00:00:00 ◼ ► from relay this is upgrade episode 606 today's show is brought to you by claude delete me century and one password my name is mike hurley and i'm joined by jason snell hi jason hi mike big week so jason we're publishing uh we're publishing a day later than usual so my snell talk question
00:00:29 ◼ ► to you maybe but it doesn't matter it's fine my snell talk question to you is what color macbook neo do you have in your office right now it's a funny story um i was i was working in the back of the house the other day and i had a thought and so i put on i added an item to our shopping list which was photogenic lemon and then i'm out walking the dog with lauren and she says why does it say photogenic lemon on our shopping list and i said well funny story
00:00:59 ◼ ► i i had an idea for artwork for my review of the macbook neo and since it's citrus color i thought maybe putting it with a a a lemon would be good or other citrus but it needs to be a nice looking lemon so please buy when you go to the store please buy
00:01:17 ◼ ► a nice looking lemon and uh that i do indeed have the citrus macbook neo and that's why this episode is slightly
00:01:25 ◼ ► late because we are dropping it at embargo time yes so which is a tuesday morning very early uh when we
00:01:33 ◼ ► normally release on a monday afternoon so apologies for being late but this is why we're late because we can
00:01:38 ◼ ► talk about the macbook neo now we could have done a reactions episode i would have had to pretend that i
00:01:45 ◼ ► didn't know anything about the macbook neo and hadn't used it and that seemed like a waste of time so
00:01:49 ◼ ► but before we get to the review we do have important work to conduct the beginning of which is the results
00:01:57 ◼ ► results of the draft and i'll just say jason snell congratulations you are once again the draft
00:02:05 ◼ ► champion oh march is very very good to me that's what i'm saying march i remain undefeated in the month
00:02:11 ◼ ► of march that's true that is very true i had to look this up because i feel like i've been draft champion
00:02:17 ◼ ► for a really long time yeah uh so what happened was i won the draft championship at wwdc 2022
00:02:24 ◼ ► i lost it for one month oh well for sorry for three months uh wwdc 2024 you won the draft and then i took it
00:02:33 ◼ ► back in september so potentially our long national nightmare of my reign is over it's a historic moment i got to
00:02:41 ◼ ► change the uh you and i changed before the show our draft pennant it's only the second time or i guess
00:02:48 ◼ ► the third time that that has happened the third time um so it's it's a it's a rare uh rare thing now
00:02:55 ◼ ► i will say you know you mike you know i know you're not a huge sports fan although i did watch some f1 this
00:03:01 ◼ ► weekend good stuff yeah on on apple tv i'm just saying it was it was it was work um have you heard the
00:03:09 ◼ ► phrase winning ugly no but i can get it this is ugly this is an ugly draft this didn't this didn't go
00:03:17 ◼ ► very well for any of us it it was it was although i will say what got me through was my strategy to not
00:03:25 ◼ ► pick anything that wasn't a mac yeah because i just wasn't and and it bit me i lost a point because
00:03:33 ◼ ► my my oh i didn't really because it would have been my last pick and my and and my last pick was right
00:03:38 ◼ ► but um i was going to pick a studio display or a new display at some point and i didn't do that and
00:03:43 ◼ ► that was that was down but my strategy was i don't know what they're going to do with ipads i don't
00:03:48 ◼ ► know if i believe that ipads are coming or not i'm just not going to pick any iphone or ipad products
00:03:55 ◼ ► and i'm going to focus on laptops and that uh that basically carried me over so yeah i got screwed
00:04:05 ◼ ► destroyed me there's no new base ipad yeah and then the rest of it you know it's all just mac stuff
00:04:11 ◼ ► we will get into the details of the picks yes and no but congratulations jason thank you three to two
00:04:16 ◼ ► you have three to two and i and i had the after after explaining why i was going to take the uh i
00:04:24 ◼ ► was going to set it so that you had to take the under i then set it so that you could take the over
00:04:28 ◼ ► on the price i made a wild decision to bet on apple coming in with a surprising price and they did so i
00:04:35 ◼ ► would have won the tiebreaker too which is uh pretty awesome so so yeah for me uh i went down on macbook is
00:04:42 ◼ ► the name they went with neo we found that out early because they posted a tech document on their own
00:04:48 ◼ ► website apple love it when apple blows it for themselves i think that's a rough one no one would
00:04:53 ◼ ► have got that otherwise like you never would have gotten that otherwise that name no not not if we put
00:04:58 ◼ ► if we listed 100 product names down would we get to neo i also said i i bought into a rare miss for
00:05:04 ◼ ► mark german who said the screen would be smaller than 13 it was exactly 13 13.0 we'll get into the
00:05:10 ◼ ► details more uh new laptop comes with more than eight gigs of ram that was a dumb pick because it's the
00:05:15 ◼ ► a18 pro and it comes with eight gigs of ram yeah um and then the ones i got right mac pro doesn't get
00:05:21 ◼ ► an update oh always bet against the mac pro um new laptop does not have thunderbolt there's your a18
00:05:27 ◼ ► pro pick i don't know what i was thinking with the ram and new laptop does not have magsafe which
00:05:32 ◼ ► really was a shot in the dark yeah and i got that i i got that shot so my correct picks with a new
00:05:38 ◼ ► laptop comes in at least four color options it comes in four and that the ram prices on the macbook pro
00:05:44 ◼ ► are the same which they are unbelievably i think unbelievably this is a one example of the many ways
00:05:50 ◼ ► in which apple flexed on the rest of the computer industry last week so much flexing really the only
00:05:55 ◼ ► thing that they changed was they increased the base price of the macbook air right like that's kind
00:06:00 ◼ ► the only real change the iphone 17e as we spoke about the storage went up you know storage went
00:06:06 ◼ ► up across the board like it's uh they they really did it like showing either a their purchasing power
00:06:15 ◼ ► either you know now that they can still get the decent prices or that they bought a lot or that
00:06:22 ◼ ► they're willing to eat margin on these products but for whatever the reasons thereof yeah yeah they've
00:06:27 ◼ ► kept that stuff the same uh what i got wrong was that the new base ipad would support apple intelligence
00:06:32 ◼ ► uh that the new laptop would be wedge shaped that the new base ipad would come in a new color and that
00:06:37 ◼ ► the new laptop has magsafe i am still a bit bitter about the magsafe one if i'm being honest sorry to
00:06:42 ◼ ► adina for yeah um for the wedge shape not happening to be fair though like once this product was announced
00:06:51 ◼ ► like i said to her like all right be ready because you might need to choose a color here as soon as i start
00:06:55 ◼ ► looking at the specs i was like this isn't the one for her anyway um no i don't think so that was the
00:07:02 ◼ ► draft jason congratulations thank you feels good and i look forward to taking it back uh wwdc that's
00:07:09 ◼ ► all right we'll see how we sure great i want to do some follow-up now on the last episode we had
00:07:14 ◼ ► someone write in to ask if anybody if we believed anyone at apple to pays attention to the scorecard
00:07:25 ◼ ► greg josswiak i did and what did joss say to you well he said he said uh i don't know uh i don't know
00:07:34 ◼ ► if i want to talk to jason he said as he introduced himself i mean we go back a long way but as he said
00:07:39 ◼ ► hello uh he made he may he may give me a bad report card i said you know what pretty funny and that's
00:07:45 ◼ ► a just joke and i put i put in my hands and i said it's not me i just i just hand out the grades
00:07:51 ◼ ► uh that i don't i don't do the grading and uh he laughed and uh gave me a hug so that was very nice
00:07:57 ◼ ► you should have told him about your five out of five for the mac you know and then it all would have
00:08:01 ◼ ► changed well john turnus was there too and he said hi and i i'm sure he knew that i gave the mac
00:08:06 ◼ ► five i hope so i think i think i think we get the the you know all the love for the hardware
00:08:11 ◼ ► for john turnus and yes there was i was just chatting with phil schiller right yeah and then
00:08:16 ◼ ► and then greg josswiak and john turnus walked over and john gruber took a picture of it of me surrounded
00:08:21 ◼ ► by these executives and i'm like i still was i still have my backpack on i should have dropped it on the
00:08:27 ◼ ► ground it was so heavy but um and i'm like oh i guess i'm talking to all the executives now and then
00:08:32 ◼ ► uh it was funny because we talked we chatted for a couple of minutes um and then trudy who's the head
00:08:37 ◼ ► of pr came over and i i definitely in my mind thought oh the cops are here time to move along
00:08:43 ◼ ► gentlemen break this up break this up uh the other people to talk to but it was nice to chat with
00:08:48 ◼ ► with all of them and i got to chat with phil schiller a little bit later too which was lovely i don't see
00:08:53 ◼ ► him i see him frequently at these events but i don't always get a chance to chat with him and i just feel
00:08:59 ◼ ► like i don't know there's some connection i have with phil just because and i said this to him this
00:09:03 ◼ ► time like i remember when he came to mac world for a demo of like early os 10 when they changed from
00:09:09 ◼ ► hfs to hfs plus in the file system they came to mac world and talked about it and why it was and like
00:09:15 ◼ ► we go back to when apple i mean we go back so far that it's when apple came to us right like that was a
00:09:23 ◼ ► long time ago because you know we spoke about this before but that was the time in which you know
00:09:28 ◼ ► you would say to them like we're not going to come to this event unless you actually have something to
00:09:34 ◼ ► show us well that that that yeah i mean the jobs era really kind of turned that around but like the
00:09:39 ◼ ► it was definitely also an era where they felt like they needed to prove it to the to the users and to
00:09:46 ◼ ► the the the market and so they would come to mac world for example and they do a press tour right
00:09:51 ◼ ► they come to mac world they come to you know pc world and wired and whatever else was in san francisco
00:09:55 ◼ ► they do a little press tour but one of the things they were trying to do is say like take us seriously
00:09:59 ◼ ► we're on this this is the stuff that we're doing and um and it's just you know a lot of water under
00:10:05 ◼ ► the bridge since then and and it's funny just i i when i see phil i'm like and jaws too those those
00:10:11 ◼ ► guys were there back then and and i was there back then and there are not a lot of us around who were
00:10:16 ◼ ► there back then so it's kind of a fun uh fun catch up for for that so that was that was kind
00:10:22 ◼ ► of a fun bonus at this whirlwind my 24 hours in new york city to to chat with those guys but yeah jaws
00:10:28 ◼ ► made a report card joke that was pretty funny speaking of apple history uh you have reviewed
00:10:34 ◼ ► david pog's upcoming book about apple the first 50 years for the wall street journal that came out
00:10:40 ◼ ► over the weekend i did that was a random email from an editor a book editor at the wall street journal
00:10:46 ◼ ► who was apparently a tech journalist journalist in the 90s and was going to some of these same events
00:10:52 ◼ ► that i was wow um and he is uh he may be out there now uh he said he was a listener to multiple
00:10:59 ◼ ► podcasts of mine well i really hope that one this is one of them then i i do too uh and and he
00:11:05 ◼ ► uh he thought i would be a good fit for reviewing david pog's book and that was very nice that came
00:11:12 ◼ ► in in january uh i already had a lot going on uh i ended up reading david pog's book on my vacation
00:11:19 ◼ ► so that was it's a very large book uh and uh and wrote an article about it that that i'm pretty proud
00:11:25 ◼ ► of i think it's a good article and we went out and bought we we played the game of where do you buy
00:11:29 ◼ ► a copy of a of a newspaper it posted on the web on friday and then it was in the the weekend edition
00:11:35 ◼ ► on saturday so i bought that i mean it's very it it's very rare at this point of my career to have
00:11:43 ◼ ► a clip appear in a paper publication that's kind of wild and uh and and yeah that's i don't know if
00:11:51 ◼ ► people outside of journalism will get it but um one of the things is sort of like where is your byline
00:11:58 ◼ ► bin and that that was really my first thought i was honored to be asked and i also thought like
00:12:03 ◼ ► i can't turn down being in the wall street journal right like that's a that's on my list now of like
00:12:09 ◼ ► yeah i wrote something that was in the wall street journal that's kind of cool that's one of the big
00:12:13 ◼ ► names you also you're published in the newspaper like you weren't just on the web i am in the newspaper
00:12:18 ◼ ► you are in the new like that is like an extra thing right that you could imagine you write something
00:12:22 ◼ ► for the for the web you are like you are in the newspaper which is super cool i found the review i read
00:12:27 ◼ ► it and really liked it and i don't know what your direction was but it felt more like a conversation
00:12:32 ◼ ► about the whole time rather than the book itself one of the lessons that that you learn when you're
00:12:38 ◼ ► writing for other um other publications and this is true of all content right it's like what do they
00:12:43 ◼ ► expect yeah and so i read a bunch of book reviews that were in um the wall street journal and i read a bunch
00:12:50 ◼ ► book reviews in the in the um new york times as well especially uh non-fiction i read a lot of non-fiction
00:12:56 ◼ ► reviews in those two outlets and i discovered yes a book review in the wall street journal about a
00:13:03 ◼ ► non-fiction book is going to be kind of a summary of what you gleaned from the book in boiled down and
00:13:13 ◼ ► in context with a little bit of judgment about the details of the book but it's not meant to be like
00:13:20 ◼ ► people who are reading it are not thinking should i read this book that you know is it good or not
00:13:28 ◼ ► they you want to give them like a a little taste of kind of what's covered in the book and what could
00:13:35 ◼ ► be what the reviewer gleaned from the book is what they kind of want to do so it is funny it ends up being
00:13:40 ◼ ► me sort of telling the arc of the story of the book in a short form in a thousand words
00:13:47 ◼ ► along with mentions along the way about oh mr pogue does this and mr pogue does that there's this funny
00:13:53 ◼ ► thing mr pogue like yeah that's it's funny they don't say mr jobs or mr wozniak or mr i didn't i
00:13:59 ◼ ► didn't mention john scully by name but they didn't but but i do refer to mr pogue and my my bio at the
00:14:04 ◼ ► ends is mr snell um which i just think is funny that the the author and the writer get uh misters
00:14:11 ◼ ► yes um get the salutation but the other people mentioned in the in the story don't so that that
00:14:17 ◼ ► was just a style i mean and again that's one of the things you learn is like their style is going to be
00:14:21 ◼ ► whatever it is but i did try to match what they seem to want out of a book review which was that and
00:14:27 ◼ ► that was a lot easier because a thousand words kind of like i i totally understand it what you really
00:14:31 ◼ ► want to do is have people read it and either feel like they don't need to read the book because they
00:14:36 ◼ ► got the gist of it or uh ideally they also read it and think oh that sounds fun and then they read the
00:14:41 ◼ ► book and that's the but you want to you want it to be kind of an entertaining experience regardless that
00:14:45 ◼ ► seems to be the part of the premise there so um after reading many book reviews which i admit i have
00:14:52 ◼ ► not read a lot of those over the years in the wall street journal and the times certainly i uh i had a
00:14:59 ◼ ► good idea of what the format was so that was kind of fun very cool um apple have removed the 512
00:15:09 ◼ ► evidence that the ram situation has changed uh half a terabyte of ram no more 256 is now the maximum you
00:15:16 ◼ ► can get for the mac studio yeah i mean we're gonna see little inklings of apple doing whatever it's
00:15:22 ◼ ► doing it's not doing the simple like ah ram's too expensive everything costs more now it's more
00:15:26 ◼ ► complicated than that but there are places where they've clearly done the analysis and said no
00:15:30 ◼ ► we're not going to do that and also apple have made some additions to their leadership page this is the
00:15:36 ◼ ► page that has all the executives in it so katherine adams is now senior vice president of government
00:15:41 ◼ ► affairs and jennifer newstead is now svp and general counsel these are things we knew would happen
00:15:46 ◼ ► because of lisa jackson's retirement we've known about these but there are some changes that we didn't
00:15:51 ◼ ► know we're going to happen one eddie q who's now sporting a new uh headshot is svp of services and
00:15:58 ◼ ► health this is a role that it has been uh reported on in rumor roundup and mark german right that this
00:16:04 ◼ ► was happening but now we're seeing it actually reflected in eddie's title yeah but the key
00:16:12 ◼ ► interesting part here is that steve lemay has been added as vice president of human interface design
00:16:18 ◼ ► and molly anderson is vice president of industrial design they have little bios and they like many
00:16:24 ◼ ► others says reporting directly to ceo tim cook i find this fascinating because why did this not exist
00:16:32 ◼ ► before why is this now a thing that we're doing and we couldn't know the reason to this but it does feel
00:16:41 ◼ ► like a sweetener in a way of like neither of you are the person right with which they had in um right
00:16:48 ◼ ► i've forgotten his name now well no i i think even even alan dye was not there you go i mean it was
00:16:56 ◼ ► anyway yeah anyway so this is this is i don't think alan dye was in charge of all that's true design
00:17:02 ◼ ► that's true it was just johnny eyes yeah so they want to elevate they want to have their design
00:17:06 ◼ ► people this is how it should be absolutely they're below the line there's a line for senior vice
00:17:11 ◼ ► president and below it you're just a vice president a measly vice president but um above the line you're
00:17:16 ◼ ► a senior vice president also eddie got a new picture i do like that that's eddie's picture was looking kind
00:17:20 ◼ ► of kind of out of date they need to refresh most of the pictures on this page but yeah eddie eddie's
00:17:25 ◼ ► looking great in his photo he's looking very happy he's got that trademark smile um yep but this is i think
00:17:31 ◼ ► this is a big deal i again i still would like to see someone above that line when it comes to design
00:17:37 ◼ ► at apple um but having them on this page at all i i think is important you know i i don't know if i do
00:17:46 ◼ ► i mean it could be both of them though jason i just think it's a very important role and and i feel like if
00:17:51 ◼ ► hardware engineering should be up is up there and software engineering is up there um i would like to
00:17:58 ◼ ► see design up there too personally well you give them you give them room to go but i'm okay with
00:18:03 ◼ ► industrial design and human interface design being completely separate that's fine with me oh yeah
00:18:07 ◼ ► no again i'm not saying it should be one person like from my perspective you just want them above the
00:18:13 ◼ ► line they should both i i feel like design of hardware and software at apple should be as important
00:18:20 ◼ ► as engineering that's my view on this because that this is the this is they are the design company like
00:18:26 ◼ ► this is their whole thing but anyway i'm pleased to see them added on the page um and i like the palace
00:18:32 ◼ ► intrigue of it happening now this episode is brought to you by claude from anthropic claude is the ai for
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00:20:47 ◼ ► all of the features i mentioned in today's episode that is claude.ai upgrade a thanks to claude for their
00:20:53 ◼ ► support of this show and all of relay so let's talk about the macbook neo i want to start by talking
00:21:01 ◼ ► about the name um neo what do you how does neo sit with you how did it sit with you initially and now
00:21:09 ◼ ► uh initially i was uh when it leaked i was not 100 convinced it was a real product name yep because it
00:21:16 ◼ ► felt like it could have also just been a uh a code placeholder yeah code name placeholder name
00:21:21 ◼ ► uh but it's the real name i think it's great okay and here's here's why it doesn't mean anything
00:21:36 ◼ ► like that's great good vibes i mean we have neo air and pro they're all the same length
00:21:49 ◼ ► yeah i know that's so ridiculous to say but it's pro macbook pro macbook air macbook neo yeah but
00:21:58 ◼ ► it's neo it it it to me it feels like it's the same length to even say in rhythm it's because it's
00:22:06 ◼ ► not it's not it's not but right it's we're going to get into grammar here but like the two vowels
00:22:11 ◼ ► slide together i don't i don't say neo yeah i feel like that is a that is an accent thing between the
00:22:17 ◼ ► two of us where where i i would say neo like i i kind of neo do i i the way that i say it it comes
00:22:24 ◼ ► in two syllables this is incredibly unnecessary as a thing but as podcasters we think about the way
00:22:30 ◼ ► these products sound no but i just it's it's a simple tag that goes on the end it doesn't have
00:22:34 ◼ ► to mean anything because none of them have to mean anything or they mean everything and that is a
00:22:39 ◼ ► meaningless tag that uh it still imparts some sort of a vibe is exactly what you want here and i kind
00:22:45 ◼ ► of like the idea that they um in fact i do i look at this and i think oh maybe the i because how do
00:22:52 ◼ ► we refer to that low end base model whatever ipad is we don't have a good name for it because if we say
00:22:58 ◼ ► the ipad it's like i mean the ipad ipad not the other ipads that are also ipads but aren't just ipad
00:23:03 ◼ ► they're ipad air or ipad pro like having a tag is better it makes me want that other ipad to have a tag
00:23:09 ◼ ► too if it's ipad neo or something else yeah so i was thinking about this last night i think the of
00:23:16 ◼ ► all of apple's major product lines the ipad is the only one where it has a product that is just the
00:23:23 ◼ ► name with nothing else like even the apple watch gets apple watch series something airpods they get
00:23:28 ◼ ► airpods pro like airpods some like even like the airpods it says in the product name like second
00:23:35 ◼ ► generate well this kind of stuff where ipad is just ipad well it's kind of generation i think i
00:23:40 ◼ ► think maybe the base airpods are kind of like this although they do like airpods three sort of or we
00:23:44 ◼ ► at least call them that and we don't call it ipad six or ipad eight or whatever it is apple want it
00:23:49 ◼ ► just to be called that tags are good i think that apple has shown that adding tags is good and i would
00:23:53 ◼ ► not be surprised if um if the ipad that base model ipad does get a tag at some point when it does a
00:23:59 ◼ ► redesign maybe because so anyway um not super important but like i i having a tag on that
00:24:05 ◼ ► product is a good idea i actually think and uh the name is fine because like i said it's meaningless and
00:24:10 ◼ ► yet also kind of imparts some kind of a general vibe and i think that's what they're going for
00:24:14 ◼ ► i was not a fan uh when i when i saw the the leak i was convinced that it wasn't real in the sense like
00:24:21 ◼ ► this is not the product name it's just a code name because the name is terrible uh and it's really
00:24:26 ◼ ► taken me some time just to get to acceptance i i don't know why there's just something about it
00:24:30 ◼ ► that like i just can't really get my head around the name of this one like i feel like maybe it's
00:24:36 ◼ ► because you pronounce it knee knee oh that's the problem but like i feel like the other products in
00:24:41 ◼ ► the mac lineup they fit more to me of like what the product is and i don't really feel like neo means
00:24:49 ◼ ► anything and i guess that's the point anyway i'm used to it now in a way that it's like i'm fine with it
00:24:54 ◼ ► but it's not you're over it it's not my favorite name i would say i would have liked nano uh instead
00:25:00 ◼ ► personally but but nano implies a smallness that it doesn't have but nano doesn't mean but it's like
00:25:04 ◼ ► air doesn't mean anything you know what i mean like if these things mean nothing nano i like more i know
00:25:09 ◼ ► i know it suffers that issue but i just you know it's like what is neo then anyway let's talk about the
00:25:15 ◼ ► design of this product yeah but didn't call it new then macbook new it's a great name they did
00:25:21 ◼ ► you know um i'm gonna read a quote from your review apple could have probably upgraded the guts in the
00:25:29 ◼ ► m1 macbook air and called it a day but that would have sent the message to potential customers that
00:25:34 ◼ ► they were buying a rehashed old product we have a brand new shell like a new design here yeah obviously
00:25:42 ◼ ► it's it's pulling from the 20 you know mid 2020s apple laptop playbook from the macbook pro and the
00:25:51 ◼ ► macbook air but it is a new thing it's that m1 or m2 macbook pro and macbook air or m1 macbook pro the
00:26:00 ◼ ► high end and then the m2 macbook air got that design and then the neo has that design so it's got that
00:26:06 ◼ ► flat top curved side curved edges little feet uh little feet and uh that's the look and i think
00:26:14 ◼ ► i honestly sometimes i think that apple has these um design decisions that go back a long time um and
00:26:21 ◼ ► we'll talk about the color in the second but it's the first really colorful laptop that apple has even
00:26:24 ◼ ► attempted since the original ibook and i i wonder if the iphone 5c experience similarly was something
00:26:33 ◼ ► that they put in the put in the vault over at apple university put in the curriculum of if you're going
00:26:40 ◼ ► to sell an old product just sell the old product if you're going to dress up an old product and act
00:26:45 ◼ ► like it's new um people are smart enough to know that it's not um and so i think if it was i think they
00:26:53 ◼ ► made the decision two reasons one is if you're just selling an m1 macbook air with some different guts
00:26:59 ◼ ► uh it's obviously an m1 macbook air and i think customers know that this is really just an old
00:27:05 ◼ ► laptop that got a little refurb but i think the other thing is apple does these designs and then
00:27:10 ◼ ► they ride them out for years right they ride them out for years we we may get end of this year beginning
00:27:15 ◼ ► of next year a new macbook pro design that will replace a macbook pro design that was introduced
00:27:20 ◼ ► in 2021 so five plus years later so one of the reasons you do a new design for the neo is to
00:27:30 ◼ ► make it look like the other macbooks and the other reason you do it is because you're going to use this
00:27:33 ◼ ► design for five years and so that's the advantage you get is you do it once and then and i think
00:27:40 ◼ ► apple's getting better and better at this anticipating their needs for the next few years so that i think
00:27:46 ◼ ► apple wants to update these all of its macs every time there's a chip revision and that means you need
00:27:52 ◼ ► to do a design that accommodates a fairly easy revision process so you do the big work up front and then
00:28:00 ◼ ► you just iterate the chip after that year after year so the colors we have silver indigo blush and citrus
00:28:08 ◼ ► yeah is it enough it's a good question i think that i think that all the reports that apple was doing
00:28:17 ◼ ► colorful laptops got i think everybody ran away with that a little bit and the truth is silver is silver
00:28:26 ◼ ► blush is i would say pretty visibly pink silver it's enough because because i could see i mean this is the
00:28:37 ◼ ► real test is when i looked down i saw that it was pink and i can't see pink very well so i think it's
00:28:42 ◼ ► pretty pink at least in some light it's pretty pink but it's but it's not shocking hot pink it is pinky
00:28:48 ◼ ► silver um so what you could you could say it's rose silver right but it is it is pink um and all the
00:28:56 ◼ ► keyboards are tended to match which is cute so the the it's not the silver one is white but all the other
00:29:01 ◼ ► ones are are tinted a little they're not they don't match the color they're not the same yeah
00:29:07 ◼ ► they're white with a tint of that color um so then then we have indigo which by the way was one of the
00:29:13 ◼ ► colors of the original ibook which i think is kind of cute indigo is like midnight macbook air but maybe
00:29:19 ◼ ► a little bit lighter i i i didn't do a scientific test or anything but it felt like it was a couple of
00:29:25 ◼ ► steps lighter if that makes any sense sort of vibe wise um from but still it's a dark blue and
00:29:31 ◼ ► that it's the so we've got the computer for people who want silver and the computer for people who want
00:29:35 ◼ ► a dark computer which is this dark blue the indigo um and maybe it's again my reds and my reds and
00:29:42 ◼ ► greens are not great so maybe it's a little more purpley a little more indigo and a little less
00:29:47 ◼ ► midnight but it's it's in that ballpark from the imagery on the website it does look like a
00:29:53 ◼ ► different color to the midnight it it is not the same but it's in that ballpark i guess is what i
00:30:00 ◼ ► would say at a quick glance you would you would if you didn't know the existence of this computer and
00:30:05 ◼ ► you saw an indigo macbook neo sitting on a desk you would be perfectly within your rights as you just
00:30:11 ◼ ► walked past it to think that's probably just a midnight macbook air because they look so similar
00:30:16 ◼ ► and then there's citrus and citrus again is not the color of a tennis ball it is gold but it's really
00:30:25 ◼ ► gold like really gold um it is the one that stands out the most yes as being the most saturation
00:30:33 ◼ ► of any uh of these four laptops it's the hero color right like this is the one that they're using in
00:30:40 ◼ ► all of the imagery yeah it is their cosmic orange yeah so i think what it says is not oh apple got it
00:30:46 ◼ ► and everything is bright now i think what it says is apple is now willing on a low-end system that they
00:30:53 ◼ ► think is going to appeal to younger people they want to get a fun vibe out there is willing to experiment
00:31:01 ◼ ► with a variety of color options but not too much so it's like silver and i'd say the indigo is is you
00:31:14 ◼ ► know it's it's a it's a dark blue it's like for people who are like oh i like colors i don't just
00:31:19 ◼ ► wear black i also wear navy blue it's like oh boy you're really close to black but i get it it's a
00:31:24 ◼ ► color um i like navy blue too so it's it's it's dark laptop silver laptop and then the the blush
00:31:33 ◼ ► is yes it is pink um i leave it to others to tell me how pink it is but it struck me as being
00:31:39 ◼ ► still somewhat restrained i think it would be very popular but i think i think it still feels a little
00:31:46 ◼ ► restrained and then with citrus they're going the other way where they're like let's make it pop a
00:31:51 ◼ ► little bit it is not a crazy yellow laptop i'm not sure anybody wants a tennis ball laptop right
00:31:55 ◼ ► like a wild yellow laptop it's not that it is this and citrus is good because it is i mean it is
00:32:02 ◼ ► to my eyes in some light it's kind of orangey um but more yellowy and and really just gold it seems to
00:32:10 ◼ ► me like it's like big gold you might like it i don't know um because of that but that's the one that
00:32:17 ◼ ► look they're gonna watch the numbers they're gonna see how these sell and the question that i
00:32:22 ◼ ► have about this is the same question i have about cosmic orange iphones which is how to do it doesn't
00:32:28 ◼ ► have to be the one everybody wants but like does it do well enough that apple gets the signal that it's
00:32:35 ◼ ► worth having an iphone in a bright color every time because some people like that like to go for the bright
00:32:40 ◼ ► color option other people don't i was talking to an apple pr person uh at this event and about how much i
00:32:46 ◼ ► love cosmic orange and i realized he was holding his uh his dark blue iphone 17 i was like oh not for
00:32:53 ◼ ► you then he says no not for me and i'm like okay it's not doesn't need to be for everybody so they'll
00:32:57 ◼ ► watch it with this because i do believe they learned the lesson with the ibook that people who are going
00:33:02 ◼ ► around working in cafes or at desks or wherever with a laptop it's portable you take it with you um i think
00:33:10 ◼ ► apple maybe learned the lesson that people were reluctant to have a laptop that shouted whoa look
00:33:15 ◼ ► at my laptop that i've got here as opposed to just sort of fitting in and the result was that every laptop
00:33:21 ◼ ► apple made after that was white or black or silver or black or very dark blue or very slightly tinted silver
00:33:30 ◼ ► and um so we'll see how it goes i think it's fun um it you never forget that you're using a citrus laptop
00:33:38 ◼ ► i i used it all weekend and you know the aluminum all around the keyboard is that color it is that color
00:33:45 ◼ ► and then the keyboard is slightly tinted it's funny i think optically it makes the keyboard feel white
00:33:51 ◼ ► because it is just a little yellow uh to go with uh with with the it it it it's more harmonious but it also
00:34:02 ◼ ► kind of like feels like it's it's uh it's uh right because your eyes are looking at this bright yellow and then
00:34:08 ◼ ► you see the slightly tinted uh key top so uh yeah it's um you'll never forget it i i i think that this is a
00:34:17 ◼ ► conservative choice to make a risk like this though it is the if that makes sense it is it is
00:34:23 ◼ ► a risk they're taking by putting themselves out there by having a bold color but it is a restrained
00:34:27 ◼ ► bold color they could have made much bolder they could have done a a screaming red or pink that they
00:34:34 ◼ ► didn't do and they could have done another color that like really reads and pops like a green and they
00:34:40 ◼ ► didn't do that they could have done a lighter blue and but not sky blue and they didn't do that so
00:34:45 ◼ ► like they it's calibrated right it's a calibrated choice to go down this path and they're going to
00:34:52 ◼ ► try it but i wouldn't say it's what we maybe thought they were going to do which is like throw the doors
00:34:57 ◼ ► open and with abandon just kind of like release wild colors i don't think that's what they did it's
00:35:11 ◼ ► like uniformly as the front because like you know with we have the imax right where they come in very
00:35:19 ◼ ► bright colors but the saturation is on the back of the computer and on the front it's much more toned
00:35:25 ◼ ► down and they have the white border and it's like interesting that they decided with the laptop
00:35:30 ◼ ► that they were going to make you see your color the whole time yeah it's a black border around the
00:35:34 ◼ ► display and then but you can see a ring that you can see the aluminum frame around the black border
00:35:41 ◼ ► so you always can see it up there and then and then yeah i don't know what they would have done down on
00:35:46 ◼ ► the bottom otherwise but like the whole thing is like framed and the trackpad and all of it is that
00:35:52 ◼ ► color so you're you're not gonna i mike i think this is one of the reasons why they're reluctant to do
00:35:56 ◼ ► this on laptops yeah right is that is that going to be distracting to people on mass they don't know
00:36:01 ◼ ► yet and you can't hide it like you can hide it on an imac on the back uh you can't hide it so instead
00:36:07 ◼ ► it's just it is everywhere and we'll see what people feel i feel strongly that some people want to have a fun
00:36:12 ◼ ► laptop but apple i think has is reluctant to do and i'll tell you i can i don't know this nobody told
00:36:19 ◼ ► no little birdie told me this but like i can't i have to imagine that apple experimented with all sorts
00:36:24 ◼ ► of bright colors and that either their institutional like history was like this is too much or it's
00:36:32 ◼ ► actually too much and that i don't that i don't know because i i do not have my own lab in which i
00:36:38 ◼ ► can anodize various laptops into various shades but i'm glad they're trying it and i hope it goes well
00:36:43 ◼ ► and that there are other colorful options because this is what we've always said when we talk about the
00:36:48 ◼ ► colors are here is the issue is not to force color on people the issue is that some people would like a
00:36:56 ◼ ► little more color in their lives and if all you get is silver and black or dark gray or dark blue
00:37:03 ◼ ► you're not really letting people kind of express themselves in a way that we've seen with the history
00:37:09 ◼ ► of like the ipod especially that people really liked so i i hope this is the start of the trend but it is a
00:37:15 ◼ ► careful start so the macbook neo its size shape and weight are basically the same as the macbook air
00:37:23 ◼ ► yeah yeah it's a little thicker and a little smaller but basically this you would never know
00:37:28 ◼ ► just seeing it laying somewhere that it wasn't a macbook air i would say were you surprised by that
00:37:33 ◼ ► i don't know about surprise i understand it i think the important thing here for apple was the price
00:37:41 ◼ ► right in the end i think the goal was the price it the retina macbook from 2015 that computer the goal
00:37:51 ◼ ► was not the price obviously because it cost a lot of money the goal was to make a small computer and so
00:37:59 ◼ ► they did they made a 12 inch laptop um but you know the compromises you make depend on what your
00:38:07 ◼ ► premise is and i think apple's premise here was we need to make a low cost we need to build a low cost
00:38:12 ◼ ► laptop around the a18 pro that was the goal around an a series processor that will hold down a new price
00:38:18 ◼ ► point down at the bottom of the macbook line and everything followed from that so i think the size
00:38:25 ◼ ► was not an issue and in fact they wanted the size to be um it's not supposed to be a selling point this
00:38:32 ◼ ► is not a small laptop it's not meant to be the laptop you buy if you want a smaller laptop if you
00:38:36 ◼ ► like the idea of a laptop this size you should be able to say well they don't want people being like
00:38:41 ◼ ► oh i really like small laptops but it's so underpowered and i really want the macbook air so they're
00:38:45 ◼ ► like no it's it's it's a good size for a laptop i think they said um when i i talked to people on
00:38:53 ◼ ► wednesday they like that screen size the 13 inch i would argue as somebody who used a small screen
00:38:59 ◼ ► laptop for a long time um it gets real crowded modern mac os gets real crowded under that size
00:39:05 ◼ ► they the 11 the days of the 11 inch macbook air are over even in the latter days of the 11 inch air
00:39:11 ◼ ► before it you know i stopped using it the interface just kept getting kind of bigger and more crowded
00:39:17 ◼ ► and it felt in the last couple of years like nobody was checking to see if things fit on the screen
00:39:22 ◼ ► of the 11 inch air i i don't think you could go down there today i think 13 is probably about as low as
00:39:28 ◼ ► as apple is willing to go with it um and and the other thing is you you want to sell this to a whole new
00:39:35 ◼ ► audience a lot of the competition down there is a 14 inch display right like i don't think i don't think
00:39:41 ◼ ► that audience wants tiny i think they just want cheap or cheaper and that's what apple's going to
00:39:46 ◼ ► give them here so i i think that all went into it is like the size was just not the point and i i've
00:39:52 ◼ ► seen a lot of people we know who are disappointed in this product because it's not the product of their
00:39:56 ◼ ► dreams which is a tiny laptop and i agree this is not the kind of fabled what if they did the 12 inch
00:40:04 ◼ ► written a macbook as an apple silicon mac because that would be amazing it would also not be 599 it
00:40:10 ◼ ► wouldn't be 999 it would probably be more like 1399 and i think maybe nobody would buy it but again i
00:40:17 ◼ ► would love i would love it i would love to see it because i think they could make that product now and
00:40:22 ◼ ► it would be amazing but i i just don't think they want to i don't think they think there's a place for
00:40:26 ◼ ► it and this is not yeah the purpose of this product is not for it to be small the purpose is for it to be
00:40:31 ◼ ► cheap and it is to make the macbook neo apple establish new processes i'm going to read a
00:40:38 ◼ ► quote from aforementioned molly anderson the vp of hardware of like hardware design at apple
00:40:43 ◼ ► this is to d zine magazine uh we start to do an extrusion we flatten it and then form it with heat
00:40:50 ◼ ► and pressure to get as close as possible to the shape of the final product then we find machine to
00:40:55 ◼ ► create the profile so we're really reducing huge amounts of the machining cycle time that's involved
00:41:00 ◼ ► the goal is for us to use less material overall and to reduce the amount of processing of that
00:41:06 ◼ ► material so we're going to talk about the price in a minute but to get it down to a more effective
00:41:10 ◼ ► price less material and less time machining is what they're going for with this with this product and
00:41:15 ◼ ► this is um the the macbook neo features the most recycled content of any mac it's 60 recycled content
00:41:23 ◼ ► of any apple products sorry not just any mac i think i think it's fun that they did this um and
00:41:30 ◼ ► that they talked about it for this product the product doesn't feel like different from another
00:41:35 ◼ ► apple product in any way to me sure so what i would what i would say is this is really interesting that
00:41:40 ◼ ► you did this for the macbook neo they're going to do this for all future laptop designs i mean why
00:41:44 ◼ ► wouldn't they right like what would be the problem if it's if it's cheaper and the quality is the same
00:41:50 ◼ ► and and remains to be seen but i don't notice a difference maybe they know that it's not the same
00:41:55 ◼ ► and that they wouldn't do this on a macbook pro or something like that but like i have a hard time
00:41:59 ◼ ► imagining they wouldn't use a similar process if they could on other laptops on the macbook air for
00:42:04 ◼ ► sure if it costs them less money to produce it and it's less wasteful in terms of materials and then
00:42:09 ◼ ► and they can up their recycled content like there's lots of reasons why they uh would do that
00:42:14 ◼ ► but maybe this is just a good example where maybe the premise of doing a cheaper laptop they're like
00:42:18 ◼ ► we need a cheaper i can see the meeting where somebody's like do you know how much it costs to
00:42:23 ◼ ► make just the aluminum and somebody's like well what if we did i've been thinking about a different
00:42:27 ◼ ► process that we could do and and this was the laptop where they're like great let it let us
00:42:32 ◼ ► experiment on a new process for building these aluminum shells and we'll use the neo as the test case
00:42:38 ◼ ► and so but like it's it's just an apple laptop it does not feel weird in any way it is just like
00:42:45 ◼ ► the others so new process great i'm sure um i'm sure they'll take what they learned from that and apply
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00:44:41 ◼ ► yeah we've not mentioned the price yet we're restrained like that as you say in your review
00:44:47 ◼ ► the price is staggering so the entry price for the macbook neo is 599 with a 100 education discount
00:44:55 ◼ ► which is yeah i would assume the majority of this customer base who they're selling it to
00:44:59 ◼ ► would be able to apply for education for 9 499 for a brand new macbook yeah half the price of
00:45:09 ◼ ► what the education macbook air is this is it is you you said staggering i would say astounding
00:45:16 ◼ ► it's unprecedented for apple to sell a product at this price bracket yeah you know 499 mac
00:45:24 ◼ ► mini the original was the lowest price mac ever and then the next year was 599 yeah but famously
00:45:32 ◼ ► that was bring your own display keyboard and mouse it doesn't count really in the same way does it
00:45:45 ◼ ► so one of the things i'm proud of us for talking about it's is and i latched on to that digitimes
00:45:52 ◼ ► story two years ago yep where they said it's a chromebook apple's working on a chromebook killer
00:45:57 ◼ ► and i i read i read that report and i was like hmm that doesn't sound like what this is that sounds like
00:46:04 ◼ ► this sounds like a an a series processor laptop which they could probably get away with i thought
00:46:10 ◼ ► two years ago that would allow them to enter a new price bracket which is not the same as being
00:46:16 ◼ ► a chromebook killer it might threaten chromebooks i think it certainly threatens i think it's going to
00:46:21 ◼ ► take a chunk out of that market but you're right it's not like this is our chromebook maybe and pc
00:46:26 ◼ ► laptops too and and so i'm proud of us for talking about it over the last two years and and being
00:46:33 ◼ ► excited about it for what i think is an interesting but a good reason this product is exciting because it
00:46:41 ◼ ► exists at that price point and and our audience is made up almost entirely if not entirely of people
00:46:47 ◼ ► for whom this price point is just not relevant or at least not very relevant because i assume most of
00:46:52 ◼ ► our listeners have mac laptops and they until today they were not 599 mac laptops there is a segment of
00:47:00 ◼ ► people plus there's like you buy one for your kids you buy one for schools you're supporting a school
00:47:05 ◼ ► um and you don't have the budget for mac so you end up with a cheap uh pc laptop or you end up with
00:47:12 ◼ ► a chromebook there's lots of different arguments to be made about what's down here but i think i would say this
00:47:16 ◼ ► broadly there are people in the market for whatever reason socioeconomic yes uh prioritization also who
00:47:27 ◼ ► look at a thousand dollar computer and like are you kidding there are people who have never considered
00:47:34 ◼ ► buying a new mac a new mac laptop because they look at a windows notebook for 599 550 and say why would i
00:47:45 ◼ ► spend a thousand dollars or eight hundred dollars on a macbook air when i could get this 14 inch hp laptop
00:47:54 ◼ ► for 550 that is the audience and and the and the test case was that walmart m1 macbook air right which
00:48:05 ◼ ► was not a new computer but it was new ish it was new to you and uh at walmart in the u.s that they tested
00:48:13 ◼ ► and like apple it's important i i said this on another podcast i'll throw it in here um my old
00:48:20 ◼ ► boss jeff edmund um who was a sales guy at pc world and when we merged mac world pc world he became my
00:48:26 ◼ ► boss nice guy he he died a few years ago smart just good just good guy sales guy but like a good good
00:48:39 ◼ ► you know you do some sales mike you understand it more than i probably understand it more yeah
00:48:43 ◼ ► but the thing that that just blew my mind was he said you must be known to be considered you must be
00:48:50 ◼ ► considered to be bought that was one of his like mantras that he had about and that's why you advertise
00:48:56 ◼ ► and i learned a lot it's like why does brand advertising happen it's like because you can turn
00:49:01 ◼ ► your fly-by-night operation into a well-known operation by advertising and then you're not a
00:49:13 ◼ ► there's a whole span of people who never considered everybody knows apple right who never considered apple
00:49:24 ◼ ► because apple's their zone of purchase is not apple does not enter it and so apple is never considered
00:49:31 ◼ ► and apple will not be considered we'll see how they do we'll see how people react to it apple did their
00:49:37 ◼ ► thing that they do this goes back to steve jobs i love it where they card out a uh it was a 550
00:49:43 ◼ ► um hp notebook 14 laptop and everybody got this demo it was hilarious oh wow huh put it right next to the
00:49:52 ◼ ► neo on the table and you know they picked it so of course it's not gonna reflect well this is the one
00:49:59 ◼ ► that smoke pulls out of it it's so bad like it's a it's a it's a bad display yeah with a bad angle of
00:50:06 ◼ ► view it's it's it's a lousy webcam and the whole thing just feels cheap because it is cheap and one of
00:50:15 ◼ ► the things that that apple has done here by insisting and i mentioned this in the review by insisting
00:50:21 ◼ ► that they're if they're going to make a product it's a it's a famous line that came out um the last
00:50:26 ◼ ► week that people were remembering where jobs said famously 17 years ago that uh we don't know how to
00:50:31 ◼ ► make a 500 computer that's not a piece of junk yeah apple has figured out how to make a 599 computer
00:50:37 ◼ ► that's not a piece of junk and one of the ways that that will change the the market is that people will
00:50:43 ◼ ► consider it who never considered a new apple laptop before another way it will change it is that it's
00:50:50 ◼ ► going to give some it raises the bar for the competition now you're going to have some pc
00:50:55 ◼ ► makers who are down in that price range who look at what their offering is versus the apple offering and
00:51:00 ◼ ► go oh man and they're going to have to up their game and probably eat some margin in order to compete
00:51:04 ◼ ► better and put better laptops in that category because if if the average 500 pc laptop is as lousy
00:51:18 ◼ ► i'm not saying that this is going to be you know it's going to roll in there and kill them all i'm
00:51:23 ◼ ► going to say it's going to be a formidable competitor because it brings that apple brand
00:51:28 ◼ ► promise of a solid quality product to a to an a market to an audience that has never really seriously
00:51:38 ◼ ► considered it yeah because it was just too expensive that's for other people to buy i've never and not
00:51:44 ◼ ► not like i don't even because i want to say you can overemphasize like i don't have the money to buy it
00:51:49 ◼ ► it's also like it's not worth it for me to spend more money to buy it is a lot of it for a lot of
00:51:54 ◼ ► people because we all care about computers right maybe a lot of people just don't care they need
00:52:00 ◼ ► one they just don't care about it but they need one and so they and then they look at a thousand
00:52:04 ◼ ► dollars and like what's the difference between that and this hp laptop for 500 i'll just get this one
00:52:09 ◼ ► now apple's down there saying actually you could get this and then they look if they look at it if they
00:52:18 ◼ ► this seems much better i'm gonna buy this one instead so you know it is a phone chip that is
00:52:24 ◼ ► in this product you know it was a chip that was designed for being a phone and with that comes
00:52:29 ◼ ► some decisions that apple have made along the way one of those is the only configuration is do you
00:52:35 ◼ ► want 256 gigabytes or 512 gigabytes of storage they are your two configurations and then the 512 comes with
00:52:42 ◼ ► touch id and that's 699 yeah that's that's a still a pretty good deal and i do not have that you have
00:52:52 ◼ ► the base one i have the base one so it's just got a lock button on it it's 599 one of the reasons why i i
00:52:58 ◼ ► also see the criticism of this product from people who i i think just don't understand how phone chips work
00:53:03 ◼ ► apple choosing the a18 pro means it's going to have eight gigs of ram and it means that it and also
00:53:11 ◼ ► let's just be clear where do these chips come from why is it not this year's iphone chip the answer is
00:53:17 ◼ ► because apple's using this year's iphone chip that's on the new process at tsmc to sell iphones yeah um
00:53:25 ◼ ► these are the these are the chips left over from the iphone 16 pro these are all binned so they have
00:53:31 ◼ ► one less gpu than the iphone 16 pro did these are chips that are kind of free yeah and and previously
00:53:40 ◼ ► would have been wasted at the scale that they are producing iphones to the amount of chips they will
00:53:48 ◼ ► need for the macbook neo yes these are essentially free they're basically wasted you know yeah they didn't
00:53:54 ◼ ► they didn't qualify and this and this is why apple puts a chips in bunches of stuff this is why apple
00:54:00 ◼ ► puts a chips in uh displays and stuff and you're like well that seems like a lot it's like it's
00:54:04 ◼ ► because they're extra they have to go somewhere in in in other like because they because the iphone
00:54:10 ◼ ► volume is so large and they can't ship them all in the iphone because some of them fail the test and
00:54:15 ◼ ► get binned so that's what this is and and i think they built the product around that idea that this is
00:54:21 ◼ ► going to be a binned a chip from a previous model iphone and if you do that you pick up all the
00:54:26 ◼ ► features now if they've if they revise the macbook neo next year it will presumably get the next a chip
00:54:31 ◼ ► which has 12 gigs of ram and i suspect that they will but you're using the system on a chip you're
00:54:37 ◼ ► using the configs that are available i kind of doubt given the price that apple is ever going to do a
00:54:41 ◼ ► special run of chips just for the macbook neo right it's going to use whatever is is in
00:54:48 ◼ ► the bin basically i mean by by the numbers we're talking about it's a miracle that they do special
00:54:54 ◼ ► chips for the mac you know like like when we're looking at the scale of these two if you think about
00:54:59 ◼ ► it if you think about it they don't because those chips also power the ipad yeah but even then
00:55:05 ◼ ► right even then it's still like you know it's it's it's it's yeah but that's that's your high-end i
00:55:10 ◼ ► mean that's your high-end chip and and and that's just how they do it is they've got a's and m's now
00:55:15 ◼ ► um and the m's go in the ipad and the mac except in the low end for both and then the a's go in the
00:55:21 ◼ ► low end of the ipad and the mac too and that's just how it how it works but anyway i those limitations
00:55:27 ◼ ► are baked in it doesn't mean that you can not be critical of those limitations you can be but like
00:55:32 ◼ ► they are baked in this is what this is how you get a phone chip in a mac is you get the phone
00:55:37 ◼ ► configuration as well and that honestly that we'll talk about performance in a in a minute because
00:55:45 ◼ ► then that becomes the big question yeah is how does it play yeah it does did was that a good idea
00:55:51 ◼ ► so in regards to the price steven hackett put together a great list of all of the ways in
00:55:58 ◼ ► which the macbook neo is different to a macbook air like all of the many things that were taken
00:56:04 ◼ ► out or changed to make to i guess make this product hit 600 as the entry point and when i was looking
00:56:12 ◼ ► through this list one of the things that was really surprising to me or the thing that really struck it to
00:56:18 ◼ ► my mind is what was the starting point for this computer that led them down the road of being
00:56:25 ◼ ► willing to take this much out of a macbook well and that's so i talked to i talked to apple people
00:56:33 ◼ ► about this actually a friend of the show colleen navielli was there every time she and i see each
00:56:37 ◼ ► other there's like a moment we have a little moment of hey how's it going and it's funny because it's
00:56:41 ◼ ► very much like she got to know us doing upgrade yeah um and i said you know what i asked the question
00:56:48 ◼ ► what what what does it you know how do you go through the thought process of what doesn't go
00:56:52 ◼ ► in here that's in the macbook air and she said we don't do that we start at the bottom and then build
00:56:57 ◼ ► it up okay and also realistically you still have the same number of bits that you know you have to put
00:57:03 ◼ ► in a laptop so but but philosophically they didn't want to make it seem like they decontented in a
00:57:07 ◼ ► macbook air well that's that's just half glass empty half glass full and i'm not criticizing it but
00:57:12 ◼ ► that is the right way to think about the product it's not like how is this worse it's i know how is
00:57:17 ◼ ► this still good the reason i would i i will accept that idea though is because i i think it all starts with the a18 pro
00:57:31 ◼ ► and check the things because they they made two sets of choices they made the choices that they
00:57:39 ◼ ► actually just made when they picked the chip and then they made the choices when they built the laptop
00:57:44 ◼ ► around it and those are different sets they're just different sets the ram is a choice that they made
00:57:48 ◼ ► from the chip the thunderbolt is a choice they made by choosing a chip that doesn't support thunderbolt
00:57:52 ◼ ► right like that stuff is all of that is based on the chip and then there's the the stuff that wraps around
00:58:00 ◼ ► it to me the biggest ones that were missing that don't necessarily have to be missing is true tone
00:58:08 ◼ ► backlit keyboard yeah physically clicking trackpad fast charging like these are things that these are
00:58:17 ◼ ► decisions that they've made because either you know like an iphone can do these things or an ipad
00:58:23 ◼ ► can do these things if it has a keyboard attached to them or whatever but these are decisions that they made
00:58:30 ◼ ► you know because i assume this product was again i appreciate where the design philosophy and i'm not
00:58:36 ◼ ► saying that they're not saying that but you would get to different points and be like okay we can either
00:58:41 ◼ ► do this or we can do this and if we do this this product becomes more expensive absolutely i think it's a
00:58:48 ◼ ► lot of we're going to add this in does this if we add this in what does it cost us yeah also a lot of
00:58:54 ◼ ► this stuff is is stuff we said this is not an m1 macbook air but a lot of this stuff is stuff that
00:58:59 ◼ ► that apple's laptops have done yep in the past or other apple products have done a lot of this is out
00:59:06 ◼ ► of the parts bin and i don't mean that in a like a uh cheap way i mean apple's got a one of the ways you
00:59:13 ◼ ► make this product cheap is you use stuff that apple's already built for something else you don't do custom
00:59:18 ◼ ► custom design so that keyboard and trackpad is right out of the first it's a magic keyboard it feels like
00:59:27 ◼ ► a magic keyboard if you think back to the early ipad pro magic keyboard it had a magic keyboard and a
00:59:34 ◼ ► physically clicking trackpad the current one i think is a haptic it is but it didn't used to be
00:59:42 ◼ ► and they used that and why did they use that probably because they already had it designed
00:59:47 ◼ ► and it was cheaper it's cheaper to make and it's not that they they already re-engineered the trackpad
00:59:54 ◼ ► to physically click without the diving board effect where it's hinged on the top and so it moves much more
00:59:58 ◼ ► and you have to press it harder on the top to get it to click because it's hinged up there this is a
01:00:04 ◼ ► floating clickable thing the whole surface is clickable it's very much like what they did with the ipad oh
01:00:10 ◼ ► oh that's good it wasn't clear to me with how it clicked and i was worried that it was like a hinged
01:00:15 ◼ ► one no it's all just kind of floating and you can push it down anywhere and it does it does all the
01:00:20 ◼ ► things just like the ipad trackpad does it does all the things in terms of multi-touch gestures and
01:00:24 ◼ ► all of that and it's and it's not a cheapo keyboard it's the magic keyboard it feels like a magic
01:00:29 ◼ ► keyboard so they took kind of like the ipad uh magic keyboard stuff and just rolled that in there um
01:00:37 ◼ ► the the they didn't but they didn't backlight it that saved them on lighting and it saved them on
01:00:42 ◼ ► an ambient light sensor to trigger the lighting which is another thing that they omitted um they
01:00:48 ◼ ► don't have another sensor that with true tone i think they're doing automatic it does automatically
01:00:54 ◼ ► adjust display brightness i suspect that there's either another sensor for that that's not at the
01:00:59 ◼ ► level of true tone or they're using the camera well that's good i was worried that it meant that the
01:01:04 ◼ ► screen would never adjust which i thought no it does auto adjust the ambient light sensor that's
01:01:09 ◼ ► not there i think is for the keyboard backlighting um but it does adjust it's got an auto because i
01:01:15 ◼ ► hate that feature and i turned it off i had to turn it off because in my backyard it was going up and
01:01:19 ◼ ► down and up and down i was like no no no no no no stop uh so it does do that so yeah they had they
01:01:25 ◼ ► have all these choices some of which come from the chip and some of them are really just like
01:01:30 ◼ ► do we like magsafe like they could have engineered this thing with magsafe but one it might have been
01:01:36 ◼ ► i don't know what all the technical limitations are i i get the sense from apple that um to put
01:01:42 ◼ ► two usb ports on this at all because remember no iphone has two ports that there was some work that
01:01:48 ◼ ► had to be done um unclear whether there was some backdoor work in the a6 or a18 pro to make it possible
01:01:55 ◼ ► for them to make the macbook neo i wouldn't be surprised if they they left some bits in the a18
01:02:01 ◼ ► pro knowing that it would also eventually run on a mac um but the usb ports are constrained only one
01:02:08 ◼ ► of them is usb3 the other is usb2 so and they have to charge now they did learn their lesson from the
01:02:14 ◼ ► 12 inch macbook right which is you can't you can't have a one port design that also is your charging
01:02:20 ◼ ► port that's really bad so it's two and you can use either for charging the magsafe decision obviously
01:02:25 ◼ ► i think it's a price decision right like they either would have had to maybe throw out one of the ports
01:02:29 ◼ ► or uh you know they're gonna have to build a magsafe in there and then they got to ship a magsafe cable
01:02:34 ◼ ► and like would they do that and like i think they just said no and also the m1 air doesn't have it so
01:02:40 ◼ ► i think there's very much like we've already got some technology people who use the m1 air and the
01:02:45 ◼ ► last generation macbook airs didn't have magsafe and they were fine i do think it's safe is a nice
01:02:52 ◼ ► feature so pay for it if you want yeah yeah no i get it yeah i mean that's it that's it you could say
01:02:57 ◼ ► that about literally every decision is yeah but it's nice it's a shame that it's not in here and my my
01:03:02 ◼ ► answer i'm sorry to say it my answer is it's 599 and like something's got to give something's got to
01:03:07 ◼ ► give if they're going to cut because this is not i would be more accepting of that argument if it was
01:03:14 ◼ ► 200 less than the macbook air but it's a lot less than the macbook air and some stuff has to give
01:03:19 ◼ ► and you want to have some stuff that's left uh that's that's nicer about the other laptops and i
01:03:24 ◼ ► do feel like to hit 599 they had to be ruthless with some of this stuff and and again i like magsafe
01:03:31 ◼ ► i don't use it all the time and i used to not have a laptop with magsafe and while i missed it i got
01:03:37 ◼ ► used to charging with usbc i don't think it oh yeah i don't think it is beneath apple's quality bar
01:03:42 ◼ ► i guess which is what they're trying to go for here so we spoke about you know and i agree with
01:03:50 ◼ ► you that this product probably came from the sense of what would we do if we were to build a laptop
01:03:54 ◼ ► around the a18 pro chip yeah so let's talk about the a18 pro chip in your usage over the last week or so
01:04:03 ◼ ► how does this chip compare to what you have used in other macs well i so i did the benchmark test which
01:04:12 ◼ ► i really already did last year and two years ago right because this was the story and we knew we didn't
01:04:18 ◼ ► know what this product would be but you could guess based on the chips and the story is the same it's
01:04:23 ◼ ► a much more modern core than the m1 even though it's only got six cpu cores instead of eight it is
01:04:31 ◼ ► substantially faster than the m1 it's faster than the m3 at single processor core tests which is again
01:04:38 ◼ ► single processor stuff is what we are using for the vast majority of our computing on a daily basis
01:04:43 ◼ ► yeah you're peaking a performance core in order to uh do work right now as opposed to kind of background
01:04:50 ◼ ► work yeah multi-core it's like an m1 basically and again you know that's because it doesn't have a lot
01:04:59 ◼ ► of cores and that's because it's an iphone chip and they don't they don't put like in my comparison
01:05:06 ◼ ► chart you'll see m1 m2 m3 all had eight cores m4 and m5 have 10 cores a18 pro has six cores so it's
01:05:13 ◼ ► got fewer cores to work with the cores are good there aren't as many of them and as a result it's got
01:05:18 ◼ ► basically m1 performance in multi-core but again if you're somebody who's doing a lot of multi-threaded
01:05:23 ◼ ► multi-core work um this is probably not the computer for you and it will do the work that's
01:05:28 ◼ ► the thing that i want to keep emphasizing here is it will do the work it's just slower at it unless
01:05:34 ◼ ► you're using something that's super ram intensive where it overwhelms the system because it's only
01:05:40 ◼ ► got eight gigs of ram and it can't page it to disk and like there are cases but like with a lot of this
01:05:46 ◼ ► stuff it works it's just slower because it's a 599 computer the metal score in geekbench which is
01:05:56 ◼ ► a you know again it's it's a gpu score i'll say again the m1 air had seven gpu cores the m2345 i'll
01:06:07 ◼ ► have 10 gpu cores on the macbook air um i have the m5 macbook pro here but like regardless you compare
01:06:16 ◼ ► that to the five gpu cores in this what do you think it's going to happen yeah and the answer is it actually
01:06:21 ◼ ► does about as well as the m1 macbook air in gpu which means again can you play games on it sure
01:06:32 ◼ ► like you can on a m5 no you cannot because it's not an m5 that said you know there's a lot of you know
01:06:40 ◼ ► a lot of the games that are on apple's platforms are kind of iphone games anyway and the iphone is
01:06:45 ◼ ► capable of playing games you're driving on bigger display here there's going to be issues but again
01:06:49 ◼ ► i think it is it is not slower than well the way i would put it is it's not the slowest apple silicon
01:06:59 ◼ ► mac ever made it's not right even at the places where it's not as good it's faster than the m1 or
01:07:05 ◼ ► about the same i mean it's fast slightly faster than the m1 and at the single peak single core it's more
01:07:11 ◼ ► like uh m3 and a half so um pretty good i would say and and i just want to emphasize this again
01:07:18 ◼ ► the most important thing about the neo other than the price is that it's a mac and you just use it
01:07:25 ◼ ► like a mac it's not a half a mac it's not like a fake mac it's not a mac where like some apps don't run
01:07:32 ◼ ► or or that you there are things that that little thing pops up and says i'm sorry this is a macbook
01:07:42 ◼ ► you're doing final cut pro or logic you should probably use a macbook air or a macbook pro they
01:07:46 ◼ ► they realize oh yeah or the other one that's even more expensive that said i have edited podcasts and
01:07:53 ◼ ► videos for years on systems way slower than the macbook neo can i run logic and edit a podcast which i'll
01:08:00 ◼ ► grant you is not a making a song with 50 different music tracks it's a but logic is a heavy app even
01:08:06 ◼ ► if you're just using it simply yeah well i i was able to use logic on an m1 and on latter-day intel
01:08:13 ◼ ► machines and it worked and it works on this too and that's my point is should you buy this for logic no
01:08:20 ◼ ► can it run logic to edit a podcast yeah is the export going to be slower and the encode sure
01:08:26 ◼ ► because it's a slow processor but would you maybe need to keep it plugged in when you're exporting a
01:08:31 ◼ ► final cut pro video possibly right like um maybe maybe but this is and i just i want to emphasize
01:08:39 ◼ ► this point i think it's a thing that apple's worried about too which is why when they did their launch
01:08:42 ◼ ► video they sort of showed it being a mac and their marketing materials show it being a mac is it would be
01:08:48 ◼ ► very easy i think for some people to make the assumption that because it's 599 it's not really
01:08:53 ◼ ► a mac it doesn't do all the things a mac does it's like a a partial mac it's like a broken mac
01:08:59 ◼ ► and it's not it's just a mac if you went to this if you were using an m1 air and you switch to this
01:09:06 ◼ ► it would not it would feel more modern because this the the design and the screen would feel
01:09:13 ◼ ► kind of nicer but it and it would be a little faster but m1 airs are perfectly capable of doing
01:09:20 ◼ ► all the mac things and so is this it just it is is it cutting edge and state of the art it's not there
01:09:27 ◼ ► are more expensive macs that will give you more of everything but i think it's important the reason
01:09:35 ◼ ► this product exists is because apple because of apple silicon because of what the pace of innovation
01:09:42 ◼ ► and and increase in speed of the a chips and the cores that apple's building have led to a point where
01:09:50 ◼ ► an iphone chip reached the point where apple could ship a perfectly fine usable mac and that's why they can
01:09:59 ◼ ► go down below the macbook air for the first time so it used to be the macbook air was the bare minimum
01:10:04 ◼ ► right m1 macbook air came out and it was amazing but it was very much like yeah but this is it like
01:10:10 ◼ ► this is this is as low as you can go and it's been that way for a while but with the m series as we go one
01:10:17 ◼ ► two three four five the m is so the m series is so capable that you start to have these reviews where
01:10:24 ◼ ► it's like an m4 air and now an m5 air and you're like and just like with the ipad you're like yeah i
01:10:29 ◼ ► mean it's super capable they sell a macbook pro that runs the base m5 and ran the base why did they do
01:10:35 ◼ ► that it's because there's so much headroom they're so capable and by by doing that they they can slide
01:10:41 ◼ ► under with an iphone chip and make a completely capable mac which is what the neo is it it i just i
01:10:48 ◼ ► want to emphasize that it is not a pro mac at all it is a consumer mac it is the slowest mac that they
01:10:54 ◼ ► sell but it will do all the mac things right it's not gonna it's not a baby mac that runs baby software
01:11:03 ◼ ► it is a mac period that's all so max also have webcams and speakers they do what is your experience with
01:11:12 ◼ ► these two parts of the macbook neo new side-firing speakers on the sort of front uh front side edge
01:11:20 ◼ ► so like uh kind of where you're where you do your wrist rests like if you move your wrists out down
01:11:25 ◼ ► those little sides there in the front um not in the front of the laptop in the side but all the way
01:11:30 ◼ ► toward the front hard to explain where they are um they sound pretty good they're laptop speakers but
01:11:35 ◼ ► they sound pretty good i think it's one of those cases where apple built new speakers for this um
01:11:42 ◼ ► apple wants the speakers to sound good but on a budget they do sound pretty good i would say so i was
01:11:50 ◼ ► impressed i think they sound fine they they are you know they're laptop speakers they're not gonna
01:11:57 ◼ ► be they're not gonna blow you away but could i put on a movie and crank up the sound and have it sound
01:12:04 ◼ ► fine yes i could um the webcam is the same old webcam that we're all used to from back before apple made
01:12:13 ◼ ► a better webcam yeah it's a 1080p webcam it's fine it's not fancy 12 megapixel center stage webcam it is
01:12:26 ◼ ► apple's classic i would say almost classic macbook air webcam which is okay so to wrap up this part we
01:12:35 ◼ ► actually have some ask upgrade which we're going to do next um instead of at the end of the episode
01:12:40 ◼ ► today because people have macbook neo questions the thing that i was thinking about when reading your
01:12:46 ◼ ► review and again in talking about it today you know is the pathway that has led us to now where
01:12:54 ◼ ► mac user acquisition seems to be an important part of apple's overall strategy and i just wonder
01:13:05 ◼ ► if this is the path they thought they were going to be going down say five ten years ago that like
01:13:11 ◼ ► mac user acquisition would be like a product that you would design for and i feel like this is not where
01:13:23 ◼ ► this is that i mean there's much more to be said about this over time but i think the apple of
01:13:33 ◼ ► five or ten years ago ten years ago really thought that the ipad was going to be the thing that allowed
01:13:40 ◼ ► them to break through and they don't think that anymore no um i think this product exists i don't
01:13:47 ◼ ► think this product was done and and a few people i heard talking about this at the event i don't think
01:13:53 ◼ ► this product was done to rebuke apple's ipad strategy in education and low-end you know computing
01:14:00 ◼ ► strategy i think though that it was formulated in part by an understanding that the ipad did not
01:14:08 ◼ ► satisfy you get a low-end ipad with a keyboard because they want a keyboard especially in education
01:14:14 ◼ ► and like you're already i mean it's it's already at five or six hundred dollars at least i think i think they
01:14:25 ◼ ► now understand all the limitations of trying to offer the ipad in those kinds of environments
01:14:29 ◼ ► into those kinds of users and i think that knowledge informed the decision to walk down this path
01:14:49 ◼ ► and i think how apple thinks of the mac now because they came to that moment where they
01:14:54 ◼ ► realigned the subsystem of all the os's and uh they put apple chips in macs and they have been going
01:15:01 ◼ ► down that path now where the mac feels like an integrated part of their overall product strategy
01:15:06 ◼ ► in a way it wasn't in the 2010s when it felt like a legacy product and this is a part of that and and
01:15:11 ◼ ► one of the fruits of that is they're able to reach a different audience with it but i think they also
01:15:16 ◼ ► do it knowing how the the market responded to the ipad which they thought is this a thing and it is a
01:15:26 ◼ ► thing in certain ways but like not i think the thing that they thought it would be i don't think
01:15:31 ◼ ► the ipad is what they thought which is oh education is going to love it it's the future of computers we
01:15:36 ◼ ► don't need computers anymore we can have the ipad and it turns out it's the year 2026 and people
01:15:40 ◼ ► want to buy laptops fair enough fair enough they can play that game too so they will one last thing
01:15:47 ◼ ► before we move on to ask upgrade um we mentioned the usbc ports earlier i wanted to mention the thing
01:15:55 ◼ ► that they did do so what's annoying about this is that there are two two ports that are not labeled
01:16:07 ◼ ► forward of that is usb2 so what apple did is they wrote software in mac os if you plug in a drive
01:16:17 ◼ ► that's capable of usb3 to the usb2 port you get a notification and notification center that says
01:16:30 ◼ ► other usb port on this mac they built it it's good like i mean it's a weird thing to have but
01:16:37 ◼ ► it's good that they did it yeah the classic thing would be to do nothing right but like you you will
01:16:42 ◼ ► not plug in a thing that's capable of more to a port that's not and not get warned which is cool and
01:16:50 ◼ ► if you try to do a display display is out which is only 4k 60 um but if you try to plug the bad port
01:16:58 ◼ ► the weak port of the two ports it will say a little notification pops up it says use other port for
01:17:04 ◼ ► display to use an external display connect to the other usb port on this mac so it is a limitation but
01:17:10 ◼ ► i really appreciate that they sweated that detail to say we need to let wouldn't it be nice if we let
01:17:16 ◼ ► people know that if they're plugging in a drive to transfer files that they plugged it into the slow
01:17:21 ◼ ► port and not the faster port and so they're they're looking at that device and saying this device is
01:17:25 ◼ ► capable of more and uh and i i like that i think it's a nice touch this episode of upgrade is brought
01:17:33 ◼ ► to you by sentry there are plenty of ai tools out there that will help you write code but sentry seer
01:17:40 ◼ ► is built to help you fix it when it breaks the difference is context seer isn't just guessing
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01:18:11 ◼ ► developers for a long time and have been very connected to the development community one of the
01:18:15 ◼ ► things that i've understood over this time period is that what people who make apps love the most is
01:18:20 ◼ ► actually making new features and making their apps better for their users and it's the most engaging
01:18:24 ◼ ► work that you can do what you don't want to be doing is to be stuck inside of an app trying to fix a
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01:18:38 ◼ ► being able to have your issues and any ai issues all fixed by sentry's seer tools you will be able to
01:18:45 ◼ ► get back to doing the thing that you love the most which is making your apps better with new fun exciting
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01:19:27 ◼ ► yeah let's go all right jake wrote in and said should the macbook neo be upgraded yearly as part of
01:19:37 ◼ ► the new spring iphone event with the latest iphone chip and new colors um yearly yes part of an iphone
01:19:45 ◼ ► event maybe maybe not not necessary i do i would love for them to do it every year and as we saw this year
01:19:52 ◼ ► year it will not be the latest iphone chip it will be probably the year ago iphone chip which
01:19:57 ◼ ► is fine and new colors yes please that would be a lot of fun so so i i i concur in part with jake's
01:20:04 ◼ ► suggestion i i don't know if you're if you're launching a whole bunch of iphones i don't know
01:20:07 ◼ ► if that's the time to launch a new mac you might use another event or or experience or press release
01:20:14 ◼ ► to announce an update to the the neo and i think it's not going to use the current iphone chip
01:20:19 ◼ ► but i do like otherwise this idea i i feel like apple now coming out of the intel era where things
01:20:26 ◼ ► kind of updated randomly they know when the chips are coming out they know what they're capable of they
01:20:30 ◼ ► know what computers it's going in and i think they like the idea like a car model year you update the
01:20:36 ◼ ► design every five or six years and then every year or so you just put in the new thing and keep it
01:20:42 ◼ ► rolling i think that's what they're doing yeah i wrote about this on my blog uh this past weekend
01:20:48 ◼ ► i think that what we saw last week the apple experience like that is the model for the spring
01:20:57 ◼ ► event that we will get each year that it actually won't be an event with a keynote because we've been
01:21:04 ◼ ► been talking about this right like how do you show off this the regular iphone when all of the best
01:21:11 ◼ ► possible features were in the year before already shown yeah one of the ways you do it is you wrap
01:21:16 ◼ ► up a bunch of stuff together give people a reason to come out and see you and you've got three four
01:21:23 ◼ ► different items you've done the my press release and you do these simultaneous events around the world
01:21:28 ◼ ► and like you know and really it was the year before or the year before that when they when they had the
01:21:34 ◼ ► london and new york event was maybe a test bed and then this is like experience this is what they
01:21:39 ◼ ► would do with a show the iphones off every year they haven't even said it like um there's a a warehouse
01:21:53 ◼ ► mm-hmm and uh so it was fun because they're like it's just this giant space and they made a hands-on
01:21:59 ◼ ► area and they made a little video area and john turnus came out and did an intro and then they played
01:22:04 ◼ ► the video and it was funny because they we got to see it before the world they dropped it all like 15
01:22:09 ◼ ► minutes later it was super weird for us so i like texted yeah i texted you and steven and i was like
01:22:14 ◼ ► macbook neo but that like the press release and the press release went up way before the product
01:22:23 ◼ ► they wanted to hold it they wanted it to to break at the experience basically and then go wide and
01:22:29 ◼ ► that was kind of fun too so um yeah darren says which device do you think the macbook neo will
01:22:36 ◼ ► cannibalize more the ipad of a keyboard or the macbook air i think it's going to cannibalize
01:22:41 ◼ ► 500 pcs the most yeah uh but i would say the mac the ipad with the keyboard yeah i think so i think
01:22:48 ◼ ► macbook air you're going to get a macbook air for the reason you get a macbook air i think this is
01:22:53 ◼ ► going to take a bigger chunk out of the base ipad than anything else macbook air will get some because
01:22:57 ◼ ► right now the macbook air is the base or it was the base now it will be the better of the good better
01:23:02 ◼ ► best yeah um better is the best place to be in my opinion um or the better place to be it's the middle
01:23:09 ◼ ► so many people will come into an apple store saying oh it starts at 599 and then they'll look at the
01:23:14 ◼ ► macbook air and they'll be like oh let's just get that and that's good like apple wants that to be
01:23:17 ◼ ► the case yeah um having something below it sort of in fact emphasizes the virtues of the macbook air
01:23:23 ◼ ► i think so so it will lose some but like i think of the ipad with the keyboard will lose more
01:23:28 ◼ ► um however i would say apple is hoping that mostly it won't cannibalize and it's going to create new mac
01:23:36 ◼ ► buyers so i guess the device that it'll cannibalize the most will be that m1 macbook air that's no longer on
01:23:40 ◼ ► sale at walmart but this is a walmart macbook air that's instead available everywhere worldwide which
01:23:47 ◼ ► is also you know that was a test in the us basically so this is uh going to be exciting but um if in
01:23:52 ◼ ► terms of apple products i'd say that you know let's just do an ipad with a keyboard thing especially in
01:23:57 ◼ ► education i think a lot of that's going to get blown away paul says is neo or could neo be a new brand
01:24:04 ◼ ► label for apple to designate to their economy tier imagine apple announcing an iphone neo apple watch
01:24:10 ◼ ► neo humpboard neo or even an ipad neo let's see how it goes i mean se se is a dumb name
01:24:17 ◼ ► and uh we've said adjective list ipad is actually not great and so why is it e right the iphone why
01:24:26 ◼ ► is it e they don't none of the other phones have a letter have a letter yeah it could be iphone you
01:24:31 ◼ ► know if it all depends on how they want to roll out products if they're going to roll out the iphone e
01:24:37 ◼ ► every year it could just as easily be an iphone 18 neo as an iphone 18 right i'll tell you how we'll
01:24:46 ◼ ► know one way or another or we'll see the result is does this computer fly off the shelf if it does
01:24:52 ◼ ► expect this brand name to be pushed out to other places where they want to sell to that exact customer
01:24:57 ◼ ► of course of course yeah that's a great that's a great example also i thought i know iphone 17 doesn't
01:25:02 ◼ ► have a tag but 17 is the tag in some ways and then there's a modifier on it so 17e you know it's fine
01:25:09 ◼ ► 17e works it is you know whatever economy efficiency it's fine uh but but i think let's see how it sits
01:25:16 ◼ ► with the public how the sales go i think what we've seen here's what i'll say i think what we've seen is
01:25:22 ◼ ► once apple gets a word if they like it they'll just use it everywhere right max and ultra and pro and
01:25:29 ◼ ► like they they these words go everywhere so if this is the first use of neo it is i guess you could say
01:25:36 ◼ ► a neologism but um whoa dad jokes about words i was in the wall street journal anyway uh they could use it
01:25:46 ◼ ► don't you know they could they could use it if they uh if if they want if they like it's now in
01:25:54 ◼ ► their it's now in their toolbox it's now in their style guide um and and so like if they're liking it
01:25:59 ◼ ► they will they'll card it out in other places i have no doubt airpods neo or some colors let's go
01:26:06 ◼ ► yeah pizza says with the introduction of the neo essentially the same size and weight as the current
01:26:11 ◼ ► macbook air do you think this creates an opportunity for apple to redesign the air to be smaller
01:26:16 ◼ ► and lighter the lower price point that the neo could also make room for them to charge a premium
01:26:21 ◼ ► for a smaller size like they did with the 12 inch macbook but apple silicon would actually make it good
01:26:26 ◼ ► what are your thoughts i don't think it will because i think the macbook air is the mainstream laptop
01:26:32 ◼ ► that they sell the most of and that they like and it doesn't need to be smaller yeah and like i said
01:26:36 ◼ ► before i think um smaller displays at this point it's hard to imagine apple doing a smaller display
01:26:41 ◼ ► than 13 because of the way the os is gone i think it would be really cramped at this point i would love
01:26:48 ◼ ► them to do another laptop that was designed to be tiny and was based on that concept that they had for
01:26:54 ◼ ► the retina macbook but the macbook air is not it yeah i also had some questions too about like
01:26:59 ◼ ► what about another laptop then you know like if they're not going to change the macbook air could
01:27:05 ◼ ► they do the macbook and that one sits in the middle i don't know if they would sell any of them but i would
01:27:11 ◼ ► love to see it as a as a former 11 inch macbook air user i would love to see it because that that retina
01:27:17 ◼ ► that retina 12 inch retina macbook was glorious you know with an asterisk and the asterisk was like
01:27:24 ◼ ► but the keyboard was bad and the chip was underpowered but like size wise and it only had one port but if
01:27:31 ◼ ► you could give me an apple silicon uh version of that with a with a magic keyboard and uh two ports
01:27:38 ◼ ► it would be awesome i just don't know if there's a product if there's like if apple if apple feels like
01:27:46 ◼ ► that might be just a 100 cannibalistic product and do they really need to make it i'm not sure they do
01:27:53 ◼ ► i don't want there to be that many laptops in the lineup um personally also a good point i i think we
01:28:03 ◼ ► may already be at too many laptops in the lineup especially when there are different sizes of the air
01:28:08 ◼ ► and the pro um i think that that is you're getting towards too many computers if you now have like a fourth
01:28:15 ◼ ► brand of too many computers and that is overall then too many macs anyway right like there are lots of
01:28:22 ◼ ► macs available for you which is fantastic but just like if we add another laptop in and we do we got
01:28:29 ◼ ► too many too many going on now i think that's i think it's possible that we do this episode of upgrade is
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01:31:03 ◼ ► jason snow mr snow mr hurley the macbook pro got added uh got an m5 pro and m5 max option added to it
01:31:13 ◼ ► finally i mean the macbook pro got an m5 and then you know we don't we don't worry about the other ones
01:31:18 ◼ ► we didn't worry now now that we've got them and i do have an m5 max macbook pro or no m5 pro macbook
01:31:24 ◼ ► pro here which i've spent very little time with um because i've been working on the macbook neo and
01:31:30 ◼ ► prioritizing that i did i did run some tests it's what you it's kind of what you'd expect um you know
01:31:37 ◼ ► single core is basically the same because it's an m5 core as other m5s um the multi-core is incredibly
01:31:44 ◼ ► impressive i'm sure the max is even more impressive but the multi-core test because it's got like 18
01:31:50 ◼ ► processor cores it's uh it's very uh impressive at multi-core and in terms of metal uh you know or
01:31:58 ◼ ► cinebench like basically the maxes have so many gpus that the maxes are always going to be better than
01:32:03 ◼ ► the pros but the pro is uh very impressive it's you know they it is what you would expect which is
01:32:09 ◼ ► it's got a lot of fast cores and that's uh you know that fast close paying for is that a new brand
01:32:17 ◼ ► name all right i need you to help me anyway it's our apologies to tracy chapman it's a fast core yeah
01:32:24 ◼ ► i need your help because okay apple have renamed some of the cores let's do it yeah so the most
01:32:33 ◼ ► powerful core in the m5 pro max is called the super core in the m5 period yes called the super core
01:32:43 ◼ ► great point all m5 retroactively back in time yeah that most powerful core is now called the
01:32:49 ◼ ► super core it used to be called performance core forget about it that's super core and if i'm
01:32:54 ◼ ► understanding it correctly the efficiency core is now core performance core no the m5 no no that's
01:33:01 ◼ ► efficiency core the efficiency core i'm very confused about this explain the efficiency core okay okay so so
01:33:08 ◼ ► traditionally in apple silicon apple has had two kinds of cores a more powerful core and a core that
01:33:14 ◼ ► uses less power um because what happens is you can just kind of bubble things back on the less powerful
01:33:20 ◼ ► core which is more efficient with power and then when you need to peak you use you then you crank up the
01:33:26 ◼ ► performance cores or those higher level cores we'll say and that's when you get peak performance and it uses
01:33:32 ◼ ► more power but that's how they stay energy efficient is they use more power now they branded these early
01:33:38 ◼ ► on performance and efficiency cores and over the years i've gotten the sense whenever i talk to the
01:33:44 ◼ ► chip people there when they roll out a new chip that they feel a little frustrated by the choice of name
01:33:49 ◼ ► of efficiency because they will often say in briefings they'll be like you know it's pretty powerful on its
01:33:56 ◼ ► own it's not you know it's not just about efficiency the efficiency core is very powerful um and i got
01:34:01 ◼ ► the sense that they were just frustrated about it so that came to a head obviously because now they've
01:34:05 ◼ ► changed it so the m5 base has now super cores we're calling them that's the high level one
01:34:13 ◼ ► that's the peak performance one and then the lower level one is efficiency and they're still calling it
01:34:26 ◼ ► for the m5 pro and the m5 max instead they have a new lower level core design in the m5 pro and
01:34:36 ◼ ► the m5 max and they don't want to call it efficiency so they re renamed that super powerful core as the
01:34:44 ◼ ► super core but they didn't want to keep calling that lower core efficiency and now with the pro and the max
01:34:50 ◼ ► chips it's a new core design now is the time everybody to give it a new name now my understanding
01:34:56 ◼ ► is that this is based on it's actually based on the super core design these are these are not
01:35:03 ◼ ► they're they're designed to be efficient they're designed to be part of multi-threaded tasks they're
01:35:10 ◼ ► designed to not use power but they are a new design that i think is based not on an evolution of the
01:35:20 ◼ ► the old old efficiency cores but based on these super cores so instead of going from efficiency
01:35:27 ◼ ► core upwards to this new performance core is going from the new super core downwards to create the new
01:35:34 ◼ ► performance core yeah so they they seem to have they seem to have built a variant of what they're
01:35:40 ◼ ► using as the super core that is more capable of doing lower power work in multi-threaded operation
01:35:46 ◼ ► um at least that's what they say i i'm not a you know i haven't seen the chip design and i wouldn't
01:35:51 ◼ ► understand it if i saw it but that's what they say so the m5 because they've gone back and so the the
01:35:57 ◼ ► macbook pro the ipad pro the vision pro that got the m5 they now have super core and efficiency core
01:36:04 ◼ ► and efficient core but on the pro and the max it's different because they've got this new core type
01:36:07 ◼ ► this is all okay hold on hold on like i don't because i i want to i want to just be clear about
01:36:12 ◼ ► this this is all okay there's a new design for the lower level chip on the pro and max that is more
01:36:18 ◼ ► powerful and it and and they're like they we don't want to call it efficiency core because that suggests
01:36:23 ◼ ► that this is like orthopedic hardware that is you wear it and it's uncomfortable but it's good for you
01:36:29 ◼ ► right and they're like no no no this is a great chip because it's true like the the the historic
01:36:34 ◼ ► efficiency cores are pretty good they've gotten a lot more powerful over time it's one of the
01:36:38 ◼ ► reasons that apple silicon max feel so powerful is that even when they're not peaking the performance
01:36:44 ◼ ► cores or now the super cores they still do a good job so they're like we're not going to call it that
01:36:49 ◼ ► all of this i'm fine with all of this i'm fine with rebranding the performance cores of super cores
01:36:55 ◼ ► is a little weird it's marketing it's it's even more obviously marketing now super they're super
01:37:03 ◼ ► here's the thing that he did though that is maddening to me which is they renamed the low
01:37:19 ◼ ► a word that moments before meant the higher level of the two until they renamed the higher level of the
01:37:29 ◼ ► two to super thereby in making performance disappear and making it i guess in their mind available as a
01:37:36 ◼ ► way to reasonably reasonably describe the lower tier even though it's meant the higher tier up to now
01:37:42 ◼ ► just to confirm by lower you mean what is essentially middle because the lowest tier is still efficiency on
01:37:48 ◼ ► the chip i i don't want to talk about it as a product line all these chips have two two sets of cores
01:37:53 ◼ ► yeah the ones that are powerful and the ones that are more efficient yeah and they used to be performance
01:37:58 ◼ ► and efficiency but in the m2 or m5 max and pro they're not that anymore now they're super and
01:38:04 ◼ ► performance and it gets across the idea that we used to have what you you thought there was no no
01:38:10 ◼ ► letter above a we used to have the a cores and the b cores but now we've got this uh impossible level
01:38:16 ◼ ► letter above a and then a um which is just weird i don't know why they did this i don't know why they
01:38:23 ◼ ► didn't come up with another name for that core other than uh just reusing performance because
01:38:29 ◼ ► performance on the m5 pro and max doesn't mean what it meant on all previous generations
01:38:35 ◼ ► it means something different it's very confusing but anyway that's that's basically what they did what it
01:38:40 ◼ ► means is every generation of chip uh and sometimes within the different variations of chips apple
01:38:45 ◼ ► changes some aspect of it they don't upgrade everything every time they upgrade parts of it
01:38:50 ◼ ► and it seems like the thing they did on the m5 pro and max is upgrade that lower level set of chips
01:38:55 ◼ ► or set of cores to be better and they renamed it as a part of that but to be better which means
01:39:00 ◼ ► that it probably in multi-threaded performance based on my test is really good that's great and it's
01:39:05 ◼ ► still got a lot of long battery life that's awesome um it just causes a mismatch with everything we
01:39:11 ◼ ► used to say yeah um and i find that very confusing but that's why they did it so so i can get this right
01:39:19 ◼ ► in my head the actual new thing is the performance course because super core you know like i know that
01:39:28 ◼ ► they've got the fusion architecture and did it like this super core was introduced in the m5 as
01:39:32 ◼ ► it turns out retroactively and so these just have lots of super cores that were already the m it's
01:39:37 ◼ ► the m5 core right that's in some ways that defines the product is the cpu core for that generation so
01:39:42 ◼ ► the the the the top level cpu core for the m5 is the super core it has always been the super core we
01:39:47 ◼ ► have always been at war with the super core so okay uh but the the lower level cores in the m5
01:39:54 ◼ ► aren't in the m5 pro and max they got replaced by a new one that's better and they're calling it a
01:40:00 ◼ ► confusing name but that's the thing to know about it is that it's better at overall performance right
01:40:06 ◼ ► and that and that and that shows up in the benchmarks so it is possible that say in the m6
01:40:12 ◼ ► we may see m6 chip would have super and efficiency and then m6 pro and m6 max m6 max would have super and
01:40:21 ◼ ► performance i think the m6 is going to have super and performance yeah they're going to get rid of
01:40:28 ◼ ► efficiency i think they will roll my guess is they will roll these this core design into the
01:40:32 ◼ ► low-end chips next year they really should have come up with a different word like they needed one
01:40:38 ◼ ► new word why not come up with two new words and like solve all of this because this is so much more
01:40:43 ◼ ► complicated and awesome core or something or just wait and do it all at once right like wait for the m6 and
01:40:51 ◼ ► then call it super and performance or whatever right like bringing it halfway through and then
01:40:57 ◼ ► retroactively renaming something they didn't want to do that though they just they didn't want to do
01:41:01 ◼ ► that because they wanted to launch these new chips with the uh with not calling those awesome cores as
01:41:06 ◼ ► as anyway whatever last thing to touch on today we've gone so long we had so much to say about the
01:41:13 ◼ ► macbook neo is there were new displays uh the studio display uh it got a new center stage camera and
01:41:21 ◼ ► thunderbolt 5 a better a better webcam because the old webcam wasn't very good um support for thunderbolt
01:41:26 ◼ ► 5 although you can obviously use older it goes back to you know you can you can be drive it with it
01:41:31 ◼ ► basically everything that drove the old one because it's basically no different and uh also for no uh
01:41:38 ◼ ► for no change in price and um i'm going to do this really quick because we are running out of time
01:41:43 ◼ ► um why does this product exist lots of podcast time already has been spent on like why would you buy
01:41:49 ◼ ► this and the answer is why do iphone cases from apple exist yeah the studio display exists because it's an
01:41:55 ◼ ► apple product it fits in with all the other apple products and there is a class of buyer who just wants
01:42:04 ◼ ► the apple display and they don't care about the price they don't want to go shopping they don't
01:42:08 ◼ ► want to buy like a off-brand whatever and see if it's any good they're just going to buy the apple
01:42:16 ◼ ► thing and yeah they're going to spend three four five hundred dollars more or maybe get less out of it
01:42:21 ◼ ► it's totally true savvy shoppers i would argue will probably not buy this yeah but that's not why it's
01:42:26 ◼ ► there it's there because it allows apple to have a display and say would you like to buy a display with
01:42:30 ◼ ► your mac studio it's 1599 and some people will be like i guess and they'll buy it yeah but it is
01:42:39 ◼ ► increasingly not a smart thing to buy unless you really just value the simplicity of having an apple
01:42:46 ◼ ► product on your desk and they replace the pro display xdr with the studio display xdr it is still a 5k
01:42:55 ◼ ► display it's 27 inches the same as the studio display but it has a mini led 120 hertz refresh rate
01:43:02 ◼ ► of adaptive sync display a thousand nits of sdr brightness 2000 nits peak brightness color grading
01:43:08 ◼ ► presets it also gets the center stage camera and thunderbolt 5 this has a six speaker sound system
01:43:14 ◼ ► the camera and speaker are new to the high-end display because the pro display xdr had neither
01:43:20 ◼ ► and there's a stand included and it's three thousand three hundred dollars basically yeah it's very
01:43:25 ◼ ► expensive um and the people who are fans of the larger display of the pro display xdr will be sad
01:43:30 ◼ ► because this is a 27 inch 5k it's amazing i did see it it's beautiful right it's gorgeous if you if you
01:43:37 ◼ ► want a i mean it's a pro display people people will buy them you may even buy one i have bought one
01:43:44 ◼ ► you know it's not for you but it will be a beautiful display well you know why it's not for me because
01:43:52 ◼ ► i'll be plugging an m2 macbook air in it so for i only get 60 hertz refresh rate but it's because i bought
01:43:59 ◼ ► this now because i am planning to buy the macbook pro later on this year sure sure anyway it's it's gorgeous
01:44:06 ◼ ► it's very expensive it's really designed as a pro level product in fact even at the experience they
01:44:11 ◼ ► had it next to two regular studio displays rather than having like three studio display xdrs because
01:44:19 ◼ ► i think even apple was like it's probably not going to buy three of them you probably buy one and then
01:44:23 ◼ ► have two regular ones anyway it looks great it really did look great it's gorgeous um the thunderbolt
01:44:29 ◼ ► five thing one of the things that they added is that's two thunderbolt ports on the back now so you
01:44:36 ◼ ► both out of a a thunderbolt hub or a computer they will they will run on a chain so you can have
01:44:42 ◼ ► like they had three all running across interconnected with a single cable to the laptop that was driving
01:44:48 ◼ ► it that's pretty sweet pretty nice but again apple's displays look that that sort of display xdr may
01:44:54 ◼ ► be the best display you can get for that price in that configuration i wouldn't be surprised that was
01:45:01 ◼ ► that that you know is what they do with displays i would just say that apple's game with displays is
01:45:07 ◼ ► not for anybody who's like but there are other options out there first i would say there weren't
01:45:12 ◼ ► other options out there before apple started shipping displays so i'm glad apple was shipping displays
01:45:16 ◼ ► because it's almost like it stokes the market and makes everybody be like ah we can undercut apple now
01:45:20 ◼ ► um and yeah if you're a savvy shopper there are better options than these but that's often true with
01:45:27 ◼ ► apple products right like especially accessories is you can get a an iphone case way cheaper if it's
01:45:32 ◼ ► not from apple but apple makes iphone cases because it's really easy to just buy a case when you order
01:45:37 ◼ ► it online or go into the apple store and that's where the studio display is at this point also i will just
01:45:41 ◼ ► very quickly mention that tilt adjustable or the height adjustable stand is gorgeous um i think it's
01:45:48 ◼ ► over engineered i think that's why it costs too much money um and i'm just going to do my standard
01:45:53 ◼ ► statement here which is every iMac and display apple cells should be height adjustable yes it should
01:45:59 ◼ ► be and it should not be an extra 300 option to make it height adjustable it's bad ergonomics ergonomics is
01:46:05 ◼ ► part of accessibility shame on them find a way to make a height adjustable display that doesn't
01:46:10 ◼ ► or a height adjustable option that doesn't cost 300 and then ship it as the default because it it it's
01:46:18 ◼ ► it they're really it's really nice but i think it's over engineered and that's why it costs what it costs
01:46:22 ◼ ► um yeah anyway i'll talk about mine when it comes in i'm excited great can't wait if you'd like to send
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