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Upgrade

350: The Time for Color is Now

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:08   From Relay FM, this is Upgrade Episode 350. Today's show is brought to you by Pingdom, DoorDash, and Bombas.

00:00:17   My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by my partner in crime, Jason Snell. Hello, Jason Snell.

00:00:21   Hello, Myke Hurley. In Roman numerals, this is Episode C-C-C-L.

00:00:25   Excellent. I'm- I'm-

00:00:28   Trivia.

00:00:28   Episode C-C-L.

00:00:29   Hello, Romans.

00:00:30   I have a #SnellTalk question from Von Walther who asks, "Does embargoed information ever

00:00:37   cause complications with your drafts on upgrade and how would this be handled in the draft?"

00:00:43   This is an interesting question. Generally, we don't get embargoed on announcements before

00:00:53   they're made, right? Apple- even though stuff leaks, Apple doesn't want to let members of

00:00:58   the media know what is happening beforehand. They prefer the drop to be the event and you've

00:01:04   seen it before. What ends up happening is then after the event, there are embargoed

00:01:09   conversations that happen. You get product in advance sometimes. You can't talk about

00:01:13   it until a certain time and, you know, I've had that, you know, whenever you see me posting

00:01:20   a very long story about a product that was announced recently that isn't out yet at 6

00:01:25   a.m. Pacific or something.

00:01:26   That's an embargo. I wrote that over the previous four days or whatever. Or in the case of my

00:01:31   piece about the 16-inch MacBook Pro, to think back to that, we did the briefing in New York.

00:01:38   I did the interview in New York. I edited the interview and sent it to you. Then I wrote

00:01:43   a whole story, set it up for the embargo, and then the episode and the story dropped

00:01:49   on the embargo time. So it doesn't generally happen with the draft. However, this is the

00:01:53   footnote that I think is interesting. Occasionally, someone, whether it's us or people in our

00:01:59   circle, hears something and it's one of those things where you're like, oh, this isn't widely

00:02:07   known but I think I know what this means. It's one of those things where it's not rumored

00:02:13   or it's been rumored and you get kind of a confirmation from someone. I'm being vague

00:02:18   here, but also this is a really vague process where somebody will hear something and it

00:02:23   sort of spreads around very quietly like, yeah, they are doing that or no, they're not

00:02:26   doing that. That has happened a couple of times in regard to the draft. I don't know

00:02:33   about how you approach this, Myke, but I feel like how I approach it and I think how we

00:02:39   approach it, and honestly, I think also how your co-hosts on Connected approach it, is

00:02:45   if I know something is going to happen or think strongly that something is going to

00:02:51   happen, I'm not going to predict it. I'm not going to play that game because it's

00:02:59   cheating basically and the whole idea is to guess about things that you don't know. I

00:03:04   think, and I can't remember the details, but I think at least once you and I have crossed

00:03:09   something out on our draft list because we both knew it was going to happen and so we

00:03:15   didn't put it on the list.

00:03:17   Like, we can get really good inclinations of something, you know, or maybe, and then

00:03:22   it's fair game, but if we feel like something's pretty dead set and it's something that

00:03:27   other people don't know, we wouldn't include it. And if there was ever a situation, which

00:03:31   I can't ever imagine happening honestly, where we were explicitly told some information

00:03:36   before, you know, than we were given an embargo, we would not put it in the draft, right?

00:03:41   Right. We wouldn't pretend that we didn't know and try to predict it as if we were genius

00:03:45   directors. We would not talk about it and that can happen. Now, there's, you know,

00:03:51   like I had some inklings and some strong suspicions about the podcast announcement, right? And

00:03:56   I picked that, but we put that on our list. We decided that that was still like, you know,

00:04:00   it could happen. It could not happen. We really didn't know.

00:04:03   But also, it was incredibly rumoured in the media that something was going to happen.

00:04:07   And honestly, we had, even with our inklings, had no idea what they were going to do, actually

00:04:12   what they did do. So.

00:04:13   But like, if you imagine that somebody came to Federico and said, this framework is going

00:04:18   to be updated on the event for that. And he would be like, yes, I picked this obscure

00:04:22   framework, this thing that nobody expects at all, that's incredibly precise is going

00:04:27   to happen. And then it happened. I mean, that would actually be really bad because everybody

00:04:31   would be like, who told him that, right? Why did that leak through that? So it's just not

00:04:34   fun that way. And so that's the answer is we would handle it by not talking about it

00:04:42   or not picking it.

00:04:43   But here's what I'll suggest. Don't now look into everything we don't pick as a possibility,

00:04:49   as confirmation that it's going to happen. That's a game that's too hard.

00:04:53   Because we also miss really obvious things because we're dumb and we didn't put them

00:04:56   on our list because we lacked our imagination when we were building the draft list. That

00:05:00   also happens. So no, this is not a canary in the coal mine of, you know, oh, they didn't

00:05:06   mention AR, therefore AR is confirmed. That is not how it works.

00:05:10   Or is it? It isn't. But is it?

00:05:12   It isn't.

00:05:13   Oh, you're denying it. I don't know. That makes me suspicious. It's not.

00:05:16   It's like every time we need to move the episode, like, so just as a heads up, because it will

00:05:21   happen, we're recording on Saturday live this week. It will come out on Monday. There's

00:05:25   absolutely zero reason to it. We just have a scheduling issue. Every time now we make

00:05:29   any change to the show's time.

00:05:31   Oh, I wonder why it's on Saturday. Do they have a special thing that they're doing? In

00:05:35   fact, this is the reverse of the usual, right? Which is that we're actually just doing it

00:05:38   out in the open and people are like, oh, I'm suspicious now. No, this is the reverse. It's

00:05:42   when we don't do it on a Monday that you should be suspicious. But even then, sometimes it's

00:05:47   because we can't do it on Monday and we just do it on Tuesday. That happens. So yeah, anyway.

00:05:54   If you'd like to send in a #snowtalk question to help us open an episode of the show, just

00:05:58   send out a tweet with the #snowtalk or use question mark snow talk in the Relay FM members

00:06:02   discord. It is episode 350 today, which is of course very special. And we do have something

00:06:08   very exciting. So a little bit later on in the episode, we have an interview about the

00:06:12   iMac with a couple of people at Apple. And we're going to, but there's still so much

00:06:17   to cover from last week. You do have one follow up and then I have some rapid fire follow

00:06:24   up one week later from last week's event.

00:06:26   All right. Yeah. A quick one. I wanted to get in the show because we got a couple of

00:06:29   people who are complaining because last week we were complaining about how the Apple TV

00:06:33   4K still comes in two storage tiers, 32 and 64, right? And you pay $20 extra to get the

00:06:38   64 instead of the 32. And you know, we scoffed at that and Myke was like, why would you do

00:06:44   that? And we heard from the people who buy the 64 configuration of the Apple TV 4K who

00:06:50   said some games on Apple TV are enormous and they will quickly fill the 32. So the 64 is

00:06:55   better if you want to keep the games around. Now I would say ideally with cloud, you know,

00:06:59   iCloud and all of that, you shouldn't have to keep a whole bunch of things installed,

00:07:02   but I get it. Like I get that you might want it, but the larger point is we're not trying

00:07:07   to make fun of or complain or say people who buy the bigger configuration are dumb. That's

00:07:13   kind of, that's not what we're saying. What we're saying is Apple is the problem here

00:07:19   because managing storage on an Apple TV and buying based on storage levels is kind of

00:07:25   ridiculous. There should be one Apple TV 4K configuration and it should have enough storage

00:07:31   to fulfill the needs of users. A $20 upsell on a product that is already way more expensive

00:07:38   than any other product in its category is quite frankly ridiculous. Given the price

00:07:43   of the Apple TV, they shouldn't be nickel and diming users on storage. In fact, they

00:07:46   should probably even 64, which I could say should be the base. 64 is probably 128. I

00:07:52   mean, go ahead.

00:07:53   I have like mini SD cards bigger than that.

00:08:02   What's the profit per Apple TV 4K already that you're going to eat into it a little

00:08:05   bit by having a little more storage? So whatever you choose is the storage. I think Apple should

00:08:09   choose one level. It should be enough for everyone and they should only sell that one.

00:08:15   So my issue is really with the fact that Apple insists that this is still a thing, not that

00:08:19   users would see a reason why it's a thing and opt to spend the extra $20. I just don't

00:08:25   think Apple should give them the option. Apple should just price it at one price and give

00:08:30   it enough storage to be appropriate instead of having to force people to pay an extra

00:08:35   $20 on their already very expensive compared to all the competition product. So that's

00:08:40   what our beef is with Apple and not with you is what I'm saying.

00:08:44   I have some incredible real time follow up from Chance Miller of 9to5Mac who says that

00:08:49   if you are recording upgrade from somewhere not your home, people email 9to5Mac to say

00:08:57   Jason's recording upgrade from a different place. He's on a secret assignment this week.

00:09:01   What could it mean? I would like to apologize to everybody that owns a tip line because

00:09:06   our recording schedule seems to affect you.

00:09:10   Yeah, that is very funny. I'm not sure if my location has ever had any meaning in terms

00:09:17   of recording an episode, right? The only ones where it has meaning are ones where we're

00:09:22   revealing something, I think. I don't know if I've ever like gone somewhere for an embargo.

00:09:28   You think sometimes when you've recorded in New-- yeah, but even when you're recording

00:09:31   somewhere like New York or whatever, it's been known in the episode. Hey, people like

00:09:39   to read the tea leaves, I guess.

00:09:42   That is Kremlinology gone amok. It's just, you know, I move around sometimes. It's like,

00:09:49   hey, here's a tip. Jason was in a slightly echo-y room on upgrade. What does that mean?

00:09:54   It doesn't mean anything.

00:09:57   Unless it does.

00:09:59   It doesn't.

00:10:00   But unless it does, it doesn't. So we are one week later from last week's Apple event

00:10:05   and there's a bunch of little things, little tidbits I think worth mentioning. Friend of

00:10:09   the show, David Smith, underscore David Smith of Widgetsmith. I think we should just call

00:10:14   him Widgetsmith David Smith now because, you know, we used to call him underscore David

00:10:18   Smith because everybody knows him, but more people in the world know him as Widgetsmith

00:10:21   David Smith now than underscore. But nevertheless, so if you remember at the end of the keynote,

00:10:27   Apple posted a little kind of Easter egg joke of Ted Lasso's secret shortbread recipe and

00:10:33   it kind of cut it off, right? You could only see just a very slick like sliver of the recipe

00:10:37   that cut it off. Underscore doing what underscore does, he was able to work out what the line

00:10:44   actually would have said and then Googled it, found a shortbread recipe, which was half

00:10:50   of a recipe from a New York Times recipe, I think, and went ahead and baked some shortbread

00:10:57   and wrote a great article about it on his blog, which I just want to include. So if

00:11:01   you want to make the shortbread, you can make it too.

00:11:03   And then he got, of course, linked from all sorts of other places. And what I find really

00:11:08   funny about this is this is not the official Ted Lasso recipe. This is the recipe that

00:11:14   was Googled by an Apple event person who had to be told to implement this joke and had

00:11:24   to find what that line is and Googled for shortbread recipes and the New York Times

00:11:29   cooking recipe came up and they copied and pasted it. So it's like, let's not get too

00:11:33   excited here. I don't think, you know, Mr. Ted Lasso or his representatives were at the

00:11:39   keyboard filling out the thing for the joke at the end of the event. It was just a joke.

00:11:45   But you know, you can make, if you've got a lot of butter, you can make shortbread.

00:11:47   I'm going to include a link in the show notes to a YouTube video, one of my favorite YouTubers,

00:11:53   Andrew Ray, who has a channel called Binging with Babish, which if you've spent enough

00:11:56   time on YouTube, you've come across one of his videos before. This is his thing, remaking

00:12:02   things from TV shows and movies. And he made some of his own as well and included a recipe

00:12:07   for it in his video. So it's another option for you if you want to try and create some

00:12:12   shortbread of your own. So it's been reported that the new Siri remote for Apple TV lacks

00:12:18   any motion control functions. And because of its lack of buttons, some games relied

00:12:23   on motion controls. You're playing some Apple Arcade games with the Siri remote because

00:12:27   it only had a couple of buttons on it, it needed motion controls as well. Now with the

00:12:32   new Siri remote, if you have an Apple TV with the new Siri remote, if you launch a game

00:12:36   that has this incompatibility, the Apple TV gives you the following error. To play this

00:12:40   game on your Apple TV, you need to connect the Apple TV remote or a compatible PlayStation,

00:12:45   Xbox or MFI controller. This is very funny to me.

00:12:50   I think this is not surprising at all because Apple clearly changed their strategy for gaming

00:12:55   on the Apple TV to have it be entirely focused on pairing actual console controllers with

00:13:01   it.

00:13:02   I'm pleased they've done this.

00:13:03   Or an MFI console controller.

00:13:04   I'm pleased they've done this.

00:13:05   And so they're like, "We don't need to put that in there." They had a vision of that

00:13:08   original Siri remote being used as a gaming controller.

00:13:11   They thought they were making the next Nintendo Wii. That's what they thought they were doing.

00:13:15   They did. They did.

00:13:16   And they weren't.

00:13:17   And they weren't.

00:13:18   So for a few years now, it's been very clear that it's like, "No, you just should get a

00:13:24   controller. And if you want to play a game that requires a controller, get a controller."

00:13:27   I think one of the great things is there's a bunch of options. You can buy them from

00:13:31   companies that make them through the Made for iPhone program. Or, you know, so many

00:13:35   homes will have some kind of PlayStation, Xbox controller in their home.

00:13:42   You know, I guess very likely.

00:13:44   Because they're compatible with a previous generation, now, if you've got that PS4 or

00:13:50   Xbox One gathering dust, you've got those controllers too. And those work on the Apple

00:13:55   TV too. You don't even need the latest generation.

00:13:57   So yeah, I think it's a smart move on their part. Plus, you can always buy a Made for

00:14:02   an MFI controller for Apple platforms and use that if you want to.

00:14:07   So obviously, when they were removing hardware, they're de-contenting this remote when they

00:14:13   built the new version of it. That was one of the things that were like, "We don't need

00:14:16   to do that anymore. Let's not pretend it's a game controller. It's not."

00:14:19   It appears that the new 12.9 inch iPad Pro will require a new Magic Keyboard. So currently

00:14:27   on Apple's website, you cannot buy the larger iPad's Magic Keyboard. You can buy the one

00:14:34   for the 11 inch in black. You just can't buy the one in white. But for the 12.9 inch, you

00:14:38   can't buy either the black or white one. The only one that is available on the website

00:14:43   at all is that new one, which isn't going to be available until the latest month of

00:14:47   shipping in May.

00:14:48   It is expected that the 0.5 millimeter size difference will make the new iPad incompatible

00:14:56   with the older Magic Keyboard models.

00:14:59   Yeah, I'm a little skeptical about this. So I have some breaking news here. I'm going

00:15:05   to break some news. Breaking news.

00:15:08   Oh wow, here we go.

00:15:11   I bought an orange Folio case for the 12.9.

00:15:14   Is this breaking news?

00:15:16   I was going to say.

00:15:18   It's the first time you've said about it.

00:15:21   Yeah. I can exclusively reveal that its compatibility is listed as the what, fifth, fourth, and

00:15:28   third generation iPad Pro 12.9. So it means that I have in my hands a product that has

00:15:34   been validated by Apple to work with the new iPad Pro, which is slightly, very, very slightly

00:15:41   thicker. So I've been using that instead of previously, I had a blue Folio case for my

00:15:47   12.9 inch iPad Pro. And what I can report is it doesn't really feel any different. Maybe

00:15:54   there's a little bit more give in the, in the little sort of edge area, but it doesn't

00:15:59   feel like it. And I tried to line them up and it doesn't look like it. It's not like

00:16:02   my 12.9 inch iPad Pro is, is like a kid wearing their dad's shirt or something, right? Like,

00:16:10   woo, it's I'm in a big shirt. It isn't like that. It's just another one of these. So my

00:16:17   point is the, these specifications are so fine, half a millimeter, right? That one, I am super

00:16:26   surprised and kind of bummed out that Apple is doing this because this is a very expensive

00:16:31   accessory. And if you're really into the iPad Pro and you bought it last year, and now you

00:16:34   want to upgrade your iPad Pro, maybe you had a 2018. Now you want to go to the 2021. Apple

00:16:39   is sort of saying you need to buy another expensive accessory because that one's not

00:16:46   compatible. I don't like that. Second, I am skeptical about exactly what this means. Nobody's

00:16:54   gotten their hands on this, so we don't know. It may be that it's not, it doesn't close

00:17:00   as easily or it's a little uncomfortable. I would almost, given that this one, this

00:17:07   new case is going to be compatible with the old models, I'm going to guess that it will

00:17:12   actually work, but it's not up to Apple standards. Like maybe it works, but it doesn't close right

00:17:19   or something like that. We have to kind of open it up and pop it on.

00:17:22   Depress the keys a little bit in a way that is not great.

00:17:28   Or doesn't close fully and put strain on the spine, basically. Like, I don't know what

00:17:35   the details of this are going to be, but I'm skeptical that it doesn't work. I think it

00:17:41   probably does work, but not well enough for Apple to endorse that people use it. But certainly

00:17:50   the moment these ship, the internet will be full of stories and photos and videos of how

00:17:54   it actually looks and we'll find out. But I want to express a little skepticism. I think

00:17:57   that people hopefully will be able to get by with their existing keyboard if they bought

00:18:01   it and not have to buy a new one. I think it's a real bummer if they have to buy a new

00:18:05   one. And I hope that maybe that will form, given how expensive they are, maybe there's

00:18:11   an opportunity there for people to buy the new one and then sell their old one to people

00:18:17   who are sticking with the older iPad models. And you might be able to get a Magic Keyboard

00:18:21   for iPad on the cheap from somebody who is upgrading. And that's the bright side of this

00:18:26   is, I was thinking about it this week, the Magic Keyboard for iPad is so good. Like,

00:18:32   it is so good. It is such a great piece of hardware. I love it. And it's also very expensive.

00:18:43   So the silver lining here might be that these will be available used and people who aren't

00:18:51   willing to spend the money full price on them will be able to get them on the 12.9 for a

00:18:55   little bit cheaper. But I just wanted to express my skepticism that it won't work versus is

00:19:01   not approved by Apple because it doesn't meet their exacting standards, which might mean

00:19:07   you can make it work. It's fine. We'll see.

00:19:10   >> My kind of feeling on this is, even if, you know, it's unfortunate, but this is just

00:19:17   the way it's going to be sometimes. It kind of isn't, you know, like what is the way around

00:19:21   it, right? Like what they wouldn't put the new display technology in there because then

00:19:26   people might need to buy a new Magic Keyboard? >> I guess my only question would be, we hear

00:19:32   all these stories about, oh, you know, Apple can't change, Apple can't add Touch ID, Apple

00:19:36   designs these products so far in advance. And so I think about them introducing the

00:19:42   Magic Keyboard last year and I thought, if the difference is this small, half a millimeter,

00:19:49   and they knew that they were working on a new display tech that was probably going to

00:19:53   make the screen a little bit or the iPad a little bit thicker, could they not have built

00:19:58   in that give? Because it's in the little flappy part, right? Could they have not built a little

00:20:02   more give in there? >> I don't know if I buy that as well.

00:20:06   >> I think the answer would be, well, no, because they designed that a year before when

00:20:10   they didn't know. But anyway, it's unfortunate because it's so expensive and because they

00:20:16   just introduced it a year ago. But I know like things march on, like there's going to

00:20:23   be a screen when there's an Apple Watch that's introduced that doesn't use the existing bands,

00:20:26   right? Like that, boy, boy, it's going to happen and time marches on. This just seems

00:20:31   weird because it seems like this is not a dramatic enough difference for it to matter.

00:20:38   And it's an expensive product, but we'll see, let's see how it goes. It may be that it really

00:20:42   is sort of like Apple doesn't approve this for use, but you can actually use it.

00:20:46   >> Yeah, I expect it is that and like maybe it's just not completely graceful, but it

00:20:51   will work. >> Yeah.

00:20:53   >> The iPad tech specs page now lists the RAM in each model. So there's eight gigabytes

00:20:58   of RAM in the 128, 256 or five gigabyte version and 16 gigabytes in the one or two terabyte

00:21:05   version. While it is not news that the iPad has RAM, neither is it news that you can find

00:21:10   out. This is the first time that Apple have told anyone on or off the record how much

00:21:16   RAM are in these devices. >> No, we only know because people run software

00:21:21   on them that allows us to detect them and that was the big story with the 2018 iPad

00:21:26   Pro is that the one terabyte configuration, the most expensive terabyte or storage configuration

00:21:32   of iPad Pro had eight gigs of RAM where the rest of them had six, four? I don't even remember

00:21:38   now, but it was one of those things where people discovered it and they're like, oh,

00:21:42   look, there's more RAM in this one. And I think this is a side effect. Tell me what

00:21:48   you think. I think it's a side effect of it being the M1 is that Apple is just sort of

00:21:51   like unifying the whole idea of the iPad has specs like the Mac has specs and this is a

00:21:58   big step forward, but it's also sort of like, you know, the iPad has specs like the Mac

00:22:02   has specs. That's how it goes. >> My feeling on this is something, okay, we're

00:22:08   going to talk a lot about the iPad and our future hopes for the iPad in today's episode

00:22:12   later on. I think something will happen at WWDC and it will run differently on the 8

00:22:19   or the 16. And so they've just put it on the text box page so you'll just know what capability

00:22:24   you have because my, I understand what you're saying about it leading on, but if they were

00:22:30   printing it because it's leading on from the Mac, it's not configurable. You can't put

00:22:35   16 gigabytes of RAM in the 256 gigabyte storage model.

00:22:40   >> Right. But you can choose which one, is it, you know, I don't know, you could choose

00:22:43   which one and that may have value. Maybe I don't disagree that it may be part of a larger

00:22:49   story that they want the specs available because they're going to do something that has, I

00:22:54   kind of doubt that they're going to do something this year that has RAM requirements, but they

00:22:58   might down the line. But I do think that it's possible too, that this is to get back to

00:23:04   the Apple TV for a moment, that this is also just another way of driving people toward

00:23:10   the more profitable, more expensive models is to say, you're not just getting more storage,

00:23:15   you're getting more RAM. And why, why would we not tell you that? Because it makes you

00:23:19   right. Like potentially there will be people who are going to buy 512 and then they look

00:23:23   at the one terabyte and they're like, Oh, and it's twice the RAM. Yeah. Okay. That's

00:23:27   a better deal than I thought then. Um, I wonder if it's just marketing too. I mean, I would

00:23:32   probably do that, right? Like if I was in the market for one of these, I'd be like,

00:23:36   well now I'm going to get that one because yeah. Yeah. If I'm, Oh yeah. No doubt. I will

00:23:41   say it that if I buy one of these, I'm going to buy the one terabyte model because I'm

00:23:44   going to want the 16 gigs of Ram hands down. Yeah. The air tag embargo is up. Uh, I'll

00:23:51   put a link in the show notes to review round up. They look, actually I'm, I'm more interested

00:23:55   in them having watched some review videos than I was beforehand. The integration of

00:23:59   it looks really cool. We're going to have, we will have them on the way. We will talk

00:24:02   about air tax a little bit next week and also iOS 14.5 is out now. Uh, I'll put a link in

00:24:10   the show notes to Federico Vatici's review and overview of 14.5, which is in depth as

00:24:15   you could imagine. Yeah, no, it's great. It's a, it's a good reminder. I would actually

00:24:19   say for those of us who've been following for the 14.5 story for months now, cause it's

00:24:23   been in beta a very long time that Federico's story, even if you're like, ah, I know all

00:24:28   of this, it's a, not only does he dive deep and uncover things you might not expect, but

00:24:33   also you've forgotten a bunch of stuff that's in there because especially if you've been

00:24:37   living with a beta, like some, one of your friends says, Oh, there's this software update

00:24:41   and you're like, yeah, what's in that? Cause I've been living with mask unlock for a couple

00:24:44   of months now. Right. But for everybody else in the world, mask unlock with an Apple watch

00:24:49   and an iPhone is coming out today. So, um, worth reading about it and telling your friends

00:24:55   about it too. Actually, this is the kind of update where I think people should actually

00:24:59   tell their friends. Um, you know, you, you want to get, if they've got an Apple watch,

00:25:03   you want to get this because it's going to enable mask unlock and that's super convenient.

00:25:09   I haven't been running it, so it's all new. It's all new to me. Enjoy. Yeah, I am. I will.

00:25:15   So the mask unlock thing I want because I don't, uh, I don't wear an Apple watch. You

00:25:23   don't wear an Apple watch, right? So it won't be a thing for me, but there's other stuff

00:25:26   in there that I'm interested in checking out. All right. This episode is brought to you

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00:28:30   All right, we are very excited now to play your interview that we conducted a couple

00:28:32   of days ago with Colleen Novielli of Mac product marketing and Navpreet Kaloti, who's the engineering

00:28:38   program manager of Mac architecture. We got to talk to him about the iMac and you will

00:28:42   have remembered them as well from the presentation. So let's get started with the interview.

00:28:47   So Colleen, welcome back.

00:28:49   Thank you. Great to be back.

00:28:51   I was thinking about colors. I was thinking about the last time Apple rolled out a bunch

00:28:54   of different colors on the iMac. And it was about 20 years ago at Mac world expo, New

00:28:58   York. Since then we went to the iMac G4, it was white, the G5, the first Intel iMac. And

00:29:06   then we went to the aluminum enclosure that we've had since then. So that's a long way

00:29:10   of saying what brought color back? What was the impetus to bring color back to the iMac?

00:29:17   The time for color is now. Colors are such an incredibly important part of the design

00:29:22   of the new iMac for a few reasons. First, there's a full spectrum of color, right? Then

00:29:28   this is designed to bring just such a deep sense of personalization to the iMac. Just

00:29:33   an example, since the announcement, I've asked many different groups of people which color

00:29:36   they want. And I've received an even range of answers really across the spectrum. And

00:29:42   this really represents what the product is all about. The product is about giving the

00:29:46   choice of the full color spectrum so that everyone can choose the one that's right for

00:29:50   them. And you know, for some people, it's because it's their favorite color or it's

00:29:54   their kid's favorite color of the moment, the one that matches their typical home design

00:29:58   the best. But it's not just that the iMac is beautiful, and they love the color, love

00:30:02   the experience, the product actually represents them, right? They've picked the blue one.

00:30:07   And so it's deeply personal again. And then we have all these gorgeous color matched accessories.

00:30:12   And so the whole thing is just this deeply color matched experience. And then second

00:30:16   colors now, they're really designed to bring a sense of brightness, optimism and joy into

00:30:21   people's lives. I think we can all agree that's something that everyone needs at the moment.

00:30:26   And they're designed so when you walk into a space, you see it and it just makes you

00:30:31   feel happy. And that definitely happened for me. The first time I walked in and saw the

00:30:35   full color spectrum of the iMac together, it just wowed me it just gave me this feeling

00:30:39   of pure joy. It really just makes you smile. And so we wanted to bring bring color back

00:30:45   colors now it's better in color.

00:30:47   Is it an accident that the six colors that aren't silver are the six colors of the Apple

00:30:52   rainbow? Did you notice?

00:30:55   I did notice about that. It is definitely maybe a coincidence that those colors happen

00:31:03   to be the same. But they do represent a full color spectrum, right? You have every color

00:31:08   from your green and your yellow, orange, pink, purple, blue. And so there's really a color

00:31:14   in there for every part of the spectrum and for everyone.

00:31:17   Our friend Stephen Hackett, who is a bit of an iMac historian pointed out that this is

00:31:20   the first yellow iMac ever. There was never a lemon iMac back in the day. So for people

00:31:26   who want to be trailblazers, the yellow iMac is there.

00:31:28   That is true. And many may pick it just because it is that first fresh new one and I want

00:31:33   to be different and have that first yellow. The yellow is awesome.

00:31:36   My first ever iMac was the first Intel iMac. So it was like the white plastic polycarbonate.

00:31:42   So I have very nostalgic feelings for white on the front of an iMac. And that is one of

00:31:46   the things that's on all of the new iMacs is like a white bezel running around the outside.

00:31:51   Can you share what the thinking was for choosing white?

00:31:53   Yeah, absolutely. So the border around the new iMac, it's a light gray. So it isn't the

00:31:59   apple white that you're maybe used to the bright white. And so it is a little bit more

00:32:03   subtle of light gray. But there are a few reasons for this design. First, the colors

00:32:09   on the front of iMac now are meant to be softer. They're meant to be calm and neutral colors.

00:32:15   And this is meant to bring the user a sense of calm and neutral as they're using the product

00:32:20   all day because it is it is where you sit in front of the product. And the borders themselves,

00:32:25   they're meant to really complement typical home design for one and kind of just blend

00:32:31   into the background. So the focus is just all about the display. And if you think about

00:32:35   the UI, if you're using particularly in light mode, you will have more white coming through

00:32:41   in a lot of the UI elements. And so really, the borders really kind of blend with the

00:32:45   UI. I can tell you from using the iMac, and I'm sitting in front of one right now, the

00:32:49   gray light gray borders are awesome. The lack of this kind of stark contrast, I would say

00:32:54   provides more seamless viewing experience for the user. And it's something that you

00:32:58   really have to experience for yourself. But it's great.

00:33:01   I mean, obviously, we've only seen images so far. But there is a freshness to these

00:33:05   iMacs, which really excites me like I have never seen computers that look like this before.

00:33:10   I personally, I think it's amazing. I'm blown away by it.

00:33:12   It is absolutely true. And I will say that when I use one of these new iMacs for the

00:33:16   first time, it does feel like such a fresh experience. It feels like a brand new product

00:33:21   that you're using. It feels modern, it feels clean. The colors are obviously awesome. But

00:33:26   it does feel like it's this new modern color splash awesome product that you have sitting

00:33:32   in front of you. And it's still exciting to use.

00:33:34   We spent a lot of time talking about colors. And I'm going to continue it here for a minute

00:33:38   because it is, you know, it's an iMac. And honestly, it's just taken me back to the early

00:33:43   days. Like this is part of it is it's a it's a device that's meant to be in your in your

00:33:46   workspace. And it's meant to be in your living space. And it's meant to be seen and not just

00:33:50   fade into the background. But one thing I wanted to ask you about is, you can't just

00:33:55   say let's make colored iMacs. And I did the math here. So you had to make color matched

00:34:02   items to go with the iMac. As far as I can tell, you have to have 11 different power

00:34:08   cords or power items because you've got some variation on the low end and the and the and

00:34:13   the rest of the line in terms of Ethernet. 18 different keyboards because you have a

00:34:17   certain number of keyboards that are available on the low end and then the ones that are

00:34:21   available on the rest of the line, as well as seven different trackpads and seven different

00:34:27   mice. So you've got a huge amount of inventory control there. How do those conversations

00:34:33   go? Which is like, yeah, we want to do seven different iMacs. And that means we're going

00:34:37   to have to have like 30 keep track of 30 different sets of all of these peripherals in order

00:34:41   to make this work. First of all, I am fascinated and so happy that you did the math there.

00:34:45   I think that that is awesome. And our operations team is also going to find that very entertaining.

00:34:51   We certainly have a fantastic operations team here at Apple. I think that that's well known.

00:34:58   But when we are making a new product and we're thinking about a new product at Apple, we

00:35:03   are always focusing on what's best for the customer first. And what's best for this product

00:35:08   line is to have seven colors. And what's best is to provide the accessories that match and

00:35:15   provide the choice for customers to be able to upgrade to Ethernet if they need to and

00:35:19   upgrade the keyboard, you know, if they need to. And so that's what drives the decision.

00:35:23   It's always customer first. And fortunately, we have wonderful teams like our operation

00:35:29   teams at Apple who work really, really hard to allow us to make those customer centric

00:35:34   first decisions.

00:35:35   So the final total I think I came up with is 43. Somebody can check my math there. But

00:35:39   there are a lot of Apple watch bands is all I'm saying. So it's not like Apple hasn't

00:35:43   done this before. If you've seen how many Apple watch bands there are, there are a lot.

00:35:46   That's true too. Let's see, it's the IMAX turn.

00:35:49   I noticed that these new keyboards that you're rolling out with touch ID on them, which is

00:35:53   very exciting. We were talking before this podcast and you mentioned that they'll work

00:35:57   on any M1 based Mac. Obviously, these are shipping with the iMac right now. So why,

00:36:04   why are they not available separately for that Mac mini user out there who's desperate

00:36:08   for for touch ID? Is it just a matter of time and that you got to start somewhere and you're

00:36:12   starting with the iMac?

00:36:13   Well, I can't comment on anything about the future. But the iMac is paired with exclusively

00:36:18   with these amazing new keyboards. You have three variations of the keyboard, two with

00:36:23   touch ID, and they are meant to go with the iMac. They're made for the iMac, they're color

00:36:29   matched. And so you can purchase them exclusively with the iMac. If you, to your point, so happened

00:36:34   to purchase an iMac, and you have another M1 Mac in your household and you wanted to

00:36:39   use the touch ID keyboard with that other M1 Mac, it would in fact work. The touch ID

00:36:44   functionality would work with that. It would not work with other Intel based Mac systems

00:36:48   or it would work as a fully functioning keyboard, but not the touch ID sensor.

00:36:51   Right. It was mentioned during the keynote, and I thought this was super exciting. And

00:36:55   I think it shows in just how radically different this machine looks that this was the first

00:37:00   Mac built around the M1 as a starting point. Did it feel different to develop this Mac

00:37:07   compared to Macs that have come in the past? I assume it was really exciting. I wondered

00:37:11   if you could talk to that a little bit.

00:37:14   So the iMac is redesigned from the ground up around M1. And when I think about it, M1

00:37:20   actually impacts every aspect of the design. You know, the system on chip architecture

00:37:25   combines the CPU, GPU and memory in all in one component, which really allows us to shrink

00:37:33   the size of the main logic board. And you couple that with M1's power efficiency, and

00:37:39   the thermal needs can be met with a smaller fan and a smaller thermal module. So now all

00:37:45   of this volume reduction now allows us to package other components such as speakers

00:37:52   and power connector and USB C's more efficiently underneath the display. And this is key because

00:37:59   this gives us a very high packaging efficiency when it comes to component placement, which

00:38:04   resulted in this radical new form factor. And of course, you know, M1 brings other great

00:38:09   things like its ISP and neural engine improving the image quality even further. And it's

00:38:15   a Cura enclave that enabled the touch ID keyboard. So literally every aspect.

00:38:21   I can imagine it just felt really exciting. Like there was so much potential when thinking

00:38:26   about how this stuff would come together. When you really kind of got a blank slate

00:38:31   with this machine. I feel like in a way that we haven't seen in a while because this stuff

00:38:36   doesn't happen very often.

00:38:37   Yeah, absolutely.

00:38:38   I have a nerdy port question, which is interesting choice made. So the M1 Mac mini introduced

00:38:44   last fall has the USB a connectors for those extra USB three ports and on the more expensive

00:38:53   iMac models. There are two additional in addition to the Thunderbolt. There are two additional

00:38:58   USB ports, but they're USB C connectors instead. So a different choice for the iMac than for

00:39:04   the Mac mini. Can you tell me a little bit about why the Mac mini has the need for the

00:39:09   old port style and the iMac doesn't necessarily.

00:39:12   I think the USB C's were really the right choice for the design of the new iMac. There

00:39:17   are a lot of benefits that you get with USB C. One of the big benefits is power on these

00:39:22   USB three ports. You know, depending on how many devices you have plugged in with USB

00:39:27   C ports, we're able to deliver more power compared to the USB is so your peripherals

00:39:33   like phone or iPad charge faster.

00:39:36   So obviously we've all had to change so much about the way we work in the last 12 months.

00:39:41   Was there any specific thinking around how this machine would be designed or made with

00:39:48   COVID in mind and the way that people are working differently and schooling differently?

00:39:54   Clearly the microphone and camera array is a great benefit there, but were these kinds

00:39:58   of considerations put into the design of the machine considering how these types of products

00:40:03   might be used differently in the future now?

00:40:05   With iMac, the camera mics and speakers have always been an incredibly important part of

00:40:09   the experience. And so within every generation, we've been focused on advancing each of those

00:40:15   features for users. We are so excited that for this new generation of iMac, M1 has helped

00:40:21   to bring even more capability to that advanced hardware that we've put in. So for example,

00:40:26   with the camera, the 1080P hardware that doubles the resolution and gives better performance

00:40:32   in low light is made even better by the improvements we get from the ISP and M1. And so all three

00:40:39   of the features are just phenomenal on this new product. Of course, right now with the

00:40:43   way that people are living in their shared spaces, in their homes, working from home

00:40:47   in more ways than ever before, it's been more important than ever to have these features

00:40:53   and have them be as good as they can possibly be so that people are looking their best and

00:40:58   sounding their best all day long. And so we think the timing of having these features

00:41:02   with the way that people are living and working is just going to be terrific for all three

00:41:07   of those features.

00:41:08   So Colleen, I was thinking of our conversation a couple of years ago when you were rolling

00:41:12   these out on stage. It was so great to see you on the video. But one of the things that

00:41:16   you said two years ago that really stuck with me is this idea that iMacs aren't just devices

00:41:23   that you find on somebody's desk in their house or in an office space. A lot of iMacs

00:41:28   are used in public places that they are checking you in at the front desk. You get a nice hotel

00:41:35   and it's got a couple of iMacs there and it's actually sending a message. It's not just

00:41:39   a functional tool, although it is that, but it's also sending a message and setting a

00:41:44   tone.

00:41:45   And I was thinking about that because I was looking at the colors and thinking, well,

00:41:51   here we are setting the tone. What thought process went into designing these iMacs knowing

00:41:56   that they are also sort of public objects and that they're going to pick the color that

00:42:01   matches the color scheme in the lobby or whatever it is? Because I think that that's something

00:42:05   that as a regular user who's just buying one for their house, they don't think of those

00:42:09   sorts of things, but that has to be part of the consideration when you're designing these.

00:42:12   Yeah. And that's such an exciting part of this product for me. To your point, we did

00:42:17   talk about the fact that the backs of iMacs are seen all over the place. And if you think

00:42:23   about where you're seeing iMacs out in the world, you see them when you walk into a retail

00:42:27   store at a point of sale, you see them in hotel lobbies you used to check people in,

00:42:32   you see them in libraries and classrooms. And a lot of times you do see iMac from the

00:42:37   back first. And so we talked earlier about the front of iMac and the softer colors and

00:42:41   things. Well, the back of iMac is where we really celebrate the color. We just really

00:42:46   went for it with the color in the back and the bold saturated shades just really, really

00:42:51   pop. And a reason for that is because we want this to be that bold, bright, just joyful

00:42:57   pop of color in all of these spaces. You walk into a hotel lobby now to walk to the front

00:43:02   desk and that hotel has chosen purple because it coordinates with the accents at the hotel.

00:43:08   And it just feels happy and bright in that room. Or a retail store, now that I've been

00:43:13   thinking about these colors out in the world, I've walked into so many retail stores and

00:43:17   seen iMacs at the checkout point and I've thought to myself, wow, the orange would really

00:43:21   look awesome in this retail space. And I think the people that have those retail spaces are

00:43:26   going to think the same thing. They're going to think, I want this big, bold pop of color

00:43:30   and it's just going to bring a sense of joy and brightness and optimism to my customers.

00:43:34   And that's going to be a great thing to see where they turn up.

00:43:37   I stayed in this boutique hotel in San Diego and it has like a pineapple motif and everything

00:43:42   is yellow. And I thought, well, I know what iMac is going to be.

00:43:46   There we go. They could be the pioneers of the yellow.

00:43:48   Literally everything.

00:43:49   I love the idea, Colleen, of you walking around and being like, this is going to be better

00:43:53   for you. This will be better for you.

00:43:55   I do have other hobbies, but you know, a lot of my time is dedicated to iMac.

00:44:00   I am really excited about the magnetic power connector because it just it feels like one

00:44:05   of those things where it isn't something I would have ever imagined, really, for the

00:44:10   iMac. But now I see it. I'm like, oh, that that's really cool.

00:44:13   Can we talk about that a little bit? Like what's going on with this?

00:44:16   Like, you know, because obviously it's not just power going through that cable as well.

00:44:20   Yeah, as you said, the magnetic connector is actually like really, really cool. It's

00:44:25   a connector that's jam packed with engineering and not only transfers power, but also transfers

00:44:31   Ethernet data. One of the other cool things is the connector is actually self aligning

00:44:36   so the user doesn't have to think too much about, you know, how they're plugging that

00:44:40   in. It just automatically just connects just the right way.

00:44:44   And our connector engineering team custom designed power and signal pins, which always

00:44:50   perfectly self align and come in contact with the correct pins on the system. So there's

00:44:55   a lot of engineering that went in there. A lot of people worked really hard on that.

00:44:59   There were also unique innovations made to maximize energy efficiency when, you know,

00:45:05   transferring, you know, over 140 watts of power on that connector.

00:45:10   Was that a unique problem to solve? Well, there are definitely connector designs

00:45:15   that can transfer more power than that. But I think the challenge here was how do you

00:45:21   come up with a low profile design that also doesn't create any localized heat problems

00:45:28   in the system. So there were innovations made on the power dissipation within that connector.

00:45:34   And Mac users will remember MagSafe as being a technology using magnets to make it easier

00:45:39   for the cable to break away so that you don't lose your laptop. And so they see a magnet

00:45:45   on the iMac. And I've already heard from a few people who said, "Well, wait a second.

00:45:48   Isn't that going to just pull my iMac cable right off when I'm in the middle of the job?"

00:45:53   But my understanding is that you've calculated the force required to pull this thing off

00:45:57   and calibrated it so it should be comparable to the plastic plug that's in there now just

00:46:02   via friction. Absolutely. Yeah. There was a lot of fine

00:46:06   tuning that went into not only sort of the far field force of like, "Okay, I'm close

00:46:12   enough now. Now the magnets should just pull the connector in," as well as like detached

00:46:17   force. So yeah, a lot of validation, experimentation, and fine tuning of the design there.

00:46:23   I have a couple of ergonomic questions that I want to ask. But since we're on the question

00:46:26   of the power connector, it's two meters long. Why two meters? Was that sort of a sweet spot

00:46:32   that'll get you from most desks down to the floor? Is that the idea here? I dangled some

00:46:36   yarn over the back of my desk from my iMac and it doesn't land on the floor if I've got

00:46:41   it in standing configuration. It just misses, but it's very close. So what was the consideration

00:46:47   about getting to two meters? Yeah, so our product design validation team

00:46:52   performed a combination of in-person posture studies and looked at data from various desk

00:46:57   setups for comparison. The studies actually aligned with a lot of the ergonomic findings

00:47:03   from the research literature. In these studies, we looked at a lot of different inputs like

00:47:09   the height of people and sit and stand desk heights and all the things that you mentioned.

00:47:14   Ultimately, the recommendations from these studies is what informed the height of the

00:47:19   stand as well as the length of the cables and other aspects of the design.

00:47:25   Obviously the main thing about an iMac is its display. That is what you are being treated

00:47:29   to. And this one is 24 inches. The previous iMac was 21 inches. And I remember you saying

00:47:37   on stage, Colleen, obviously the bezel shrank in, but the new iMac is also a little bit

00:47:42   bigger. So I was intrigued. What was it about 24 inches that was exciting enough to that

00:47:49   you also want to make this iMac a little bit bigger than the one from before? There's clearly

00:47:53   some kind of sweet spot that was found here. So we are incredibly excited. We've been able

00:47:58   to fit a 24 inch display in a size of the iMac, overall size that's just a little bit

00:48:04   bigger than the previous 21 and a half inch iMac. So from a height perspective, it's just

00:48:09   0.4 inches taller. And from a width perspective, it's 0.7 inches longer. Basically the same

00:48:15   design just a little bit bigger by shrinking the borders by 50%, we were able to fit this

00:48:20   24 inch display that has 20% more screen real estate in a design that's close to the size

00:48:26   of the 21 and a half inch iMac. And so we have a lot of customers obviously that use

00:48:31   a 21 and a half inch iMac and that size has been great for them. This is going to be even

00:48:36   bigger. I think that they're going to be thrilled with the size of the 24 inches. Personally,

00:48:40   having used the size, you know, now for a while with this new iMac, I think it's a great

00:48:44   size for, you know, day to day use. I have also used the 27 inch iMac quite a bit. I

00:48:50   think that this is 24 inches is actually pretty great size for, you know, sitting and doing

00:48:54   everyday tasks, having multiple things open at once. And so I think many people are going

00:48:59   to be very, very happy with the 24 inch screen size. A big part of this design is also the

00:49:05   compact nature and how it's 30% smaller footprint, 50% less volume, and it's designed to really

00:49:11   fit in many more spaces. And so with this design that is still, you know, a reasonable

00:49:16   size for fitting into a lot more spaces for people, you know, on a kitchen counter or

00:49:22   in a living room on a table, we were able to fit a significant 24 inch display. We think

00:49:28   that that's a great, awesome balance between the two things that were important for this

00:49:32   new product.

00:49:33   Obviously, the display itself is a very important thing, the panel. So could we talk a little

00:49:38   bit about what people can expect from visibility and brightness and viewing angles and that

00:49:42   kind of stuff? How good does this display look?

00:49:45   Absolutely. You can expect everything you would expect from the display from the iMac.

00:49:48   And it's always been all about the display. And so in addition to the 24 inches, we have

00:49:55   now a four and a half K retina display. And so the retina resolution means you're going

00:50:00   to get sharp, vivid text and images. Everything's just going to look absolutely beautiful. P3

00:50:06   wide color and over a billion colors. So everything is going to be very colorful and it's also

00:50:11   going to be bright. 500 nits of brightness is quite a bit higher than the industry average

00:50:15   for brightness. And so 500 nits is going to give you again, the big, beautiful, bright

00:50:21   images combined with that P3 wide color. In addition, we now have True Tone. And so we

00:50:25   know that our customers love True Tone on our other devices, phones, iPads, some of

00:50:30   our Macs. And so True Tone comes to the 24 inch iMac and that will be able to make sure

00:50:36   that you have the most comfortable viewing experience in any lighting condition. One

00:50:40   other thing that also adds to that is the anti-reflective coating that we have on iMac.

00:50:44   It's industry leading and it has very low reflectivity to make sure that your reading

00:50:49   experience is going to be comfortable all day long.

00:50:52   Our friend, Steven Hackett, again, he pointed out something about the iMac that I thought

00:50:56   was interesting. Talk about the bezels, we talked about the screen. There is the chin

00:51:00   beneath it, which contains, it seems essentially the whole computer is back there in that very

00:51:05   small space and the speakers and the fans. But something that he pointed out is that

00:51:12   the chin has been sort of part of the industrial design language of the iMac ever since it

00:51:17   went back to a sort of a single screen all in one. And you're using it with the lighter

00:51:23   color for the front. It feels like it's part of the iMac. Not to say that one day it might

00:51:28   not vanish, but like that silhouette is still recognizably an iMac like we've seen for the

00:51:32   last 15 years, right?

00:51:34   - I think this goes back to the conversation we had at the beginning about color and how

00:51:38   color is such an important part of this and it brings so much joy and happiness and fun

00:51:42   to using it into your space. The chin is where the color is on the front, right? Don't take

00:51:48   my color away.

00:51:49   - You just gave it to me.

00:51:51   - Right? I don't want, just when I'm on the back, I want to see it all day as I'm using

00:51:55   it. And from a design perspective, fitting all of the components under the chin allowed

00:52:01   us to have that depth of 11.5 millimeters in the thinness that we have now. And that

00:52:07   combined with the reductions in volume and the footprint that we talked about before

00:52:11   is what's going to allow this to fit into so many more places. And so all of these things

00:52:16   are complimentary to the design. And so, you know, it's not one thing or the other, but

00:52:21   these designs have beautiful, awesome, colorful chins and all of the components of the logic

00:52:26   board and the thermals fit nicely in there and it's now compact. And now you can put

00:52:30   the beautiful thing anywhere and it'll brighten up your room and your life, hopefully.

00:52:35   - One thing that isn't on that chin anymore is an Apple logo. Any reasoning behind getting

00:52:39   it out of the way? Just let the color shine through?

00:52:42   - Just let the color shine through. One cool detail about the back is that now that we

00:52:48   have made the enclosure so light, you know, with all of the amazing things that M1 has

00:52:53   enabled, we were able to now lower the hinge point of the stand from a physics perspective.

00:52:59   And so now instead of having to hold the display in the middle, in the back, can now hold it

00:53:03   at a lower hinge point. And so that on the back leaves room for a beautiful polished

00:53:09   glass Apple logo on the back. And so I think of that as just absolutely beautiful placement

00:53:13   for it. And that's where the logo is now. - And everybody sees the iMac from the back

00:53:17   first, right? - And so many people see it from the back.

00:53:20   It's gorgeous. - I see what you're doing. I get it now.

00:53:24   To wrap this up, and thank you so much for the time, I wondered if we could zoom back

00:53:28   a little bit. And again, we know the future is a mystery to everybody, but talking about

00:53:35   this Apple Silicon transition, which is in process, it seems to me from the outside looking

00:53:41   in that people working on the Apple Silicon products at Apple have had a really fun opportunity

00:53:50   to revisit what their products that they're working on can be and can do. And that you

00:53:57   and I have talked, Colleen, about the iMac for a few years now. And the 21.5-inch iMac

00:54:02   during that time has sort of not had much going on. And in the background, a brand new

00:54:08   smaller iMac that's bigger than the old one has emerged. So how does it feel to have this

00:54:15   opportunity that's coming along with Apple Silicon to really revisit these products and

00:54:22   instead of just pushing them forward in a more incremental way, get to say the game

00:54:26   has changed with M1, let's make a completely new iMac or whatever other Mac product you're

00:54:32   working on at the time.

00:54:33   COLLEEN O'BRIEN-LUCAS-MCCLENDON M1 has been magical for Apple in so many ways.

00:54:37   We have so many talented teams across the company that work on these programs. And to

00:54:42   your point, having our own Apple Silicon, having M1 has given a lot of the teams the

00:54:46   ability to reimagine, right, and to brainstorm and to think about the different features

00:54:52   and components they work on in completely different ways. And when you give these talented

00:54:58   teams that leeway to kind of think different, right, and that's been our motto for a very

00:55:02   long time, they come up with some incredible innovative solutions, and you end up with

00:55:08   products that look and feel and are different. And I think when that happens in any industry

00:55:15   and any thing seem a bit strange for a minute, wait, this feels different. This feels new.

00:55:20   Maybe there's some dissonance there because it's not what I'm used to. Well, that's when

00:55:23   great change happens, right? That's when products break through and people start to use them

00:55:28   in different ways and they start to actually change the world in different ways. And I

00:55:32   do think that M1 and this iMac is just the beginning of that.

00:55:35   I think this iMac is a perfect example of that. If you see every module has innovated

00:55:42   to bring together a design that's built around M1. So you look at the speakers, you look

00:55:47   at the thermal integration, you look at the microphones. All of the modules have seen

00:55:52   innovations to make this design work. And that's just echoing what Colleen has said.

00:55:57   We all know that you can't completely reinvent every product every time, right? So you get

00:56:00   through these cycles where you've built a platform for it and then you do iteration.

00:56:04   And I just would imagine that this was a great opportunity to throw all that away and say,

00:56:09   this is that really once every few years, it doesn't happen that often, chance to rethink

00:56:14   everything and paint with a whole new, oh, I'm going to bring it around to colors again,

00:56:18   a whole new palette of colors. Oh, yes. Paint with all the colors.

00:56:25   Colleen, Navpreet, thank you so much for taking the time to spend with us today. I know that

00:56:30   our listeners are going to love to hear these stories. Thank you.

00:56:32   Yeah, thank you.

00:56:33   Awesome. It's been so, so great to spend the time with you guys again. Thank you for having

00:56:36   us.

00:56:37   Thank you. All right, Myke, that was great. So nice to have Colleen back.

00:56:40   And I was happy to talk to Navpreet too. As we said, we like getting to hear from people

00:56:45   at Apple, especially new voices as well, giving them a chance to speak to our audience and

00:56:49   other people really love it.

00:56:50   Third time's the charm for Colleen. Well, she'll have to come back again, but we've got a lot

00:56:53   more to talk about. I want to dive into the iPad Pro a little bit more since we've spent

00:56:58   some time on iMac now, but we should probably, I'm leaning in here, Myke. We should probably

00:57:04   hear from another sponsor first.

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00:58:17   All right, so let's talk about the potential of the iPad Pro. So you wrote a great article

00:58:23   with just a fantastic headline, which is the iPad Pro is a killer machine, but its software

00:58:28   is killing me. Very good. That was a that was a that was a good morning in the Snell

00:58:33   household when you came up with that headline, I think.

00:58:35   Well, Myke, I have to give you a little secret behind the scenes journalism thing, which

00:58:39   is we writers suggest headlines, but the editors don't have to accept them. And I didn't write

00:58:43   that headline. So whoever wrote that headline, congratulations to you.

00:58:47   They did a great job because it's a fantastic headline.

00:58:49   They're all about the, you know, optimizing for the clicks over there. They know what

00:58:53   they're they know what they're doing. And and so, yeah, I didn't write my headline was

00:58:58   way more boring. I try to provide a headline to my editor, but sometimes I'm like, I'm

00:59:04   glad I'm not because, you know, I have fulfilled the role a lot of having and six colors. I

00:59:09   have to do this of whatever I read is the headline is the headline. And it's it's awfully

00:59:14   nice. It's kind of a treat when I'm I write an article on like, I have no idea what this

00:59:18   headline is. And I'll just write something bad and say to Roman, my editor, I'll say,

00:59:23   Roman, please come up with a better headline. And then I walk away and it's like, good luck.

00:59:28   And Roman or one of the other people over there came up with that good headline. So

00:59:32   nice, nice headline. Very, very pointed, very pointed. I didn't write it. So we've been

00:59:39   saying for years, as ever, as everybody else that the iPad hardware has been outpacing

00:59:44   a software, but the operating system and the apps available to it is so far so powerful,

00:59:48   right? Especially look, especially with Apple Silicon, again, compared to Intel machines

00:59:53   before, iPads could bench better than Macs and other PCs, right? Right. In 2018, that

01:00:00   was the famous claim was the iPad pro introduced in 2018 was faster than 90 some percent of

01:00:07   all PC laptops sold. But now with the inclusion of the M1 chip and the XDR display and Thunderbolt

01:00:15   and all that stuff, I think that this is only accelerated if not in that there's, you know,

01:00:22   there's like more power because if anything now, I guess the Mac and the iPad will, they

01:00:27   are equally powerful. Um, it is the kind of marketing of it as well has ramped up in a

01:00:33   way that is, I think, quite significant. They're literally saying, well, first off, let's just

01:00:38   point out how funny it is that the iPad pro, the port, the, uh, small iMac, the 13 inch

01:00:46   MacBook pro and the MacBook air are all essentially the same computer and the Mac mini different

01:00:50   shapes, different operating systems. They just have fans. Some of them don't. And it

01:00:55   just depends how big that fan is. This is probably the only real difference in how those

01:00:59   five computers are all essentially, essentially more or less the same computer and have, you

01:01:05   know, the ports are a little different and stuff like that, but it's just, it's so, uh,

01:01:09   much that Apple's just saying these all have, have the same stuff more or less. And I guess

01:01:14   the only difference, you know, between the iPad and the Macs is I don't think that the

01:01:19   iPad has the seven, uh, GPU core option, right? Like all the Macs seem to have that, right?

01:01:27   There's like the bin option, but with the iPad, it's just the same the whole way through.

01:01:32   I guess it's like, which is an interesting thing to think about, but I guess that's the

01:01:36   only real difference. So when you think about it, um, and I know we talked about this a

01:01:42   little bit right after the event, but having had a little more time to think about it,

01:01:45   um, it's a fascinating marketing decision to choose to call the iPad pro the M one,

01:01:51   because it works both ways, right? It, it brings to the iPad pro this halo of all the

01:01:57   great things said about the M one and how powerful it is. And that is, you know, that

01:02:02   is useful and saying, it's got the power of all of these other computers that Apple makes

01:02:06   that it's not a lesser being. It actually is an M one computer, just like that Mac book

01:02:12   pro and the Mac book air and the iMac and the Mac mini, they're all M one computers.

01:02:16   And I, I can see it's a very strong marketing case why you would do that. However, it does

01:02:23   go the other way, right? Which is it does make you look at the one device that runs

01:02:29   a different operating system and see all the things that it can't do that all those other

01:02:35   devices can. And I love my iPad pro and I use it all the time and you know, I think

01:02:44   that having it have more power and more features is great, but the closer you draw parallels

01:02:50   between the Mac and the iPad, the more you have to acknowledge all the places where iPad

01:02:59   OS is behind and all the things it doesn't do like having the ability to connect to the

01:03:05   pro display XDR, but all it can really do is show sort of an export view or a mirrored

01:03:12   view because there's no screen proper, you know, multi window screen support. And that

01:03:18   it's just one example, but like, uh, and the one that is my personal hobby horse, which

01:03:22   is Apple's pro apps. Yeah, Apple has been making pro, uh, pro iPads for, uh, more than

01:03:27   five years now and coming up six almost. And, um, the pro apps are nowhere to be found still

01:03:34   like it just, it, it, and again, I'm not saying that the iPad pro is bad. It's not, it's great.

01:03:40   It does a lot of stuff. It does way more than people give it credit for. And I've been trying

01:03:43   to push that, uh, and a bunch of other people too, who use it a lot, try to push that to

01:03:48   the limits. We do also know firsthand those of us who spend a lot of time on the iPad

01:03:53   pro, all of the edges of what it's capable of doing, all of those, um, points where you

01:03:59   can't push past the, the envelope, right. You're stuck in the envelope. So, um, I just,

01:04:05   I, I think those all come back. I, I just got very strong late 2018 vibes from the whole

01:04:10   thing because once again, we're left with a, an indisputably amazing piece of hardware.

01:04:16   And then you look at the operating system it's as, that it's running and you say, Oh,

01:04:22   hmm, quick correction, the iMac and the MacBook Air are the only ones that have this have

01:04:26   a GPU option, the MacBook pro and the Mac mini is on the 8th. But anyway, to go back

01:04:30   to your point, I feel that feeling stronger now than I did for the 2018 iPad pro because

01:04:37   the 2018 iPad pro had so many selling points to it as a system, right? That I don't think

01:04:46   that it needed the software to, to get that big leap to make it a compelling thing all

01:04:54   in all because it had the new design, it had the second generation Apple pencil. Um, all

01:05:00   of that stuff was like really cool stuff going on. I agree. It had, it was a bigger leap

01:05:05   and it had a lot more going for it than that, but you know, at the same time, I think a

01:05:09   lot of us looked at that 2018 iPad pro and said, great, it's got a USB-C port, still

01:05:13   can't attach a thumb drive to it and read the content. That's completely true. And it's

01:05:17   got all this power, but Apple's pro apps are missing. So, which is still the case now,

01:05:22   uh, two and a half years later, all of that stuff is true, but my, my feeling on it now,

01:05:28   it really is hinging on two things for me, which is the M1 and the XDR display. The Thunderbolt

01:05:36   thing is like, all right, I want to see more there, but really like USB-C Thunderbolt for

01:05:42   me, not massive amounts of differences unless the software is there to take advantage of

01:05:47   it, whatever. But like that, that's a fun like extra, but so the display going back to

01:05:53   what you were saying a minute ago, like the amount of technology and power in that display

01:05:59   kind of feels like it could only really be taken advantage of by people doing video and

01:06:04   photo work on the iPad. Like it's going to be really great for watching movies, but I

01:06:10   don't know if that's a reason to do it. Like I think you go for it. And then also again,

01:06:15   it's the marketing terms, right? They only have one product that, that, uh, in, I guess

01:06:20   they call it XDR on the phones, right? But it's nowhere near as advanced, right? Like

01:06:24   the XDR display on this is really jumping up against, if not in some areas, excelling

01:06:29   against Apple's $6,000 pro display, which is meant for professional users to get their

01:06:34   work done. And I kind of feel like really it's for video and photo editing. Apple make

01:06:39   one of the leading video editing apps in the industry and they don't have a version for

01:06:45   this device.

01:06:46   Yeah. And maybe this is all, all prep for that, right? Maybe this is the, but they didn't,

01:06:51   they don't have it today. You should never buy hardware based on promises of future things.

01:06:54   And Apple has made no promises of future things. So I, I agree with you. Um, I would go so

01:07:00   far as to say, unless you're somebody who really actually needs, uh, uh, an XDR kind

01:07:07   of display for what your work is, if you have an existing 2018 or 2020 iPad pro, I don't

01:07:15   know. I have a hard time seeing why you'd update unless you have very specific apps

01:07:19   that you really tax out the processor a lot. Like, you know, and I can think of some examples

01:07:24   where I have those and having the more Ram on the higher configurations, I can also see,

01:07:29   but like, it's really esoteric. Like they took that huge leap to 2018 and now we've

01:07:34   got these other, you know, it's not that the tech hasn't advanced, it's just that what

01:07:38   are the use cases and this amazing, you know, headroom that they've built that they pushed

01:07:44   forward yet again with the M one iPad pro what's it for. Right. And that's the, that's

01:07:51   the challenge is we have to kind of seek ways to apply this, uh, this functionality and

01:07:57   this power because, you know, well, it would be a stronger product if we didn't have to

01:08:03   search for them, it would be a stronger product. And we're like, Oh boy, we've all been hungry

01:08:07   for more power on the iPad, but we haven't been. And the M one thing it's marketing,

01:08:12   right? Ultimately like that's it. It is an a 14 X purely a marketing decision. Exactly.

01:08:17   It is. Yeah. The M one is the a 14 X is the M one. It is the, I know that there is no

01:08:22   a 14 X, but it is the successor to the a 12 X. It is the more cores version of the a 14

01:08:28   with some other stuff in there. It was designed clearly now designed for the Mac and the iPad.

01:08:33   And they could have called this the a 14 X that they didn't want to draw comparisons to

01:08:37   the Mac. They chose not to do that. So it's a marketing decision. The only thing that

01:08:43   an M one enables that an a series chip couldn't is a different kind of story that can be told

01:08:48   about this device, right? That's the marketing line. And I just don't see right now that

01:08:55   there is any kind of story that can be told because this iPad pro is an M one chip in it

01:08:59   other than this iPad pro is an M one chip in it. And that's not a long running thing,

01:09:05   right? You can do the interviews and we've got some quotes I'm going to read it a minute

01:09:09   from interviews where the executives have been coming out and talking about it and they

01:09:12   can say, look how amazing it is. We put the Mac chip in this thing. It's like, ah, that's

01:09:15   so cool. But at a certain point there has to be an answer for why. Let me read some

01:09:23   of these quotes actually. So there's an interview, um, that Greg Joswiak and John Turnus had

01:09:30   done two interviews, one with tech crunch and one with the independent. Uh, so I've

01:09:36   got a couple of quotes first from Jaws. We create more headroom for performance that

01:09:40   developers will figure out how to use. It's one of the reasons you put the M one in there

01:09:46   as from turn us contrary to some people's beliefs. We're never thinking about what we

01:09:50   should not do on an iPad because we don't want to encroach on the Mac or vice versa.

01:09:55   Our focus is what is the best way, what is the best iPad we can make and what are the

01:10:00   best max we can make? And then a second one from Taunus, we don't think about, well, we're

01:10:06   going to limit what this device can do because we don't want to step on the toes of the other

01:10:09   or anything like that. And they also talk a lot about, about, you know, these devices

01:10:14   aren't converging, but I don't really think that's the question. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah,

01:10:20   first off, Taunus's answers are completely, um, diversions, right? Oh, he's, he's saying,

01:10:27   he's saying we don't want to hold the iPad back. It's like, that's not what we're saying

01:10:31   because this chip was going to be in there regardless, right? The issues are you call,

01:10:35   it's the M one, you call it the M one, it draws parallels. It makes us think, what can

01:10:40   the iPad do with this chip? What can the Mac do with this chip? And when they aren't the

01:10:44   same answers, why is that? And does that illuminate something about what the iPad perhaps should

01:10:48   be more capable of? And then Jaws is answer I think is, uh, and I love Jaws, but you know,

01:10:54   marketing is his job. We create more headroom to performance. The developers will figure

01:10:58   out how to use. Well, yes, of course this is the story of the computer industry. You

01:11:03   make the chips faster. You make the computers more capable and developers will find ways

01:11:08   to use all that power, waste it, use it usable, you know, for important things. It depends,

01:11:14   right? We, our computers spend lots of time doing dumb stuff because it looks cool or,

01:11:19   or, or it's inefficient, but it doesn't matter because the computer is powerful. The problem

01:11:23   is of course more headroom, but also when you think about that as a marketing point,

01:11:29   he's really saying, well, we just make the computer faster. And then I don't know, hopefully

01:11:34   people will find value in that. And that's the problem, right? Is that, is that a faster

01:11:40   computer only has value when there's something you can do with it, when you can, something

01:11:44   you can do with the speed. And if you're a, uh, if you're a platform owner and you've

01:11:50   got some tools that you could bring to the party to tell that story, maybe you should

01:11:56   do that. And instead it feels, I mean, it's kind of a, an empty, I'm not, I'm trying,

01:12:02   not trying to be mean here to Jaws cause I personally like Jaws a lot and he's just doing

01:12:06   his job here, but this is kind of a bankrupt statement. It's really just like, I don't

01:12:10   know, it's faster. Everybody will figure it out. And yes to that, it's not untrue, but

01:12:16   at the same time, I got to raise an eyebrow here because, uh, you know, you're missing

01:12:22   like the other part of that, which is that, or you could use it to do something. And Apple's

01:12:27   very good at doing that sometimes, but here he doesn't have anything he can point to.

01:12:33   Like he's, he's kind of been hung out to dry here. He's selling a product that is, if we're

01:12:39   optimistic about WWDC is missing features that it's not going to get for most people

01:12:44   until the fall. And so how do you do it? It's just a lot of like blue skies, open road,

01:12:50   who knows? We can't wait to see what you did do with this thing. And you know, again, full

01:12:55   credit to Jaws for giving it a go, but, uh, it's a really empty statement.

01:13:00   Well, this is all written between the lines. This is what we do. What are you going to

01:13:04   do? I think that they're moving away a little bit from this hard line. No, these devices

01:13:10   are separate. And I'm not saying, cause I don't think they're going to put Mac iOS on

01:13:16   an iPad, right? I don't think that that's the move, but I do think they are getting

01:13:22   them closer together. In these interviews, they're, they go out of their way to say,

01:13:26   look, we're not merging the Mac and the iPad. We're not doing that. They've been saying

01:13:31   that all along. It's a very consistent thing. It hasn't stopped them from doing Mac catalyst,

01:13:37   right? Hasn't stopped them from adding a whole bunch of sort of menuing features to the iPad

01:13:42   and a flow from the iPad to the Mac. It hasn't stopped any of that. And it hasn't stopped

01:13:46   them from taking the chip that they made for the Mac and putting it inside of the iPad.

01:13:50   Right. Exactly. Or, or if you want to look at it the other way, taking the chip that

01:13:54   they had been building for the iPad and make it the basis for all of their Macs, right?

01:13:57   Either way, they, so they still tell this story about we're not bringing them together

01:14:03   and it's true as far as it goes, but you have to understand they're defining it in a very

01:14:08   specific way and they have to reserve the right to change their mind at any time when

01:14:12   they have a product to announce. But like they changed all the underpinnings in OS 10

01:14:17   now Mac OS to be aligned with the underpinnings of, of iOS and iPad OS for these very reasons

01:14:24   for things like catalyst, like the iMac and the, or the Mac and the iPad are already becoming

01:14:31   intertwined even as they tell this story. So when they make those statements, I think,

01:14:37   all right, like you're being consistent. The question is what more will you do while remaining

01:14:44   consistent to that statement? There's a lot more they could do, right? There's a lot more

01:14:48   of bringing these platforms together that they can do without merging those platforms.

01:14:53   Because I don't believe that the iPad is going to turn into a Mac, right? But there are lots

01:14:59   of other things that Apple could do. Apple could make it easier to run Mac software on

01:15:02   iPads for Mac developers to bring them over to the iPad. They could put a Mac app on the

01:15:08   iPad Pro that runs a virtual Mac in certain contexts. That, those are extreme examples,

01:15:15   but they could do them if they felt that there was value.

01:15:17   I don't think that Mac OS apps running on the iPad is an extreme example. I think running

01:15:24   a Mac OS virtual machine on the iPad that Apple makes is an extreme example.

01:15:28   I'd say that those are the two most extreme examples only in the sense that they would

01:15:33   require, okay, rebooting your iPad into Mac OS is the most extreme example, right? And

01:15:39   I don't think that's going to happen.

01:15:40   Yes, that's the biggest. As if, so then it's like the system doesn't even think it's not

01:15:44   a Mac, right?

01:15:45   So then you back off from that and you've got the Mac app that runs on your iPad that

01:15:51   when you tap on it, it opens into Mac mode and you back off one step from that, I think,

01:15:57   and you get to some method that's like reverse catalyst that is basically like, okay, could

01:16:05   we now get Mac apps? Like what I keep thinking is how, how do we at Apple get Final Cut running

01:16:14   on this thing? Right? Like, is there a way to do it? And I don't know. I know that there

01:16:19   are a lot of developers out there like that is how would they even do that? And that seems

01:16:22   like what they wouldn't do that. And they're moving to all these new things. You don't

01:16:25   want to have everything bring app kid over and it's like, yeah, I get it.

01:16:29   But there's also like the blue sky of like the future and how we want app development

01:16:33   to work. And then there's the present of how do we jam more value into an iPad? How do

01:16:38   we do that? We've got this max up right over there. Can we get it here? How do we do that?

01:16:42   And it's an option. I say it's extreme because the less extreme option is to just do nothing

01:16:49   and wait for catalyst and Swift UI and whatever else to just kind of bake and for people to

01:16:57   eventually realize that they need to do this. But if they want to force it, they have to

01:17:02   get a little more extreme. And I only entertain these thoughts because we've gotten to the

01:17:06   point now where they've literally just stuck the Mac chip with Mac branding with the big

01:17:11   letter M inside an iPad with 16 gigs of Ram. And it's like, okay, I have to wonder what,

01:17:20   where do you go from this next? And the ideal here is that Apple has behind the scenes been

01:17:24   working on a purely iPad iOS native, uh, you know, UI kit or Swift UI or Swift or what,

01:17:32   you know, like all modern technologies that are good and blessed by Apple version of final

01:17:36   cut pro and like, there it is. Boom. There it is. We solved it. Hooray. That that's the

01:17:41   ideal. I just keep thinking to myself, they haven't done that yet. Maybe there are reasons.

01:17:47   Maybe there's more here. I don't, I honestly don't know. I'm fascinated by the choices

01:17:51   that they have had to make while still saying we're not merging these two things, right?

01:17:56   Which I think they believe is true. There are lots of other choices they can make beneath

01:18:00   that that are still true to that, but not quite what you might assume. I think I'm not

01:18:05   saying that I need Apple to tell me I can run Mac OS apps on my iPad for me to be happy

01:18:09   at WWDC, but that's the level at which I am willing to dream now because of the M1. Like

01:18:15   there is a whole level of stuff up to that point that I want to see. Like I want to see

01:18:19   more power on the iPad. I want to see iPad iOS taken to new places. I want to see them

01:18:26   redo multitasking. I want to see them redo multitasking in such a way that I could plug

01:18:30   my iPad into a screen, turn the iPad screen off and then use apps in a new way. Like there's

01:18:35   a lot of things that we've been asking for for years that they can still do that makes

01:18:40   the iPad more powerful.

01:18:41   But are not make it a Mac, right?

01:18:43   Exactly.

01:18:44   Things they can do that are not make it a Mac, for sure.

01:18:46   But now from my perspective, they have reopened the door for us to ask the question of iPad

01:18:55   Mac coming together.

01:18:56   I think that's exactly right. And coming together again, they will say they're not coming together.

01:19:02   It's like, well, no, but again, they're, they're, they've already done a lot of things to bring

01:19:07   them closer together without merging them or, you know, and so what are those, what are

01:19:12   those ways?

01:19:13   I think something that, that kind of set me off actually last week a little bit is I,

01:19:23   Apple has this philosophy where there's like, you know, our customers choose the right tool

01:19:29   for the right job and there's this iPad pro and it's the right tool for the right job.

01:19:32   And the Mac is the right tool for the right job. And again, this is Apple marketing. And

01:19:38   so they are, they are choosing what they say. But if, if you think about it, like choosing

01:19:47   the right tool for the right job, there are contexts where like the customer doesn't actually

01:19:52   want to have an iPad and a Mac book sitting next to them, sitting next to each other so

01:19:59   that they can do some tasks over here where it's better and some tasks where it's here

01:20:02   better.

01:20:03   Like I get that, I get that there are those cases where as somebody who uses a Mac and

01:20:08   an iPad, like you want to use one for one and one for the other, and they're both good

01:20:12   in their own ways and design wise, like we want them to be true to themselves at the

01:20:17   same time. I also think to myself, yes, but wouldn't your customer be happier if they

01:20:22   didn't have to buy and carry around and charge and use and switch between two different devices

01:20:28   to do their job and could instead use one device to do their job?

01:20:33   Multi tools are a nice thing, right?

01:20:35   But yeah, there is, this is it. It's like, I'm not advocating for like, well, we should

01:20:39   just smash these all together and iPad should be a Mac. That's not what I'm saying. But

01:20:42   I am saying, let's not pretend that if you're in a workflow where you've got a Mac over

01:20:47   here and an iPad right next to it, and you're going back and forth between them because

01:20:50   you like the iPad and you like the Mac, let's not pretend that that itself is limiting because

01:20:57   you've got two separate devices and you keep needing to switch modes. It has advantages,

01:21:01   but let's not pretend that it's not limiting. And I know people always say, well, you know,

01:21:06   this is Apple's philosophy is if you like the iPad and the Mac, great, buy both. It's

01:21:10   like, yeah, that's true. They'll make more money that way, I suppose. But you do also

01:21:14   want to have the products have value. And when you're having a thousand plus dollar,

01:21:21   like way over a thousand, depending on configuration device like the iPad Pro, you know, you are

01:21:26   trading off its price with what you're going to get out of it. I don't know. It's just,

01:21:31   it's all messy. And the right way forward, I think, is for Apple to do things like step

01:21:38   up and do Final Cut on the iPad, right? Like that's that that makes this a very different

01:21:45   conversation and do better support for external screens and all that. And perhaps we will

01:21:50   see that all announced at WWDC. However, perhaps we won't. And that's the other part that's

01:21:56   kind of hanging over my head here is just I have a long dream list of iPad stuff. But

01:22:04   you know, generally what we get is a couple of items off the dream list. And I think the

01:22:10   problem with iPad OS being behind Mac OS in so many areas at this point after it's been

01:22:17   out there for 11 years is because they're only checking off a couple, sometimes every

01:22:23   two years. And that pace is just not ever going to make the iPad measure up, despite

01:22:31   the hardware being great.

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01:24:38   Let's do some hashtag, ask upgrade questions. So Hunter asks, you've had some time to sit

01:24:45   with it. Which is your favorite iMac color and which is your least favorite iMac color?

01:24:51   Okay, let's keep in mind, we haven't seen them in person. My favorite iMac color is

01:24:58   orange. My least favorite iMac color is not a color, silver. Bingo, exactly the same. I

01:25:07   feel exactly the same. Twinsies! I like the purple one too. Purple one looks nice. The

01:25:13   yellow one, actually I kind of look, it's you know, it's not gold but it's goldish and

01:25:17   it's kind of nice too. I like the yellow but I would never own the yellow. Yeah, yeah,

01:25:24   it's not for me. If I had to buy one it would be the orange or the blue or the purple. Yeah.

01:25:31   And then not silver. Silver is great. There are a lot, just as a tangent here, there were

01:25:36   several really stupid op-ed kind of pieces on various websites last week where people

01:25:42   are like, "Oh, these color iPads are ugly, Apple's lost the plot." And it's like, dude,

01:25:49   the silver iMac, dude, the silver iMac is for you. Like that's the whole point is they

01:25:55   made one that's boring so that people who don't want color in their lives and would

01:25:59   like to be boring can buy the boring iMac. That's why it's there. I also really enjoy

01:26:06   the fact that there's that picture that Apple put out that's of Tim Cook standing in front

01:26:10   of all of them and it's got the hello in the background with the rainbow. And then there's

01:26:13   like, once you notice it you can't unsee it. It's sort of like all the colors are there

01:26:18   with Tim and then at the very end of the table is the silver one and there's no silver. I

01:26:23   did a little fake version of it where there's an exclamation point in gray because it's

01:26:28   like also that one is there. So yeah, it's my least favorite. And if I had to pick something

01:26:35   else that was my least favorite, I don't know. I mean, I imagine that in person they're going

01:26:39   to look really different and that some of the, my gut feeling is that some of the pastel-ish

01:26:44   treatments in the front are going to be less impressive than the backs. But I wouldn't

01:26:51   want to go other than the obvious not a color of silver with another least favorite until

01:26:55   I've seen them all in person, which I hope to do sometime.

01:26:57   Andrew asks, "Now that we have colors on the new iMac, do you think we will see bright

01:27:02   colors on any other Apple computers, redesigned Apple computers?" So I wanted to share a thought

01:27:07   that I had with you, Jason. I think it's going to be like the iPhone approach. I think that

01:27:14   the iMac, the MacBook Air, maybe even the Mac mini will get big bright colors and then

01:27:20   the pro versions like an iMac Pro, Mac Pro, MacBook Pro will get more regular models with

01:27:26   like a color.

01:27:27   Yeah, I think you're right.

01:27:29   That will make me sad.

01:27:31   It will make me sad too because I want to buy a pro model that actually has color, but

01:27:35   I think this is right. I would be confident in predicting that we're going to see a bunch

01:27:39   of different colors of MacBook Air or, you know, if they replace the MacBook Air with

01:27:45   a successor product, that product, but their consumer laptop, that's going to come in colors

01:27:49   now. Like it's going to come in colors. It's going to be probably six colors and then not

01:27:53   a color just like we have in the iMac. I think that's going to happen now. But yeah, on the

01:28:01   pro product side, and that goes for the MacBook Pro models as well as, you know, iMac, if

01:28:08   they do a, if a high end version of the iMac is branded as iMac Pro, which it might be,

01:28:12   it might not be. And it's going to be, yeah, my, my guess since Apple really seems to feel

01:28:18   like pro means dark, it's going to be like midnight blue or, you know, midnight green

01:28:26   or whatever those, you know, midnight brown.

01:28:28   All in one color, right? Because it's not like the iPhone, I have a new iPhone every

01:28:35   year. They're not going to have a new design for the iMac every year, I would expect. So

01:28:40   like, you know, if you're going to do it, do like silver, black, gold, blue, green,

01:28:48   right?

01:28:49   I think for pro models, it'll be like, it'll be silver or space gray and then like dark

01:28:55   color, dark blue, dark green. And it'll be super muted and just want some options. I

01:29:02   just want options. Yeah, I want colors and I want options, even if not, give me the bright

01:29:06   colors. Give me some choices. Yeah, but I think they will. I think they're, I think

01:29:09   colors are in and Apple will do colors even for the pro products. I think they will do

01:29:15   color options, but I'm with you. I think they'll probably be less bright and fun. I would like

01:29:21   to be wrong, but Apple releasing a bright, colorful, fun pro Mac hasn't happened since

01:29:30   the blue and white G3 and look how that went. They immediately made it gray when they made

01:29:35   it the G4 version and people complained about it. So I think that I would love to see it,

01:29:40   but I think that's most likely, but I would book it that if you want a bright blue MacBook

01:29:44   Air or something, and I do, blue MacBook Air or orange MacBook Air, I think it's going

01:29:51   to happen. I think it's really going to happen maybe even later this year, if not next year,

01:29:54   when they, whenever they revise that MacBook Air, it wouldn't totally shock me if they

01:29:59   just announced that the MacBook Air comes in colors now with the existing MacBook Air

01:30:04   wouldn't shock me.

01:30:07   And Brian asks, if I keep an AirTag in my car, when my wife drives the car, will it

01:30:11   notify her every single time that the AirTag is tracking her? So I've seen a lot of people

01:30:18   ask these questions because it is a little bit complicated from the sense of like, there's

01:30:22   that all the privacy features, right? Where if I put an AirTag in Jason's pocket after

01:30:27   an amount of time, it would start beeping and telling him there was an AirTag, right?

01:30:31   And he'd be able to scan it and realize that I've planted an AirTag on him. But if you

01:30:36   are in a family, right? Like if you have like a family plan, like an iCloud family plan

01:30:41   type thing, you can share AirTags, single AirTags with members of your family. And then

01:30:47   you're able to turn off the thing. And of course, there are still privacy concerns with

01:30:57   that. But I guess they're trying to find some kind of level with it. I don't know. But this

01:31:05   for, I guess, for a lot of use cases would make sense where like if there's the family

01:31:10   car with the one set of family car keys and you put an AirTag on it, really it needs for

01:31:16   that product to then be useful to people. It needs to be shareable amongst everybody.

01:31:21   Yeah, I think as these roll out, we're going to get all sorts of like, well, what about

01:31:26   this and what about that? And what we're going to find is that Apple has probably thought

01:31:29   of most of the scenarios. You know, presumably AirTags, they had lots of meetings where they

01:31:34   came up with lots of scenarios and figured out how they were going to address all of

01:31:37   these things. Because this feels like a very carefully considered product rollout with

01:31:42   lots of the details, right? And in fact, perhaps this is why it was rumored for so long is

01:31:47   perhaps they needed to have somebody had a conversation with them internally about all

01:31:53   the issues with, you know, stalking and things like that. And they're like, "Oh, yeah, yeah,

01:31:57   we need to change that." And that they, this is a very carefully designed system. People

01:32:01   may find some holes too, and I would not be surprised if that happens. And my guess is

01:32:05   that Apple will be listening and potentially might address some of those holes if somebody

01:32:11   comes up with something that they hadn't anticipated. I would also say the, well, and didn't, I

01:32:16   read a story somewhere that said that on the backend, there are actually some assumptions

01:32:20   that they're making that they could modify on the backend about the behavior of stuff

01:32:24   that's attached to the Find My network, which is also kind of interesting. Also, there are

01:32:28   going to be a lot of people with hypotheticals that don't make sense when you think about

01:32:31   them. I'm not saying Brian did that here, but this is an example where if you have Bluetooth

01:32:35   in your car, your phone logs when you turn off the car where the car is. And so unless

01:32:42   you're worried about like creating a very cheap low jack system or something where it's,

01:32:48   you know, the spider tracker is attached to the bumper of the car and so you can find

01:32:51   it even if it's stolen, which I guess that's a thing you could do. It's just, it's a, I'm

01:32:56   not sure this is a super common use case, but we're all going to have to wade through

01:33:02   those. They're going to be use cases where people are like, "Well, what about this?"

01:33:04   And you're going to think, "Oh, that doesn't make any sense." And there are others where

01:33:07   it will be a good suggestion, a good hypothetical. So I'm looking forward to these getting in

01:33:12   people's hands so that we can really kind of break down all the details because it seems

01:33:16   like there are lots of details here. Right down to the fact that an Android phone with

01:33:21   NFC can tag them and get information about them, even though they're not on the Find

01:33:25   My network, they can still get information about any air tag that you find. So it's not

01:33:31   just, you know, you're stalking somebody with an Android phone so they can't see your air

01:33:36   tag. Like that's not going to, that's not going to happen. They've already thought of

01:33:40   that.

01:33:41   If you would like to send in a question for us to answer on the show, just send in a tweet

01:33:44   with the hashtag #AskUpgrade or you can use question mark #AskUpgrade in the Relay FM members

01:33:49   Discord, which if you want to get access to and support this show and get longer episodes

01:33:55   of Upgrade every single week that also have no ads in them, go to getupgradeplus.com.

01:34:00   In today's Upgrade Plus segment, we're going to talk about For All Mankind Season 2, because

01:34:03   I need to talk to Jason about it because I just finished it last night. So go to getupgradeplus.com

01:34:09   and you can sign up there. Thank you so much to everybody that has. And while we're giving

01:34:13   our thank yous, I want to extend our thanks once more to Colleen Ovelli and Navpreet Kaloti,

01:34:18   who joined us from Apple on this episode to talk about the iMac. I'm really, really pleased

01:34:22   we got to have that conversation and we got to share it with our Upgradients. I'll give

01:34:26   another big thank you to the Upgradients for listening every week, especially because this

01:34:30   is a monumental episode, episode 350. I will also thank you, Jason, for being here every

01:34:36   single week.

01:34:37   Thank you. Yes. CCCM, Myke. No, that's wrong. That was 1000. CCCL to you as well. Happy

01:34:44   CCCL.

01:34:45   Cool. Cool episode, Jason. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool episode. Also, thanks to DoorDash,

01:34:53   Pingdom and Bombas for their support of this show. Let me tell you very quickly about another

01:34:57   show here at Relay FM that you should check out. It's called Parallel. It's hosted by

01:35:01   journalist and accessibility expert, Shelly Brisbane. Parallel is a tech podcast of accessibility

01:35:06   sprinkles that you can listen to by going to relay.fm/parallel or search for parallel

01:35:11   wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back next week with episode 351 of Upgrade. If

01:35:17   you want to find Jason in the meantime, go to sixcolors.com and he is @jsnell, J S N

01:35:22   E double L. I am @dimeike, I M Y K E. Say goodbye, Jason Snell.

01:35:27   Goodbye Myke Early.

01:35:27   [Music]

01:35:33   [Music]