about Tim not being there. But regardless, Tim, I don't know if Tim was
00:01:45 ◼ ► there. I never saw any pictures of Tim attending the game, which is really kind of a bummer. I know
00:01:49 ◼ ► it was right before the iPhone event, but it's his beloved Auburn Tigers and they were in
00:01:53 ◼ ► the Bay Area where he lives now. Maybe if it doesn't matter, he would rather just see them
00:02:05 ◼ ► But they were right in his backyard basically. I didn't see any pictures of whether he was there
00:02:10 ◼ ► or not, but I didn't see the game on TV because I was there. It was a game that Cal should have won
00:02:14 ◼ ► and yet they managed to not, which is Cal in a nutshell. Anyway, that's the answer, Paul,
00:02:19 ◼ ► from the 508 Massachusetts. Love to your mothers. It's Cal lost. Brutal. Oh, just to get all the
00:02:27 ◼ ► TVTM stuff in there. It was terrible. That's all. If you would like to send in a question to help us
00:02:33 ◼ ► open a future episode of the show, you could write in over upgradefeedback.com and submit your own
00:02:40 ◼ ► Snow Talk question. Thank you to Paul for doing so. I mentioned the end of the year. One of the
00:02:46 ◼ ► things that happens at the end of the year is the upgradees. They're coming back. The 10th annual
00:02:54 ◼ ► upgradees. If you can believe such a thing. I can't believe it. 10th annual upgradees. Remember when
00:03:01 ◼ ► we didn't do the first annual because you don't do a first annual? Well, no. Now we're at the 10th.
00:03:06 ◼ ► Well, one of us said it. The other one refused it. But look at us now, Jason. Look at us now.
00:03:12 ◼ ► Look at us now. The 10th annual upgradees. It is one of those things where I'm like, hang on,
00:03:17 ◼ ► I'm confused. How are we at 10? How can that be? Because you forget that we've been going for nine
00:03:24 ◼ ► years, but you count at one. But we started very soon. The first upgradees, we had only been doing
00:03:32 ◼ ► the show for three months. So the 10th annual upgrade precedes the 10th anniversary of upgrade.
00:03:37 ◼ ► It's true. True story. It seems to me honestly, a little bit weird that we or me had the bravado
00:03:46 ◼ ► of an award show for a show that had been going for three months or something. I think you were
00:03:51 ◼ ► trying to make me feel at home in my new world by harnessing the energy that I used to have over the
00:03:58 ◼ ► years for the Eddie Awards and pouring it into the upgradey awards. That would make sense why I did
00:04:04 ◼ ► that. I think so. But now, Eddie's who? Right? It's all about the upgradees now. Yeah. How long
00:04:12 ◼ ► were the Eddie's going for? Oh, for, I mean, forever. No, I'm just wondering how long do we
00:04:17 ◼ ► have to go for? Because this is never going to end. I think it's a long time. I think that from the
00:04:21 ◼ ► 80s to when I left, so a long time. I mean, even if me and you retire, somebody else can pick up
00:04:27 ◼ ► the upgradees. Okay. All right. We'll get there. We'll get there. There can be a second generation
00:04:33 ◼ ► of upgrade. You know, like we could have other people take over one day. Anyway, upgradees.vote.
00:04:40 ◼ ► You can send in your nominations now until December 5th. We're going to be releasing the
00:04:47 ◼ ► episode on December 18th this year for the 10th annual upgradees. So please go to upgradees.vote.
00:04:54 ◼ ► You can see previous winners at upgradees.com if you would like to go and peruse the previous
00:05:15 ◼ ► movies. Did we have TV before? Anyway, we have favorite movies, favorite TV, and we've added a
00:05:19 ◼ ► new category. So Jason suggested a best widget category, which I thought was a good idea. Which
00:05:25 ◼ ► I sent to you from a run using Siri and so it came across as a witch category. Best Witch.
00:05:32 ◼ ► My favorite is Agatha. Agatha is my favorite witch. Best Witch. Oh, I'm gonna go with Samantha
00:05:39 ◼ ► Stevens from Bewitched. Classic sitcom. Actually, maybe Sabrina the Teenage. Oh, that's a good one.
00:05:46 ◼ ► A lot of great nominees for Best Witch. Maybe we'll do Best Witch this year, you know. Maybe
00:05:51 ◼ ► we're going to do that. So, but my concern was that maybe next year there won't be a lot of
00:05:56 ◼ ► excitement in widgets. So we're adding a new category. I'm sorry, Jason. I opened the form
00:06:05 ◼ ► and I wrote Beast Feature. The form. Maybe it could be. So Best Witch and Beast Feature
00:06:13 ◼ ► are two new categories. Please enjoy the Beast Feature. Yeah, so I wanted it to be a widget and
00:06:25 ◼ ► Although this year will probably be a widget. Yeah, no. What I have to say, we'll do Best
00:06:28 ◼ ► Feature. Widgets is going to be the thing that we're asking for this year and then next year
00:06:33 ◼ ► there's something else. So it might be something else. Right. Yeah. I've changed it back now to
00:06:38 ◼ ► Best Feature. So we're looking for your favorite widget and then next year maybe it will be like a
00:06:44 ◼ ► Vision OS kind of thing. Who knows, right? What we're going to be looking at as our best feature.
00:06:48 ◼ ► Oh man, yeah, you're right. It could be. So I thought it might be something where we can say.
00:06:52 ◼ ► Best immersive experience or something. Could be, right? So this is a good addition because
00:06:57 ◼ ► what I like about this is it will allow us to award apps that may have otherwise not been,
00:07:05 ◼ ► maybe a best overall app or something, but maybe have like a really cool new feature. So,
00:07:11 ◼ ► and hey, maybe brings in the ability for some lifetime achievement award winners to get another
00:07:26 ◼ ► If you enjoy this show, by the way, you'd like more of it. Who wouldn't? Go to getupgradeplus.com
00:07:34 ◼ ► and you can subscribe for $5 a month or $50 a year. Thank you so much to those of you that do.
00:07:39 ◼ ► If you do subscribe to Upgrade Plus, then you will get a longer version of the show every week. And
00:07:51 ◼ ► we just added, so thought we could talk about that a little bit and Upgrade Plus, because
00:08:04 ◼ ► Money, money, money, money, money money, money, money, money money. It's that time again,
00:08:16 ◼ ► So, OK. Revenue, 89.5 billion dollars down 1% year over year. The iPhone brought in 43.8
00:08:25 ◼ ► billion up 3%. The Mac, 7.6 billion down 34%. iPad, 6.4 billion down 10%. Services, 22.3
00:08:38 ◼ ► billion up 16%. Wearables and home, 9.3 billion dollars down 3%. What jumps out at you specifically,
00:09:00 ◼ ► set expectations and Wall Street had expectations and down 1%, which is essentially flat. While
00:09:12 ◼ ► where the revenue is lower than a year ago quarter, it is sort of in line with expectations.
00:09:18 ◼ ► It's a weird year for some things like the iPad didn't get any updates at all. And Apple
00:09:23 ◼ ► is coming off of a high in terms of Mac sales that I want to talk about in a second. And
00:09:28 ◼ ► so as a result, you're going to get some things that are down. Services is way up. There's
00:09:31 ◼ ► a lot of sort of speculation about that because the services number is up and the services
00:09:36 ◼ ► margin seems to be up. And there's a lot of theorizing because Apple didn't actually cite
00:09:41 ◼ ► any reason why. And I definitely saw, I think, Dunne Thompson speculated, is it possible
00:09:46 ◼ ► that they renegotiated their deal with Google that's under fire and it's even more profitable
00:09:51 ◼ ► than it was before? You wouldn't want to talk about that if that's the case. So it's unclear
00:09:55 ◼ ► about that. But generally, Apple is in one of these kind of flat periods. And the question
00:10:05 ◼ ► That's the story from here because it's very profitable. It actually is up year over year
00:10:09 ◼ ► in profits, which is interesting, but investors don't care about that. It's funny because
00:10:15 ◼ ► there are the people who are running the business and the people who are using the products
00:10:19 ◼ ► and then they're sort of like the investors. And it's a publicly held company, so you want
00:10:28 ◼ ► investors care about. However, what the investors care about can carry the day in terms of what
00:10:32 ◼ ► the goals of the company are. So it's interesting to watch this in the long run. Like there was
00:10:37 ◼ ► a, I would say, asinine story over the weekend in the information that basically said, "Hey,
00:10:53 ◼ ► to wait 10 years until he's in his mid 70s to run for president, I guess. So, zing. Anyway,
00:10:59 ◼ ► that one took a little second to simmer on my brain. My point is that, yes, he's dramatically
00:11:11 ◼ ► president recently. Like he's dramatically younger. But anyway, oh yes, yeah, Tim Cook,
00:11:15 ◼ ► a vibrant mid 60s man with gray hair. Yeah, I mean, get him out. Honestly, probably fitter
00:11:30 ◼ ► succession plan and all that, but like, come on. I think there are succession plans and
00:11:35 ◼ ► that they've been reported on. Mark Ehrman has talked about it. It's a little bit silly
00:11:39 ◼ ► anyway. But hey, what I would say is that shows you what happens when one of the world's
00:11:51 ◼ ► their revenue is slightly down year over year is the knives start to come out just for that.
00:11:55 ◼ ► And that is just the way it works. So, I want to note that in the down 1% and the improvement
00:12:07 ◼ ► it a growth enterprise or is it more maintaining their profitability and investors will react
00:12:13 ◼ ► accordingly? I want to mention iPhone being up because iPhone even being up a little is
00:12:17 ◼ ► good because that's the crown jewels and if it's down, it really hurts them. But the one
00:12:29 ◼ ► you look at the transcript, I did the transcript again of the analyst call, they have lots
00:12:39 ◼ ► of reasons why it's down year over year. They have lots of excuses, right? They're like,
00:12:43 ◼ ► well, it's a tough compare. I always say that. We had the shortage like in the two quarters
00:12:52 ◼ ► and then we sold a lot the next two quarters, not just the next one quarter, but the next
00:12:56 ◼ ► two quarters, which made it a tougher compare. And also the product didn't come out in the
00:13:06 ◼ ► a little off for that. And so that's why the Mac is down, but don't worry about it. The
00:13:20 ◼ ► There are times when I really do believe the tough compare because when you're comparing
00:13:23 ◼ ► against the year ago quarter and things don't align right, it does happen, right? Where
00:13:27 ◼ ► it's like, oh, our big product launch last year was in June and this year it was in September.
00:13:44 ◼ ► just those factory shutdowns in the Mac, like pull the other one. Is that how they say it
00:13:49 ◼ ► in, in, in, in England? Pull the other one. Something like that. So if you look, so this
00:13:56 ◼ ► also, and I'm going to do a story about this. This also closed the fiscal year for Apple,
00:14:00 ◼ ► which means you can roll up those fiscal year charts. And if you look at Apple's last four
00:14:25 ◼ ► right? What happened is the pandemic happened and, and Apple Silicon happened and Mac sales
00:14:31 ◼ ► shot up and now they're back down where they were in 2020, which is, I would say essentially
00:14:38 ◼ ► an all time high for the Mac. Other than these two pandemic years, it's the 2023 at 29 billion
00:15:02 ◼ ► a banner year, which suggests to me that there's a, an expansion of the, of the Mac market
00:15:09 ◼ ► that went on in that time. I think it's also fair to say that the introduction of Apple
00:15:14 ◼ ► Silicon was the perfect time to write where then people that were going to buy a new laptop
00:15:20 ◼ ► during the pandemic may have more favorably looked at Apple than they would have otherwise,
00:15:25 ◼ ► because all of the reports and headlines and reviews were like, these things are incredible,
00:15:45 ◼ ► And it's the, um, the pulling forward and also expanding the ecosystem. I do, I do think
00:15:51 ◼ ► that probably what happened here, cause they talk about record numbers in the ecosystem
00:15:54 ◼ ► and record numbers for Mac install base, that that is one of the things that also happened.
00:16:13 ◼ ► rounding here. Uh, so I think two things can be true here, right? One is I think the Mac
00:16:29 ◼ ► well, people stop buying max. That's not it. It's more like you're dealing with, you're
00:16:33 ◼ ► dealing with, uh, an industry or a, you know, a financial industry that looks at growth
00:16:40 ◼ ► rates and you're trying to explain why you're way down year over year. But I think if you
00:16:46 ◼ ► look at the bigger picture, you can see that they seem to have returned to the high point
00:16:52 ◼ ► before the spike. And I think that's positive for Apple in Mac sales because it means that
00:16:58 ◼ ► the Mac will probably still sales will probably still continue to grow. Plus they netted that
00:17:03 ◼ ► big spike for a couple of years. Yeah. It's like what happened to the iPhone, right? Like
00:17:20 ◼ ► growth that you were on otherwise. Right. And they, that, that was just like a one thing
00:17:24 ◼ ► for you that you profited from. And then you have to kind of deal with the, Hey, why is
00:17:35 ◼ ► but investors are out there saying, Oh yeah, now like we, we had this conversation I think
00:17:56 ◼ ► a year business. And it was in the 20 billion a year business for 10 years in the 2011 to
00:18:28 ◼ ► years, what it's not is a $40 billion a year business or a $35 billion a year business.
00:18:39 ◼ ► a Mac and now they're not going to buy Macs for the next few years. That didn't seem to
00:18:43 ◼ ► happen which is good for, for the Mac, I think. So anyway, that, that is, but I do have to
00:18:53 ◼ ► analysts whose memory only goes back to the year ago quarter, right? Like they don't even
00:18:58 ◼ ► think about big picture stuff. Cause it's all about now, now, now, now, now, but I don't
00:19:02 ◼ ► think it's a reasonable explanation for the Mac performance because it is the down 34%.
00:19:12 ◼ ► They had a down year compared to those two great years. You can think about it in context
00:19:19 ◼ ► It's also like, um, the, if they were to say that the iPad is a tough compare, right? Cause
00:19:25 ◼ ► like the iPad is down 10% and it's like, well, tough compare is you didn't release any products.
00:19:37 ◼ ► you didn't do it. And it's not like they didn't sell iPads. They sold $6.4 billion with iPads,
00:19:42 ◼ ► which is a lot of iPads. It's a lot of iPads, but they didn't have, you know, you do a new
00:19:52 ◼ ► And otherwise it's just people kind of drifting in like a friend of mine just bought an iPad
00:19:56 ◼ ► and it was his first iPad in, uh, in several years. And you know, he thought about it and
00:20:02 ◼ ► thought about it and he said, Jason, are they coming? I was like, don't think they're coming
00:20:05 ◼ ► this year. And he's like, all right, I'm going to go to the Apple store and get an iPad. And
00:20:20 ◼ ► And $6 billion in a quarter where there is still no new products is that is impressive.
00:20:34 ◼ ► nothing new. It's completely explainable in a way I accept that I don't accept about the
00:20:39 ◼ ► Mac. I mean, I don't doubt that it was a tough compare, but it doesn't matter because in
00:20:44 ◼ ► the end the Mac was down like for the whole year, the Mac was down from a peak and that's
00:20:50 ◼ ► just how it was. So I wish they would have owned that and spun that a little differently
00:20:56 ◼ ► that, you know, we, we saw a bunch of uptake. We think it really expanded our install base
00:21:00 ◼ ► and they didn't, they just went with the sort of laziest, uh, kind of like, oh, well tough
00:21:04 ◼ ► compare, you know, and okay. It's like they launched a new Mac Mac that's never existed
00:21:13 ◼ ► bit of a wet blanket. Yeah. And so, you know, and so the question is, well, you had a new
00:21:18 ◼ ► product that why didn't I do well for you, right? Like there was something new that didn't
00:21:23 ◼ ► exist before. You should have been able to capture more money and it didn't happen. And
00:21:26 ◼ ► instead they were like, oh, but we're really excited about the new products that we introduced
00:21:29 ◼ ► a couple of days ago. It was like, okay, all right, that's fine. I think in that Macbook
00:21:34 ◼ ► air, you know, I think we all know the reasons why it maybe hasn't sold as well as they had
00:21:38 ◼ ► hoped. It was out of cycle. A lot of the people who were going to buy a Mac book air already
00:21:43 ◼ ► bought a Mac book air. I still think the 15 inch air is going to be a hit over time, but
00:21:55 ◼ ► for a year. You know, it's, it's, that is not going to spike sales, right? That's going
00:22:01 ◼ ► to sell with people who just wander into the Apple store, but it was weirdly timed. And
00:22:12 ◼ ► think it's going to be pretty popular down the road, but it obviously didn't light things
00:22:18 ◼ ► on fire because the Mac was down 34% and they didn't even highlight it as, Oh, but the Macbook
00:22:22 ◼ ► air sales were good. They didn't say a word. So, Hey Apple, I've got an idea for you. You
00:22:30 ◼ ► Macbook air, a bunch of colors. Easy. Done. Job done. Interesting. I think it's interesting.
00:22:34 ◼ ► If I see someone's going to get me on these analysts calls, you know, are they still making
00:22:42 ◼ ► talk about that a little later on in the episode. Uh, but yeah, the only other thing that stuck
00:22:47 ◼ ► out to me was that there was a 16% increase year over year in services and doesn't really
00:22:59 ◼ ► new, new games and new content. And it's like, yeah, but it wasn't like you had some breakout
00:23:03 ◼ ► hit in the quarter. Um, and yeah, that we don't know what that is and we probably never
00:23:16 ◼ ► deal, you can see why they wouldn't want to talk about that. Yeah. Especially right now.
00:23:20 ◼ ► Yeah. And he got asked about, about AI, right? And they did, they did a version of their
00:23:25 ◼ ► same answer, which is we use AI everywhere. Although he did, he did say, you know, we're
00:23:30 ◼ ► still, we're still working on stuff. We got, let me read the quote. We got stuff. Okay.
00:23:35 ◼ ► Tim said in terms of generative AI, obviously we have work going on. We're investing quite
00:23:40 ◼ ► a bit. We're going to do it responsibly and you will see product advancements over time
00:23:49 ◼ ► wording of this quote is it, it reeks of you dummy in a way that this kind of stuff tends
00:24:02 ◼ ► which is like, I don't know, they don't, it's just like a different kind of vibe there,
00:24:07 ◼ ► which is just like, well, we're not sleeping on our hands here. Like we know what the rest
00:24:18 ◼ ► I wanted to mention the vision pro quote because I just think it's interesting because they're
00:24:24 ◼ ► trying to calibrate vision pro for the financial industry and to kind of like talk about where
00:24:28 ◼ ► they're going. So they talk about, they talked up, it's nothing new to upgrade listeners,
00:24:39 ◼ ► they're classic Apple speak. There's some real blow away kind of things that are coming
00:24:50 ◼ ► we've got this amazing developer, third party developer story and app store and all of that.
00:24:56 ◼ ► And let me tell you, they're working on vision pro and it's great, right? Is that self-serving?
00:24:59 ◼ ► Of course it is. Right. But like, that's what he's trying to get across there is we've done
00:25:03 ◼ ► these developer things and we're being blown away by what we see there. And then they said,
00:25:13 ◼ ► said, no, there's never been a product like vision pro. We also know that they don't have
00:25:17 ◼ ► enough of them to sell like that. But he says, we're purposely bringing out in our stores
00:25:28 ◼ ► kind of process. And I think you and I talked about last week that like they're getting,
00:25:33 ◼ ► they're recruiting people from retail to come and get trained on the vision pro kind of
00:25:38 ◼ ► like experience. And they're, they're setting up places in identifying places in the retail
00:25:44 ◼ ► stores where they can do that. Like it's, it's going to be a hands-on process. And while
00:25:50 ◼ ► you may be able to finagle one without spending, you know, a lot of time in the store, maybe,
00:25:56 ◼ ► although they're going to want to match your, your face to the light seal. And they're going
00:26:01 ◼ ► to want to get your information about glasses or things like that. But the truth is also,
00:26:05 ◼ ► um, they're going to be hard to come by. And so they're erecting a barrier that's going
00:26:10 ◼ ► to create a, you know, supposedly a superior user experience for buying. Um, but they're
00:26:15 ◼ ► also, it limits how many they can sell, which is fine because they, there are only so many
00:26:19 ◼ ► of them that they can sell. Anyway, this episode is brought to you by wild grain, the first
00:26:25 ◼ ► ever bake from frozen subscription box for sourdough breads, fresh pastas and artisanal
00:26:30 ◼ ► pastries. Every item bakes from frozen in 25 minutes or less. No thawing required. Jason,
00:26:39 ◼ ► I would like to ask you a couple of questions about the wild grain box that you received
00:26:51 ◼ ► Uh, we had three loaves. There was some dessert that we haven't had yet. And then there were
00:26:57 ◼ ► some pasta, some fresh pasta that was frozen. Uh, and I can, Mike, I can exclusively report
00:27:01 ◼ ► on this episode of upgrade that we had our last of the, of the frozen, uh, bread loaves,
00:27:08 ◼ ► which you just pop in the oven. And so it's always, it's like, it's not dough. It's, it's
00:27:19 ◼ ► of the freezer and it obviously warms up and then it browns on the outside and then you
00:27:23 ◼ ► take it out and it is indistinguishable from fresh baked bread from dough. So we had that
00:27:28 ◼ ► our last one of those really great. And, uh, our pasta last night was, uh, was the frozen
00:27:41 ◼ ► It's really soft and, and nice. And that was really great. We had some spaghetti with the,
00:27:53 ◼ ► they were the wide, they were wide long noodles, like fettuccine kind of noodles. And then
00:27:57 ◼ ► we had, um, and we had, uh, the bread. So it was, it was real great. And, and it's just,
00:28:03 ◼ ► it's, it's remarkable because, um, it happens pretty fast and yeah, you would never know
00:28:08 ◼ ► that it wasn't a bread loaf that you had hand crafted yourself from dough, but you don't
00:28:14 ◼ ► have to do that. You just take it out of the bag and pop it into the oven. You can fully
00:28:19 ◼ ► customize your wild grain box so you can get any combination of bread, pasta, and pastries
00:28:24 ◼ ► that you like. If you want a box of all bread or pasta or pastries, you can have it. Plus
00:28:30 ◼ ► for a limited time, you can get $30 off your first box plus free croissants in every box.
00:28:37 ◼ ► When you go to wild grain.com/upgrade to start your subscription today. Yes, you heard me
00:28:42 ◼ ► correctly. That is free croissants in every box and $30 off your first box. All you need
00:28:49 ◼ ► to do is go to wild grain.com/upgrade. That is W I L D G R A I N.com/upgrade. Or you could
00:28:59 ◼ ► use the promo code upgrade at checkout. Our thanks to wild grain for the support of this
00:29:05 ◼ ► show and relay FM. It is reviews day around here over on the upgrade program and of course
00:29:19 ◼ ► going to start with your review of the M3 MacBook pro. What configuration did you have?
00:29:28 ◼ ► It is the big boy. 16 inch M3 max. That is indeed a big boy. Yeah. The definitive expensive
00:29:43 ◼ ► big boy. So I should say for people who are wondering, 16 processor cores of course, CPU
00:30:05 ◼ ► the largest laptop possible. Cause it seems like different outlets get different computers.
00:30:18 ◼ ► pro. They got the M3 and apparently they got a max or a pro. I don't know that Dan Seyfried
00:30:23 ◼ ► said he was going to review, but they also got the base model, which I find fascinating.
00:30:31 ◼ ► know, it was a, it was an assortment. So what also means is I haven't tried out the pro
00:30:37 ◼ ► chip, which is actually, I think in some ways the most interesting of the three, although
00:30:40 ◼ ► in some ways the max is the most interesting of the three cause that's where they really
00:30:51 ◼ ► this. Do you have any like big takeaways from it beforehand before I kind of dive into some
00:30:56 ◼ ► little details like, Oh, big takeaways. And this can be about either the machine or the
00:31:01 ◼ ► chip inside of the machine. I'd say my, let's see, my biggest takeaway is probably that
00:31:08 ◼ ► if you are running a M an M1 or M2 pro MacBook pro, you're fine. If you're running an M2
00:31:18 ◼ ► max MacBook pro, you're, you're probably fine. If you're running Intel or you're running
00:31:27 ◼ ► a, like an M1 max, like, cause, cause, and I say that because if like, if you're running
00:31:54 ◼ ► fast. So if you're one of those people who spent a lot of money on a very powerful computer,
00:32:04 ◼ ► up from there, right? The, the most expensive, uh, laptop. If you're that person and you've
00:32:16 ◼ ► is a big leap. Um, and then coming from Intel, you know, again, it's like, there's never
00:32:22 ◼ ► been a better time other than the last two times, I guess, to get off of that Intel system.
00:32:25 ◼ ► And I've heard from a lot of people who are hanging on to late model Intel MacBook pros
00:32:30 ◼ ► who are obviously looking for that moment to jump. Um, and now is a, now is a, a perfectly
00:32:36 ◼ ► good time because it's the start of a new generation and this design that they is unchanged
00:32:41 ◼ ► really from the M1 MacBook pro, uh, with that great screen and the extra ports and the nice
00:32:47 ◼ ► keyboard and all of that stuff is still, uh, it's still a great design and unchanged for
00:33:10 ◼ ► talked about this last week when we just talked about the chips, but like the M3 max is the
00:33:15 ◼ ► place where Apple poured on the performance. That's where they did it. They chose to take
00:33:20 ◼ ► the pro and differentiate it and make it more of a mid range chip, but the max they did
00:33:24 ◼ ► not. So the pro is sort of incrementally faster than the previous pro. The max is, is more
00:33:30 ◼ ► than incrementally faster than the previous max, right? The max is very impressive, which
00:33:34 ◼ ► also means that the M3 ultra should have arrived next year will be amazing, right? In, in those
00:33:43 ◼ ► was the big leap. So again, most people don't need anything approaching that level of performance,
00:33:48 ◼ ► but if you are one of those people and we know those people, right? We know those people,
00:33:53 ◼ ► those are your, your Marcos, your, your David Smith's, you may, you know, maybe your James
00:33:59 ◼ ► Thompson. I don't know. Underscore was the first person that text and I was like, you're
00:34:03 ◼ ► going to get one. And he's like, I saw the numbers I'm going to get already ordered it.
00:34:08 ◼ ► Yeah. So those, you know, who you are, if you're one of those people who's like, I will
00:34:17 ◼ ► the money because if, if your work can go 15% faster every year, why would you exactly,
00:34:35 ◼ ► everyone, and this is why that Apple has positioned the M3 pro chip where it is, is like, you
00:34:39 ◼ ► know, if it's you and you will pay the premium because it's worth it for you. Most people
00:34:49 ◼ ► And we mentioned the M3 pro and we mentioned that it doesn't seem to be a lot of them out
00:34:53 ◼ ► there. Um, but there have been some benchmarks that leaked out and I think have been confirmed
00:35:00 ◼ ► at this point, um, that they, the M2, so the M3 pro is coming in at 14% increased performance
00:35:10 ◼ ► in single core over the M2 pro and 6% in multi-core, which makes sense, right? Because there are
00:35:16 ◼ ► fewer, is it fewer performance cores and more efficiency cores, right? In the M3 pro. So
00:35:30 ◼ ► M3 pro chip realistically. Um, I don't really know where I land on it myself now. Like I
00:36:02 ◼ ► it's really separate. Now the CPU configuration is totally different. Um, more, fewer, fewer,
00:36:09 ◼ ► uh, e-cores and more p-cores. I mean, in the end, the cores are faster and it's still faster.
00:36:18 ◼ ► expensive max chip. We will spend the money there on expensive features, but on the pro,
00:36:26 ◼ ► and make it because, because this is a volume chip and most people don't want to spend right.
00:36:37 ◼ ► difference there. So, uh, we'll see how people react, but I, I like the idea of it and I
00:36:43 ◼ ► think it's probably going to be very successful because most people just want the pro chip
00:36:46 ◼ ► and I think this pro chip will be, it feels to me looking at the numbers that I've seen
00:37:05 ◼ ► pay a lot for it. And the really the pro chip more than its raw power enables functionality
00:37:13 ◼ ► that is found to be important by many people as we keep hearing from about more than one
00:37:19 ◼ ► display, uh, more than one external display, right? So compare a couple of external displays
00:37:25 ◼ ► as well as the internal, um, and has different RAM and storage options of course. Right.
00:37:38 ◼ ► 1599 with a MacBook pro. Now, instead of having that weird 13 inch model, you get the best
00:37:44 ◼ ► feature, which is the, the, the screen. Um, you lose a port, right? You lose the opposite
00:37:49 ◼ ► side port because the M3 like the M1 and the M2 just can't support that many ports. It's
00:37:54 ◼ ► kind of sad, but it's true. Doesn't have the second external display out only one external
00:38:05 ◼ ► a priority. However, and eight gigs of RAM, which I will make the argument, I think eight
00:38:13 ◼ ► assuming that, um, that a lot of people will configure it up and that, uh, corporate buyers
00:38:23 ◼ ► cut margins. If they put 16 gigs at 1599 and they know most people who care are going to
00:38:33 ◼ ► that is a lot of margin for Apple. So that's kind of why they're doing it. I don't love
00:38:37 ◼ ► that. I will say this though, after looking at the store options and pondering it a little
00:38:41 ◼ ► bit more, I think if you care enough to upgrade the configuration in the Apple online store,
00:39:08 ◼ ► with 18 gigs of RAM. So, uh, unless you've got, unless the $200 is just not in your price
00:39:14 ◼ ► range. Like I think for a lot of discerning buyers that that low end model is still, even
00:39:19 ◼ ► though it's doesn't have a touch bar and stuff anymore. Right. And it's, it's a 14, it's
00:39:22 ◼ ► got the screen and all of that. It's still not that great. Like it's still sort of design.
00:39:31 ◼ ► Pro, but do not want to spend more money and do not care that it's got eight gigs of RAM.
00:39:36 ◼ ► Uh, like people who will only buy a MacBook Pro, um, just won't buy a MacBook Air. I think
00:39:47 ◼ ► all, I feel like you should really consider still going up to that 1999 base model, um,
00:39:55 ◼ ► M2 pro laptop instead. So it's a, it's a peculiar, I mean, so con true connoisseurs of computers,
00:40:07 ◼ ► that. Like I think they're going to turn their nose up at that low end macro pro and that's
00:40:14 ◼ ► for the people who won't turn their nose up at it and we'll just say 1599 great. And what
00:40:28 ◼ ► The M3, this is a quote from you, the M3 max is so much faster that it's making me, even
00:41:04 ◼ ► the, on the MacBook pro and then I came and I was doing something else. I came to my desk
00:41:09 ◼ ► and I was working on stuff and I did another thing that was like another whisper, uh, transcription
00:41:14 ◼ ► or something like that. And I thought to myself, why is it so slow? Why is it running? So it
00:41:21 ◼ ► was just running fast. And then I thought, Oh, it wasn't running fast on this computer.
00:41:36 ◼ ► the video encodes, the audio processing and the transcriptions and other stuff like that.
00:41:41 ◼ ► If I, if I wanted to give them a, a real kick, uh, when there's an M3 max max studio, that
00:41:49 ◼ ► would be an upgrade that I could do. I'm not saying I will do it, but like it's given me
00:41:59 ◼ ► really see the separation in the apple Silicon line in a way that I don't know if we've seen
00:42:04 ◼ ► this level of separation from a previous apple Silicon chip. Um, I think this might be the
00:42:09 ◼ ► first sort of big spread where you're like, Oh, you might even want to update from apple
00:42:32 ◼ ► of professionals would make that kind of jump. Like I think it is kind of good that the year
00:42:38 ◼ ► over year, uh, is good, but not like bananas good, right. For most people. So like you're
00:42:48 ◼ ► going to be in that max and ultra chip. Yeah. Just a little tingle, but, um, but it's coming,
00:42:54 ◼ ► right. The fact is if not this generation, then for a lot of people in the next generation,
00:42:58 ◼ ► you're going to get that moment where you're like, Oh, I've got an M1 and now they're at
00:43:06 ◼ ► an M1, but I did that because I, because of the new design of it. And then I handed down
00:43:23 ◼ ► David Smith, right. Um, or Marco, uh, if you've got, especially like an M1 and you're one
00:43:30 ◼ ► of those max people, you just, you're, you got the max chip, you pay the money, you want
00:43:46 ◼ ► Intel max and it's a lot and they're trying to get them over. And this is a great opportunity
00:43:51 ◼ ► for them to bring people over. Yeah. I have an M1 max MacBook pro. Like that's what I'm
00:43:57 ◼ ► talking to you now from it's like my recording machine, my editing machine production machine
00:44:08 ◼ ► go to a max studio and I was planning on doing it and now I'm going to wait for the M3 max
00:44:17 ◼ ► max studio cause that is going to be great for me. Like that's what I want. Um, and now
00:44:22 ◼ ► that now I've made my mind up, like when that comes, that's what I will buy and I'm going
00:44:26 ◼ ► to wait now until that, because I was planning on getting and uh, I just hadn't done it yet,
00:44:39 ◼ ► those who are, are, are, uh, unclear on the, the, the spread of processors and Apple's product
00:44:50 ◼ ► default is M3 pro it's the pro chip is the default and then you can spend a lot of money
00:44:55 ◼ ► for max max studio. The default is max and then you can spend a lot of money for ultra.
00:45:11 ◼ ► chip. And that'll be spectacular because they, you don't need the size of the studio for
00:45:14 ◼ ► the, for the, the, the slower chips. So that's what the Mac mini is for. I mean, they really
00:45:19 ◼ ► have just differentiated it. Mac mini is M and M pro and max studio is M max and M ultra.
00:45:36 ◼ ► What are your thoughts on the, um, the, the finish, the space black finish that you got?
00:45:43 ◼ ► Oh yeah. Um, space black is, it's what I said last time. It is finger is print resistant,
00:45:49 ◼ ► but not fingerprint proof. You can leave fingerprints if you want to. I had, somebody was like,
00:45:53 ◼ ► maybe you should wipe your hands before you use it. You filthy animals. And I was like,
00:45:57 ◼ ► guys, do you not know that your skin exudes oil? You can have the cleanest hands in the
00:46:09 ◼ ► you are the kind of person that wipes their hands before their lap, use their laptop for
00:46:13 ◼ ► this reason, I don't know what to tell you. Like I was thinking of like what an insight
00:46:18 ◼ ► that is. If only all the great murderers and burglars of history had wiped the grease off
00:46:28 ◼ ► That's not how it works. Anyway, it is better. They did a good job. They wipe off better
00:46:33 ◼ ► too, right? Because it's this, in the anodization seal, they have put a different chemical process
00:46:46 ◼ ► your fingerprints? Yeah, you can. They are harder to see and they're easier to wipe off
00:46:55 ◼ ► It's not fingerprint proof. It's just better. And then in terms of the color, I put a bunch
00:47:00 ◼ ► of pictures in my review. You can see them. It is absolutely the darkest pro laptop Apple
00:47:16 ◼ ► to other laptops. It's clearly very dark. Although I would argue that the midnight MacBook
00:47:21 ◼ ► air looks darker to me, certainly in the vicinity, but it has the dark blue sheen, which this
00:47:27 ◼ ► one doesn't have. Although it's got kind of a goldie metallic sheen of its own. It's not,
00:47:31 ◼ ► it's not pure black. It is a dark gray. So, so yeah, I, I'd say the most important thing
00:47:41 ◼ ► Cause it's not, it's dark gray. And two, if, if you're asking like if my laptop is hanging
00:47:50 ◼ ► black one. You will probably be able to spot it, right? It is a lot darker than space gray.
00:47:56 ◼ ► And I have, I have the pictures to prove it, but I also have a picture where I put my midnight
00:48:00 ◼ ► MacBook air, this, the space black MacBook pro and at like a Samsung SSD, that's actually
00:48:05 ◼ ► black anodized aluminum all next to each other. And yeah, one of these objects is black and
00:48:13 ◼ ► it's not the space black MacBook. It just isn't. So, you know, it's dark gray and that's
00:48:20 ◼ ► fine. It is, it is the darkest one they've made in a pro laptop. It absolutely is. It's
00:48:25 ◼ ► what space gray. In fact, I will say this, Mike, it's what space gray auto have been all
00:48:29 ◼ ► along. Cause this is the real space gray, but they already had a space gray, like dozens
00:48:38 ◼ ► dark gray. But if you're, if you're one of those people who was like, I want the darkest
00:48:42 ◼ ► MacBook pro on the, on the market, uh, yeah, get it, go get it. This will do that. If that's
00:48:47 ◼ ► what you're looking for, if that's the deciding factor for you, this is the one that will
00:48:56 ◼ ► midnight MacBook Air, but Hey, you do you. There was one thing I wanted to touch on before
00:49:01 ◼ ► we move on to the iMac. Uh, you say in your review, Apple's Mac laptop line, which makes
00:49:07 ◼ ► up the vast bulk of new Mac sales offers what might be the best array of options in the
00:49:14 ◼ ► history of the Mac. Now I'm assuming you're adjusting for time and space in this argument,
00:49:28 ◼ ► there was always better now than the previous ones because of the way that time works and
00:49:31 ◼ ► performance, right? Like if you put the iBook and the power book next to these things, it's
00:49:44 ◼ ► their place at that time. Is that what you're talking about? What I'm saying here, and you
00:50:01 ◼ ► you've got the, the excellent M2 MacBook Air in both a 13 and a 15, and you've got a Pro
00:50:08 ◼ ► MacBook Pro with a great screen that now spans three different processor levels and will
00:50:20 ◼ ► a very clear single model MacBook Pro that spans a huge gamut. And then you, if you just
00:50:32 ◼ ► price point. And then you've got that M1 Air, which is a fantastic computer even now that's
00:50:38 ◼ ► even lower than that. I feel like that is a spread of options and clarity that is rare,
00:50:46 ◼ ► if not non-existent when you think about Apple laptops. That's my argument, right? Because
00:50:59 ◼ ► you've got an iBook and a PowerBook, or you've got the polycarbonate MacBook with some variations
00:51:06 ◼ ► and pay more for black. And then you've got a MacBook Pro up here that comes in some different
00:51:10 ◼ ► sizes and shapes and all that. And there may be a sweet spot in there in 2010 or something
00:51:32 ◼ ► Pretty cool time. Yeah, it's good. It's good. It's good. And, and, um, I can't wait for
00:51:38 ◼ ► the M3 MacBook Airs because I love the MacBook Air too, but the Mac, these MacBook Pros,
00:51:43 ◼ ► it's a good design. These chips are, continue to improve. The Macs is going to blow people
00:51:48 ◼ ► away at the high end who need that. And we're all still celebrating the 13 inch going away
00:51:54 ◼ ► too. So even though, even though, just as I, ironically, just as I said, don't buy that
00:51:59 ◼ ► 13 inch MacBook Pro, I would caution people against buying the, the M3 MacBook Pro. Just
00:52:05 ◼ ► because again, unless, unless you have to scratch to get to 1599 and even there, I would
00:52:27 ◼ ► better computer with much more base Ram, which makes it a, uh, you know, a less of a stretch
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00:54:58 ◼ ► to the M3 iMac. There is a piece of information that we will omit until the end of this conversation
00:55:05 ◼ ► because I think it's a whole separate conversation. Let's just talk about the 24-inch M3 iMac.
00:55:32 ◼ ► again, I don't think people with an M1 iMac need to update. I think it's more for people
00:55:43 ◼ ► universe and it's not anymore. It's a niche player. We live in a time of laptops and other
00:55:53 ◼ ► lot less popular than it used to be, but I still get the sense that it makes a huge amount
00:55:58 ◼ ► of money for Apple even though it's a fraction of a fraction of Apple's overall business.
00:56:02 ◼ ► It's still a big seller and they need to keep it up to date and it's great. I mean, every
00:56:07 ◼ ► time I try one, I think, oh, where in my life could I fit this? I can't come up with an
00:56:18 ◼ ► is where I wrote most of my reviews actually, on the iMac, I thought I could get an iMac
00:56:26 ◼ ► and put it here, but then I thought, yeah, but I've already got a Mac Studio and a MacBook
00:56:42 ◼ ► because I love the colors and I love all the things about it, but it's not, yeah, yeah,
00:56:50 ◼ ► it doesn't fit. But if it fits for you, it's a great computer and now it's faster. That's
00:56:56 ◼ ► So, third computer, it's a shame they didn't do anything with the stand. I think that is
00:57:00 ◼ ► the biggest miss for me that they didn't allow for more flexibility with the stand and also
00:57:24 ◼ ► option on the iMac and maybe they just didn't want to anodize those stands and would they
00:57:36 ◼ ► Maybe this would be considered heresy inside of Apple's industrial design lab, but I would
00:57:41 ◼ ► have just liked it if they could have made it possible for me to put an iMac on the adjustable
00:57:54 ◼ ► It was like only available in silver, so you have to buy a silver. Yeah, most of my complaints,
00:57:57 ◼ ► it's funny, most of my complaints about the iMac this time are actually just my complaints
00:58:07 ◼ ► two chip generations and you changed nothing. Like they literally, they changed nothing
00:58:17 ◼ ► alter it? And so you see it in the stand, which like, you know, there should be an adjustable
00:58:28 ◼ ► thing, because I think the stand is too low. I think most people are going to need to put
00:58:33 ◼ ► it on a box or a riser or something. And I think it's a mistake. And so that really bugs
00:58:47 ◼ ► cycle processing in the M3 chip and it looks great and all that. That's true. But like,
00:58:52 ◼ ► I really think the iMac is a perfect place for something like center stage. Now, my guess
00:59:01 ◼ ► criticism for it. They just decided not to bother. But I want them to take another shot
00:59:06 ◼ ► at it because center stage is great. Center stage is really appropriate for an iMac. You
00:59:11 ◼ ► just need to have a better camera in there. And they decided that that was too expensive,
00:59:23 ◼ ► for center stage. What are you doing here? But they don't. And then, um, and then I decided
00:59:29 ◼ ► to finally have my moment about target display mode. Yes. Which is Apple hasn't done target
00:59:36 ◼ ► display mode in a long time. This is the mode where you can basically take an iMac and say,
00:59:39 ◼ ► I'm now an external display and you plug something else into it and you don't boot into Mac OS
00:59:49 ◼ ► display. And with retina displays, they took that out because the technology at the time
00:59:53 ◼ ► certainly didn't exist to drive a retina display via a Thunderbolt cable. So they, they punted
00:59:59 ◼ ► on it. But I, I, I'm at the point now where I kind of come back around to the fact that
01:00:04 ◼ ► it's a feature that should exist. And here's my approach to it, which is I don't think all
01:00:10 ◼ ► in ones are a good, a goodbye in general because screens last way longer than computers do
01:00:18 ◼ ► in terms of being current. You can use a very, very old screen and still, you know, yeah,
01:00:25 ◼ ► they're newer, fancier screens, but like old screens are fine. They last a long time. I
01:00:31 ◼ ► am using the same panel with my studio display that was in the second 5k iMac. So that was
01:00:45 ◼ ► age faster than the display is. There's going to come a time where you're going to get rid
01:00:50 ◼ ► of it instead of putting it into use as another display. And I think that that's not great.
01:01:04 ◼ ► against waste and for environmental, you know, impact being reduced for their products. I
01:01:24 ◼ ► I think they need to make an effort to bring it back because I'll tell you, it would be
01:01:29 ◼ ► a lot easier for me to buy an all-in-one down the road. If I knew that when I was done with
01:01:37 ◼ ► studio display, even though I have a perfectly good 27 inch 5k iMac pro display, and I don't
01:01:46 ◼ ► want to use that computer anymore, but the display is still great and there's no target
01:01:55 ◼ ► all in once in general, which is this iMac in particular is I think that Apple, I don't
01:01:59 ◼ ► like how disposable they are in the sense that the displays are great and the computers
01:02:04 ◼ ► will age faster than the displays. And this has been true of all in once for a long time,
01:02:08 ◼ ► but like, I feel like this is an opportunity. Apple should step up here and create a mode
01:02:26 ◼ ► just buy an external display and a computer. Right. But you can't do that with a laptop,
01:02:41 ◼ ► computer inside. It's like, yeah, but I want to use it now as an external display. It happens
01:02:52 ◼ ► these screens that they get handed down maybe for a little while, but in the end the screen
01:02:56 ◼ ► is great and the computer's not, and that's the end of it. And I just think, I don't know
01:03:04 ◼ ► it. But my feeling is that it's probably more that it's just never been a priority and it's
01:03:08 ◼ ► feel, it just feels a little wasteful to me on, on an all in one desktop. You're right.
01:03:13 ◼ ► Laptops face this issue too. And you know, maybe they should make that for laptops too,
01:03:23 ◼ ► can't buy a separate laptop screen and laptop base and walk off with them like you can with
01:03:29 ◼ ► this. So it's a different category as a mobile device versus this thing. Just a little thing.
01:03:37 ◼ ► of my, what gives me pause about it. And one of the reasons why I probably will never go
01:03:56 ◼ ► performance screen sharing mode could be used in places something like target display mode.
01:04:01 ◼ ► It, well, it requires not, I think not because it's about remote control in that scenario.
01:04:09 ◼ ► And it requires you're controlling the other computer, not your computer. So it doesn't
01:04:33 ◼ ► technology might be the way to do it. Although the best way to do it is to plug a Thunderbolt
01:04:38 ◼ ► cable into that Mac and have it be a monitor. That's the best way to do it and a webcam potentially
01:04:55 ◼ ► It was also 18% faster than an M2 Mac with care in the same tests. In single core tests,
01:05:00 ◼ ► the M3 was about 18% faster than the M2 and 32% faster than the M1. So that's all great.
01:05:06 ◼ ► The 10 core GPU iMac was only about 4% faster than a 10 core GPU M2 MacBook Air on a Geekbench
01:05:14 ◼ ► 6.1 metal test, but an eye watery 234% faster than an eight core GPU M2 MacBook Air on the
01:05:28 ◼ ► Cinebench test, my guess is uses ray tracing and mesh shading and possibly even fills the
01:06:35 ◼ ► game that Apple showed off, Baldur's Gate, and they said like, you know, is it incredible?
01:06:41 ◼ ► No, but it plays better than other Macs have tried to play this kind of game on. And that
01:06:44 ◼ ► is a good thing, right? Like it is making it a comparable gaming machine more than before.
01:06:59 ◼ ► Apple Silicon based chips be good enough that you can play games on them. They're not going
01:07:05 ◼ ► to be the best gaming whatever, but remember, low-end Macs used to not be good enough to
01:07:09 ◼ ► play games on. And they are now. To get games on the systems, the systems have to first
01:07:15 ◼ ► be capable of playing games. Right? It's true. Because people are like, oh, there's no games
01:07:20 ◼ ► on a Mac. You couldn't play them, right? Or you could only play them on the $5,000 professional
01:07:30 ◼ ► PC that plays this game for way cheaper? And you're John Sirkusa, the answer presents itself,
01:07:35 ◼ ► but otherwise you wouldn't. So, so yeah, we're at that point now. And now with this, yeah,
01:07:47 ◼ ► feature, but come on, it's, it's a game feature. Like they built better game rendering into
01:08:08 ◼ ► be the story of the iMac, but I think in our circles, it is going to be the story of the
01:08:21 ◼ ► me that it has no plans to develop a 27 inch iMac again, if the company changes its mind
01:08:42 ◼ ► they told you. Apple has, Apple has no plans to develop a 27 inch iMac. Right. And it's,
01:08:48 ◼ ► it's funny because Mark Gurman has talked about for a while that they, they have worked
01:08:50 ◼ ► on and off on the idea of a larger iMac, but it would be like a 30 or a 32 inch iMac. It
01:08:55 ◼ ► would be huge. And I, and we scratch our heads a little bit for the reasons discussed earlier
01:09:03 ◼ ► very large pro iMac versus a nice big display that you can attach whatever pro or you know,
01:09:22 ◼ ► also made that screen available as a screen, I think a lot of people wouldn't buy it. And
01:09:33 ◼ ► past. But so Gurman's got all those reports out there. They're not addressed by this statement.
01:09:38 ◼ ► This statement is just about the 27 inch iMac. And I'll just say, it's unusual for Apple
01:09:47 ◼ ► statement. I would say it's completely self-serving because it's a marketing statement. That's
01:09:56 ◼ ► on Intel and are waiting for the 27 inch version of the iMac on Apple Silicon to arrive, stop,
01:10:04 ◼ ► stop waiting. And in fact, this is just more explicit to what they said last week in their
01:10:19 ◼ ► enormous amount of screen real estate on the new iMac display. And Turner said, said that
01:10:24 ◼ ► in the video, that's what we were told in our, in our briefings, the exact same wording.
01:10:28 ◼ ► And it was very clear at that point that they were saying, this is the answer for all previous
01:10:41 ◼ ► feels like they need to make it extra clear. I missed that completely by the way that John
01:10:47 ◼ ► Turner said that, like it went over my head. I don't know why, but maybe it was too late
01:10:59 ◼ ► choices. The products that we don't sell aren't like that is that's like sales 101. Right?
01:11:04 ◼ ► And so that's what they're doing here is they're saying, um, they, they are concerned that
01:11:09 ◼ ► there are, is a group out there that is like, we are going to wait for the 27 inch iMac
01:11:22 ◼ ► about talking about what it's doing inside the black box to say, no, there's no 27 inch
01:11:39 ◼ ► course buy a new Apple product because it's marketing. That's what they're trying to do.
01:11:43 ◼ ► But but they clearly think that there is some sort of a, uh, an issue out there where people
01:12:01 ◼ ► like I, at the end, I sort of assumed that there would be a bigger iMac and there never
01:12:12 ◼ ► that they're losing sales from a group that's holding onto the big iMac, hoping for a new
01:12:23 ◼ ► inch studio display or 24 inch iMac. I think for a lot of people, the 24 inch screen is
01:12:28 ◼ ► actually enough. It's enough for me for almost everything I do. Video streaming, video editing,
01:12:34 ◼ ► there are a few places where it will, it would be really unfortunate, but I could, I could
01:12:39 ◼ ► manage and, and in those moments I would probably go up to, you know, show more on a display
01:12:49 ◼ ► other larger screens are available and you can attach a laptop or a desktop to them and
01:12:54 ◼ ► they work great. So that's what they're trying to do here is, is like, please leave Intel,
01:12:59 ◼ ► please buy a new something. Don't wait around for this computer that we don't intend to
01:13:09 ◼ ► mega iMac and they might not. And I definitely have heard that like when they were planning
01:13:18 ◼ ► reported that too, that they stopped. So if they're back talking about it, it sounds like
01:13:23 ◼ ► it's talk and it may not go anywhere. So while Apple's being a little disingenuous here and
01:13:28 ◼ ► saying no plans and 27 inch, right, they could totally have plans to develop a 30 inch iMac.
01:13:39 ◼ ► decide you want to buy into all of those kinds of like conspiracies and hope, no, no, no,
01:13:43 ◼ ► big iMac is really is going to happen. I mean, two or three years from now, maybe like the,
01:13:50 ◼ ► the, I don't disagree with the point of Apple statement here, which is look, if you're holding
01:13:55 ◼ ► out hope that there's an iMac around the corner for you, there's not, maybe someday I'll add,
01:14:03 ◼ ► but not now. And if you're like, no, no, I'm going to, I'm going to use this i7 iMac until
01:14:13 ◼ ► Silicon because I just, it's gotta be an iMac. I would encourage those people to let go and
01:14:39 ◼ ► we want it? Because like, I was also thinking about this of like, when reading your review
01:14:48 ◼ ► of that market, what is there left for a professional powerful one? And it kind of started making
01:15:05 ◼ ► Why did we love it? And it was because it was the only really powerful Mac that existed
01:15:31 ◼ ► machine and it was this one because the Mac Pro was really bad. And so we all bought it
01:15:57 ◼ ► And it was great. It was, you know, legitimately great. Funny story. They wouldn't give review
01:16:07 ◼ ► paying me for my review of it because I had bought one for myself. And one way that you
01:16:12 ◼ ► get your money back for buying an expensive computer is having somebody pay you to review
01:16:20 ◼ ► of my articles has been tweeted by Phil Schiller. And I'm like, you guys didn't even want to
01:16:28 ◼ ► just an amazing moment. Well, I mean, because they made the money and got the press. It's
01:16:43 ◼ ► own, that was my, I had like a double display and a Mac book air. And then that 5k iMac
01:16:47 ◼ ► got announced. I was like, that is it. I'm going to buy it because again, getting a display
01:16:58 ◼ ► Oh, that display, the Xeon processor, it's going to let me do all my isotope audio stuff
01:17:07 ◼ ► the great iMac realignment. That was about this. And he called back to that moment. That
01:17:11 ◼ ► was like the parallel universe, right? Where they were, they were taking the Mac in a different
01:17:27 ◼ ► of the Mac pro. So the Mac pro was dead. That was it. Like, so we, the iMac became this
01:17:36 ◼ ► The Mac pro became the, the vessel that Apple was going to use for high end systems. Cause
01:17:47 ◼ ► a disaster. And so people just flock to the iMac. And what we're seeing is Apple unwinding
01:17:52 ◼ ► that and saying, no, no, no, you can get that display externally. Plus we make this other
01:17:56 ◼ ► super expensive, fantastic display. And we've got all these different modular desktops more
01:18:03 ◼ ► is on top of that. We have so many different choices for you. You don't have to have an
01:18:07 ◼ ► iMac again. The iMac, this new, and they designed the new iMac with that in mind, right? They
01:18:17 ◼ ► so it's this super thin, light, cute, adorable, uh, not very well. I mean, it's got cooling
01:18:22 ◼ ► in it, but like, I'm not sure it would take a pro processor if you put one in it maybe,
01:18:26 ◼ ► but like it's not for that. And, and, and it's got the colors and it's like, it's fine.
01:18:39 ◼ ► ended up moving away from, right? Like it was going to exist probably as the replacement
01:18:48 ◼ ► because they realized they were going in a different time. We're still going to get the
01:18:52 ◼ ► iMac pro, but it was one and done because then by the time that Apple had made the decision
01:18:56 ◼ ► they were going to make, they decided to go to Apple Silicon and then everything changed.
01:19:04 ◼ ► people feel better in the meantime until they could develop the, like the forget that the
01:19:11 ◼ ► trash can ever happened Mac pro. Right. And like, and now we're back on to course again.
01:19:33 ◼ ► was in a sad place right then. Yep. And Apple's choices had led them to that place. And I
01:19:39 ◼ ► would argue it was a rational thing for users to do to have a pro iMac and to go there or
01:19:53 ◼ ► had Colleen on the, on the podcast. I think that was the last generation Intel iMac and
01:19:58 ◼ ► like I seven, the high end of that was faster than my iMac pro was, as I recall for most
01:20:05 ◼ ► tasks, like they were really powerful. And I think it was a rational thing for pro level
01:20:30 ◼ ► anymore. We're going to do a studio display and we got, we got our pro display and we've
01:20:36 ◼ ► got a Mac studio in addition to the Mac mini plus all our laptops can drive those 5k displays
01:20:43 ◼ ► and we don't need to make a pro iMac anymore. It was a distortion in the iMac for a bad
01:20:49 ◼ ► time that we don't want to talk about anymore. And I just, I think that's the truth of it.
01:20:55 ◼ ► Now if they, that's why I'm so baffled about, about the rumors that they keep tinkering
01:21:04 ◼ ► a wacky idea here. This is not quite a shower thought, but it's close to that. Which is
01:21:09 ◼ ► I do having used that Samsung monitor, that's basically a TV. I wonder if maybe the discussion
01:21:15 ◼ ► about like a big iMac is something like what if we did a big monitor that had embedded,
01:21:21 ◼ ► an embedded computer in it? Because once you have a studio display with an A chip in it,
01:21:42 ◼ ► could do? Probably not. That sounds like a toaster fridge to me, but, but anyway, I start
01:21:51 ◼ ► thinking about weird stuff like that because I don't think it makes sense based on where
01:21:56 ◼ ► Apple is right now to do something like a really big pro iMac. I feel like their direction
01:22:03 ◼ ► is keep iterating Mac Studio, keep iterating Mac mini and keep building great laptops that
01:22:13 ◼ ► displays because clearly nobody else is going to. So Apple, Mac users are going to have
01:22:18 ◼ ► to rely on Apple to make those external displays good. I expect that there is a big display
01:22:23 ◼ ► come in and it's really powerful and it has some kind of chip inside of it, right? Because
01:22:26 ◼ ► it needs to and it's not an iMac. It's just the next studio display. My, yeah, my other
01:22:32 ◼ ► experience of using the Samsung is, although I didn't like it because like you turn off
01:22:37 ◼ ► your computer and a blue screen comes up and says, I'm going to sleep in 30 seconds. It's
01:22:40 ◼ ► very bad. Apple would never do that, I think. But, but yeah, I'll tell you if you've got
01:22:46 ◼ ► an A series chip in your studio display, you know what would be really nice in your, or
01:23:00 ◼ ► environment somewhere that why not? Like I actually am a little offended that the, the,
01:23:08 ◼ ► It's you know, it's running iOS, but it can't do that. But yeah, I wouldn't, I don't want
01:23:13 ◼ ► them to make a bigger Mac, bigger iMac. It doesn't make sense to me. I realize if you're
01:23:25 ◼ ► has not changed at all. I now have a studio display on a monitor arm instead of an iMac
01:23:32 ◼ ► and I have the Mac studio under my desk and it's the same experience, right? I like, I,
01:23:40 ◼ ► it yeah, it's, it's a, it's two pieces instead of one, but it's basically the exact same
01:23:59 ◼ ► where you need to go, you know? And for our friends, we have some friends like Marco and
01:24:13 ◼ ► a MacBook Air for years in the Intel era where I had an external display at work and I would
01:24:17 ◼ ► bring that MacBook Air back and forth in my backpack every day. And I would plug it into
01:24:21 ◼ ► the external display and keyboard and mouse at my desk at Mac world. And let me tell you,
01:24:34 ◼ ► would be hot in my backpack when I got home. Sometimes the video connection wouldn't work
01:24:47 ◼ ► Air back there and I could not like it. I'll say specifically, that is an Apple Silicon
01:24:53 ◼ ► and Studio Display. Like if you use non-Apple Silicon and a display, it doesn't work so
01:24:58 ◼ ► well. If you use Apple Silicon and an LG display, it doesn't work so well. Specifically those
01:25:06 ◼ ► two products together, it's like perfect, right? The Studio Display and an Apple Silicon
01:25:10 ◼ ► Mac. Yeah, that's, that's, that's the magic of it. So, so yes, I agree. The Apple solution
01:25:14 ◼ ► to the 5K iMac being gone is the Studio Display and literally pick your product from the,
01:25:23 ◼ ► from the M2 Air all the way up. That is better than an iMac Pro. That is a better product.
01:25:30 ◼ ► And in three years when you're ready to upgrade your computer, you won't have to get rid of
01:25:34 ◼ ► your display. Keep the display and you'll be good to go. I, before we move on, you mentioned
01:25:40 ◼ ► the episode of Colleen and I want to put it in the show notes and I looked at the description
01:25:44 ◼ ► and this might be the weirdest episode of upgrade. All right, listen to this description.
01:25:51 ◼ ► The new iMacs are here and Jason has an exclusive interview with the iMac product manager. We
01:26:10 ◼ ► interview about with someone about one of them. There was a whole other set of new products.
01:26:19 ◼ ► event. Good memory. Honestly, it sounds like a description written by chatgpt because it's
01:26:29 ◼ ► like we're just going to pick a bunch of things that upgrade has in it. Also like episode
01:26:36 ◼ ► 237 new Macs, iPads and the 2019 March event draft. That is so weird, right? It is. Well,
01:27:09 ◼ ► and then I believe went back to my hotel around the corner in New York and then we did the
01:27:19 ◼ ► whole thing. Just thing. Yeah. All those good times. Good times. March 2019. Yeah. Wild
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01:30:42 ◼ ► Today's show. First question comes from Mike who asks, "As a 13 inch M1 MacBook Pro user,
01:30:52 ◼ ► how long do you think Apple will support the touch bar? I use Keynote every day in my classroom
01:30:58 ◼ ► and I actually love the touch bar to jump around in a slideshow without scrolling through
01:31:02 ◼ ► the slides on screen." That's actually a very good use of the touch bar. It's like, oh,
01:31:20 ◼ ► to be mean to the touch bar. Mike, you shouldn't have any trouble because Apple has done no,
01:31:29 ◼ ► So essentially I think it will just continue being what it was forever and never change.
01:31:48 ◼ ► you have to hope that no bugs get introduced, right? Cause like if they do, yeah, no, I
01:32:03 ◼ ► out there. It just won't do anything new, but I think it'll let you jump around in your
01:32:13 ◼ ► car still says like, oh, you want to see the touch bar? So the touch bar is in sidecar.
01:32:17 ◼ ► Whenever you use that, you can just, you know, make your iPad a touch bar if you need to.
01:32:27 ◼ ► I don't know what that means, but I like the way it sounds. Brent wants to know, why do
01:33:10 ◼ ► and document sync is a thing in iCloud, and that will get you all your documents folder
01:33:27 ◼ ► you do that? You know, time machine is not really built to be, to work over a connection
01:33:33 ◼ ► that slow, you know, an internet connection versus even on a network, it's kind of slow.
01:33:39 ◼ ► Even on a USB drive attached to your computer, it's kind of slow. And now imagine doing it
01:33:46 ◼ ► talked about it or have even planned to do that down the road. Because I agree, it would
01:33:58 ◼ ► the margin is and does it help their margins or not? Because what would that price be and
01:34:02 ◼ ► do they think they could sell it? Maybe that they pencil it out, like I said, and we're
01:34:11 ◼ ► could just extend desktop and document iCloud sync to be also your preferences or something
01:34:18 ◼ ► so that there was like an enhanced migration from the cloud in case you didn't have a time
01:34:24 ◼ ► machine backup where they could pull stuff off of the cloud that would make it a little
01:34:38 ◼ ► stuff, but they'll do your preferences and things like that. I don't think it's impossible
01:34:58 ◼ ► offer, right? Because it's messy. Right. And it's messy. I would also say it's potentially
01:35:16 ◼ ► it is like, how do you, do you track this? Is all this data going into your iCloud storage
01:35:24 ◼ ► allotment? And if that's true, like now they do have, you can buy more storage, but like,
01:35:31 ◼ ► you going to do versioning? And like, there's a, there's a lot that goes into that. My guess
01:35:36 ◼ ► is that they've thought about it. They've walked through all these things. They've looked
01:35:39 ◼ ► at how much they would need to do to change like time machine, essentially to do something
01:35:53 ◼ ► areas of the computer? So it wouldn't be a full backup, but it would get most everything
01:35:57 ◼ ► optionally done. And then like how much storage is this going to take up and bandwidth on
01:36:02 ◼ ► our, in our server farms and what's that going to cost us? And then looking at all of that,
01:36:11 ◼ ► it's going to cost what? Nobody's going to buy that. Forget it. That's my guess is they're
01:36:16 ◼ ► going to, that they've, that they've looked all that. But I do think it's an opportunity.
01:36:20 ◼ ► And in the meantime, you know, it's an opportunity for backblaze and companies like that. And
01:36:24 ◼ ► I use backblaze and it's great, but it's not the same as having it be like Apple holding
01:36:29 ◼ ► your hand and saying, Hey, you got a new Mac. That's great. Would you like to back it up?
01:36:46 ◼ ► Zach asks, how long do you think Apple will keep the MacBook Air on M2? I wonder if they're
01:36:55 ◼ ► willing to keep it there for longer to differentiate it more from the Pro, like how the base and
01:37:04 ◼ ► It's a good question. I like the way you think. Um, I think Apple will keep the MacBook Air
01:37:08 ◼ ► on M2 until they ship the M3 MacBook Air sometime next year. I don't think it's going to be,
01:37:14 ◼ ► I don't think it's going to stay behind. It's the most important laptop. I don't think they're
01:37:20 ◼ ► And I guess the question is like, which is the most important iPhone? Like if we're overlaying
01:37:28 ◼ ► Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, I don't think Apple's like, Oh man, let's, let's, let's,
01:37:34 ◼ ► uh, artificially limit our most popular laptops. So more people buy the weirdly limited low
01:37:46 ◼ ► being M3, in fact, I think they're burned. Like I said earlier on this show from releasing
01:37:51 ◼ ► that 15 inch model late in the M2 cycle and that it didn't sell as well. I think you really
01:37:56 ◼ ► want your popular laptop to be on the current generation as quickly as possible. So I don't
01:38:05 ◼ ► to what we saw with the iMac and the MacBook Pro, which is that MacBook Air has already
01:38:09 ◼ ► been redesigned. It's a relatively fresh design. It will be, I suspect, indistinguishable from
01:38:17 ◼ ► To overlap it though, do you think, do we know, do you reckon the iPhone Pro sells more
01:38:33 ◼ ► go to upgradefeedback.com. You can also send in your followup and your Snell Talk questions
01:38:38 ◼ ► there. Don't forget to go to upgradees.vote to put your nominations in for the 10th annual
01:38:45 ◼ ► upgradees awards. If you would like to read Jason's reviews that we mentioned today, there's
01:38:55 ◼ ► You can hear Jason's podcasts on the incomparable.com and here on Relay FM where you'll find me
01:39:00 ◼ ► too. You can check out my work as well at cortexbrand.com. You can find us on Mastodon.
01:39:06 ◼ ► Jason is at J Snell on zeppelin.flights and I am at iMike, i-m-y-k-e on mike.social. You
01:39:13 ◼ ► can find the show on Mastodon as well as upgrade@relayfm.social. You can watch video clips of the show there,