PodSearch

ATP

586: Do a Barrel Roll!

 

00:00:00   I have rewired my entire desk and I'm so happy.

00:00:05   - Oh no.

00:00:06   - It took, this has been maybe two weeks in the making

00:00:09   because, and we've talked about this before,

00:00:11   so I'll be quick, but listeners, if you missed it

00:00:14   the last time we talked about this,

00:00:15   the secret to clean, nice wiring is to get the shortest

00:00:20   wires you can that will fit the purpose.

00:00:24   'Cause like, what so much wire clutter is,

00:00:26   is basically you have excess wire that you have to either

00:00:29   bundle up and tie with a cable tie or whatever.

00:00:31   Like, you gotta like bunch up excess wire.

00:00:32   So, the good thing is, these days, so many products

00:00:36   have standard connectors, whether it's like the power plug

00:00:39   with those standard like IEC things, or obviously USB-C

00:00:43   and various USBs, like, you can just go on Amazon

00:00:46   and buy short versions of all of those things

00:00:49   for almost no money.

00:00:50   So, measure how long you need a cable to be

00:00:54   and then go to Amazon and put it in your cart.

00:00:56   The shortest length that will be a little bit longer

00:00:58   than how long it needs to be, just to allow like

00:01:00   bending radius and stuff.

00:01:01   That makes everything so much easier.

00:01:04   So, now I have a very nice, clean layout.

00:01:07   I did have to, also as part of this project,

00:01:09   I did have to add some openings to my desk.

00:01:12   I guess some might call them holes.

00:01:14   - Oh my.

00:01:15   - But it turns out, look, people out there,

00:01:18   if you are not that handy, like me, I'm not handy,

00:01:21   I'm not a woodworker, my desk, I really like my desk

00:01:25   and want it to remain looking nice.

00:01:28   But, you know those like, those circular covers

00:01:32   with little pass-throughs for wires that many desks have,

00:01:35   like two of, kind of like small cup holders?

00:01:38   Those are called grommets.

00:01:39   And you can go on Amazon, you can buy desk grommets

00:01:42   for nothing.

00:01:44   You can also, many people, like me, are handy enough

00:01:47   to operate a drill, but not to actually do woodworking.

00:01:51   Well, let me introduce you to the hole saw.

00:01:54   The hole saw is a drill attachment that just

00:01:57   creates round holes in things.

00:02:00   And it's super easy to use, it's just like drilling.

00:02:03   Even people like me can use a hole saw to add grommets

00:02:08   into desks, shelves, other wooden items in your house

00:02:12   or office to have nice wire pass-throughs.

00:02:16   And so the combination of adding holes

00:02:19   and buying short cables has finally led me

00:02:21   to a wonderful desk wiring experience.

00:02:24   And so I'm talking to you now through all new wires

00:02:28   and holes, and hopefully I wired everything correctly

00:02:31   and we won't have me turning into Casey

00:02:33   from last week's bootleg.

00:02:35   - Let's hope not.

00:02:36   - Tune in next week when Marco discovers the C-clamp.

00:02:38   Hole saws, amazing.

00:02:41   - All right, let's do some follow-up.

00:02:46   Just a little bit, since this is an event episode.

00:02:49   Amanda writes in, "I've taken a stab at calculating

00:02:52   "the inflation-adjusted market price for the RAM

00:02:54   "in the starter model of Mac laptop between 1999 and 2024,

00:02:57   "though finding good data sources is difficult."

00:03:00   There's a chart, we will put a link to this toot

00:03:03   in the show notes, which has the chart,

00:03:05   or I shouldn't say chart, it's a graph really.

00:03:07   And hopefully Marco will make this the chapter art

00:03:10   when he edits it.

00:03:11   But John, can you take us through what this indicates?

00:03:14   - Yeah, so this was in response to those charts

00:03:16   that we had from several past shows.

00:03:19   David Schaub made a bunch of them showing

00:03:21   how much RAM comes in the base model of various Macs

00:03:24   and how the growth has sort of plateaued

00:03:26   and we've been stuck in eight gigs forever.

00:03:28   So Amanda was interested in what is the market price

00:03:31   if you were to buy that much RAM on the market,

00:03:34   how much would it cost?

00:03:35   And the RAM chart obviously increases slowly over time

00:03:39   before it kind of plateaus,

00:03:41   but the price chart fluctuates all over the place.

00:03:43   Lots of big swings, 'cause RAM is a commodity

00:03:46   and the price has fluctuated,

00:03:47   depending if they manufactured too much

00:03:49   and they need to get rid of it or there's not enough,

00:03:51   and there's demand out, strip supply.

00:03:54   Anyway, it bounces all over the place,

00:03:57   but given that it's over like a 20 something year span,

00:04:00   you can see the trend line pretty clearly.

00:04:02   And the trend line, Apple, is down.

00:04:04   Not just like the cost of one megabyte of RAM

00:04:09   has gotten cheaper,

00:04:10   this is I believe the cost of buying the amount of RAM

00:04:14   that's in the base model Mac.

00:04:17   So the amount of RAM is going up.

00:04:19   So it's not just like price per megabyte, I believe,

00:04:22   this is just the total price.

00:04:23   And the total price that, the market price,

00:04:27   if you were to buy this RAM on the open market,

00:04:29   has been going down despite the fact

00:04:31   that the amount has been going up,

00:04:32   which is what we all imagine to be the case,

00:04:34   because we all had computers when we were children

00:04:37   that had very small amounts of RAM,

00:04:39   and now our computers have much, much more.

00:04:41   RAM gets cheaper over time.

00:04:43   That's something we forget sometimes as Apple customers,

00:04:45   because it doesn't happen for us.

00:04:48   But I like this chart because, A, it does show

00:04:49   the fluctuations, 'cause that's something that people,

00:04:51   feedback people gave.

00:04:52   It's like, okay, well that, the RAM chart,

00:04:55   getting more RAM is Mac, isn't that easy?

00:04:57   Prices fluctuate, Apple has to time their purchases

00:04:59   and do all this clever stuff.

00:05:01   Or it was like, okay, that's all well and good.

00:05:02   But still, the trend line is down.

00:05:05   And it's, you know, we should have more RAM for less money.

00:05:09   More on that later.

00:05:10   - Indeed.

00:05:12   All right, we have more feedback somehow

00:05:15   on HomeKit Light Controls UI.

00:05:17   Max Levin writes, "The versions of the Home app

00:05:20   on Mac OS, iOS, and watchOS all feature a card interface

00:05:23   for controlling devices, and the card contains two buttons,

00:05:26   the body or background, which is all a tappable region,

00:05:30   and a circular button in the corner of that card.

00:05:32   One takes you to the device settings,

00:05:34   and the other toggles the device state.

00:05:36   It's just that which does which is flipped

00:05:38   between watchOS and Mac OS and iOS."

00:05:40   - Yay, yep. - So, well done.

00:05:42   Yeah, so watchOS, the toggle button,

00:05:46   or the humongous card is a toggle,

00:05:49   and then there's an ellipsis in the corner

00:05:51   to get to settings, if you will.

00:05:54   Then on Mac OS and iOS, instead of an ellipsis,

00:05:58   you have like an indicator of what the device is,

00:06:01   like a light bulb, if you will, in the corner.

00:06:03   That's how you toggle.

00:06:04   And the rest of the card is how you get to settings.

00:06:06   Cool.

00:06:07   - Don't tap the wrong thing.

00:06:08   - So many places I could go from here.

00:06:10   All right, so let's talk about the Vega Sphere.

00:06:13   The Holoplot Speakers are the speakers

00:06:16   that are used in the Vega Sphere,

00:06:18   and somebody linked us to a video which talks about this.

00:06:21   And I did watch this video.

00:06:22   I was not that impressed by the demonstration,

00:06:25   even with headphones on, but it's a hard thing

00:06:26   to really get into video form.

00:06:29   But what was cool, which, John, you pulled out

00:06:31   and noted here, each module, each speaker module,

00:06:36   has somewhere between 80 and 96 speakers,

00:06:38   costs between 36 and $38,000, and weighs 220 pounds.

00:06:43   Holy dangimoles.

00:06:45   - Each module is like a really heavy suitcase, kind of.

00:06:48   Like, that's the size range that it is.

00:06:50   But if you look at it, like, you know,

00:06:52   96 speaker drivers, or 80 in the one that has subwoofers,

00:06:55   so many speakers just spread, you know,

00:06:57   nested as close as they could possibly be,

00:06:59   however they can get room to them.

00:07:00   And they're all essentially computer controlled,

00:07:02   and the computer control interface is like inside that box.

00:07:06   So, you know, one of those boxes costs, you know,

00:07:09   36 to $38,000, and I can't imagine how many

00:07:11   of those boxes they have in the sphere,

00:07:14   so that's why the thing costs $2 billion.

00:07:16   But it's really cool, it's like the idea of having

00:07:18   lots of small, relatively inexpensive speakers,

00:07:21   like the speaker drivers, each individual one

00:07:23   is inexpensive, but you got 96 of them,

00:07:25   and then having computers control them

00:07:27   to do the beam forming and everything

00:07:30   to be able to target different sounds

00:07:31   at different parts of the audience,

00:07:32   or just to make it so that every seat sounds good,

00:07:36   as opposed to, they compare it in the video

00:07:38   to the more traditional thing where you do the,

00:07:41   I wish I had a YouTube link to this,

00:07:43   but the recent trend that if you go to live music

00:07:45   you've seen is to have long vertical tower,

00:07:49   kind of gently curving towers of speakers.

00:07:51   That was not the case, like if you look

00:07:52   at a '70s rock concert, you didn't see those,

00:07:55   but we've learned since the '70s that you get better sound

00:07:58   across a larger area in the audience

00:08:00   if you do those long vertical towers,

00:08:01   but those are fixed, like they don't adjust

00:08:04   or do beam forming or whatever, they're just speakers,

00:08:06   they're carefully arranged in one position,

00:08:09   and they try to make it sound as good as they can

00:08:11   and as many places as they can, but it's kind of,

00:08:14   if you were to look at the field of sound

00:08:15   that those produce, it is uneven,

00:08:17   whereas these things are trying to give

00:08:18   every individual seat sort of the same experience

00:08:21   by using constructive and destructive interference

00:08:24   and timing and all sorts of other things

00:08:25   with what must be hundreds of speakers,

00:08:28   thousands of speakers, I think they have a number,

00:08:30   how many speakers are actually in this sphere,

00:08:31   it's a huge number, and through the magic of computers

00:08:34   they try to make it sound good.

00:08:36   (laughing)

00:08:37   And this is also not an easy problem to solve

00:08:41   because you think about the acoustics of that space,

00:08:45   trying to make a dome sound good for every seat,

00:08:50   even setting aside just the cool dynamic stuff,

00:08:54   we're gonna send English to this section

00:08:56   and Spanish to this section or whatever,

00:08:57   even setting that stuff aside,

00:08:59   just making it sound good for every seat in there,

00:09:02   that is a massive acoustic challenge,

00:09:05   and to make it sound good without those giant

00:09:08   tower speaker arrays being visible

00:09:10   because they don't wanna block the view of the screen,

00:09:12   so all the speakers have to be behind the screen.

00:09:16   There's a lot of just challenging physical situations there

00:09:21   to try to make that both sound at all good,

00:09:24   but then to make it sound good for everybody,

00:09:27   and I gotta tell you, it sounds really good,

00:09:31   most concerts, I mean granted,

00:09:33   I'm listening through AirPods as ear plugs,

00:09:36   so it's being modified, but most concerts,

00:09:39   despite ostensibly being about the music,

00:09:42   the sound is actually not that good,

00:09:45   'cause it's just, again, it's a giant acoustic challenge

00:09:48   to make that sound good in any kind of,

00:09:50   especially indoor environments,

00:09:52   but they did a really good job with making it sound good

00:09:55   in what is probably a very, very difficult situation

00:09:59   to be in.

00:10:01   - Someone in the chat room found the YouTube video

00:10:03   I was thinking of, it's from Wired,

00:10:04   why music festivals sound better than ever,

00:10:07   and that's talking about the big vertical towers

00:10:09   of speakers, those are a big advance over the old way,

00:10:12   where I guess they just sort of put the speakers

00:10:13   on the stage in little stacks or whatever,

00:10:15   they figured out this arrangement produces

00:10:18   the fewest terrible dead spots or places in the audience

00:10:21   that sound terrible as compared to the old arrangements,

00:10:23   but the computer controlled one is,

00:10:25   we're gonna make sure there are essentially no spots

00:10:28   where the sound is totally off or totally bad,

00:10:30   or there's no bass or way too much bass,

00:10:31   or you hear delayed or echoed or whatever,

00:10:34   that's what the computers are trying to do.

00:10:36   - When I was in high school and had more free time

00:10:39   to go to concerts, I remember vividly,

00:10:42   you know, I went to high school in Connecticut

00:10:43   and we used to go to what was at the time

00:10:45   called the Meadows Music Theater in Hartford

00:10:47   or outside Hartford, and it was one of those theaters

00:10:49   where there's like an amphitheater section

00:10:51   and then a lawn behind it.

00:10:52   Even though I fully and completely understood

00:10:55   the science behind it, I always found it both funny

00:10:57   and kind of mildly annoying that I would be looking

00:11:00   at the screens, both behind the stage

00:11:03   and at the edge of the pavilion, if I was on the lawn,

00:11:06   and I'd be looking at the screens

00:11:07   and I would see a snare hit,

00:11:11   but by the time the sound made it to where I was,

00:11:14   the drummer had moved on like one or two notes past

00:11:18   what I was hearing, so I would see the future, if you will.

00:11:22   It was a very weird bit of time travel,

00:11:24   and admittedly, I might have had a contact high

00:11:27   from everyone around me at a Dave Matthews concert,

00:11:28   but I had not partaken myself, so sound and light,

00:11:32   it's weird, it works in mysterious ways.

00:11:34   - The only way they can fix that is you,

00:11:35   I'd have gotta watch the whole thing in Vision Pro

00:11:37   'cause then they can sync up the visuals and the audio

00:11:40   by delaying the visuals, essentially.

00:11:42   - That remains a product in Apple's lineup.

00:11:44   Speaking of products that are still, for now,

00:11:46   in Apple's lineup, fine woven accessories

00:11:48   may get one last ride before Apple pulls the plug.

00:11:51   This was reported on MacRumors a couple of weeks back.

00:11:53   Over the weekend, Apple leaker and prototype collector

00:11:56   Kousutami claimed that Apple has decided to halt production

00:11:58   of fine woven accessories over durability concerns.

00:12:01   In a future update, the leaker has now suggested

00:12:03   we might see yet one more round of fine woven products

00:12:07   in a season of new colors before Apple finally says

00:12:10   farewell to the material for good.

00:12:12   - Yeah, the fine woven thing is weird.

00:12:14   We saw all the complaints about durability

00:12:16   and it looking ugly and getting, you know,

00:12:18   and the bottom line is if people don't like the product

00:12:23   and it gets a reputation for not being good,

00:12:26   they gotta try again.

00:12:27   Then they're not gonna go back to leather,

00:12:28   but yeah, take a second crack at this.

00:12:30   Like they tried something that's a little bit different

00:12:33   than what most people do, which is they make like,

00:12:35   they call it, you know, vegan leather.

00:12:36   They don't wanna call it fake leather or whatever.

00:12:39   All sorts of names they have for them

00:12:40   like in the car industry, basically saying

00:12:42   it's supposed to look and feel like leather,

00:12:43   but it's not made from animals at all.

00:12:45   It's made from petroleum, so it's fine.

00:12:47   (laughing)

00:12:48   - Great.

00:12:50   Yeah, this whole thing, like when this rumor came out

00:12:52   last week, it sounds like Apple is just discontinuing

00:12:56   the current line of colors and is making

00:12:59   a new spring collection.

00:13:00   They do that.

00:13:01   Like they always do that every year

00:13:02   with all their accessories.

00:13:03   So I'm not that surprised that things are changing

00:13:07   in that area for the spring.

00:13:08   I would be surprised if nothing changes

00:13:11   to that lineup this fall when they would typically

00:13:13   unveil like a whole new shape and size for the new phone.

00:13:17   So we'll see what happens then, but I think right now

00:13:19   it's too soon to really say that anything's happening.

00:13:22   - Yeah, and despite the petroleum crack,

00:13:23   like most of the fake leather stuff

00:13:25   does have some plastic component

00:13:26   'cause you can make various kinds of plastic,

00:13:28   rubbery type materials look and feel

00:13:30   a little bit like leather.

00:13:31   That's what they do in car interiors.

00:13:33   Often they can be, you can make them more durable

00:13:37   than leather or at least durable in a different way

00:13:39   because leather wears, which is something people like

00:13:41   about leather, like leather that it changes appearance

00:13:44   and feel over time, but that's wearing, right?

00:13:46   It doesn't stay looking brand new,

00:13:48   whereas a lot of the fake leathers

00:13:50   can stay looking the same for longer,

00:13:52   but they may not be as durable long-term as leather

00:13:55   and you can sort of recondition leather and dye it

00:13:57   and repair it and all sorts of other stuff.

00:13:58   Anyway, it's a challenge.

00:14:00   It's a challenge to come up with,

00:14:01   Apple's had this challenge before,

00:14:02   to come up with environmentally friendlier versions

00:14:06   of things they use a long time,

00:14:08   whether it's putting tin in there or lead

00:14:10   or whatever in the solder or the plastic

00:14:12   that they used to use for the cables

00:14:14   that would come with your phone.

00:14:16   They had to change that to an environmentally friendly one

00:14:18   and the first time they tried to do that,

00:14:19   the plastic was all brittle and broken.

00:14:22   It's hard, but that's the challenge

00:14:23   they've put in front of themselves.

00:14:24   So if fine woven is a swing and a miss,

00:14:27   I'd give them a pass, good effort, try again next year.

00:14:30   - We are brought to you this episode by Compiler,

00:14:34   an original podcast from Red Hat,

00:14:36   discussing tech topics big, small, and strange.

00:14:39   Compiler comes to you from the makers

00:14:41   of Command Line Heroes.

00:14:42   It's hosted by Angela Andrews and it closes the gap

00:14:45   between those who are new to tech

00:14:47   and those behind the inventions and services

00:14:49   shaping our world.

00:14:50   Compiler brings together stories and perspectives

00:14:52   from the industry and it simplifies our language,

00:14:55   culture, and movements in a way that can be fun,

00:14:57   informative, and guilt free.

00:14:59   So it can provide insight for a new generation of IT pros.

00:15:02   So they cover a wide variety of topics,

00:15:05   things like what are the components of a software stack?

00:15:07   And in fact, they have an episode, number 25,

00:15:10   The Great Stack Debate.

00:15:11   This is the first in their kind of a mini series

00:15:13   and they explore each layer of the stack,

00:15:15   what it's like to work on each one

00:15:17   and how they come together into a whole application.

00:15:20   Those who have topics like,

00:15:21   are big mistakes that big of a deal?

00:15:24   They have one called Warning Signs, episode number 55,

00:15:27   which is from their Tales from the Database series.

00:15:29   Boy, I have some of those.

00:15:30   And this is about learning the warning signs

00:15:33   of a problematic project from people

00:15:35   who have figured them out the hard way

00:15:37   and what can happen when these warning signs are missed.

00:15:40   And they also have another one, episode 46,

00:15:42   that really stands out.

00:15:43   This is called In Defense of Legacy Technology.

00:15:46   This is the first in their new series, Legacies,

00:15:49   tackling different examples of older hardware and software,

00:15:52   breaking down their relevance to today's industry landscape

00:15:54   and helping junior tech workers connect the old guard

00:15:56   with their own career journeys.

00:15:58   So it is just a great podcast.

00:16:00   They've been running for a number of years now

00:16:02   and they have a great back catalog to listen to

00:16:03   and great new episodes coming out all the time.

00:16:05   So learn more about Compiler

00:16:07   at redhat.com/compilerpodcast.

00:16:11   Of course, you can listen in your favorite podcast player

00:16:13   and we can include a link in the show notes as well

00:16:15   for easy adding.

00:16:16   Check it out, compiler redhat.com/compilerpodcast

00:16:20   or just search for compiler in your podcast app.

00:16:21   Thank you so much to Compiler for supporting our show.

00:16:24   (upbeat music)

00:16:27   - All right, let's talk about the Apple event

00:16:31   that happened yesterday as we record this.

00:16:33   This was, as per Tim Cook, the biggest day for iPad

00:16:37   since its introduction.

00:16:39   And we started off by noting that the Vision Pro

00:16:41   remains a product in Apple's lineup.

00:16:43   - That was the best.

00:16:44   - Tim was like, this event's all about iPads.

00:16:47   But first let's talk about the Vision Pro.

00:16:49   - Yeah, I just wanted to remind everyone.

00:16:51   I mean, I think that was as much as I made fun of it

00:16:53   and saying that the Vision Pro remains a product

00:16:55   in their lineup.

00:16:55   I think they have to do this, right?

00:16:59   Because if they didn't say anything,

00:17:01   it'd be like, look, they had an event

00:17:02   and they didn't even mention the Vision Pro.

00:17:03   You gotta mention it.

00:17:04   You gotta say, to show that Apple is still committed

00:17:09   to doing whatever it's doing with the Vision Pro.

00:17:11   Like they're not ashamed of it.

00:17:12   They're not trying to hide it.

00:17:13   They don't wanna not talk about it

00:17:15   because things aren't going well.

00:17:17   They are still behind it.

00:17:18   So I think that was an important reassurance.

00:17:20   Yes, Apple will take their lumps for saying like,

00:17:22   oh, you know, people don't think it's going great

00:17:24   out there in the world.

00:17:25   But by talking about it and trying to show

00:17:27   the few positive things they did have to say about it,

00:17:29   look, the enterprise loves it.

00:17:30   People are doing surgery with it.

00:17:31   It's great, right?

00:17:33   You gotta do that.

00:17:33   It's the newly announced product

00:17:35   and I'm kind of glad that was in the presentation.

00:17:38   - They of course have to keep promoting it

00:17:39   but they're not really giving us anything.

00:17:43   Like they're not really adding anything to it.

00:17:46   They don't have any--

00:17:46   - No, there's nothing to announce.

00:17:47   - Right, there's nothing to announce.

00:17:48   There's nothing to show off.

00:17:50   It doesn't seem like it's going super well

00:17:52   and so they don't really have anything they can brag about.

00:17:54   They don't really have any cool new uses.

00:17:56   They can really specifically talk about

00:17:57   that consumers would care about.

00:17:59   So it's a little, it feels a little bit strained.

00:18:02   - If they'd waited a few more days,

00:18:03   like this we'll probably talk about next week,

00:18:05   but there's this Marvel Studios what if immersive product,

00:18:09   whatever, coming to Vision Pro.

00:18:10   But I guess that just wasn't ready

00:18:12   because this obviously the video was recorded

00:18:14   before it was shown to us.

00:18:16   That would have been a nice thing to mention.

00:18:18   Like to say, and we actually have some new content

00:18:20   and it's from Marvel and it's an hour long

00:18:22   and that could get people excited

00:18:23   but it didn't make the cut.

00:18:25   - No, it didn't make the cut

00:18:26   because it may not have ever been there to get cut

00:18:28   to your point a moment ago.

00:18:29   Like the--

00:18:30   - Yeah, it didn't make the cut in terms of time wise.

00:18:32   I think this announcement happened

00:18:34   after they had long since recorded the--

00:18:36   - Exactly, yep, yep, yep.

00:18:37   So yeah, so the Vision Pro still exists.

00:18:40   The MacBook Air is the world's best selling 13

00:18:42   and 15 inch laptop.

00:18:43   - And 15 inch, you hear that?

00:18:45   Oh, I heard the 15 inch MacBook Air,

00:18:46   nobody wants to buy it.

00:18:47   It's the world's best selling 15 inch laptop, Apple.

00:18:50   - Yeah, that's pretty great.

00:18:51   - Don't think about canceling that

00:18:52   because it's not as popular as the 13.

00:18:55   - Yep, so things are going well,

00:18:56   at least in the MacBook Air section of the world.

00:18:59   And then we end up with John Turnus on a subway,

00:19:01   I guess it was the Bart, I don't know,

00:19:02   it doesn't really matter.

00:19:03   And I noticed as he was standing there

00:19:06   that the marquee or whatever behind him,

00:19:09   the little ticker tape, if you will,

00:19:10   says this train now goes to 13,

00:19:13   which was a surprising nod to what was expected,

00:19:16   but still yet to come.

00:19:18   And what was coming was the iPad Air,

00:19:20   which is now in 11 and 13 inches.

00:19:23   And there was an off the cuff mention

00:19:27   or an off-handed comment that about half of the users

00:19:30   choose 13 inch iPad, I guess it was iPad Pros,

00:19:33   I think they were talking about.

00:19:34   - That was for Pro.

00:19:35   They were saying that inspired by iPad Pro, comma,

00:19:39   where about half of the users choose the larger screen.

00:19:41   Which is interesting.

00:19:42   - 'Cause the users couldn't have chosen larger screen

00:19:44   on the iPad Air, we didn't have one.

00:19:45   - Right, and honestly, that's new information,

00:19:48   that of all iPad Pros, about half choose the 13 inch.

00:19:51   That's surprising to me.

00:19:52   I would have expected that to be less, but.

00:19:53   - I mean, I guess it kinda shows who's in the market

00:19:56   for an iPad Pro, and I feel like at this point

00:19:58   the iPad Pro's strongest, unique selling proposition

00:20:03   is the pen, right, the pencil, whatever.

00:20:05   And so if you're an artist and you're gonna actually

00:20:07   use that pencil, sure, you definitely want the bigger one,

00:20:10   right, 'cause the same people wanted, you know,

00:20:12   bigger Wacom tablets or whatever, like, that's,

00:20:15   I don't imagine people are buying the bigger one

00:20:18   so they can browse the web a little bigger.

00:20:19   It's all about having a bigger canvas to draw with the pencil

00:20:22   but for whatever reason, yeah, people are buying

00:20:23   the big one, which is the most expensive one.

00:20:26   - So we get the new iPad Air, 11 and 13 inches.

00:20:29   It's got an M2, it's got some okay colors.

00:20:32   They're not super wild, but they're fine.

00:20:35   And by the way, it's the new 11 inch and 13,

00:20:38   obviously the 13 inch is the new size.

00:20:39   The 11 inch, it's the same size as the 10.9.

00:20:42   Like, it's not, they just, Apple has just decided

00:20:44   they're not gonna do the decimal thing,

00:20:46   which was kinda weird that they did it to begin with.

00:20:47   I think the actual screen is like 10.86 inches.

00:20:50   Apple used to call it the 10.9 with rounding

00:20:52   but they couldn't round to one more place.

00:20:54   Now they're just calling it the 11,

00:20:55   but I believe it is the exact same resolution

00:20:56   and exact same dimensions as the previous 10.9 inch screen.

00:20:59   - Well, and that rounding is actually happening

00:21:01   across all four of the iPads that were announced today.

00:21:03   There's different amounts of rounding,

00:21:05   but they're all being rounded up to the nearest inch,

00:21:07   which is fine.

00:21:08   - That's what they do,

00:21:09   they've always done that with their laptops.

00:21:10   It's not like the 13 inch laptops

00:21:12   has always been exactly 13.0 inches.

00:21:14   It's just weird that for so long

00:21:15   we've dealt with like the 10.9 inch or 12.9 inch,

00:21:18   but yeah, whoever had that idea, Apple snapped out of it.

00:21:22   - Yeah, I'm glad.

00:21:23   It's much easier now.

00:21:24   - Now I thought that some, I read somewhere,

00:21:27   this is not part of the event,

00:21:27   but I could've sworn I read somewhere

00:21:29   that there are a few more pixels.

00:21:31   - We'll get to that.

00:21:32   It's in the Pro, not in this one though.

00:21:33   - This, the iPad Air, I believe has exactly,

00:21:36   the iPad Air is essentially the previous iPad Pro,

00:21:40   but without Face ID and with the Touch ID thing added.

00:21:43   Like it's, I don't think there's any,

00:21:45   there's new screen, obviously the 13 inch is new, right?

00:21:48   But the 10.9, I believe is down to the pixel,

00:21:51   down to the millimeter, the same as it was.

00:21:53   - But no promotion in the iPad Air, which is worth noting.

00:21:57   But anyways, so yeah, so what is this iPad Air?

00:21:59   It's an M2, it works with the existing

00:22:03   at this point Magic Keyboard.

00:22:05   So this is the one that we'll later find out.

00:22:07   Well, we knew that it doesn't have a function row,

00:22:09   but we didn't know yet that that's what differentiates it.

00:22:11   And it works with a Apple Pencil.

00:22:15   I still, I need to bring up that stupid chart

00:22:17   'cause I'm still not entirely clear

00:22:19   which Apple Pencils it works with.

00:22:20   - All the iPads that were announced to,

00:22:23   well, hmm, not all, okay, anyway.

00:22:25   If your iPad works with two pencils and it's just announced,

00:22:28   it works with the Apple Pencil Pro,

00:22:30   which we'll talk about in a little bit, and the USB one.

00:22:32   - The USB one works with any of them

00:22:34   'cause you plug it in with a wire and it's all,

00:22:35   like there's no sort of physical incompatibility with them.

00:22:39   So that essentially works with all of them.

00:22:41   And if you have a flat-sided iPad with a landscape camera

00:22:46   that's not the cheapest one,

00:22:48   then you work with the Apple Pencil Pro

00:22:51   because that's the only one that has the magnets

00:22:53   and inductive charging to work with the flat-sided ones

00:22:56   with the landscape camera.

00:22:58   - Right on.

00:22:59   - So you can't use the Apple Pencil 2,

00:23:01   even though it looks like you could,

00:23:03   because it doesn't have the magnets and inductive stuff

00:23:06   to line up with where it is

00:23:07   'cause they had to move all this stuff around

00:23:09   because it's got the camera on the long side

00:23:11   and it previously didn't.

00:23:12   So even though we're still in this transition period

00:23:15   of confusion, we are approaching a future year

00:23:18   when every iPad, right now every iPad works with a pencil,

00:23:22   which is good, and soon every iPad will work

00:23:24   with two pencils, the cheap one and the expensive one.

00:23:27   We'll get there eventually.

00:23:28   We're not there yet, but we'll get there.

00:23:30   - All right, yay yay.

00:23:32   All right, so then,

00:23:34   so to work with the existing Magic Keyboard,

00:23:36   a couple of Apple Pencils, it now starts at 128 gigs

00:23:39   and goes up to a terabyte,

00:23:41   starting at $600 and $800 available sometime next week.

00:23:45   I thought I heard on upgrade today

00:23:47   that it was like Wednesday or Thursday

00:23:49   of this upcoming week, so not tomorrow as we record,

00:23:51   but like a week from or something like that.

00:23:53   But there's some interesting news

00:23:55   with regard to packaging.

00:23:57   - Oh, actually, before we get to that, just to highlight,

00:23:59   even though this looks like the old iPad Pro,

00:24:02   like in appearance and can use the Magic Keyboard

00:24:05   and everything, it does not have Face ID.

00:24:07   - Yeah.

00:24:08   - It has the Touch ID button thingy on the power button,

00:24:12   which is kind of weird to have like,

00:24:15   oh, it's just like the old Pro,

00:24:16   but we pulled out a bunch of stuff to make it cheaper.

00:24:17   I guess it makes sense, but just to be clear,

00:24:21   you do not get Face ID with this one.

00:24:24   - So according to 9to5Mac, the new iPad Pro and iPad Air

00:24:28   no longer include charger in the box in the UK

00:24:31   and other countries in Europe, and according to 9to5,

00:24:34   this appears to be due to the waste from electrical

00:24:37   and electronic equipment rules in the EU.

00:24:39   It's applicable to the UK because it predates Brexit.

00:24:42   - And what's that acronym,

00:24:43   Electrical and Electronic Equipment?

00:24:45   Weeeee, W-E-E-E rules, the weeeeee rules, weeeeeee, no charger for you. They sound so fun. [laughing]

00:25:02   - Apple's Apple logo stickers will not be included in the box

00:25:03   for the new iPad Pro and iPad Air.

00:25:06   The company says that this is part of its environmental goals

00:25:08   as it strives to ensure its packaging

00:25:09   is completely plastic-free.

00:25:10   Apple stores, however, are receiving shipments

00:25:12   with a limited quantity of Apple logo stickers

00:25:14   that can be distributed to customers

00:25:15   who buy a new iPad Pro or iPad Air, but only upon request.

00:25:19   - What a weird thing the Apple stickers are.

00:25:20   We don't talk about it too much on the show,

00:25:22   but how weird is it that for like, what, 25, 30 years,

00:25:26   Apple has been including tiny stickers of its company logo

00:25:30   in essentially all of its products,

00:25:31   and what did people do with those?

00:25:33   I mean, I guess you could put them on your car or whatever,

00:25:35   but honestly, like, if you are an Apple customer

00:25:38   for any amount of time, you've got enough stickers.

00:25:41   Like, the logo doesn't change.

00:25:42   Like, oh, you got a black one with the Mac Pro or whatever,

00:25:44   but like, you're being inundated with stickers

00:25:46   that you do not care about.

00:25:47   They're just going in the trash

00:25:48   or they're sitting inside the box in your attic

00:25:50   if you're me or whatever, and it's like, how many stickers,

00:25:53   how many Apple logo stickers does the world need?

00:25:56   - No, I mean, a lot of people who don't have

00:25:58   as many Apple products as you, which is most people,

00:26:01   they, like, I see those stickers on cars.

00:26:03   Somebody on my dog walk has them on their trash cans

00:26:06   for some reason. - Right, but that's like one.

00:26:08   Every product would come with two.

00:26:09   So you've got the one on your car,

00:26:10   and you've got the one spare,

00:26:12   and you're good until you get a new car.

00:26:15   (laughing)

00:26:16   Like, it's too many stickers.

00:26:17   Like, it's kind of amazing that they've shipped that long,

00:26:20   especially if you look at everything else

00:26:22   that has come with the products.

00:26:23   Like, they used to come with a little instruction manual,

00:26:24   instruction booklets, and they were slowly narrowed down

00:26:27   to just be like one piece of paper

00:26:29   or like a folding thing that folds out

00:26:31   and has like three pages.

00:26:32   Like, they have really reduced the amount of literature,

00:26:37   essentially, or paper things

00:26:39   that come with all of their products.

00:26:41   And because the stickers are plastic,

00:26:43   they're, you know, it's amazing they last that long,

00:26:45   is what I'm saying.

00:26:46   I don't begrudge people.

00:26:47   I think it's great to have them in the store.

00:26:48   That's exactly how it should be.

00:26:49   Even they can even offer you,

00:26:50   buy something at Apple Store and say,

00:26:51   "Hey, do you want a sticker?"

00:26:52   And if you want one, you get one,

00:26:53   and if you don't, you pass.

00:26:55   But shipping them to everybody,

00:26:57   whether they want them or not, it's too much.

00:26:58   - And I agree.

00:26:59   My view is skewed by buying way too many Apple products.

00:27:03   But I feel like even if you don't buy a lot of them,

00:27:04   even if you had a new phone every five years

00:27:06   and you're an iPhone customer,

00:27:07   by now you've got a lot of those stickers.

00:27:09   - Indeed.

00:27:11   All right, anything else with regard to the iPad Air?

00:27:15   I mean, this seems good.

00:27:16   It seems like a really nice product.

00:27:18   I think for most people, including surely me,

00:27:22   if I had any common sense, this was more than enough.

00:27:24   I mean, it's a really nice machine.

00:27:26   And it's not cheap, but it's not absurdly expensive.

00:27:29   So I'm on board with all these changes.

00:27:32   - I really like the 13-inch Air with the pencil.

00:27:36   It's a much cheaper way to get a really big iPad

00:27:40   that you can draw on, essentially.

00:27:42   Just like the 15-inch MacBook Air,

00:27:44   just like the iPhone Plus size,

00:27:46   keeping the big version stuck in the highest end,

00:27:51   like trim level, essentially,

00:27:52   was always a bad decision in terms of satisfying

00:27:56   customer needs, right?

00:27:58   And it's great that there is now a big one that is cheaper

00:28:00   and that is pretty good.

00:28:02   Like, Face ID, yeah, I like it and everything,

00:28:05   but it doesn't affect the drawing experience.

00:28:07   It's just the unlock experience, so who cares?

00:28:09   And so I give the iPad Air mostly a thumbs up.

00:28:13   - Yeah, I think it's,

00:28:14   and we'll get into this more as the show goes on,

00:28:16   but there is kind of the question

00:28:19   of what people use iPads for.

00:28:22   And of course, there's lots of different answers

00:28:24   to that question, but obviously,

00:28:25   a very, very common use case for them

00:28:27   is basically being big screens running low-needs apps,

00:28:31   like in terms of computing power.

00:28:32   So that would be obviously things like watching video,

00:28:35   that's a very popular use for them.

00:28:37   But even, you know, a lot of people use them

00:28:38   as kind of light productivity devices,

00:28:41   or kind of like low-end gaming devices, especially for kids.

00:28:45   And so I feel like there is a very large market

00:28:49   for iPads that are just decent

00:28:53   and have maybe a bigger screen, like the new 13X Air,

00:28:57   without having all of the cost of the Pro.

00:29:00   And with the Pro, you know, adding a bunch of features

00:29:02   for that cost that I think almost all iPad owners

00:29:06   really don't need.

00:29:07   I do wish it had Face ID.

00:29:09   That's the one big kind of like, you know,

00:29:12   hard to swallow pill here.

00:29:14   And Apple PR has obviously been telling everybody

00:29:17   who was at the PR event today,

00:29:19   'cause we've heard it all on a bunch of other podcasts now,

00:29:20   you can tell, you can always see

00:29:23   what Apple's PR talking points are

00:29:25   by listening to the podcasts and the YouTube videos

00:29:28   of the people who were there,

00:29:30   'cause you can tell they were all fed

00:29:31   the same talking points.

00:29:32   But clearly Apple is telling everybody

00:29:34   that the Face ID components are expensive,

00:29:36   and that's why it just can't be in the air.

00:29:40   And they could put it in there if they wanted to.

00:29:43   It's not that expensive, it's not like Face ID is brand new.

00:29:46   - The follow-up question would be like, how expensive?

00:29:48   - Yeah, exactly.

00:29:49   Like they're choosing not to put it in there,

00:29:51   I think mostly for segmentation.

00:29:53   - Yeah, the thing is, I agree

00:29:55   that they probably are expensive,

00:29:56   but you know, it's not like they're $300, right?

00:30:01   - Yeah.

00:30:02   - So they're, and you know, how much do they cost Apple?

00:30:06   Whatever they cost, it's like,

00:30:08   because if Apple told you the truth,

00:30:09   not that they're ever gonna do this,

00:30:10   but if they told you, okay, when we buy this part

00:30:13   plus the integration and assembly, like all told,

00:30:16   it would cost us this much more per unit

00:30:19   to put Face ID into it.

00:30:21   And you would say, great, I'll pay that.

00:30:23   And Apple would be like, well, that's not what you would pay.

00:30:26   You'd pay that plus our typical 40% margin.

00:30:29   Now will you do it?

00:30:30   And you're like, oh, the cost of all that

00:30:32   plus the 40% margin, now I'm adding

00:30:34   like 100 and something bucks to it.

00:30:35   No, actually I won't pay that.

00:30:36   And Apple's gonna be like, see?

00:30:38   And we would say, how about you don't take a 40% margin

00:30:41   on Face ID, and Apple's like,

00:30:42   that's not how we became the richest company in the world.

00:30:44   So that's how that conversation would go essentially.

00:30:46   But I mean, what Apple's, the Apple talking point

00:30:50   is essentially emphasizing that unlike RAM

00:30:53   and every other part of computing,

00:30:55   apparently the Face ID components haven't gone down

00:30:58   in price over the years as much as you would think.

00:31:01   And of course my fault for that would be like,

00:31:03   what about the things that do go down in price, Apple?

00:31:05   You also don't give us a break on those.

00:31:08   So whatever, it's the cheaper product.

00:31:10   Like what we all hope is from the good old days

00:31:13   of computing is something will come out

00:31:15   and it will only be on the high end model

00:31:17   and we'll just wait a few years and it will trickle down

00:31:18   to the rest of the lineup.

00:31:20   And for things whose cost follows the typical electronics,

00:31:25   computing curve, that does happen.

00:31:28   And we do see things trickling down to the lower end models.

00:31:30   But Apple's talking point on this,

00:31:32   which we just take their word for 'cause I don't know,

00:31:34   is that the Face ID components have not reduced in price

00:31:38   like we would expect of typical components

00:31:40   that go into things.

00:31:41   That's why it hasn't trickled down yet.

00:31:42   We would presume that in five years, 10 years,

00:31:46   eventually it all trickles down.

00:31:48   Like it used to be that the cheap ones had home buttons

00:31:50   and we finally got rid of that.

00:31:51   It took a long time to get rid of that, but we finally did.

00:31:53   But we didn't replace it all with Face ID,

00:31:55   we just have Touch ID and the power button.

00:31:56   But I think it will happen eventually,

00:32:00   but yes for market segmentation and yes,

00:32:02   there's probably some truth to the idea

00:32:04   that those components haven't come down in price

00:32:05   because I'm not sure how many other manufacturers

00:32:07   are buying those, but honestly Apple is such a big customer,

00:32:09   it shouldn't really matter.

00:32:10   So anyway, fingers crossed for what?

00:32:12   Let's say five years from now,

00:32:14   finally getting Face ID on the iPad Air.

00:32:16   Not the cheap iPad, but just the iPad Air.

00:32:18   - Right.

00:32:19   And I think it's interesting too,

00:32:20   like when you're comparing,

00:32:21   or trying to figure out relative component costs,

00:32:24   look at the iPhones.

00:32:25   And what's interesting about when you compare iPhone

00:32:28   to iPad is that they do have a lot of the same components.

00:32:31   However, iPhones generally cost way more than iPads.

00:32:36   But iPads have these giant screens and more speakers

00:32:41   and they don't actually save that many of the components.

00:32:44   - And bigger batteries, those cost more too.

00:32:47   - Right, and bigger cases.

00:32:48   So it's interesting, when you look,

00:32:51   the iPads actually probably,

00:32:53   they probably do need lower end hardware

00:32:57   in a lot of ways to hit those prices

00:32:59   because they are, while keeping at Apple's margins,

00:33:02   because they are so much lower priced

00:33:05   than kind of similar generation or comparable iPhones.

00:33:09   Like right now, the cheapest iPhone is the SE,

00:33:12   for if we're matching storage tiers,

00:33:14   then it's 480 for the SE at 128,

00:33:19   versus 600 for the cheapest phone,

00:33:23   which is currently the old 13, that's still for sale.

00:33:25   $600 is the cheapest phone at 128 gigs with Face ID.

00:33:29   So that compares to the exact same price

00:33:33   as the iPad Air with the same storage.

00:33:36   And the iPad Air has the M1 in it, sorry, M2 in it.

00:33:39   Right?

00:33:40   - And a massive screen.

00:33:41   - Right, and a massive screen and more speakers.

00:33:43   And so you can sort of see, okay, it is kind of,

00:33:47   they don't have the cell modem, so that saves some.

00:33:51   You can get it for more money, obviously,

00:33:54   but at that price, they have less cellular equipment,

00:33:58   the camera system is cheaper, probably,

00:34:00   but you can start to see there is some price pressure there

00:34:04   that they're trying to sell these devices

00:34:06   with phone components, with phone profit margins,

00:34:11   but they're bigger devices, so that does become harder.

00:34:14   But all that being said, I do think the choice of Face ID

00:34:18   is not about component cost in this case,

00:34:21   it is primarily segmentation.

00:34:23   - So that's the iPad Air, and you know,

00:34:25   I think it's basically two thumbs up from the ATP crew,

00:34:28   I think we're good.

00:34:29   - I think though, for our listeners,

00:34:30   if you're trying to consider what to buy,

00:34:33   I would suggest, unless you are really pushing

00:34:37   the processing power of your iPad,

00:34:39   which we'll get to, it's difficult to do,

00:34:42   iPads tend to last a long time in use,

00:34:45   like they tend to have pretty long lives.

00:34:48   I would suggest maybe going for a Pro

00:34:51   and just keeping it longer, compared to going for an Air.

00:34:54   If you are a nerd who listens to this show,

00:34:56   who cares about things like the best screen,

00:34:59   the Face ID convenience, like the better speakers,

00:35:02   better, all that stuff, I think you'd be better off

00:35:06   buying an iPad Pro every five years or whatever,

00:35:10   compared to buying an iPad Air every three years,

00:35:12   or whatever the numbers are for you,

00:35:14   I think you're better off getting the nice Pro features

00:35:18   if you're a nerd like us.

00:35:19   But for most people who are not nerds,

00:35:21   this is a great mid-range product and they won't care.

00:35:24   - And you can look at a refurb like previous model iPad Pro

00:35:27   if you don't care about the features

00:35:28   that are new on this one, because you will get

00:35:30   all the Pro features and you'll get Face ID,

00:35:31   you'll get all the good stuff, you get a fast processor,

00:35:33   it just won't have this year's stuff.

00:35:34   And while those are still in stock from Apple,

00:35:37   or if you can find one cheap elsewhere,

00:35:39   that you can get a good deal on it.

00:35:41   (upbeat music)

00:35:42   - We are brought to you this episode by Squarespace,

00:35:45   the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs

00:35:47   to stand out and succeed online.

00:35:49   Whether you're just starting out

00:35:50   or managing a growing brand, Squarespace makes it easy

00:35:52   to create a beautiful website and engage with your audience,

00:35:55   and you can sell anything, from physical products

00:35:57   to digital content to your time,

00:36:00   all in one place and all on your terms.

00:36:02   Squarespace has so many great features

00:36:04   and they keep adding more.

00:36:06   One of the newest ones is called Blueprint.

00:36:08   This is their new guided design system

00:36:10   and Squarespace has always been super easy

00:36:13   to make great looking websites, and now it's even easier.

00:36:16   You choose from a professionally curated layout

00:36:18   and styling options to build a unique online presence

00:36:21   from the ground up, tailored to your brand.

00:36:23   So it doesn't just look like a cookie cutter,

00:36:24   it looks like your brand, and of course,

00:36:26   optimized for every device.

00:36:27   They've built in SEO tools so you can show it more often

00:36:30   to more people and get growth for your business.

00:36:34   And when you're selling things,

00:36:35   they offer amazing checkout support.

00:36:37   So things like, of course, credit cards,

00:36:39   your checkout, of course, but then they also have PayPal,

00:36:41   Apple Pay, and in eligible countries,

00:36:43   you can also offer your customers buy now,

00:36:45   pay later services like Afterpay and Clearpay.

00:36:48   It is just a great platform to run your business.

00:36:50   I've recommended Squarespace to so many people in my life,

00:36:52   including many non-nerds, and it's great

00:36:55   because they don't have to be coding nerds

00:36:58   or running servers or anything like that.

00:37:00   They just use Squarespace.

00:37:01   They don't need me to do it for them,

00:37:03   and that's very empowering for them,

00:37:04   and it's great for me too, 'cause I don't have to be

00:37:06   involved in their storefront, their business.

00:37:08   So check it out, squarespace.com, for a free trial.

00:37:12   You can build the site in trial mode,

00:37:15   and you can see how much you like it.

00:37:16   When you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com/atp.

00:37:20   You'll save 10% off your first purchase

00:37:22   of a website or domain.

00:37:23   So one more time, squarespace.com.

00:37:25   Start that free trial.

00:37:26   Start building your site.

00:37:28   You will see how much you love Squarespace.

00:37:30   When you're ready to launch, squarespace.com/atp

00:37:33   for 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

00:37:36   Thank you so much to Squarespace for sponsoring our show.

00:37:39   (upbeat music)

00:37:41   - So let's talk iPad Pro.

00:37:45   And as we were transitioning from Ternus in the library,

00:37:50   talking about the iPad Air, he grabs a little book

00:37:53   that says, the title was It's Thin Possible,

00:37:56   which I thought was pretty funny.

00:37:58   And we learn about the iPad Pro.

00:38:01   Was it immediately that we get the commercial thing?

00:38:05   Is that right?

00:38:05   - The crushing video?

00:38:06   - Mm-hmm.

00:38:07   - Oh, what a weird thing that was.

00:38:10   - Yeah, so again, as we're recording, it's Wednesday night.

00:38:13   And I have been mostly offline for most of the day,

00:38:18   but I've been online enough to see that apparently

00:38:20   people have thoughts about the crushing commercial.

00:38:23   So let me describe this real quick.

00:38:24   So you see on one of those gigantic industrial presses,

00:38:29   just massive, massive, massive industrial presses,

00:38:32   there's like a piano and instruments and art and paint

00:38:37   and all these different things that are all supposed

00:38:39   to represent different flavors of art and whatnot.

00:38:42   And it's on this industrial press

00:38:44   that starts squishing it all down.

00:38:45   And they do some kind of funny things where there's like,

00:38:48   I don't know the name for it,

00:38:49   but you know those wooden people,

00:38:51   like humanoid models that you can pose in different poses.

00:38:55   If you saw a picture of it,

00:38:55   you'd know exactly what I'm thinking of.

00:38:57   And it's got its arms up and its head looking back like,

00:39:00   "No, don't squish me," sort of thing.

00:39:01   And then there's a TV with a little animated character

00:39:05   and it looks up and kind of does an oh no sort of thing.

00:39:07   And at the time, I didn't think that much of it.

00:39:11   I didn't think it was stellar,

00:39:13   but I saw what they were going for.

00:39:15   It made sense to me at the time.

00:39:17   Oh, what they're doing is they're squishing all this down.

00:39:19   And then the end of the commercial,

00:39:20   the press comes back up

00:39:22   and you see that there's an iPad Pro sitting there.

00:39:23   So the ostensible message here

00:39:25   is that all these different things that you can do,

00:39:27   you can paint, you can play music,

00:39:29   you can do video, all this stuff,

00:39:31   you can squish into this one iPad Pro.

00:39:33   - And this new iPad Pro is really thin.

00:39:36   That's the other thing.

00:39:37   We squished the iPad so it got even skinnier

00:39:40   'cause it was squished in a hydraulic press.

00:39:41   That's why it's so thin.

00:39:43   That's why it's thin possible,

00:39:44   so our thinnest product ever, blah, blah, blah.

00:39:45   So that's why they're using a hydraulic press in this app.

00:39:48   - Right.

00:39:49   So for me, when I first saw it, I was like,

00:39:51   "Eh, okay, whatever."

00:39:52   And apparently there's been some discourse since then.

00:39:55   And I think, again, for me, I don't really understand it,

00:40:00   but if I try to put my head in the shoe,

00:40:02   or put my thoughts in the shoes

00:40:03   of someone who's a creative professional in that sense,

00:40:06   like a true-to-form artist, musician, so on and so forth,

00:40:09   especially what's been going on with AI recently

00:40:11   and the discourse around AI,

00:40:14   I could see how it would be a little bothersome

00:40:16   to say the least, even--

00:40:17   - Oh, god, I think it was terrible.

00:40:20   So I am not a creative professional

00:40:22   in any of the ways that were represented there.

00:40:26   Maybe they could crush a podcasting microphone.

00:40:28   (laughing)

00:40:30   So it starts out, and the first thing you see get crushed

00:40:33   is a trumpet standing on its end.

00:40:35   First of all, my kid plays a trumpet,

00:40:36   so there's trumpets in my house.

00:40:37   And I'm like, "I don't think musicians will like this."

00:40:40   And even I, not a musician,

00:40:43   I see they're crushing a trumpet.

00:40:44   I'm like, "That's so destructive, what a waste."

00:40:47   And I'm like, "I see what they're going for.

00:40:49   "Look, you can cram all this stuff into an iPad."

00:40:51   What it looked like to me was we are destroying

00:40:56   all of these real-world artistic objects

00:40:59   because you don't need them anymore

00:41:00   because you're replacing them with this fake digital version

00:41:03   and that's pretty disrespectful.

00:41:05   - Well, yeah, there's a lot of anxiety

00:41:07   about AI replacing creative people

00:41:10   and the computers taking their jobs and stuff,

00:41:12   and I think that's all tied up in this as well.

00:41:13   - I didn't even consider it an AI thing,

00:41:15   although I see why people would be sensitive

00:41:17   about that right now, that makes sense.

00:41:18   But I think it just showed disrespect

00:41:22   for all of these instruments of music and art.

00:41:26   It's like, you don't need this crap anymore.

00:41:29   You just have an iPad.

00:41:30   It's like, ooh, that's an odd message to be sending.

00:41:33   - Yeah, I see how they came up with this ad, though.

00:41:36   I posted this on Mastodon.

00:41:38   I was surprised at how many people didn't know about this

00:41:40   'cause I feel like it's one of the most famous channels

00:41:42   on YouTube, but there's a channel on YouTube

00:41:44   called, fittingly, the Hydraulic Press channel.

00:41:46   - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:41:47   - And they just take a hydraulic press and squish things.

00:41:50   And the reason people like that channel

00:41:52   is it's fun to see what various materials do

00:41:54   when put under a tremendous amount of pressure.

00:41:56   And generally what people wanna see

00:41:58   is them do something dramatic.

00:42:01   They explode, they shatter,

00:42:02   or they crush in a really interesting way,

00:42:05   or they're just destroyed,

00:42:07   or it doesn't look like anything has happened

00:42:09   for 30 seconds and then finally they just shatter

00:42:11   into a million pieces, right?

00:42:13   That's why this channel is popular.

00:42:14   So when they came up with the idea of it's really thin,

00:42:17   we're gonna put it in the hydraulic press,

00:42:18   oh, let's make it look like we're pressing

00:42:20   all this stuff into it,

00:42:21   like we're pressing all this creativity inside of it.

00:42:23   The problem is that when you're shooting this

00:42:26   and you live in a culture

00:42:27   where the Hydraulic Press channel exists

00:42:29   and you know that people like it

00:42:31   because of the destruction, that's the direction you go,

00:42:34   which is like, okay, it's not just that we have

00:42:36   a bunch of musical instruments and sculptures

00:42:40   and paints and all sorts of stuff in the thing.

00:42:42   It's okay, but when they get pressed,

00:42:44   they're going to do something dramatic.

00:42:46   They're gonna crumple, they're gonna explode,

00:42:48   they're gonna squirt.

00:42:49   That means at the end of the thing they had a giant,

00:42:50   like a big explosion type thing, right?

00:42:54   And so what they, and unknowingly,

00:42:57   they think they're doing what they should be doing,

00:42:58   which is like, that's what people like

00:42:59   about the Hydraulic Press channel.

00:43:00   We have to do that, of course,

00:43:01   but what they've unknowingly started to do

00:43:03   is show the destruction of things

00:43:06   that are meaningful to people.

00:43:07   And it mostly doesn't matter whether it was all CG,

00:43:10   all practical, or anywhere in between.

00:43:12   Like, I don't think anyone is specifically angry

00:43:15   that they killed one trumpet, right?

00:43:17   It's the idea of showing even a completely CG trumpet

00:43:21   being crushed because it is,

00:43:23   it's disrespectful to the objects, you know?

00:43:26   It looks like, because they're destroying them.

00:43:29   The destruction of them is the point,

00:43:31   because that's what people like

00:43:32   about the Hydraulic Press channel,

00:43:34   is things are destroyed,

00:43:35   and they got those wires crossed, right?

00:43:37   And so that's, it'll pass or whatever,

00:43:41   but I feel like it's an interesting point,

00:43:43   because everyone making it feels like they're doing,

00:43:46   like, you know, creative stuff is inside the iPad.

00:43:49   The iPad's real thin,

00:43:50   and also everybody loves the Hydraulic Press channel.

00:43:53   And when they put them together, it's like, no,

00:43:55   you didn't realize, you know,

00:43:57   you took a bunch of individual things that people like,

00:43:59   but you crossed the streams.

00:44:01   To the people watching the Hydraulic Press channel,

00:44:03   like, no violinist wants to go to the Hydraulic Press channel

00:44:06   and see them destroy even the cheapest violin

00:44:08   in the Hydraulic Press.

00:44:09   Like, that's what they essentially did.

00:44:11   They went to the Hydraulic Press channel and they said,

00:44:13   what item do you care about in your life

00:44:15   as a creative professional?

00:44:16   Come to the Hydraulic Press channel,

00:44:17   we're gonna put that in it.

00:44:19   And that, people don't like.

00:44:21   Like, that's not the vibe.

00:44:23   So, you know, they'll learn,

00:44:25   hopefully learn from this mistake.

00:44:27   I think the idea of squishing it to make it real flat

00:44:28   is fine, but you know, they can all be winners.

00:44:32   - And one thing I noticed immediately, too, in the video is,

00:44:35   you don't see any Apple products getting squished.

00:44:37   Like, they squish, they have some PC monitors,

00:44:40   that look, they might be Apple products,

00:44:41   but they just get knocked over and it cuts away,

00:44:44   you never see them actually get damaged.

00:44:46   Like, you only see other things get--

00:44:47   - What would they crush into the iPad?

00:44:50   Like, I guess I'd put, I don't know, the iPod Nano,

00:44:53   that we see later.

00:44:54   (laughing)

00:44:55   - Well, the Mac for a few years ago.

00:44:57   (laughing)

00:44:58   - Yeah, that's true.

00:44:59   - Butterfly keyboard, wee!

00:45:00   - The smart keyboard folio, aw.

00:45:03   - Yeah, well, that's true.

00:45:04   So, in any case, so let's talk about the design,

00:45:08   and Apple said, quote, "We've always envisioned iPad

00:45:10   "as a magical sheet of glass."

00:45:12   And so, apparently it's pretty darn close now.

00:45:15   So, the 11 inch is 5.3 millimeters

00:45:18   and just barely under a pound.

00:45:20   The 13 inch is 5.1 millimeters,

00:45:23   and I don't have the weight in front of me,

00:45:25   1.02 pounds, I believe.

00:45:27   And a lot of people have pointed out,

00:45:30   this doesn't bother me as much as I think it bothers

00:45:32   a lot of other people, although it does make me chuckle.

00:45:34   The iPad Pro is now lighter than the iPad Air, which,

00:45:38   I understand how we got there, and maybe, John,

00:45:40   you can give us a nickel tour, or I can if you prefer,

00:45:42   of how we ended up here, but that is kind of funny

00:45:45   that this is where we are.

00:45:46   - Yeah, I mean, it's just that, more of Apple's, like,

00:45:49   difficulty, let's say, in naming things.

00:45:51   The iPad Air, the original one, Air,

00:45:53   was because it's light as air, and it's thin,

00:45:55   and it fits in a metal envelope, and the problem is,

00:45:57   that product was wildly successful, and so, Apple's like,

00:46:00   "We need to leverage this brand equity."

00:46:03   People like the MacBook Air.

00:46:06   Air is good, A, we're gonna keep making that,

00:46:08   and B, we can put the Air suffix on other products,

00:46:11   and make people associate them with the good feelings

00:46:13   they have about the MacBook Air, even though it doesn't

00:46:16   necessarily make any sense, because they would put Air

00:46:18   on products that were not the smallest, lightest,

00:46:20   thinnest, most manila envelope, slippy, like,

00:46:23   they're just doing it because it's a brand name that worked,

00:46:24   and Air has long since stopped meaning anything

00:46:27   about how small it, remember when there was the,

00:46:29   you know, the MacBook One, the 12-inch MacBook,

00:46:31   it was way smaller than any Air, but it wasn't called Air,

00:46:34   but the Air still exists, they were bigger than that, right?

00:46:36   So it's, Air just means it's not the Pro One,

00:46:39   and we're trying to leverage, establish brand equity

00:46:43   based on the MacBook Air, so it's not particularly sensible,

00:46:46   and they probably should have retired it,

00:46:49   or kept it just in the MacBook Air.

00:46:51   When they extended it to the iPad, you're like,

00:46:53   "All right, fine, whatever," but anyway,

00:46:55   the fact that the Air is a little bit heavier

00:46:57   than the Pro now, like, who cares?

00:46:59   It's not a big deal.

00:47:00   - Well, it made sense, the very first iPad Air

00:47:04   was a big weight and thickness savings

00:47:06   over its predecessor, so it actually made sense

00:47:09   to use it when they first used it.

00:47:11   - Briefly. - But yeah,

00:47:12   but then all iPads just became those dimensions,

00:47:14   and now it doesn't mean anything anymore.

00:47:16   - Yeah, and you know, now the Pro's got thinner,

00:47:18   which is interesting, so Apple's big pitch on this was,

00:47:21   it's the thinnest Apple product ever,

00:47:24   and I immediately started googling, I'm like,

00:47:25   "Really, was it thinner than,"

00:47:27   I'm trying to think of the thinnest product,

00:47:29   they compared it to the iPad Nano, and--

00:47:30   - The iPod Nano. - Obviously,

00:47:31   they showed it on camera, I'm like,

00:47:33   wasn't, and I looked this up, I'm like,

00:47:35   "Surely the buttonless shuffle was thinner than the Nano,"

00:47:38   but the answer is no, it was not,

00:47:40   according to my brief googling during the keynote.

00:47:42   So I take Apple at their word,

00:47:44   this is the thinnest Apple product ever.

00:47:46   There is some history with thin Apple products,

00:47:49   mostly not good. (laughs)

00:47:52   When, what was it, the iPhone 6, I believe,

00:47:56   it was-- - Yeah, Vendgate.

00:47:57   - The thinnest iPhone they had ever made,

00:48:00   that didn't work out that well,

00:48:01   it turned out to be easier to bend.

00:48:03   I guarantee you, you're going to see bent iPad Pros

00:48:07   on a million YouTube channels,

00:48:08   'cause that's, I mean, there's YouTube channels

00:48:09   that are just literally dedicated

00:48:10   to buying every Apple product and bending it,

00:48:12   like that just always happens. (laughs)

00:48:13   And it will happen with these as well.

00:48:15   And Apple does the same thing,

00:48:16   Apple bends its own products to see how bendy they are.

00:48:20   This is thinner than it was before,

00:48:23   is it thinner, is the amount that it's thinner,

00:48:25   'cause I think it's only like, especially the 11 inches,

00:48:26   around like maybe one or two millimeters thinner

00:48:28   than it used to be, right?

00:48:30   And it's noticeable when you pick it up

00:48:31   from the reports of the people who were there.

00:48:34   Is that change in thickness enough

00:48:36   to change the durability of this?

00:48:38   Because when you see these YouTube channels

00:48:40   that are gonna buy a new iPad Pro and bend it,

00:48:42   take note of whether or not they take

00:48:46   a previous generation iPad Pro and also bend it.

00:48:48   And do they do it on a piece of equipment

00:48:50   that can measure the strength required?

00:48:51   Like, is it worse than the previous one is my question?

00:48:54   And I think a lot of the sensational YouTube videos you see

00:48:56   will not answer that question.

00:48:58   They'll just say, it's bendy, look how easy it is to bend.

00:49:00   Okay, but is this worse than it was before?

00:49:02   Is it better than it was before

00:49:04   because they reinforced it?

00:49:05   We don't know.

00:49:05   But it is somewhat of a concern

00:49:07   because as far as we can tell,

00:49:09   the materials this is made out of

00:49:11   are the same as they have been.

00:49:12   And Apple didn't brag about any,

00:49:15   like every car manufacturer does,

00:49:16   every time there's a new generation of a car,

00:49:18   they will tell you how much increased torsional rigidity

00:49:21   that they frame had.

00:49:23   Apple did not say that about this.

00:49:24   Last time Apple said that was I think with the 6S maybe,

00:49:26   or whenever they fixed the bendy one

00:49:28   before they started making the phone sticker again.

00:49:30   So I'm not against thin iPads.

00:49:33   I think it's great.

00:49:35   I do wonder about the durability,

00:49:38   but I'm certainly not going to try to bend mine.

00:49:40   I treat my iPad so gently,

00:49:41   it's probably not gonna get bent.

00:49:42   But this is something we'll find out.

00:49:44   Someone's gonna buy that 13 inch iPad Pro,

00:49:47   which is the thinnest ever, 5.1 millimeters,

00:49:49   and they're gonna put it in their backpack

00:49:50   with a bunch of books or something,

00:49:52   and they're gonna take it out one day

00:49:53   and it's gonna be bent

00:49:54   and there's gonna be story about it.

00:49:55   And the question will remain,

00:49:57   is it more bendy than the previous 12.9 inch was?

00:50:01   And that is a question that could be answered with science,

00:50:03   but I don't have the science or the money

00:50:07   to bend two iPads to find out the answer to that question.

00:50:09   Presumably Apple does and they're okay with it.

00:50:11   So for now, I would just say, if you buy one of these,

00:50:15   maybe be a little tiny bit extra careful with it.

00:50:18   - Yeah, so 5.1 and 5.3 millimeters

00:50:21   and the iPad Air is seven millimeters.

00:50:23   And as they mentioned during the video,

00:50:26   it is thinner than the iPad Nano.

00:50:30   I almost said iPad there.

00:50:32   And our friend Federico Viticci was in London

00:50:36   at a press event that they had there.

00:50:38   And he had the wherewithal to notice

00:50:40   that the standard Apple Thunderbolt cable

00:50:43   is just barely taller than, or bigger than the,

00:50:48   I presume this is the 13 inch iPad Pro,

00:50:52   which is just bananas that the cable is,

00:50:55   when you include the housing and whatnot,

00:50:57   is bigger than the--

00:50:58   - Yeah, like the plastic grommet,

00:50:59   the plastic little thing that has the little Thunderbolt

00:51:02   symbol on it, a Thunderbolt cable,

00:51:03   that is thicker than the device.

00:51:05   - That's amazing.

00:51:06   - It's just bananas.

00:51:07   - And they're really approaching,

00:51:09   we've talked about this

00:51:10   when they made the transition from lightning.

00:51:11   Now these devices are pushing up against

00:51:14   how thin you can make a device with a USB-C connector on it.

00:51:16   As predicted years ago on past shows,

00:51:19   it's like if they keep getting thinner,

00:51:21   eventually you will hit the limit of USB-C.

00:51:23   And the limit of USB-C is a little,

00:51:25   you'll hit that limit a little bit sooner

00:51:27   than you would have for lightning.

00:51:28   They need to do this, 'cause again,

00:51:30   this is not just the USB-C port, it's a Thunderbolt port,

00:51:32   that's one of the Pro features.

00:51:34   But I feel like there is a limit

00:51:37   on how thin they can make these iPads,

00:51:39   and it's defined by that plug right there.

00:51:42   - Yep, so battery capacity has changed.

00:51:44   In the 11 inch, it's gone up about 10,

00:51:47   a little less than 10%,

00:51:49   but in the 13 inch, it's gone down about 5%,

00:51:52   which is kind of funny.

00:51:53   - And the battery life for all of them

00:51:54   is rated the same as it ever was, which is 10 hours.

00:51:57   So it's interesting how they end up with that.

00:52:00   I don't think the insides of these devices

00:52:03   are different in any way,

00:52:04   other than obviously the big one has a big screen,

00:52:06   which presumably uses more energy.

00:52:08   So it's weird that the, well, I guess,

00:52:11   it's weird that the 11 inch got bigger,

00:52:12   but this is relative to the previous 11 inch,

00:52:14   and the 13 inch got smaller

00:52:15   relative to the previous 13 inch.

00:52:17   Obviously, the 13 inch does have a bigger battery

00:52:19   than the 11 inch, but whatever they're doing,

00:52:21   like I heard from people who were there in person,

00:52:23   like, wow, the 11 inch is so thin,

00:52:25   even though it's like only a millimeter,

00:52:26   you can really feel the difference.

00:52:27   They must have a smaller battery in the 11 inch,

00:52:29   but they don't, they have a bigger battery.

00:52:31   It's the device thinner, and it has a bigger battery,

00:52:33   or at least a battery with more capacity.

00:52:35   I don't know if it's physically larger,

00:52:36   maybe they have a better energy density

00:52:39   with whatever new battery thing they're using,

00:52:41   but don't think just because these are thinner

00:52:43   that they are sacrificing battery life.

00:52:45   They're not, well, they may be sacrificing battery life,

00:52:48   but if they are, it's probably not because of the thickness,

00:52:50   because they actually added battery to the 11 inch.

00:52:53   And the 13 inch, the little one down,

00:52:54   only went down by like 5%.

00:52:56   - The colors are, speaking of, same as it ever was,

00:53:00   they're silver and space black.

00:53:01   I guess maybe that's slightly different than before,

00:53:03   but effectively it's the same as it always was,

00:53:05   as Jason and Mike have talked about on Upgrade many times.

00:53:08   The fancier the device, the less cool the colors get.

00:53:11   Sweet.

00:53:13   But John, I'm just gonna sit back

00:53:15   and let you take this from here.

00:53:17   Ultra Retina XDR, and it's on both sizes, baby.

00:53:21   So how happy are you, John Syracuse?

00:53:24   - I did know that the good screen was gonna come on both,

00:53:27   because that has always been the rumor, and that's great,

00:53:29   because in the previous generation,

00:53:31   the mini LED backlit screen was only on the big size,

00:53:36   and I didn't buy that.

00:53:37   I don't like mini LED, and it wasn't important enough

00:53:39   for me to get a big iPad anyway.

00:53:41   But yeah, it's on both.

00:53:42   It is as was rumored, as we discussed in the last episode.

00:53:45   It's a two-layer OLED.

00:53:48   They call it the tandem OLED, where they take two OLEDs

00:53:50   and they just lay them on top of each other,

00:53:53   so they can run each one at a little bit lower power

00:53:55   to extend its life, but then they get more light output,

00:53:57   because you got, hey, two screens for the price of one.

00:54:00   It's 1,000 nits max for SDR and HDR.

00:54:05   I guess they're saying that's full screen.

00:54:08   I don't know.

00:54:09   I only know how they do these great things

00:54:12   on television ratings.

00:54:13   It's not clear how they're doing it here.

00:54:14   But anyway, a 1,600 nits peak HDR,

00:54:16   which means not probably the whole screen,

00:54:19   those numbers, the 1,600 one may be familiar to you

00:54:22   from what the iPhone OLEDs are rated at

00:54:25   and what the Pro Display XDR is rated at,

00:54:27   and this is kind of like the 10-hour battery life.

00:54:29   Well, Apple has just decided that 1,600 nits peak HDR,

00:54:33   that's good for a while.

00:54:34   So the XDR did that ages ago.

00:54:37   All the MacBook Pros have screens that do 1,600 nits peak HDR

00:54:42   now, and the phones do, and now this thing does.

00:54:45   That's just what they pick,

00:54:46   'cause you can drive these screens harder

00:54:47   to make them brighter and wear them out sooner,

00:54:49   and so you can kind of pick where that is,

00:54:50   but that's what these are capable of,

00:54:51   and it's all in the family.

00:54:53   The 1,000 nits for SDR is interesting,

00:54:55   because SDR is like when you're looking at your Windows

00:54:58   and your menu bar and stuff like that.

00:54:59   On a Mac or on any other thing, we're just looking at the UI.

00:55:01   The UI is not an HDR unless you do something weird

00:55:04   to force it that way.

00:55:05   And the SDR limits for Apple stuff

00:55:10   is usually around 500 to 600 nits,

00:55:13   like for the Macs, for the iMac, even for the XDR.

00:55:17   When I'm looking at my XDR now,

00:55:19   nothing on my screen is 1,600 nits,

00:55:21   because it's just UI, there's no HDR in it, right?

00:55:24   And it's probably around, well, at a maximum,

00:55:26   500 to 600 nits, I don't crank it up that way

00:55:28   like Marco does, but anyway. (laughs)

00:55:30   This iPad's go to 1,000 in SDR,

00:55:33   and this is the feature of televisions as well,

00:55:35   where they're like, okay, the actual limit for SDR,

00:55:39   for standard definition, like before the age of HDR,

00:55:41   like back in the '70s or '80s or whatever,

00:55:43   how bright or television's supposed to be,

00:55:45   like what was the mastering monitors they were using,

00:55:47   it's so incredibly dim by modern standards

00:55:49   that nobody would run into that.

00:55:50   So it has been a feature of televisions for ages

00:55:53   to say you can watch non-HDR content, like your local news,

00:55:57   and you can turn the brightness up

00:55:59   so that it'll be much brighter

00:56:01   than it's quote-unquote supposed to be.

00:56:03   For a portable device, that's an important feature,

00:56:07   so you can see the screen outdoors, basically,

00:56:08   like they're not going to show it at like 300 or 200 nits

00:56:11   or some thing that's like what you would expect

00:56:14   like in a dark room,

00:56:16   you'd wanna look at a computer monitor.

00:56:17   You want it to be able to go brighter.

00:56:19   So allowing the UI to go up to 1,000 nits,

00:56:22   essentially it's a software change or whatever,

00:56:25   is a feature for outdoor viewability.

00:56:27   Again, I don't know if this is full screen

00:56:30   or some portion of the screen on televisions.

00:56:32   For power reasons, it is very, very often the case

00:56:36   that a very like 10% of the screen can light up

00:56:39   to some huge number and 100% of the screen can light up

00:56:41   to that number divided by like 10 or 20, right?

00:56:44   Hope that's not the case on these screens,

00:56:46   but honestly, I don't care that much

00:56:47   because I don't spend my time while looking

00:56:48   at 100% white images filling the entire screen

00:56:52   at maximum brightness, that's pointless,

00:56:54   unless you're using it as a flash.

00:56:56   There are new resolutions on these screens.

00:56:59   The pixels per inch is still 264,

00:57:01   the same as it's always been.

00:57:03   The 11 inch one gets 32 extra pixels in width,

00:57:08   woo, compared to the old one.

00:57:10   And the 13 inch one gets 20 pixels in width

00:57:13   and 16 pixels at height.

00:57:15   This is not a feature, like obviously this is so small

00:57:18   you can't even see it, these pixels are very small.

00:57:20   It's just, this is the part they got.

00:57:22   I don't know how they came to this decision,

00:57:23   but it is relevant for software developers

00:57:25   if you have some kind of pixel perfect layout,

00:57:26   but honestly you shouldn't.

00:57:28   Size classes have been around for ages,

00:57:29   flexible layouts have been around for ages,

00:57:31   but just FYI, these screens, these iPad Pro OLED,

00:57:35   tandem OLEDs are not the same size

00:57:38   as any previous iPad screens.

00:57:41   And they're slightly bigger, which is fine.

00:57:45   You do have a nano texture glass option,

00:57:48   and we will start getting into the portionification

00:57:51   of the iPad at this stage.

00:57:53   Nano texture is a feature that was available

00:57:54   on the Pro Display XDR ages ago,

00:57:57   it's also on the studio display.

00:57:59   It's basically like a matte screen,

00:58:00   but instead of making the matte screen

00:58:02   by putting like a piece of plastic over it

00:58:03   or something or whatever, they take the glass,

00:58:05   the normal glossy glass and they microscopically etch it

00:58:09   so the glass is like, if you looked at it in a microscope,

00:58:12   it's like rough instead of smooth,

00:58:13   and they do this to make reflections more diffuse

00:58:17   or whatever.

00:58:17   I personally do not like nano texture,

00:58:22   and I'm glad about that because it was a $1000 option

00:58:24   on my already expensive screen.

00:58:26   I don't know how much it actually costs

00:58:29   to make nano texture.

00:58:30   There's maybe like the gold mine of profit margins for Apple,

00:58:32   but Apple has always charged a huge amount for it.

00:58:34   They charge less on the studio display proportionally

00:58:37   than they do the XDR, which makes you think

00:58:38   it's just like, it's gotta be almost pure profit for them,

00:58:40   but who knows?

00:58:41   Nano texture is an option on both of these iPads,

00:58:45   but the only way you get access to that option

00:58:48   is if you buy the WiSAC package,

00:58:51   I'm pronouncing that wrong probably,

00:58:53   ViSAC package?

00:58:54   Porsche has these option packages

00:58:56   that if you want any of the good stuff,

00:58:57   you gotta buy the big option package, right?

00:58:59   You can't just get nano texture,

00:59:01   'cause nano texture is you just add like what,

00:59:02   $100, $200, whatever it is,

00:59:05   but no, you can't even get nano texture

00:59:07   unless you buy one of the iPads

00:59:10   that has one or two terabytes of storage.

00:59:12   And what relation does storage have to the nano texture?

00:59:15   None.

00:59:15   None whatsoever. (laughing)

00:59:17   It's totally unrelated.

00:59:19   But if you want nano texture,

00:59:20   if you want the privilege of paying

00:59:21   a couple hundred extra bucks for nano texture,

00:59:23   you have to pay up to what, $600 more

00:59:28   from going from the base to,

00:59:30   I think it's $100 for nano texture plus $600

00:59:32   to go to the one terabyte model from 256.

00:59:35   So the nano texture option is essentially

00:59:38   a $700 option starting from the base model.

00:59:41   And that's rough.

00:59:43   Again, I don't care 'cause I don't like nano texture.

00:59:45   I don't think people should get nano texture.

00:59:47   And there are a lot of open questions about nano texture

00:59:49   because nano texture on the XDR,

00:59:50   when it first came out, people were like,

00:59:52   "Oh, if you get the nano texture on the XDR,

00:59:54   "make sure you don't touch your screen

00:59:55   "'cause it's really hard to get fingerprints off

00:59:57   "because you have to clean it with Apple special cloth

01:00:00   "and you can't use any microfiber cloth.

01:00:02   "You have to use Apple special ones."

01:00:03   I think it's mostly BS,

01:00:04   but if you use a low quality microfiber, it might be bad.

01:00:06   But if you get finger grease on it, it's hard to clean off.

01:00:10   You can't use certain cleaners, don't use abrasive things.

01:00:12   You can mess it up.

01:00:13   And because it is such a micro textured finish,

01:00:16   I believe you could mess it up

01:00:18   if you used anything even mildly abrasive.

01:00:20   And by messing it up,

01:00:21   it would essentially permanently smudge your screen

01:00:24   by making it unevenly rough

01:00:26   because you will have disturbed

01:00:28   the evenly rough nano texture to surface

01:00:30   with like an abrasive paper towel or something

01:00:33   and made it unevenly rough.

01:00:35   Nano texture has always terrified me.

01:00:36   Anyway, Apple is now selling touch devices

01:00:40   that you're supposed to touch when you use it.

01:00:41   Forget about don't quit your finger.

01:00:43   You're supposed to touch it with nano texture on them.

01:00:46   I don't know if it's the same nano texture

01:00:47   that's on their screens.

01:00:48   I don't know if they've tested it and they say it's fine.

01:00:50   Finger grease is fine.

01:00:51   It does come with the little special microfiber cloth,

01:00:55   which I think is just a high quality microfiber cloth.

01:00:57   But I personally would not recommend

01:01:00   buying any of these devices with nano texture

01:01:02   if you are at all concerned about

01:01:06   fingerprint smudges and cleaning the screen.

01:01:08   Wait a week, wait a month.

01:01:09   See what the deal is with nano texture.

01:01:11   Is it okay to have a nano texture screen

01:01:13   that you get fingerprints all over?

01:01:14   Is it not a big deal?

01:01:15   Or is there some sort of problem?

01:01:17   Because this is the very first one of these

01:01:18   that has existed.

01:01:19   And unlike an XDR where you can just be disciplined

01:01:21   and say, I just won't touch it,

01:01:22   that's not an option with the iPad.

01:01:24   I guess if you use the Apple Pencil everywhere,

01:01:26   you could do it.

01:01:26   But even with the Apple Pencil,

01:01:27   I'm like, do I wanna rub the Apple Pencil

01:01:29   against my nano texture screen?

01:01:31   Apple has obviously tested this

01:01:32   and I'm sure they're gonna say everything's fine.

01:01:35   But I am personally super nervous about nano texture,

01:01:38   which is why I'm absolutely definitely not getting it

01:01:39   on any thing that Apple ever sells me

01:01:41   and certainly not on iPad.

01:01:43   (laughing)

01:01:45   - So how do you really feel about it, Jon?

01:01:47   - I'm happy about the screens.

01:01:48   The specs look great.

01:01:50   Color reproduction looks reasonable.

01:01:51   I'm happy the 1600 nits,

01:01:53   you know, like everything looks good about the screen.

01:01:56   I'm happy with the battery life, the thickness.

01:01:58   Like they put a double layer screen in there

01:02:00   that gets way brighter

01:02:01   and it's got the same 10 hours of battery life.

01:02:03   Like thumbs up.

01:02:05   Like this, from what I want from this thing,

01:02:09   it's looking pretty good.

01:02:10   - You're happy, but you're less effusive

01:02:13   than I thought you would be.

01:02:14   I mean, you've been waiting for this for a few years now.

01:02:16   Aren't we like overjoyed?

01:02:17   Like I expect to see you or hear you running around the room

01:02:20   screaming to the rooftops how excited you are

01:02:21   and I'm not getting that from you.

01:02:22   - Well, when I get it, I'll see how amazing it is.

01:02:26   But yeah, no, there are things to modify my happiness

01:02:30   that we will get to shortly.

01:02:31   - This is just how Jon sounds when he's excited.

01:02:33   - Yeah, this is what Jon sounds like

01:02:35   when he's really excited.

01:02:36   - There are some things that are not as exciting about this.

01:02:40   Setting aside the nanotexture thing, which we'll get to.

01:02:42   Obviously this works with Apple Pencil Pro,

01:02:44   but not the Apple Pencil 2 because of the landscape camera.

01:02:48   - Yeah, I mean, just like, you know,

01:02:49   just before we leave the screen,

01:02:50   like I think the screen is a huge part of the Pro story.

01:02:55   It is, by all accounts, a really great screen.

01:03:00   And you know, what they've had to do with, you know,

01:03:02   the dual layers to make it.

01:03:04   There is no question, like, we are all going to just be

01:03:09   waiting and waiting and waiting for these screens

01:03:11   to come to the other products in their lineup.

01:03:13   Like we cannot wait for the screen to come to a MacBook Pro.

01:03:15   We cannot wait for the screen to come,

01:03:17   maybe eventually to a desktop-sized monitor.

01:03:19   Like, this is gonna be like the thing we're waiting for

01:03:22   'cause it is, by all accounts, just such an amazing screen.

01:03:26   So I'm really happy to see, like, they are still

01:03:30   leading the industry in really good screens.

01:03:32   - Well, I mean, it's the Samsung screen or whatever.

01:03:34   Like, people always attribute this to Apple.

01:03:35   Apple App's not making this screen.

01:03:36   They're just, but yeah, this--

01:03:37   - Well, no one else is selling 'em.

01:03:38   Like, I don't see anyone else doing it.

01:03:39   - Yeah, I mean, they have the power of the money

01:03:42   to say we want a screen that works like this.

01:03:44   I mean, companies have been trying to do these dual layer

01:03:47   OLEDs for a long time and it's been very difficult

01:03:49   and Apple's gonna, you know, Apple gets the good stuff first

01:03:51   'cause they pay the money, right?

01:03:52   So they, you know, and I do hope this expands

01:03:55   to other products and to review for the people

01:03:58   who don't know why we care about OLED,

01:03:59   I heard Gurbron Dithering say he was looking for blooming

01:04:02   and didn't see it.

01:04:03   You're not gonna see blooming in OLED.

01:04:05   Like, the reason we are excited about OLEDs

01:04:07   is because each individual pixel lights up individually.

01:04:10   And you may think, isn't that how all screens work?

01:04:12   I have an iPad and each individual pixel lights up.

01:04:14   Well, LCD screens are done with a backlight

01:04:16   where there are lights behind the pixels

01:04:19   and then like color filters of various kinds

01:04:21   that color it or whatever.

01:04:22   But the lights behind the pixels are not one pixel in size.

01:04:25   The lights behind the pixels are huge compared to pixels.

01:04:28   There's often like, you know, there's millions of pixels

01:04:30   but there's like a few hundred backlight regions of,

01:04:34   you know, the backlights are like one inch by one inch

01:04:36   or one centimeter by one centimeter.

01:04:38   Huge number of pixels, especially retina resolution

01:04:40   are behind that.

01:04:41   And so the like the worst case scenario for that

01:04:43   is like a star field in space.

01:04:46   It's perfectly black with these pinpoints of stars.

01:04:49   Each little pinprick of stars is a couple of little pixels

01:04:52   at very high brightness.

01:04:53   On an LCD display, on a quote, mini LED display,

01:04:57   you have to light up the backlight region

01:04:59   behind each one of the stars.

01:05:01   The star is a pinprick,

01:05:03   but the backlight is like one centimeter by one centimeter

01:05:05   or one inch by one inch

01:05:07   or like whatever size the backlight regions are.

01:05:09   You have to light up that entire thing behind that pinprick.

01:05:12   So what you end up with is the blackness of space,

01:05:16   pinpricks of light, but around each pinprick of light,

01:05:18   there's like a little,

01:05:19   you can even see the shape of the backlight region sometimes.

01:05:21   It's like a little square glowing, right?

01:05:23   And for years, manufacturers have been trying to figure out

01:05:25   how can we make it so you can't see the backlight

01:05:29   behind that because LCDs can't block all the light.

01:05:31   Like when you turn off the, when you make an LCD black

01:05:34   and you tell it block all the light from the backlight,

01:05:36   they block as much as they can, but they can't block at all.

01:05:38   And that light that leaks through

01:05:40   where it's not supposed to be there,

01:05:42   where there's supposed to be black space,

01:05:43   but now there's gray space,

01:05:45   that is bloom around those pinpoints of light or whatever.

01:05:49   OLED doesn't have that problem.

01:05:50   Every individual pixel in OLED lights up all by itself.

01:05:53   There's no backlight region.

01:05:54   There's no how many different regions of backlights,

01:05:56   how many individual backlights.

01:05:57   There's essentially one backlight for every pixel.

01:06:00   That's why we love OLED.

01:06:01   There is no blooming in OLED

01:06:02   other than the natural blooming of a pinprick of light

01:06:05   when you look up at the sky and you see a star.

01:06:07   It is a point source

01:06:08   because you can just light up that one pixel.

01:06:11   That's why everyone goes gaga over OLED.

01:06:12   Our phones are OLED.

01:06:14   You can buy OLED televisions.

01:06:16   There are OLED screens on laptops and so on.

01:06:18   And this is Apple's introduction

01:06:19   to larger than iPhone size OLEDs.

01:06:23   And of course, OLEDs burn in.

01:06:24   So now they've got a dual layer one

01:06:25   where you can run them at lower power

01:06:27   to hopefully combat burn in

01:06:28   and you can make it very bright and very colorful.

01:06:30   And so anyway, yeah, this is a great screen.

01:06:33   As I said last episode,

01:06:34   I think this will be the best screen Apple has ever made.

01:06:36   I think Apple itself made that pitch.

01:06:38   And like Margot said,

01:06:40   that means we want screens like this to be on all our devices

01:06:43   assuming they don't have any bad burn in problems.

01:06:46   But again, we'll find that out as these enter the market.

01:06:48   - What is the, I should know this, but I do not.

01:06:51   What is the longevity for OLED?

01:06:53   Because don't they eventually,

01:06:55   it's organic light emitting diodes, right?

01:06:58   So something--

01:06:59   - Yeah, every time you use a pixel,

01:07:00   it wears down a little bit.

01:07:02   - Cool.

01:07:02   - Yeah, so I mean, ideally what you want to happen

01:07:05   and the television does as well,

01:07:07   as they wear down,

01:07:09   they do like essentially a compensation cycle

01:07:10   where there's like a computer

01:07:12   that figures out how much each one has worn down

01:07:14   and it tries to level them because they could say,

01:07:15   okay, this one is worn out,

01:07:16   so we got to give it a little more power than that one.

01:07:18   They want to make it so that it's even,

01:07:20   but inevitably what happens is over time,

01:07:22   if even this, if these compensations are working perfectly,

01:07:26   the max, if you just put the whole screen being white,

01:07:29   that will just slowly get dimmer over time

01:07:30   'cause you will be slowly wearing out the pixels.

01:07:32   What you want is for it to get dimmer uniformly

01:07:34   and not have like the logo

01:07:36   that's in the corner of the screen burned in or whatever.

01:07:38   Like that's what the compensation cycles are trying to do,

01:07:41   but yeah, they wear it over time,

01:07:42   but they'll, and OLED should last

01:07:45   the normal usage lifetime of an iPad.

01:07:48   I mean, look at our phones, like same deal.

01:07:49   We've had OLED phones for years and years, right?

01:07:52   And if you buy like a five-year-old phone,

01:07:54   maybe you could detect some kind of like, you know,

01:07:56   image retention, burn in, worn out pixels or whatever,

01:07:58   but in general, they work,

01:08:00   OLED phones work until nobody wants to buy them anymore,

01:08:02   right, until they're so old that they're obsolete.

01:08:04   So the same should be true of the screen, fingers crossed.

01:08:08   No promises though.

01:08:09   All right, so let's talk performance.

01:08:14   There were some rumors,

01:08:15   which I think we discussed last week,

01:08:17   that, oh, you know what?

01:08:18   This might have the M4.

01:08:20   And when I first heard this, I was like, "NFW."

01:08:22   And then after hearing a bunch of our friends

01:08:25   talk about it on various shows,

01:08:26   and if we talked about it, I was like,

01:08:27   "Well, I'm still really skeptical, but maybe."

01:08:32   And so sure enough, Tim Millett comes up and says,

01:08:36   "We're going to 4, M4 time,

01:08:38   "and this is the second generation 3-nanometer technology.

01:08:43   "And I'm just going to step aside

01:08:44   "and give you back the floor, John Syracuse,

01:08:46   "so tell us about this, please."

01:08:48   - N3e, they didn't say it in the show,

01:08:50   but the closest they're gonna get

01:08:51   to having a slide that says N3e,

01:08:53   because yeah, that's second gen 3-nanometer technology

01:08:56   from TSMC.

01:08:57   And as we said last week with the rumors of this,

01:09:00   once the iPad model numbers and the part number things

01:09:03   were dug out, like iPad model numbers

01:09:05   were dug out of iPad OS 17.5 beta.

01:09:09   Right, that's hard evidence.

01:09:11   And you could say, "Well, you don't know

01:09:13   "that they're gonna keep the numberings."

01:09:14   They were increasing the numbers by one for each M1, right?

01:09:18   And they skipped over M3,

01:09:19   and so that was pretty much hard evidence.

01:09:20   So like with so many of these things,

01:09:23   it's a rumor, you don't know, maybe, kind of.

01:09:26   And then as the date approaches of the announcement,

01:09:29   things solidify.

01:09:30   And since we had the luxury of recording

01:09:31   just one week before the event, they had solidified,

01:09:35   pretty much, I really expected to see M4,

01:09:37   and lo and behold, we did.

01:09:39   What is the M4?

01:09:41   Apple says it has 28 billion transistors.

01:09:43   To give a comparison, the M3 has 25 billion transistors.

01:09:47   So this does have more transistors than the M3,

01:09:50   not by a lot, but it's different.

01:09:52   So if you just think this was,

01:09:53   "Oh, this is just the M3, but on the M3e process,"

01:09:56   it's not, it's a different SOC, as we'll see

01:09:59   as we go on here.

01:10:00   And again, the M3 is the comparison,

01:10:02   because the M3 Pro has 37 billion,

01:10:05   and the M3 Max has 92 billion.

01:10:07   So this is the little one, just the plain old M4,

01:10:10   no suffix.

01:10:11   It does have 128 gigabits per second memory bandwidth,

01:10:15   which is up from 100 on the M3, M2, and M1.

01:10:19   So this is a bump.

01:10:21   We went three generations of the plain M series chips,

01:10:24   so they all had 100 gigabytes per second,

01:10:25   now we're up to 120.

01:10:27   They're either using faster RAM, or,

01:10:29   I mean, that's what it's gotta be.

01:10:30   I think there's like a LPDDR standard

01:10:32   that's slightly faster.

01:10:33   So that's good.

01:10:34   So we've made, it's kind of like a,

01:10:36   the first generation of LEAP in the baseline,

01:10:39   smallest M series chip memory bandwidth.

01:10:42   It has a new display engine,

01:10:43   which Apple didn't elaborate on.

01:10:44   I imagine it's, I don't even know.

01:10:47   Like, they didn't say,

01:10:48   "Oh, we need this new display engine

01:10:49   "to drive the two layers of the screen."

01:10:51   Maybe that's true.

01:10:52   I would imagine there's some display firmware

01:10:54   that does that, and they don't have to.

01:10:55   I don't even know what they mean.

01:10:56   But anyway, new display engine.

01:10:58   There's a new media engine,

01:10:59   which is like the thing that does the H.264 and H.265

01:11:02   and ProRes decoding and encoding and stuff.

01:11:04   Apple didn't really talk about that,

01:11:06   but if you look at the specs,

01:11:08   only the M4 models say hardware accelerated 8K,

01:11:12   H.264, blah, blah, blah,

01:11:14   that 8K is only in the specs for the M4 ones.

01:11:17   So I guess the other ones couldn't do hardware accelerated 8K.

01:11:19   They had to fall back to software or something.

01:11:20   I don't know.

01:11:21   But anyway, it does have a new media engine.

01:11:23   So that's good.

01:11:24   And that's also good because M1, M2, M3,

01:11:28   whenever someone tested any computer with that thing in it,

01:11:32   and they do like, "Let's see how fast it can encode

01:11:36   or decode H.264,"

01:11:38   that was just running on the media engine.

01:11:39   It didn't matter how many CPU cores it had,

01:11:42   how good the GPU was.

01:11:43   There's dedicated hardware in these SOCs

01:11:45   to do stuff like H.264 encoding and decoding, right?

01:11:49   And that dedicated hardware has not gotten faster

01:11:53   or better that quickly.

01:11:54   I'm not sure if it's changed at all from the M1 to the M3,

01:11:57   but it has changed in the M4,

01:11:59   kind of like the memory bandwidth.

01:12:00   This may be, I can't say this for certain,

01:12:02   but this may be the first time

01:12:04   that the media engine hardware decoder encoder thing

01:12:08   has gotten substantially faster.

01:12:10   At a certain point in the presentation,

01:12:14   I figured who it was, but the person on screen said,

01:12:17   "The M4 has up to four performance cores."

01:12:19   And I said, "Wait, what now?"

01:12:21   (both laughing)

01:12:22   "Up to four performance cores?"

01:12:24   Anyway, and six efficiency cores.

01:12:27   And so the M3 had four performance cores

01:12:29   and four efficiency cores.

01:12:30   So you got two new efficiency cores,

01:12:32   same number of performance cores compared to the M3.

01:12:35   Are these the same cores as the M3?

01:12:37   Well, Apple says that the M4 cores have,

01:12:41   all the cores in the M4 come with quote,

01:12:44   "Next generation ML accelerators."

01:12:47   Not the neural engine, not the GPU,

01:12:50   the CPU cores all have next generation ML accelerators.

01:12:54   I have no idea what that means,

01:12:56   but what it does mean is these cores are not the same

01:12:58   as the M3 cores.

01:12:59   The power cores aren't the same,

01:13:01   the efficiency cores aren't the same.

01:13:03   They're probably similar in size.

01:13:04   They probably have a close to the similar of transistors,

01:13:07   but they are different enough

01:13:08   that they have whatever the hell that is.

01:13:10   I'm sure we'll find out as time goes on,

01:13:13   but just to be clear.

01:13:14   And then Apple throughout this entire presentation

01:13:16   does the thing that they love to do,

01:13:17   which is only slightly more justified in this case,

01:13:19   which is let's compare it not to its predecessor,

01:13:23   but to its predecessor minus one,

01:13:25   which makes some sense in this one

01:13:27   because there's never been an M3 iPad.

01:13:28   So what are you gonna compare it to?

01:13:29   You're gonna compare it to the iPad Pro that it's replacing

01:13:32   and the one that's replacing came with an M2.

01:13:33   So they say it's 60% faster than the M2.

01:13:36   And as we always say when we talk about Apple's comparisons

01:13:41   to multiple generations old, people are like,

01:13:44   well, that just makes sense 'cause people have old stuff.

01:13:46   No, not everyone has the latest and greatest.

01:13:48   We wanna know how fast it is compared to the old thing

01:13:50   that most people have.

01:13:51   And I will explain again our reasoning.

01:13:53   It's not that we think everyone has to have

01:13:55   the newest stuff.

01:13:56   It's because what you wanna know,

01:13:57   at least if you're kind of a tech nerd enthusiast is,

01:14:01   is this the one to buy?

01:14:02   Is this a year where we make a big leap?

01:14:04   Is this a really good one?

01:14:06   And the way to know that is how big a leap is this one

01:14:11   over the one that came before it?

01:14:12   And again, the one that came before it is M2.

01:14:14   I understand that, but just talking about the M4 as an SOC,

01:14:18   like is M4 just like barely better than the M3

01:14:23   or is it twice as good as the M3, right?

01:14:26   Even if you don't have an M3, what you wanna know is,

01:14:29   is this the year we make a big leap?

01:14:30   Is this a good one to buy?

01:14:32   I haven't bought an iPad in six years.

01:14:33   Is this the year for me to buy?

01:14:35   Because we've just made a big leap.

01:14:37   Like you don't wanna buy,

01:14:38   if you've been waiting years and years to buy a new one,

01:14:40   you don't wanna buy when they come up with a model

01:14:41   that's 1% better than the previous one.

01:14:43   You wanna wait for that year when it's 5% or 10% or 20%

01:14:46   because it gives you the most bang for your buck.

01:14:49   That's the point of the comparison with the predecessor.

01:14:53   And again, I know the predecessor only had an M2

01:14:56   but there never was an M3 iPad

01:14:57   so it makes this a little bit tricky.

01:14:58   But there are devices that have M3s in them.

01:15:02   And so setting aside the iPad, if you just wanna know,

01:15:04   how good is the M4 compared to the M3?

01:15:07   Apple does not want to tell you.

01:15:08   We will find out shortly,

01:15:09   but Apple's not interested in that comparison.

01:15:11   So anyway, it has a 10 core GPU,

01:15:15   which is the same as the M3,

01:15:16   although the M3 is binned sometimes

01:15:18   'cause sometimes you get one with eight cores active

01:15:20   instead of the full 10 because binning, right?

01:15:23   Apple bragged about how much better it is.

01:15:25   It has the same performance as the M2 at half the power.

01:15:29   That's great, it's two generation newer chip.

01:15:31   Thumbs up, we like it.

01:15:32   But the binning continues and binning,

01:15:35   we use that term to be like,

01:15:37   when you make a CPU or make a silicon chip

01:15:40   and some parts of it don't work,

01:15:41   you can just turn off those parts

01:15:43   and sell it anyway for a cheaper price.

01:15:46   Because every time you make silicon,

01:15:47   some parts, some of them don't work at all,

01:15:49   some of them have parts of them that don't work,

01:15:51   and instead of throwing them out,

01:15:52   you can just sell them at a lower price

01:15:55   and then save the ones where everything is working

01:15:56   and sell them at a higher price

01:15:57   because you get fewer of those, right?

01:16:00   That's binning.

01:16:01   Apple is binning,

01:16:04   and that's a term for the silicon industry.

01:16:06   Apple has always binned at silicon

01:16:07   in the Apple silicon age.

01:16:09   Now they're essentially doing the equivalent of binning

01:16:12   with the entire product.

01:16:14   But for the CPU itself, they are binning that.

01:16:17   So if you buy an iPad and you want a M4

01:16:22   with all the parts working,

01:16:25   you have to buy,

01:16:27   let me know if you've heard this one before,

01:16:28   the one terabyte or the two terabyte storage model.

01:16:31   And what does the storage have to do with the SoC?

01:16:34   Nothing.

01:16:35   It's separate chips.

01:16:36   It's not really interested in any way.

01:16:38   - Price, that's what it is.

01:16:39   It's price, that's it.

01:16:41   - 'Cause they want you to buy the Visock package, right?

01:16:44   Oh, you wanna step up to the,

01:16:45   you want the good stuff,

01:16:47   well, you can't just get the CPU with all the stuff working.

01:16:51   If you want the CPU with all stuff working,

01:16:52   you have to buy into other stuff,

01:16:54   whether you want it or not.

01:16:55   Maybe you don't need a terabyte of storage.

01:16:57   You have no choice.

01:16:58   So they have tied those two things together.

01:17:00   So if you get the 256 gig or the 512 gig model,

01:17:03   you get an M4 with, and I think this is the first,

01:17:07   three performance cores instead of four.

01:17:10   You're missing a performance core,

01:17:12   not in GPU cores, which I've done many, many times.

01:17:15   Oh, you don't get all the GPU cores.

01:17:16   You're missing a performance core.

01:17:18   I don't know enough about Silicon manufacturing to know,

01:17:21   like, is it because like the cores are new

01:17:25   or trickier or something?

01:17:26   Why do they usually bin based on GPUs?

01:17:28   Why are they binning based on a performance core?

01:17:30   Why aren't they binning based on efficiency cores?

01:17:32   Because the performance cores are harder to make.

01:17:34   Like, I don't even know.

01:17:35   - Well, I think it's probably about just surface area.

01:17:37   You know, the performance cores are always much larger

01:17:39   on like the area diagram, so.

01:17:41   - But I think that the GPU is the total, you know,

01:17:45   die area spent on GPU is bigger than total die area

01:17:47   spent on CPUs, right?

01:17:48   - You're probably right, but keep in mind,

01:17:50   when they bin GPU cores, usually they lop off two of them.

01:17:53   So it could be like, you know,

01:17:54   like where is the defect in this area?

01:17:57   You know, like odds are it's gonna land, you know,

01:17:59   within one of these blocks, the odds are this percent.

01:18:02   And so like, you know, they work the numbers,

01:18:04   they optimize it, so like, all right, well,

01:18:05   we can bin based on the loss of these like large zones.

01:18:09   Like if it's somewhere in this zone,

01:18:11   we can still sell the chip because we just disable

01:18:13   one or two GPU cores or we disable one of the performance

01:18:15   cores or whatever.

01:18:17   So I'm guessing it's all about, you know, area

01:18:19   and the odds that it will be there or not.

01:18:22   - Yeah, well, they didn't bin based on GPU cores

01:18:24   because no matter what storage you get,

01:18:25   you get a full 10 core GPU, I believe.

01:18:30   And they also bin, this is not binning again,

01:18:31   I'm using, I'm overloading this term.

01:18:34   If you buy the model with 256 gigs or 512 gigs of storage,

01:18:37   you get eight gigs of RAM, and this is something

01:18:38   we've done in the past as well.

01:18:40   If you buy the one terabyte, two terabyte,

01:18:42   you get double the RAM, 16 gigs.

01:18:44   I believe they started doing that last iPad Pro.

01:18:47   - I think even the one before that, I think that might've

01:18:49   been in the A12Z generation, the 2020 update.

01:18:52   - Yeah, and again, those things are,

01:18:54   they're a little bit more related because the RAM

01:18:56   is on the SOC, so I kind of, there's a little bit

01:18:58   of an excuse for like, well, that's part of the package,

01:19:01   the, you know, so I, anyway.

01:19:02   If you want any of the good expensive stuff,

01:19:06   you must get all of the good expensive stuff,

01:19:10   which, you know, that's business for you.

01:19:13   Like, they've got you where they want you.

01:19:15   This is not an a la carte thing where you just spec out

01:19:18   exactly how you want.

01:19:20   Things are bundled together to a degree

01:19:22   they've never been.

01:19:23   And so, you know, comparing this, so the M2 had four

01:19:28   performance cores and four efficiency cores,

01:19:29   and the M4, you know, the M2 is the predecessor

01:19:34   in the iPad line, the M4 has four performance cores

01:19:37   and six efficiency cores, but if you get a binned M4,

01:19:42   you are getting an SOC with one fewer performance core

01:19:47   than its predecessor.

01:19:48   So the question asked by Rick Williams,

01:19:51   which I think is a good one, Rick Williams on Mastodon,

01:19:53   is there some benchmark where the M2 iPad Pro

01:19:57   will beat the lower end M4 iPad Pro

01:20:02   because it has one more performance core?

01:20:05   You know what I mean?

01:20:06   Like, I think there could be a constructed benchmark

01:20:09   where that might be the case, or at least I thought

01:20:12   that might be until I saw the preliminary Geekbench numbers

01:20:15   for the M4, which may be same, because remember,

01:20:18   they were comparing to the M2, 'cause there is no M3 iPad Pro

01:20:21   to compare it to, and that would have been like

01:20:22   a closer fight, but the M2 is kind of older.

01:20:25   Here, I don't know if these are true,

01:20:26   'cause Geekbench scores come in at this stage.

01:20:29   We don't know if they're like official or just random people

01:20:31   trying things or they're fake or whatever, but anyway,

01:20:34   here, as of Wednesday, May 8th, is the Geekbench scores

01:20:39   for M3 versus M4.

01:20:40   I'm not even doing M2, I'm doing M3 versus M4.

01:20:43   Single core M3 score, which is currently

01:20:46   the maximum single core score for any Mac in Geekbench

01:20:50   is 3,131, that's a 16-inch MacBook Pro M3 Max, right?

01:20:55   3,131.

01:20:57   The M4 single core score, if this is true,

01:21:01   is 3,767, which is 20% higher in single core than M3.

01:21:06   (laughs)

01:21:08   That's not a small number.

01:21:09   20% higher in single core, oh my God.

01:21:12   So that's like, okay, maybe these power cores

01:21:14   really are difficult to manufacture,

01:21:16   and they extend to 28 billion transistors compared to 25.

01:21:19   It's not a massively bigger chicken, this is single core.

01:21:22   Who cares how many cores there are, this is single core.

01:21:24   That's a big, if that's real, that's a big leap

01:21:28   in single core, which makes me think a three performance

01:21:32   cores in the M4 will crush four performance cores

01:21:35   in the M3 and the M2 with numbers like this.

01:21:39   Again, it depends on the algorithm or whatever.

01:21:41   And then the multi-core, this is an M3 iMac,

01:21:44   which is the Ferris comparison, plain M3 iMac.

01:21:47   Multi-core is 11,702 for the M3

01:21:50   and 14,677 for the M4, so it's a 25% gain in multi-core.

01:21:56   And again, the multi-core I believe is the same,

01:21:59   no, no, because you have the extra efficiency scores.

01:22:01   Anyway, 25% higher multi-core, not that big,

01:22:04   'cause I think you have the two extra efficiency cores,

01:22:06   but 20% higher in single core, that is significant.

01:22:09   That tells me that aside from the media engine being new,

01:22:14   faster memory bandwidth, 20% higher single core,

01:22:17   the M4 is not just a warmed over M3,

01:22:21   if these benchmarks are to be believed.

01:22:22   Obviously we have to wait until people get these

01:22:23   into their hands and start testing them,

01:22:25   but I am optimistic that the M4 looks to be

01:22:28   at least as good a leap over the M3

01:22:31   as the M3 was over its predecessor.

01:22:33   Oh, and then one final thing, the 256 gig model,

01:22:36   if you get the smallest amount of storage,

01:22:38   the default smallest amount of storage in the iPad Pro,

01:22:41   the specs that Apple has say that you can only do

01:22:45   ProRes video recording at 30 frames per second at 1080p

01:22:49   instead of 30 frames per second at 4K.

01:22:52   And the speculation is that's because everyone's favorite,

01:22:55   there's only a single NAND flash chip in there,

01:22:58   so you get the half speed.

01:22:59   - Oh, of course.

01:23:00   - We won't know until there's a teardown or a benchmark,

01:23:03   but Apple's own specs say, oh, and by the way,

01:23:05   video recording is slower on the one with 256,

01:23:08   so that makes me think they cheaped out on that as well.

01:23:11   - That is bananas, the difference between the M3 and the M4.

01:23:14   - If it's real, late break. - If it's real.

01:23:16   That's what I was gonna say,

01:23:17   like this seems almost too good to be true,

01:23:19   but credit to Apple, they've done such an incredible job

01:23:22   with Apple Silicon that I could believe it,

01:23:26   like it is definitely in the realm of possibility

01:23:29   that the difference is that strong.

01:23:31   - I'm speaking of if it's real.

01:23:32   This is the final bit here.

01:23:34   The neural engine, it's there.

01:23:36   It is a 16 core neural engine,

01:23:39   just like the previous one was.

01:23:40   They say it does 38 trillion operations per second,

01:23:44   and they did some comparison of like,

01:23:45   look how much faster it is than the one in the A11 Bionic.

01:23:47   Thanks, Apple, it's great.

01:23:49   That's really old, 60 times faster, right?

01:23:52   - How much faster is it than a 486?

01:23:54   - Yeah, exactly.

01:23:55   How much faster is it than our last Intel iPad?

01:23:57   Oh, we didn't make those.

01:23:58   Here's the thing, I tried to look this up.

01:24:01   I'm like 38 trillion, that number seems big.

01:24:03   I tried to look up the M3's neural engine score,

01:24:08   and the number I found was 18 trillion operations per second,

01:24:11   but then I also remember something

01:24:12   about how Apple is changing what they're measuring,

01:24:14   and previously they were doing like 16-bit floating point,

01:24:17   or previously they were doing 32-bit

01:24:19   floating point operations, and they changed it to 16-bit,

01:24:21   and they can do twice as many of those

01:24:22   because they pack, you know what I mean?

01:24:24   I don't know if this is an apples to apples,

01:24:26   so I can't tell you whether 38 trillion versus 18 trillion

01:24:29   is a massively better neural engine in the M4,

01:24:32   or whether Apple has changed what they're measuring,

01:24:35   and they're doing 16-bit floating points that are 32-bit.

01:24:37   So the jury's still out on that one,

01:24:39   but that's another interesting thing of like,

01:24:41   the media engines have mostly been similar.

01:24:44   The neural engines have been getting faster.

01:24:45   They've been adding more cores.

01:24:46   They've been adding more die space,

01:24:48   and they're getting better at what they do,

01:24:50   but Apple didn't make any specific claims

01:24:53   about amazing AI stuff because I feel like,

01:24:56   as we'll get to in a little bit about the iPads in general,

01:24:58   there's a software story to these iPads

01:25:00   that Apple is not ready to tell until they'll be ready to see.

01:25:03   So they said, "Oh, this is great.

01:25:05   "Everything's great for AI.

01:25:06   "The neural engine's great for AI.

01:25:07   "We even put in neural engines or whatever,"

01:25:09   but they don't have any features to show us

01:25:10   because they haven't announced those yet,

01:25:12   so it was a little bit of an awkward intro,

01:25:14   but I would imagine that when they do announce

01:25:17   all the AI features of their various software products,

01:25:19   they may revisit how amazing the M4 is at them,

01:25:22   but here they just said, "It's great.

01:25:24   "It's got a neural engine."

01:25:25   - Then some other interesting pieces.

01:25:28   There is graphite sheets in the main housing

01:25:31   and copper in the Apple logo for thermals,

01:25:33   which apparently gives you 20% better thermal performance.

01:25:38   - I like this, by the way, because on a cooling thing,

01:25:40   for years, people have been complaining

01:25:43   about essentially all of Apple's fanless devices,

01:25:46   that they are stupidly not thermally conductive enough,

01:25:51   and as we've discussed on past shows,

01:25:52   there are limits to how thermally conductive

01:25:54   you want it to be, and there are actual legal limits.

01:25:56   You can't let the outside of your device get too hot

01:25:58   'cause it will burn people, so sometimes,

01:26:00   Apple is not conducting heat away from the SOC

01:26:04   to the outer world because they don't want

01:26:05   to burn your legs, essentially.

01:26:07   There are legal safety reasons why they can't do that,

01:26:10   but various YouTube channels

01:26:11   are forever tearing open Apple's fanless devices,

01:26:14   whether they be phones or iPads or MacBook Airs,

01:26:17   putting in literally any kind of thermal anything,

01:26:21   the world's cheapest two-cent thermal pad,

01:26:24   slapping on a MacBook Air.

01:26:25   Wow, it doesn't thermal throttle anymore, right?

01:26:28   And we say, "Okay, well, is it because Apple can't do that

01:26:30   "'cause it'll burn people's legs or whatever?"

01:26:33   But all these rumors like,

01:26:34   "The next iPhone's gonna have a heat pipe,

01:26:36   "and it's gonna have this cooling thing or whatever."

01:26:39   Finally, finally, Apple includes and brags about

01:26:42   a thing they put in one of their flat fanless devices

01:26:45   that helps it to be cooler,

01:26:46   and graphite sheets, they use these in televisions as well

01:26:48   to help cool them.

01:26:49   So thumbs up, Apple.

01:26:51   See, you can brag about cooling technology.

01:26:53   It's not admitting your things are too hot.

01:26:54   Put better cooling in there so it spreads the heat more

01:26:57   so it doesn't get too hot.

01:26:59   I am a graphite sheet fan, and I give that a big thumbs up.

01:27:02   (laughing)

01:27:03   - Wow.

01:27:05   All right, cameras and my, oh, no, I'm sorry.

01:27:08   I've got ahead of myself.

01:27:09   It is apparently four times faster than the M2

01:27:12   and 10 times faster than the original iPad Pro.

01:27:15   March of progress, baby.

01:27:17   Cameras and microphones, 12 megapixel back camera,

01:27:19   same as previous model, but no ultra wide camera.

01:27:22   That is gone.

01:27:23   They have removed it.

01:27:25   Four studio quality microphones.

01:27:27   The LIDAR scanner remains.

01:27:29   There's a new adaptive True Tone flash

01:27:31   that apparently makes document scanning better than ever.

01:27:34   When, I think it was Ternus said this, I was like,

01:27:37   okay, and then I saw the little video demo that they did

01:27:41   and I was like, okay.

01:27:42   - Yeah. (laughing)

01:27:43   - That actually sounds pretty great.

01:27:44   - I, as soon as he said that, I was like, yes.

01:27:47   Somebody actually scans, you know how much I,

01:27:50   you would know, like, anytime I scan anything,

01:27:52   I have to try to carefully arrange it

01:27:54   to the shadow of my phone.

01:27:55   - Yeah. - Yep.

01:27:56   - And I was like, yes, they can solve this

01:27:58   for me in software, and I think there's

01:27:59   a hardware component to this.

01:28:00   I don't, I haven't seen this confirmed yet,

01:28:01   but if you look at the camera bump on the back

01:28:04   of the new iPads, obviously they're missing

01:28:06   the ultra wide camo, which is, oh well.

01:28:08   But I think there's a new thing there,

01:28:11   like the True Tone flash thing, I think there's like

01:28:14   a ambient light sensor that lets them, helps them do that.

01:28:18   I don't know, maybe that hardware was already there,

01:28:19   but anyway, the result they showed in the demo was perfect.

01:28:22   He takes a giant iPad, hovers it over a piece of paper,

01:28:25   it casts a giant shadow on the bottom of the thing,

01:28:27   and they fix it in software.

01:28:29   Love it, I want that on every, I want that on the,

01:28:31   on the new iPhones too.

01:28:32   - Yep, as was foretold, the front facing camera

01:28:35   is on the landscape edge, which is true for anything

01:28:38   they announced today, unless I'm mistaken.

01:28:40   And they have a quote, completely new charging

01:28:43   and pairing system for the Apple Pencil,

01:28:45   and we've kind of been bouncing off this all episode,

01:28:47   but basically that's why you need the Apple Pencil Pro

01:28:52   for all of these new devices, or the Apple Pencil

01:28:55   that charges via USB-C, because the one that, you know,

01:28:59   you and I have in our houses today, that one,

01:29:02   the magnetic one, the magnets and whatnot,

01:29:05   and the charging apparatus is in a different spot

01:29:07   than it needs to be for the new iPads

01:29:10   where the camera's kind of in the way, so.

01:29:13   Other changes from previous iPad Pro,

01:29:16   no millimeter wave 5G antenna.

01:29:18   This is very sad news for me.

01:29:19   I did go to my picnic table, don't call it a park bench,

01:29:23   John, my picnic table just a week or two back,

01:29:26   but it turns out that the tree cover was not conducive

01:29:28   for the time of year, and very quickly it ended up

01:29:31   that I was in full sunlight, which was not desirable.

01:29:34   And so I didn't go for long, but I will,

01:29:38   honestly, I'm skipping ahead here,

01:29:39   but I don't plan on picking one of these iPads up

01:29:41   because my, you know, my M2 iPad is just fine for me,

01:29:44   but that is a bummer, like that's genuinely a bummer.

01:29:47   I get why Apple has done it,

01:29:48   because there's really not that much millimeter wave

01:29:51   deployment here in the States,

01:29:52   and I think it was only ever in the States to begin with,

01:29:55   but it's kind of stinky.

01:29:57   No ultra-wide camera, which we mentioned,

01:29:58   four microphones instead of five, and eSIM only.

01:30:02   So eSIM only for everyone.

01:30:03   - It's an interesting decontending here,

01:30:05   dropping the camera, like the camera,

01:30:07   the one they did include is exactly the same as it was.

01:30:09   So there's no camera improvement, and they ditched a camera,

01:30:11   which probably, you know, it's the lesser use camera

01:30:13   or whatever, but they got rid of that.

01:30:15   They got rid of the five millimeter,

01:30:17   the 5G millimeter wave.

01:30:18   It makes me wonder if the next iPhone

01:30:20   will have the millimeter wave, but anyway.

01:30:22   They're removing some stuff here.

01:30:23   Presumably this is to preserve margins

01:30:27   with the more expensive new screen, right?

01:30:29   Because remember we have those rumors,

01:30:30   like the new iPads are gonna be thousands of dollars,

01:30:32   and yes, you can spec this up to be like $3,700 or whatever,

01:30:35   but because the screen was so expensive.

01:30:37   So there is some decontending going on here,

01:30:39   and I think they made pretty wise choices,

01:30:41   like cutting out the ultra-wide camera on an iPad,

01:30:43   probably not that big a deal,

01:30:45   although it does hurt their demo

01:30:46   that we're gonna talk about in a little bit

01:30:47   of like controlling a multi-camera like device things.

01:30:51   Well, you can't do multi-camera on the iPad anymore

01:30:53   because it only has one camera, so no multi-camera.

01:30:56   Ditching five microphones instead of four,

01:30:59   that maybe that's just the arrangement of stuff

01:31:01   inside the thing.

01:31:02   Maybe they didn't need five, that's fine.

01:31:03   E-sim only is the way everything is going.

01:31:06   And then the final thing on the camera bump,

01:31:08   it looks smaller than,

01:31:10   unlike every other device Apple makes,

01:31:12   the camera bump on the iPad I think got smaller this year,

01:31:15   which is a welcome change.

01:31:17   I mean, the whole thing is thin,

01:31:19   and obviously Apple, when they compare the thickness,

01:31:22   they're not comparing the camera bump.

01:31:23   If they did that, it would not be the thickness.

01:31:25   But the whole rest of the device is super thin,

01:31:27   but the camera bump looks like it is thinner

01:31:29   than the previous one, and it is certainly not growing

01:31:31   like the camera bump on iPhones are.

01:31:33   So I don't care about the camera on my iPad.

01:31:36   I would have liked it if the one camera they did include

01:31:38   got better, but it didn't, but oh well.

01:31:40   But I do like a less prominent camera bump.

01:31:43   - Do we know that for certainty,

01:31:45   or is that just a theory based on the pictures?

01:31:47   - I'm just looking at the pictures.

01:31:48   I don't know for certain,

01:31:49   but I'd be surprised if it's not smaller.

01:31:51   - All right, so we've got some software updates.

01:31:53   Final Cut Pro 2 and Logic Pro 2 are a thing now.

01:31:56   Final Cut Pro 2 is two times faster final rendering

01:31:59   than M1, and you've got live multi-cam,

01:32:02   which you just made mention of,

01:32:04   and there's actually its own bespoke app now

01:32:05   called Final Cut Camera, or I believe,

01:32:07   maybe that's on the iPhone side, I forget now.

01:32:09   But basically, the way it works is you can connect

01:32:12   and preview up to four cameras all at once

01:32:14   in one spot on the new iPads.

01:32:17   You can even adjust those remote cameras,

01:32:19   exposure, focus, white balance, and more,

01:32:21   which is really, really neat.

01:32:22   And you can do, they mentioned direct editing of,

01:32:25   this is separate from the multi-cam stuff.

01:32:27   You can do direct editing if you have

01:32:29   a Thunderbolt drive plugged in.

01:32:30   You can edit the project that is stored

01:32:33   on the Thunderbolt drive, so that's pretty neat.

01:32:35   Logic Pro 2, they did a lot of stuff for music,

01:32:39   and forgot that any other kind of audio exists,

01:32:42   but that's what we expected.

01:32:44   Session players, the bass and keyboard players,

01:32:47   now they have AI or machine learning generated

01:32:51   automated bass and keyboard players.

01:32:54   They talked a while about Chroma Glow,

01:32:56   which I guess is to fake the sound of the warmth

01:33:00   and depth, if you will, but especially the warmth

01:33:02   of fake analog equipment.

01:33:04   And they also have stem splitters,

01:33:05   so you can drop in a complete track

01:33:08   that has everything in it, and then it will cut out,

01:33:11   or separate, really, the bass, the drums, the voice,

01:33:13   and then everything else into four different tracks,

01:33:15   which that is super duper cool if it works.

01:33:18   So yeah, a little bit of software.

01:33:20   - I think this is a good way into AI here.

01:33:24   The rumors were they were gonna lean heavily into AI.

01:33:27   The headline in tech for the last year or two

01:33:31   has been AI everything, and what you see,

01:33:34   last year, what was interesting about last year's

01:33:37   WWDC presentation is that even though the entire industry

01:33:41   was saying AI every five seconds,

01:33:43   Apple didn't mention that term once.

01:33:45   You could tell that was a choice they made.

01:33:48   It seemed like Apple's opinion of the term AI

01:33:52   was not maybe that high back then,

01:33:54   and now what we see is them leaning into it,

01:33:58   because I think at this point they have to.

01:34:00   The industry has gone that direction,

01:34:03   the media, the markets, everything is wanting to know

01:34:07   what's Apple's AI story.

01:34:08   - And they didn't make up their own term for it,

01:34:10   as people thought they might.

01:34:11   Like, "Apple's not gonna call it AI,

01:34:12   they're gonna call it something else."

01:34:13   They said AI dozens of times in this presentation.

01:34:16   They're just calling it AI.

01:34:17   They're not making up their own thing.

01:34:19   - And what's interesting, too, is what they describe

01:34:22   as AI is many of the features that have already existed

01:34:27   that were previously called machine learning,

01:34:30   and before that were called Siri, briefly,

01:34:33   in a weird time.

01:34:34   But obviously we're gonna hear a lot more about this

01:34:38   at WWDC, and so this is kind of a weird in-between time

01:34:42   when they had a big product launch,

01:34:44   they want to market it with the hot terms,

01:34:47   and I think this isn't just them doing a term grab.

01:34:51   Apple, I think legitimately, and again,

01:34:53   this is, talk about figuring out Apple's talking points

01:34:56   from the event, everyone who was at the event

01:34:59   has a story about how Apple has been ahead of this game

01:35:02   forever, and you can see it in the presentation, too.

01:35:05   Apple wants everybody to know that they think

01:35:08   we're already shipping AI-capable hardware.

01:35:11   Look at our amazing neural engines,

01:35:13   and our amazing processors, and our amazing GPUs,

01:35:15   and all the amazing software features we've had for years.

01:35:19   And they do deserve a large amount of credit for that.

01:35:23   Apple really has been shipping really great hardware

01:35:26   that has a lot of ML acceleration features.

01:35:31   They've been doing this for a long time.

01:35:34   What we didn't see, though, today,

01:35:37   is use of large language model-based features,

01:35:41   or generative-based features, that are really

01:35:45   what people are mostly talking about today

01:35:48   when they say AI.

01:35:50   We saw Apple rebrand ML features they've had for years

01:35:55   as AI features, and I don't think that's completely unfair,

01:35:59   but it's also not what people are asking them to do.

01:36:02   So I think two things are simultaneously true.

01:36:05   I think it was totally warranted for them to co-opt the term

01:36:10   to apply to stuff they're already been making,

01:36:12   because first of all, that's what everyone does.

01:36:15   That's marketing, that's what everybody does,

01:36:18   and the term AI is being used all over the place anyway.

01:36:20   But also true at the same time,

01:36:23   they didn't really answer the question.

01:36:25   But this wasn't the right time to answer the question.

01:36:28   The right times to answer the question are WWDC

01:36:32   and this fall's iPhone event.

01:36:34   And between those two, I hope to have a better answer,

01:36:36   because what people actually want when they say AI,

01:36:41   I think largely is generative AI features

01:36:45   and LLM-based features and how that can possibly integrate

01:36:48   into better Siri and better phone assistant features

01:36:53   built into your phone.

01:36:56   That's what everyone really wants to hear from Apple.

01:36:59   The iPad Pro event was not the place for that.

01:37:01   So given what the event was and when it was

01:37:05   and what Apple had to work with,

01:37:06   I think they did a good job managing expectations

01:37:09   around AI for now by basically kicking the can

01:37:12   down the road while also, I think fairly,

01:37:16   touting that they're already making really good chips

01:37:19   capable of what people mean when they say AI already today.

01:37:24   But I don't think the M4,

01:37:26   I don't think we have enough information yet

01:37:28   to know is this really meaningfully different?

01:37:32   Is this like quote the AI-focused chip?

01:37:35   No, this is continuing the path they were already on.

01:37:38   But the path they were already on was pretty good.

01:37:40   - And interestingly for the rebranding of it,

01:37:42   they said AI tons and tons of times.

01:37:44   I think they even called one of their

01:37:46   three-year-old features like this uses AI

01:37:48   even though it was just three years ago, right?

01:37:50   Like that image dragging thing.

01:37:51   But interestingly on the CPU cores,

01:37:54   like the M4 CPU cores, I'm trying to find the text.

01:37:56   They said the CPU cores have, what is it?

01:38:00   Next generation, they used ML in the CPU cores.

01:38:05   They didn't use AI.

01:38:07   They said that the individual cores have next generation ML

01:38:10   technology or something, yeah.

01:38:12   Next generation ML accelerators.

01:38:13   ML accelerators?

01:38:14   What the hell is ML?

01:38:16   Next generation AI accelerators.

01:38:18   That's what your CPUs have.

01:38:19   I don't know if the CPU,

01:38:20   the Silicon team didn't get on board.

01:38:22   Obviously, again, I don't know what they mean by that,

01:38:24   but they made a point of it to saying these CPU cores

01:38:27   are not the same as the M3 CPU cores.

01:38:28   They have next generation ML accelerators.

01:38:31   So yeah, maybe not everyone is on the same page

01:38:33   with the AI branding,

01:38:34   but they were so close to being able to call that AI.

01:38:38   And by the way, on the Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro things,

01:38:41   like it wasn't clear from the presentation

01:38:43   'cause they were showing them on the iPad,

01:38:44   but there are Mac versions of these same apps

01:38:48   with the same features that I think

01:38:50   were announced simultaneously,

01:38:51   or Apple said are coming or whatever.

01:38:53   So these are not like iPad only.

01:38:54   If you don't want to use the iPad version of Final Cut

01:38:57   or the iPad version of Logic,

01:38:58   you want to use it on the Mac,

01:38:59   you'll also get these features, I believe.

01:39:01   - Oh, that's cool. All right.

01:39:02   I don't know if the multi-cam thing is coming to the Mac,

01:39:06   but otherwise I believe you're correct.

01:39:08   So new Magic Keyboard.

01:39:11   This was a series of ups and downs

01:39:13   for your boy Casey over here,

01:39:14   because it looks really great.

01:39:17   I really want it for the function row

01:39:19   because that's one thing,

01:39:20   'cause I am a Magic Keyboard person on my iPad Pro,

01:39:22   and I really like it,

01:39:23   although I think I said last week,

01:39:25   it's not aging terribly well, but be that as it may,

01:39:28   I really wish it had a function row.

01:39:30   I wish the track pad was a little bigger, yes,

01:39:32   but I really wish it had a function row,

01:39:33   and holy crap, an escape key.

01:39:35   Oh my gosh, what I wouldn't give her an escape key.

01:39:38   But unfortunately, the new Magic Keyboard officially anyway,

01:39:42   and I suspect this is probably a physics problem,

01:39:45   so it's not just an Apple gating it sort of thing,

01:39:49   but anyways, officially it only works with the new iPad Pro.

01:39:52   It does not work with any other iPad.

01:39:54   - Yeah, that makes sense for two reasons.

01:39:56   One, thickness.

01:39:58   The new one is thinner,

01:39:59   and this thing accommodates exactly the thickness of the,

01:40:04   whether it's the 11 inch or 13 inch that fits between it.

01:40:06   They could have added a little bit of slop in there.

01:40:08   I think I've done this in the past.

01:40:09   Like, oh, you can kind of wedge it or whatever,

01:40:10   but the second thing that's less easy to deal with is

01:40:14   the fact that the screen has all the weight in it,

01:40:17   and that's why it has to be kind of cantilevered

01:40:19   over the keyboard a little bit

01:40:20   to keep it from tipping over when you tilt the screen,

01:40:23   and the new ones weigh less

01:40:25   and have their weight distributed differently,

01:40:27   and the tilt is different.

01:40:29   I think partially to try to leave room

01:40:31   for the top row of function keys,

01:40:33   'cause they added a new row of keys

01:40:34   on top of the existing keyboard,

01:40:35   and you do, from the reports of people who are there,

01:40:38   you do kind of have to sometimes reach like under the iPad,

01:40:42   depending on how you have it tilted

01:40:44   to get to that function row, right?

01:40:45   Because they, like, there's no, you can't get,

01:40:48   there's no extra space to be had.

01:40:50   So they tried to make it so it doesn't cantilever out as much

01:40:53   because it's lighter, so you don't need to.

01:40:55   It's hard to explain,

01:40:56   but if you look at it from a side view

01:40:57   and look at the one that you have casing inside of it,

01:40:59   you can see the one that you have

01:41:00   has to stick more of the weight of the iPad

01:41:03   out over the front of the thing to make it all balanced.

01:41:06   So I think this Magic Keyboard would not work

01:41:10   for the thicker, heavier models,

01:41:12   just like you said, just because of physics, right?

01:41:15   So I don't begrudge Apple making this iPad Pro M4 only,

01:41:20   'cause it's just, it wouldn't work.

01:41:22   And I do think this one is better.

01:41:23   I think they have made as much room as they can

01:41:26   by making it not have to stick out as much over the keys

01:41:30   and, you know, with the thinner iPads.

01:41:32   - Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, this thing looks really good.

01:41:35   So yeah, so you've got two colors, you got a function row.

01:41:37   The palm rest is now aluminum,

01:41:40   and again, you've got a larger track pad,

01:41:43   and interestingly, it now uses haptic feedback.

01:41:45   So it's not a, like, diving board scenario,

01:41:47   as far as I can tell.

01:41:49   It's got haptic feedback.

01:41:50   Again, M4 iPad Pro only.

01:41:53   Also, you get increased pass-through charging power.

01:41:56   This was stated to MKBHD, it was the first place I saw it,

01:41:59   and you can get up to 60 watts pass-through charging.

01:42:01   I don't recall what the number was.

01:42:02   I think it was 20-ish watts on the one that I have,

01:42:05   but, you know, if you're really running low on your battery,

01:42:08   you definitely wanna plug directly into the iPad on mine.

01:42:11   Now it looks like it really doesn't matter.

01:42:14   And then Gruber noted that, hey,

01:42:16   the total weight of the 13-inch iPad Pro

01:42:19   plus the magic keyboard is within a couple of grams

01:42:22   or something like that of a 13-inch MacBook Air,

01:42:26   you know, just as is.

01:42:27   And so they really are effectively equivalent

01:42:30   once you put the iPad Pro in a magic keyboard.

01:42:33   - Well, one of them is a bunch of pieces

01:42:35   that'll come apart and it's all floppy and everything.

01:42:36   And interestingly, like, about the aluminum,

01:42:39   the aluminum is on the side that faces you

01:42:41   when you're using it, like it's the palm rest or whatever,

01:42:44   but the whole outside of this magic keyboard,

01:42:47   I'm led to believe, is continuing to be

01:42:49   whatever that gummy, like, other material is,

01:42:52   which is interesting because, I mean, I guess the part,

01:42:54   like, you can tell me, Casey, the part that's wearing,

01:42:56   is that the part that you touch

01:42:58   or is that the part that touches the surface

01:43:00   that the thing is sitting on?

01:43:01   - No, it's more of the, like, corners in particular,

01:43:04   the outside corners.

01:43:06   So, like, I'm looking at it right now,

01:43:08   the corner nearest the camera bump,

01:43:11   the rubber on the outside or whatever this is,

01:43:14   I mean, it's not rubber, but you know what I'm saying,

01:43:15   like, that material is peeling away

01:43:18   on the corner really, really badly.

01:43:20   - So, the aluminum is not helping you with that?

01:43:22   - No, it's not, yeah, you're exactly right.

01:43:25   But, yeah, and the surface that you actually touch,

01:43:28   I mean, mine isn't spic and span

01:43:30   'cause I haven't, you know, cleaned it in a little while,

01:43:32   but I wouldn't say it's wearing particularly badly.

01:43:35   The left, actually, I guess the left-hand side,

01:43:37   it feels, just tactically, it feels a little bit different

01:43:40   than the right-hand side.

01:43:41   I guess maybe 'cause my right hand is doing

01:43:44   a lot more mousing than my left hand

01:43:45   'cause I basically don't mouse with my left hand at all,

01:43:47   so there's less contact on the right-hand side.

01:43:49   I don't know, that's just a theory,

01:43:50   but I don't think it's wearing poorly on the interior,

01:43:54   although aluminum would certainly be welcome,

01:43:56   but it's the exterior that's the problem,

01:43:57   and to your point, it doesn't seem like

01:43:59   that's gonna get any better with this one.

01:44:01   - Yeah, some people have had problems

01:44:02   with the keyboard and the membrane that's around it

01:44:04   and all sorts of other things

01:44:05   with the various gummy iPad accessories,

01:44:07   so we'll see how this holds up.

01:44:09   The trackpad is a pure win, though,

01:44:10   like having a haptic trackpad

01:44:12   instead of the little diving board thing is great,

01:44:14   and I think having aluminum on the surface will be good,

01:44:16   but when this thing is closed up,

01:44:18   you're not gonna confuse it with a MacBook Air

01:44:20   because it's all soft and gummy on the outside, like an iPad.

01:44:23   - So tell me, one of you,

01:44:26   because I'm not trying to be funny,

01:44:28   and this is not just me playing dumb

01:44:30   for the purpose of the show,

01:44:31   so the Smart Folio, the one that has a keyboard,

01:44:36   whatever that's called, that's gone.

01:44:38   - The Smart Keyboard Folio.

01:44:40   - Yeah, I think I just mean the Folio.

01:44:42   Yeah, I'm talking about the one where you get an iPad

01:44:45   and you just want a thing to cover it.

01:44:46   No keyboards, no trackpads.

01:44:48   That's just called Smart Folio,

01:44:50   but what was the first style of iPad Pro keyboard

01:44:55   that did not have a trackpad,

01:44:57   that was called the Smart Keyboard Folio,

01:45:00   and that's always been my preferred iPad keyboard,

01:45:03   and even after the Magic Keyboard came out,

01:45:06   I actually briefly bought one when it first came out

01:45:08   and then returned it

01:45:08   because I really didn't like it on the 11-inch

01:45:10   because it added so much bulk to it,

01:45:13   and I didn't even like the keys of it.

01:45:15   I actually really like the Smart Keyboard Folio.

01:45:19   It is, compared to the Magic Keyboard,

01:45:21   it is way less bulky, so it's lighter.

01:45:25   It's probably thinner, but it's definitely lighter.

01:45:28   It is 2/3 the price.

01:45:30   It's $200 instead of $300,

01:45:31   both of which are ridiculous prices,

01:45:33   but it's at least cheaper, less expensive,

01:45:38   and it didn't have the cantilever design

01:45:41   'cause it didn't need to shove the keyboard

01:45:43   all the way back to make room for a trackpad,

01:45:45   so if you only need a keyboard

01:45:47   and you don't want a trackpad,

01:45:49   it is, I think, the better product in many ways,

01:45:52   and unfortunately, there is no Smart Keyboard Folio update

01:45:56   for the new iPads, and it probably won't work even,

01:45:59   you could maybe try to make it work,

01:46:01   but it probably won't be very good

01:46:02   because of the way it mounts.

01:46:06   The iPad has to rest in these slots in it,

01:46:08   and the new iPads are thinner,

01:46:10   so they're not gonna really fit and mount properly

01:46:12   in those slots, so.

01:46:13   - Well, that'd be like, you could do something with magnets.

01:46:15   I think maybe Logitech or somebody,

01:46:16   some other third party might try their hand

01:46:18   at replacing that product.

01:46:19   - Oh, they might try, but people have had,

01:46:22   I mean, how long has this keyboard style been the case?

01:46:24   It's been since the 11-inch, that's 2018.

01:46:27   So from 2018 to 2024, zero other companies

01:46:31   have made an iPad keyboard that looks, feels, and works

01:46:34   as good as that one.

01:46:35   - Well, that's because the Apple had one,

01:46:37   but now Apple doesn't have one, so there's no competition.

01:46:39   - I guess, but I mean, honestly, this really disappoints me.

01:46:43   I'm not surprised at all that they went this direction

01:46:46   'cause it was very clear that the Magic Keyboard

01:46:48   is where they wanted to go, but the Magic Keyboard

01:46:50   is heavier and bulkier and more expensive

01:46:53   and more mechanically complicated.

01:46:55   I don't love that trade-off for my own purposes,

01:46:58   but we'll get to my purposes in a little bit.

01:47:00   So just pour one out for the Smart Keyboard Folio.

01:47:03   - I think the Magic Keyboard, the new Magic Keyboard

01:47:04   is actually lighter than the previous one.

01:47:06   - It is, but it still has a lot more in there,

01:47:09   and it is still heavier than the Smart Keyboard Folio.

01:47:12   - Yeah, so the Smart Folio, the reason I put this in here

01:47:15   is because I think in their copy

01:47:17   and maybe in the presentation as well,

01:47:18   they make note of more viewing angles for the,

01:47:22   again, the Smart Folio is just like,

01:47:24   it puts a cover on the front and back of your iPad Pro.

01:47:26   That's it, there's no electronics or anything in there, right?

01:47:29   And it folds up kind of like into a little triangular wedge

01:47:32   that you can prop it up or whatever.

01:47:34   I can't for life let me figure out

01:47:35   what the more viewing angles are.

01:47:37   It looks exactly the same as all Smart Folios for iPads.

01:47:40   You can make the little triangle,

01:47:41   you can prop it up this way,

01:47:42   you can lay it flat, and that's what it does.

01:47:44   So I don't know, we'll see.

01:47:46   Oh, and by the way, one more thing on the Smart Folio.

01:47:48   With the new iPad Pros getting so thin,

01:47:52   especially the really big one,

01:47:54   I feel like we're approaching the point

01:47:55   where adding a Smart Folio, again,

01:47:57   the cover that has nothing in it,

01:47:58   no keyboard, no trackpad, no nothing,

01:48:00   is coming close to doubling the thickness of your iPad now

01:48:03   by adding that stupid cover.

01:48:06   Not that I'm complaining, it's just a little bit absurd.

01:48:08   - That is bananas.

01:48:09   - I mean, I would argue that it substantially improves

01:48:12   the utility of the iPad to have a keyboard.

01:48:14   Even though I strongly regret the loss

01:48:19   of the Smart Keyboard Folio line,

01:48:20   if I'm going to make good use of an iPad at all,

01:48:24   it needs to have a keyboard.

01:48:25   It's simple as that.

01:48:25   That is no longer an optional thing for me.

01:48:28   When I briefly owned the iPad Mini,

01:48:31   that was one of the biggest problems

01:48:33   with me trying to use it for anything

01:48:34   was that there were no good keyboard options for it.

01:48:37   I need a keyboard and Apple makes the best keyboards

01:48:40   for the iPads by a mile.

01:48:42   It's just a shame my favorite one's gone now.

01:48:44   But if I was gonna get one of these iPads,

01:48:46   no question I would get it with the keyboard.

01:48:49   - Yeah, and by the way, Logitech does have a new keyboard

01:48:51   for this that, I mean, it's different than the Magic one,

01:48:56   the cantilever one, 'cause it uses a kickstand,

01:48:59   which is, you know, the Microsoft service stuff do that.

01:49:02   If you can deal with the kickstand thing,

01:49:05   you get an arrangement where the iPad

01:49:09   doesn't block any of your function keys.

01:49:11   You get a track pad, you get a pretty thin keyboard,

01:49:14   but you have to deal with the kickstand,

01:49:15   which might be a little bit awkward,

01:49:16   but we'll try to put a link to that one in the show notes.

01:49:18   - So there's a new Apple Pencil Pro.

01:49:21   There is a new sensor, which allows you to squeeze it,

01:49:26   to bring up a new tool palette,

01:49:28   and then third-party developers can do something else with it

01:49:31   if they so desire.

01:49:32   There's a haptic engine for feedback,

01:49:34   so you know when you've engaged, you know,

01:49:36   a squeeze or what have you.

01:49:39   And you know what you should do, John?

01:49:40   You should do a barrel roll,

01:49:41   because now there's a barrel roll gyroscope

01:49:45   to allow you to roll the pencil,

01:49:47   and that's very useful, for example,

01:49:49   to change the orientation of a shaped pen or brush.

01:49:54   So that's pretty neat.

01:49:55   And it also supports Find My, which, holy smokes,

01:49:57   I would really love that.

01:49:59   It's only been a handful of times

01:50:00   that my pencil has walked away,

01:50:02   but then those times, it would have been convenient.

01:50:05   And so Procreate CEO, James Cuda, whatever,

01:50:10   came out and said that, among other things,

01:50:12   developers can create their own custom interactions

01:50:15   using this new Apple Pencil Pro

01:50:17   and the new sensors and whatnot, which is really cool.

01:50:20   And so you can use this with the iPad Air

01:50:24   and the iPad Pro, right, the new ones, that is.

01:50:27   - Yeah, that's gonna be Apple's some rare props

01:50:29   for reasonable naming.

01:50:31   This is called the Apple Pencil Pro.

01:50:33   Instead of increasing the number,

01:50:34   like Apple Pencil, Apple Pencil 2,

01:50:36   then the Apple Pencil USB,

01:50:38   calling this Pro makes so much sense

01:50:39   'cause it's the expensive one.

01:50:41   And the only thing, adjustment,

01:50:43   you might have to make in your mind is,

01:50:45   this is not the Apple Pencil

01:50:47   that only works with the iPad Pro.

01:50:48   It is the pencil itself that is Pro.

01:50:51   It is the Apple Pencil Pro.

01:50:52   And so this is a good name for what will be the slot

01:50:56   for the expensive pencil.

01:50:58   So again, the goal state in the future will be

01:51:00   every iPad can work with a pencil,

01:51:02   and you can pick the expensive one or the cheap one.

01:51:04   And the expensive one is called Apple Pencil Pro,

01:51:06   and that makes perfect sense.

01:51:07   Of course, now we have to deal with Apple Pencil Pro,

01:51:09   second generation Apple Pencil Pro, third generation, but.

01:51:12   - Apple Pencil Pro with two USB-C ports.

01:51:14   - Right, right.

01:51:15   - Ah, yeah, we'll see.

01:51:16   But anyway, kudos to Apple to not increasing the number

01:51:19   by one and making it confusing as the Apple Pencil Pro.

01:51:22   - So that's the iPad Pro.

01:51:24   The keyboard is 300 or $350, depending on what size.

01:51:28   The Pencil Pro is still $130,

01:51:30   which I would have expected them to raise the price,

01:51:33   and they didn't.

01:51:34   And $130 for the pencil feels like a lot at first,

01:51:37   but then actually, especially this one,

01:51:39   I feel like there's a lot of tech in there,

01:51:40   even more than there was before.

01:51:42   So I'm not really that bothered by the pencil.

01:51:44   Very bothered by the price of the keyboard.

01:51:45   Not that bothered by the price of the pencil.

01:51:48   You can already order the Pro.

01:51:49   It is available sometime next week.

01:51:51   And the pencil, MacRumors has discovered,

01:51:54   has five different box designs, which are all very cute.

01:51:56   And so I'll put a link to that in the show notes.

01:51:58   And the original iPad has been dropped,

01:52:01   or I shouldn't say original, excuse me,

01:52:02   but the, what is it, iPad 10th Gen, is that right?

01:52:06   That is now 350 bucks.

01:52:08   So that's the same, you can get an entire keyboard,

01:52:10   or you can get an entire iPad, take your pick.

01:52:12   - And the 9th Gen is gone now, right?

01:52:14   - Yeah, well, except for like education,

01:52:16   discount channels, some of that.

01:52:17   But what this means is like for, in most channels,

01:52:20   the home button is gone, from the iPad.

01:52:23   We still have the iPhone SE to deal with,

01:52:25   but from the iPad, the home button is gone,

01:52:28   and everything has, oh, not Face ID.

01:52:30   But we'll get there, we'll get there.

01:52:33   - So that's the event.

01:52:36   For me, I think the iPad Pro looks great.

01:52:40   It's expensive, 'cause it starts at 900,

01:52:42   and we didn't actually talk about that, did we?

01:52:43   It starts at $900 for the 11 inch,

01:52:47   and it just goes up from there.

01:52:48   - Is that like a $200 increase from where the Pro started?

01:52:50   - I believe that's right.

01:52:52   - Yeah, I mean, again, the more expensive screen,

01:52:54   we've worried how much more expensive it would be.

01:52:56   It's more expensive, they de-contented some to keep it,

01:52:59   but it's still more expensive than it used to be.

01:53:01   - And honestly, like for, for what they are giving you,

01:53:05   you know, they're giving you a MacBook Air class processor.

01:53:09   They're giving you MacBook Air levels of RAM.

01:53:12   - Giving you a way better than MacBook Air screen.

01:53:13   - Right, the screen is way better than any Mac screen.

01:53:17   So what they're giving you, that is a reasonable price

01:53:20   for what these specs actually are.

01:53:23   So I actually have no problem with this price

01:53:25   for the product that it is.

01:53:27   - Until you start adding storage, obviously, right?

01:53:29   - Yeah, and the accessories.

01:53:31   I mean, 'cause the reality is, you know,

01:53:32   the MacBook Air comes with the keyboard

01:53:33   without charging an extra $300.

01:53:35   But the thing is, once you actually add the accessories,

01:53:39   the cellular, thank God, and other things,

01:53:41   you end up in like, you know, the $1,500, $1,600 range,

01:53:46   at least, if you need a lot of storage,

01:53:48   you might be even higher than that.

01:53:49   - Yeah, you can push up against four grand

01:53:51   if you really deck this out.

01:53:52   - Right, but I mean, almost no one's gonna be doing that.

01:53:55   But I think a lot of people are gonna be

01:53:56   in like the $1,200 to $2,000 range.

01:54:00   And those are laptop prices, good laptop prices too.

01:54:04   That isn't like, you know, some base level crappy PC thing.

01:54:07   Those are good laptop prices.

01:54:09   - That's either a MacBook Pro price,

01:54:11   or it's a MacBook Air with decent storage.

01:54:13   - Right, and so that brings up the big,

01:54:15   uncomfortable question is like, well,

01:54:17   how many people are, first of all,

01:54:20   using an iPad in ways that can even use

01:54:24   all of this hardware power?

01:54:25   And then second of all, how many people can justify

01:54:29   paying this much for an iPad?

01:54:31   And that market exists for sure.

01:54:33   Like Apple has shown over the years

01:54:35   that the iPad Pro market is there.

01:54:39   It does exist.

01:54:40   People do use iPad Pros.

01:54:41   My wife uses one.

01:54:42   But they keep pushing it higher and higher

01:54:44   in both price and in hardware specs.

01:54:48   And what I'm not seeing is a lot of software

01:54:53   that can push those, you know, those needs.

01:54:55   Like I'm not seeing a lot of actual use

01:54:59   in the real world of people who are like

01:55:01   really burning up that processor

01:55:03   and really using all that RAM using iPad OS.

01:55:06   I've said many times before, like,

01:55:08   I think it's unwise for tech people

01:55:11   to condescend to other people by saying like,

01:55:14   you don't need this benefit, this resource.

01:55:17   Like you won't use this, you know.

01:55:19   And it is something that tech people do a lot,

01:55:23   kind of down talking that the less technical people

01:55:26   that they know of in their lives are like,

01:55:27   oh you don't deserve to use high end hardware.

01:55:30   I deserve to, you don't.

01:55:32   So I'm trying to avoid that.

01:55:33   But it does seem like the iPad Pro continues on the path

01:55:37   it's been on for a long time.

01:55:40   Amazing hardware.

01:55:41   Ridiculously high end capabilities for a tablet

01:55:45   and for honestly for almost any computer.

01:55:48   But there is still just the huge question mark

01:55:51   of what are people who actually buy iPads

01:55:55   and who are using iPad OS actually doing with this thing

01:56:00   that will take advantage of any of that power.

01:56:02   And I'm not saying that there is no market that will use it.

01:56:06   But I think the market is really small.

01:56:10   - Yeah, so obviously as we said before,

01:56:11   the software side of this,

01:56:13   it's just obviously the biggest problem, that's WWDC.

01:56:16   We will have ample time to complain about it then.

01:56:19   - Right.

01:56:19   - We're not gonna, we had no expectation

01:56:22   that in this iPad event that they would roll out

01:56:24   the new version of iPad OS early

01:56:26   and show us all the things they've done or whatever.

01:56:27   But like this, there is a software side of this.

01:56:29   And a lot of people see this

01:56:31   and they see the amazing hardware

01:56:32   and setting aside like how big the market,

01:56:34   people almost get kind of resentful.

01:56:36   They're like, oh the last thing the iPad needed

01:56:37   was better hardware.

01:56:38   Or like they map things onto Apple and they think,

01:56:41   Apple thinks the problem with the iPad is hardware.

01:56:43   No, Apple doesn't think that.

01:56:44   Apple, for whatever problems the iPad has

01:56:48   that Apple acknowledges or knows about or whatever,

01:56:50   they're just doing what they're supposed to do

01:56:51   which is make the hardware better.

01:56:53   There is a software side of this

01:56:54   where we all agree they're dropping the ball, right?

01:56:56   But just because they make the hardware better

01:56:58   doesn't mean they think that's the problem.

01:57:00   They don't think that,

01:57:01   they're just making the hardware better.

01:57:02   That's what computer makers do.

01:57:03   So kudos for Apple for making the hardware better.

01:57:05   And we're setting aside the software conversation

01:57:06   until WWDC, right?

01:57:08   But I do wanna say, when we're talking about the hardware,

01:57:10   there is one thing about this, the hardware,

01:57:14   that is essentially not allowing users of this product

01:57:17   to take advantage of the power.

01:57:19   And then no one ever talks about it.

01:57:20   They all talk about how the software

01:57:21   stopped people from taking advantage and that is a thing.

01:57:23   But the hardware at this point,

01:57:25   especially now that they skipped a generation

01:57:27   to give them the only product they have with an M4, right?

01:57:30   The iPad probably needs more ports.

01:57:32   That's a hardware limitation.

01:57:34   Now you can use external drives with Final Cut Pro.

01:57:36   You can have Thunderbolt or whatever.

01:57:38   It's the MacBook One with a friggin' M4 in it, right?

01:57:41   What if I wanna power my thing

01:57:43   but also connect with Thunderbolt drive

01:57:44   but also connect to USB?

01:57:45   Sorry, you can't do that.

01:57:48   Does it mean 50 ports?

01:57:49   No, but it needs more than one.

01:57:52   I don't know what the solution to this is.

01:57:54   I don't know where you put the port or whatever.

01:57:55   I'm just saying this is the rare hardware feature

01:57:58   that is letting down the power of this device.

01:58:02   The power of this device is constrained more every year

01:58:06   by the fact that it has a single port.

01:58:07   That single port has gotten better.

01:58:08   Great, it's Thunderbolt.

01:58:09   We love it, it's good.

01:58:10   You need more than one.

01:58:12   Like, think of it if the MacBook One,

01:58:14   the 12-inch MacBook had one port

01:58:16   and it was Apple's fastest Thunderbolt port.

01:58:18   No, it had one port and it was cheap.

01:58:20   It was a cheap model.

01:58:21   It was like USB.

01:58:22   This has fast port for using your video,

01:58:25   8K video streaming to the thing, blah, blah, blah,

01:58:28   but there's just one of them.

01:58:29   That is one area where the hardware

01:58:31   is letting this thing down, which is kind of a shame.

01:58:33   And as for the software stuff,

01:58:34   like setting aside all the issues with multitasking

01:58:36   and whatever we'll talk about at WWDC,

01:58:38   Steve Trout and Smith were recently complaining

01:58:39   on Mastodon about sort of like a software model thing

01:58:43   that's a problem.

01:58:43   - Oh, Final Cut Pro and the iPad, it's amazing.

01:58:46   You got all this power.

01:58:47   Here Marco, here's an application that takes advantage.

01:58:49   The Final Cut Pro on the iPad can burn everything

01:58:52   that the M4 has to offer.

01:58:53   It'll use it if you use the iPad

01:58:56   as your video editor with Final Cut Pro,

01:58:58   that's what you need this hardware for.

01:58:59   And he says, well, if you do that

01:59:00   and you start like a long running operation of Final Cut

01:59:03   and then you switch to like Springboard

01:59:04   or go back to the home screen,

01:59:06   your Final Cut Pro job gets canceled.

01:59:09   - Yeah.

01:59:10   - Because like, oh, now you've swapped something out.

01:59:11   And it doesn't get canceled because 16 gigs of RAM

01:59:15   and an M4 aren't enough to run a Final Cut Pro job

01:59:17   in the background.

01:59:18   Just get a MacBook that has those same specs someday.

01:59:22   You can run Final Cut Pro in the background.

01:59:23   It doesn't cancel itself when you switch apps.

01:59:25   But the software model, the application model,

01:59:28   the environment on iOS, like setting aside like multitasking

01:59:32   and file system access or whatever,

01:59:33   just like the overall like, how does iPad OS work?

01:59:38   It works in a way that is fundamentally unfriendly

01:59:41   to pro apps, fundamentally unfriendly

01:59:43   to letting people take advantage of the power of the things

01:59:47   to at the level of like, well, yeah, on iPad OS,

01:59:51   if something else wants resources

01:59:53   and you're not the front most application,

01:59:55   we just kill you, take the resources away from you,

01:59:57   cancel your job.

01:59:58   And that is not a pro environment.

02:00:00   So setting aside all the other software things

02:00:02   that we will surely talk about,

02:00:03   there are fundamental issues,

02:00:05   fundamental essentially invisible non-UI related issues

02:00:08   to how iPad OS works that are at odds

02:00:12   with the hardware that Apple is shipping.

02:00:15   - It's just the bigger story.

02:00:16   Like we're seeing this from a lot of people today.

02:00:18   Like if you were already able to do significant tasks

02:00:23   on an iPad, like if you were already using

02:00:25   an iPad Pro substantially,

02:00:28   then this is a great upgrade for you.

02:00:29   Like this is an awesome product for you.

02:00:32   If you were not already doing that,

02:00:35   you probably still can't.

02:00:37   Look, I would love to buy this thing.

02:00:39   I would love it because it's so cool and so new

02:00:42   and so shiny and so thin and light when you pick it up

02:00:46   and it has the awesome new screen.

02:00:47   I would love a justification to buy this thing.

02:00:51   But I'm not one of those people.

02:00:52   There are times in my life where I have used an iPad

02:00:54   more or less, I've gone in and out of it.

02:00:57   Recently I've been pretty far out of it.

02:00:59   Like I haven't actually used an iPad in I think

02:01:03   about six months.

02:01:05   But there are certain things like if I went to WWDC

02:01:08   this year, I would definitely plug in,

02:01:12   for dig out, plug in my iPad, run all the updates

02:01:16   and bring my awesome smart keyboard folio

02:01:17   because it is the best device to bring into like

02:01:21   a small place to take notes on in your lap

02:01:24   with that keyboard, with cellular.

02:01:26   Like it's great for that.

02:01:28   But I have found that in most of my life,

02:01:30   the iPad is not for me.

02:01:31   And when I look around the tech business,

02:01:35   the tech business is really big.

02:01:37   And we've obviously never been able to cover all of it.

02:01:40   We don't even cover a small amount of it.

02:01:42   The tech business is huge.

02:01:44   We cover the parts of it that we are closest to

02:01:48   mostly around the products and services we use ourselves.

02:01:51   Apple has grown so big recently.

02:01:55   One person used to be able to cover Apple

02:01:58   and Apple products fairly well.

02:02:00   I think Apple's big enough now that that's actually

02:02:03   not really reasonably possible anymore

02:02:06   to really have any depth to all their stuff in one person.

02:02:10   It's a big company.

02:02:11   They make a bunch of different product lines.

02:02:13   And I think it's okay for us to specialize

02:02:15   and say you know what, this product and this product

02:02:18   I'm gonna use like crazy.

02:02:19   This one and this one, I don't really have a need

02:02:22   for that in my life or it doesn't fit my needs

02:02:24   well enough.

02:02:25   And for me I realized over time that I wish

02:02:28   I was the kind of person who could use an iPad more.

02:02:32   The same way as we talked about recently,

02:02:33   I wish I was a notebook person.

02:02:35   Like I wish I used fancy pens and cool paper notebooks.

02:02:39   I wish I was that person, I'm just not.

02:02:41   For me I'm finally realizing the iPad is that for me.

02:02:44   And so I think it's worth accepting that about oneself.

02:02:49   Even though many of us are gadget hounds,

02:02:51   we would love a reason to buy this thing.

02:02:53   It's so cool, it's so new, the cool pencil.

02:02:56   And I would use it for like three days

02:02:58   and then I would never use it again.

02:03:00   And so I'm giving this a pass but the great thing

02:03:03   about having this breadth of products is that

02:03:06   there's other products that I love and use constantly.

02:03:10   I love the Mac, I love the phone.

02:03:13   Like I've even started to really enjoy the watch

02:03:15   in recent years and I love certain ones.

02:03:18   This one's not for me but for everyone out there

02:03:21   who's like I gotta have my MacBook Air,

02:03:24   there's also people out there who are like

02:03:25   I gotta have the iPad Pro.

02:03:27   Now I don't think there's as many of them by a mile

02:03:29   but those people out there.

02:03:31   And so if you're one of those people,

02:03:32   this is a great update.

02:03:34   I'm personally just giving it a pass though

02:03:37   because for me I would be running

02:03:40   to the nearest Apple store if even half of this stuff

02:03:42   came to a MacBook Air.

02:03:44   But unfortunately that's probably not in the cards.

02:03:47   But that's ultimately, what I want is to continue

02:03:50   getting really awesome Mac laptops for these needs.

02:03:54   But if you're an iPad person, this is awesome

02:03:57   and go for it.

02:03:59   - Yeah you know the iPad for me,

02:04:01   fits an odd space in my life because I desperately want it

02:04:05   to be more for me than it is but I do enjoy using it

02:04:08   for what I use it for.

02:04:10   It's a very, very good couch computer.

02:04:13   It's a great passenger princess computer

02:04:16   if Erin's driving somewhere and I just want

02:04:19   to goof off in the car because what is it having it Marco?

02:04:21   You've mentioned this already.

02:04:22   - Cellular.

02:04:24   - Mm-hmm.

02:04:25   So it's a great kind of toting around computer.

02:04:29   And actually as you said, if you wanna take notes

02:04:32   or something like that, I don't even necessarily mean

02:04:34   with a pencil, if you just wanna have a small computer

02:04:36   that's on your person that you can use here and there

02:04:39   like at a conference or whatever,

02:04:41   it's great for that as well.

02:04:42   I really, I enjoy my iPad enough that I don't think

02:04:47   I would want to live a life without it.

02:04:50   Although between just the three of us,

02:04:52   I've had some really bad thoughts about getting

02:04:54   a bumming around laptop which I'm really uncomfortable with

02:04:58   but we can explore that another time.

02:05:00   - Are you saying that maybe having a desktop laptop

02:05:02   and a laptop laptop is a good idea?

02:05:04   - We're not gonna go there, we're not gonna go there.

02:05:05   - What a surprise, oh my God.

02:05:08   - I'm having very impure thoughts, all right.

02:05:09   So anyway, so with regard to the iPad though--

02:05:11   - Get the MacBook Air, it's so frickin' good.

02:05:13   I'm telling you, look, I shouldn't be turning

02:05:15   the iPad celebration episode into a MacBook Air sales pitch

02:05:18   but I'm telling you, for the price of this iPad Pro,

02:05:21   you can get a MacBook Air and for your purposes, Casey,

02:05:26   definitely for mine, definitely for yours,

02:05:28   that's the better computer for a lot of what you want.

02:05:32   - No, it really is and honestly, all kidding aside,

02:05:35   and I'm really not trying to make a whole topic out of this

02:05:37   but if I could have a MacBook Air with cellular,

02:05:40   I probably would already have one

02:05:42   because it genuinely is that important to me

02:05:44   and if you don't agree, the two of you

02:05:46   and you, the broader listener, that's totally cool

02:05:49   but cellular is that important to me

02:05:51   and for the bummin' around, on the go kinda computer

02:05:56   and if the MacBook Air had cellular,

02:06:00   I would probably already have one

02:06:02   but that's neither here nor there, let's move on.

02:06:04   I don't wanna get one of these

02:06:06   'cause I just got this iPad, what,

02:06:08   like a year, year and a half ago, something like that

02:06:10   and it's serving me perfectly fine.

02:06:12   It's an M2 iPad Pro and even though the keyboard

02:06:14   is wearing in a way that I don't love, it still works

02:06:17   and so for now, I'm sticking with it.

02:06:20   I don't have any needs in the house

02:06:21   to like pass down my iPad or any other iPad

02:06:24   so I'm not in for this one but I cannot state strongly enough

02:06:29   how impressed I am by this hardware.

02:06:33   I mean, not having seen it in person yet,

02:06:36   just by looking at the specs and seeing the reviews

02:06:38   and seeing the introductory video,

02:06:40   it's incredible, incredible hardware

02:06:42   and I don't wanna derail us on another

02:06:43   why is iPad OS the way it is discussion

02:06:46   but I just wish for more for my iPad OS for my needs,

02:06:51   maybe not for your needs but for my needs

02:06:53   and I just can't get that yet

02:06:54   and so for all of those reasons, I'm not in for this one

02:06:58   but Jon, I am hearing that you are probably gonna be in

02:07:03   for this one, huh?

02:07:04   - Yep, so my iPad, I probably watched like half

02:07:07   of my television movies on my iPad

02:07:09   and it's all about the screen and I am a TV snob

02:07:13   and I love OLED and I was absolutely 100% gonna get this one

02:07:16   so I ordered one.

02:07:17   - What did you buy?

02:07:20   - It pained me a little bit to 11 inch,

02:07:23   it pained me a little bit to see the SOC things.

02:07:26   It doesn't matter for TV watching obviously

02:07:28   but it's like, I kinda like to get the silicone

02:07:30   with all the parts working

02:07:32   but there's no way I was gonna pay for it.

02:07:35   It's just, it was hundreds of more dollars

02:07:37   that would be pointless for me.

02:07:38   I don't need that to watch TV and movies.

02:07:40   I don't need any of that thing.

02:07:42   I just need like the H.264 decoder, right?

02:07:44   It's all I need, right?

02:07:45   So I got the 11 inch.

02:07:47   When I was picking the storage size,

02:07:48   I have an M1 iPad Pro right now

02:07:51   so I'm replacing the M1 with the M4

02:07:52   and again, the only reason I'm replacing it

02:07:54   is because of that screen, that's it.

02:07:56   I don't care about anything else, right?

02:07:58   And so when I picked storage, I looked at my M1

02:08:01   and said, how much storage are this amount using?

02:08:02   And I have a 256 I think

02:08:05   and I'm using like a little bit more than half

02:08:07   so I'm like, oh, I can just get a 256 again.

02:08:09   But I thought about it a little bit and I said,

02:08:11   if the screen is as good as I think it is,

02:08:16   I'm going to be much more likely

02:08:18   to take some of my big honking Blu-ray rips

02:08:20   and put them on my iPad, like not,

02:08:23   put them like copy them to my iPad

02:08:25   so I can watch them with like infuse or whatever.

02:08:28   So I got the 512.

02:08:29   That doesn't give me anything.

02:08:30   The SOC still has one performance core disabled.

02:08:33   Like that storage size upgrade,

02:08:35   I guess I didn't know this at the time

02:08:36   but I guess it gives me the faster storage instead of,

02:08:39   but I don't need the faster storage either.

02:08:40   It's like, it's all pointless, right?

02:08:41   But I got it for the storage space,

02:08:43   anticipating that I may want to put more actual video files,

02:08:48   big video files on the iPad,

02:08:51   which I haven't done with my current model

02:08:54   because I think I'm going to like the screen so much.

02:08:56   So that's what I did.

02:08:57   I got an 11 inch, 512, space black.

02:09:00   I got the folio case that's just, you know,

02:09:02   no keyboard, no track pad, no nothing.

02:09:04   It's just a gummy little case.

02:09:07   It will even out the camera bump.

02:09:08   And I actually use that case to prop my iPad up

02:09:11   when I watch it in bed.

02:09:12   Like that's what I actually use it for.

02:09:13   So it is an important accessory for me.

02:09:16   I did, I was like, oh, you know,

02:09:18   I should try to buy this through my son's college

02:09:21   to get that educational discount.

02:09:23   And there is an educational discount and it's okay.

02:09:27   But for whatever reason, the educational discount,

02:09:31   I don't know if this is also discounted or whatever.

02:09:33   And I Googled for it a little bit,

02:09:34   but the educational discount,

02:09:34   if you buy AppleCare Plus,

02:09:36   they make you get the one where you pay

02:09:38   for two years upfront and that's it.

02:09:39   You can't get the monthly one, literally can't,

02:09:42   at least in my son's college store.

02:09:45   And I wanted the month by month one,

02:09:47   because the month by month one,

02:09:49   it goes until you stop paying.

02:09:51   It doesn't stop after two years.

02:09:52   And I plan to use this iPad for way more than two years,

02:09:56   if I possibly can.

02:09:57   Again, the only reason I'm ditching my old one

02:09:59   is because of the screen.

02:10:00   And if the screen is good,

02:10:01   screen's never gonna get any worse

02:10:03   other than getting a little bit dimmer,

02:10:04   but it doesn't matter because I watch in the dark anyway.

02:10:06   (laughing)

02:10:08   I'm in for the long haul.

02:10:09   And if I drop it and break it, I want to get it replaced.

02:10:13   So I got the monthly AppleCare,

02:10:15   paid full price for everything,

02:10:16   get any kind of discount.

02:10:17   The monthly AppleCare,

02:10:18   I set aside the educational discount

02:10:21   and left probably hundreds of dollars on the table,

02:10:24   just so I can get the month to month AppleCare Plus,

02:10:26   'cause I couldn't figure out or be bothered to figure out

02:10:28   how to somehow do that through the school or whatever.

02:10:30   Anyway.

02:10:31   - Well, why didn't you,

02:10:31   you could have bought it without any sort of AppleCare,

02:10:35   and then in the settings app,

02:10:37   you can actually enroll in AppleCare in there.

02:10:40   - Yeah, when I was Googling for it,

02:10:42   there were some people who were buying through EDU

02:10:44   or have some difficulties with that,

02:10:46   for like getting the-- - Oh, interesting.

02:10:48   - There was enough things about like,

02:10:50   "Oh, it turns out you couldn't buy it after the fact

02:10:52   "if you bought it through EDU or some crap."

02:10:53   And I was like, "I just don't want to deal with that."

02:10:55   - No, that's fair.

02:10:56   - It wasn't that big a difference,

02:10:57   probably a couple hundred dollars or whatever,

02:10:59   but I'll survive.

02:11:01   So that's what I got.

02:11:03   And I'm looking forward to it.

02:11:05   Again, I use it like literally every single day.

02:11:09   And I'm just using it as a glorified TV,

02:11:11   but not just as a glorified,

02:11:12   I'm gonna say that like, "Oh, you just use it

02:11:13   "as a glorified TV."

02:11:15   I've said this before,

02:11:16   I do the multi-screen experience on a single screen.

02:11:19   When I watch TV, I'm sniping in slide-over things

02:11:23   of like ivory.

02:11:24   And I'm sometimes doing it like picture-in-picture

02:11:27   and using that newswire while the thing I'm watching

02:11:30   is in floating like picture-in-picture in the corner.

02:11:32   So I'm using my iPad, yes, as a TV,

02:11:35   but as a TV where on the same TV with my fingers,

02:11:38   I can dork around other things if it's something

02:11:41   that I don't have to pay too much attention to.

02:11:42   So I'm looking forward to it.

02:11:46   Hopefully I can get the brightness under control

02:11:47   so my wife doesn't kill me for watching things in HDR.

02:11:50   People tell me that I should have got

02:11:52   a $3,500 Vision Pro or whatever, but yeah,

02:11:54   that's what I got.

02:11:56   My Folio has already shipped, I believe,

02:11:59   and I should have the iPad.

02:12:01   Oh, and I also got the Pencil Pro.

02:12:03   Not because I use the Pencil a lot, because I don't,

02:12:05   but I do have the Apple Pencil 2 with my M1 iPad Pro,

02:12:09   and I do like it for the few times that I've used it.

02:12:11   - Yeah, I feel the same way.

02:12:12   - I mostly got the Pencil, so I can talk about it

02:12:14   on the show, 'cause I don't really need a Pencil.

02:12:17   And also because when I hand this down,

02:12:20   I'll probably hand it down to my son

02:12:22   who does do digital art stuff with the Pencil,

02:12:24   and I want him to have a Pencil that goes with it.

02:12:26   So there you go.

02:12:28   - That's exciting, Jon.

02:12:29   And so it arrived, do you know when it arrives?

02:12:31   Are you sure?

02:12:32   - I think that, like, is it May 15th or something?

02:12:34   Whatever day one is, like, for the arrival

02:12:37   of the new iPad Pro.

02:12:39   - Cool.

02:12:40   Well, that's super exciting.

02:12:42   - Thanks to our sponsors this week,

02:12:44   Compiler and Squarespace.

02:12:46   Thanks to our members who support us directly.

02:12:48   You can join at atp.fm/join.

02:12:51   Today's member exclusive bonus segment in ATP Overtime

02:12:54   is on Apple Silicon in AI servers.

02:12:58   This is a story that broke, I think, just today,

02:13:00   that Apple is allegedly developing AI chips

02:13:02   for data centers to run in custom servers.

02:13:05   We're gonna be covering that in ATP Overtime,

02:13:08   members exclusive, join at atp.fm/join to hear.

02:13:12   Thank you so much, and we'll talk to you next week.

02:13:15   (upbeat music)

02:13:18   ♪ Now the show is over ♪

02:13:20   ♪ They didn't even mean to begin ♪

02:13:23   ♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪

02:13:25   ♪ Accidental ♪

02:13:25   ♪ Oh, it was accidental ♪

02:13:27   ♪ Accidental ♪

02:13:29   ♪ John didn't do any research ♪

02:13:30   ♪ Margo and Casey wouldn't let him ♪

02:13:33   ♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪

02:13:35   ♪ Accidental ♪

02:13:36   ♪ It was accidental ♪

02:13:38   ♪ Accidental ♪

02:13:39   ♪ And you can find the show notes at atp.fm ♪

02:13:44   ♪ And if you're into Mastodon ♪

02:13:47   ♪ You can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S ♪

02:13:53   ♪ So that's Casey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M ♪

02:13:58   ♪ Auntie Marco Armin ♪

02:14:00   ♪ S-I-R-A-C ♪

02:14:03   ♪ USA, Syracuse ♪

02:14:05   ♪ It's accidental ♪

02:14:07   ♪ Accidental ♪

02:14:08   ♪ They didn't mean to ♪

02:14:11   ♪ Accidental ♪

02:14:12   ♪ Accidental ♪

02:14:13   ♪ Tech podcast ♪

02:14:15   ♪ So long ♪

02:14:17   - Outside of my neighborhood,

02:14:22   there was a house that was sitting vacant

02:14:24   for literally five or 10 years directly across the street

02:14:27   from the exit I used to get, you know,

02:14:29   in and out of our neighborhood every day.

02:14:31   Before it sat vacant, there was actually a Z32, a 300ZX,

02:14:36   that parked there for a while,

02:14:39   like I used to have many years ago,

02:14:40   and it always made me so happy to see it.

02:14:42   Then it sat vacant for forever,

02:14:43   and then all of a sudden,

02:14:44   somebody moved into it or whatever.

02:14:46   It's no longer vacant,

02:14:48   and there are like two or three wranglers

02:14:50   that park there all the time.

02:14:51   And that just kind of makes me smile a little bit.

02:14:53   I still think that the wrangler

02:14:55   was probably not the right choice for me,

02:14:57   and I'm glad that you two numb nuts

02:15:00   were apart in talking me out of it,

02:15:02   but that house is now dead to me,

02:15:06   because in the last few days,

02:15:09   would you like to guess what is now parking

02:15:12   in the driveway of the house that I see

02:15:15   every time I leave my neighborhood?

02:15:16   - Is it a Cybertruck?

02:15:17   - A yellow Rivian?

02:15:19   - Oh, God, I would much prefer to see a yellow Rivian.

02:15:21   - A yellow Cybertruck?

02:15:22   - Yeah, well, it's gonna be yellow when I pee on it.

02:15:24   No, not really, but it is a Cybertruck.

02:15:26   And-- - Oh, no.

02:15:28   - It is, I'm trying to be gentle.

02:15:32   It is not for me.

02:15:34   - You know what?

02:15:37   - I don't get it.

02:15:37   I don't get it.

02:15:39   It looks ridiculous.

02:15:41   It screams I am very not confident in myself,

02:15:46   and I am compensating for my lack of confidence.

02:15:48   - No, does it scream that any more

02:15:49   than the typical pickup truck

02:15:51   that's like a bazillion feet high?

02:15:53   I don't think it does.

02:15:54   - Oh, yes.

02:15:55   - Honestly, I would much rather see a Cybertruck

02:15:59   than one of those giant new regular Ford trucks

02:16:01   that is just like the giant block.

02:16:03   So the Cybertruck, okay, look,

02:16:07   let's disclaim a couple things up front.

02:16:09   Elon Musk is a turd and a horrible person, okay?

02:16:11   I'm not gonna defend him at all.

02:16:13   I don't like him at all.

02:16:14   I sold my Tesla in part

02:16:15   because of how much I don't like him.

02:16:17   So this is not about him in particular.

02:16:20   I think the Cybertruck is ugly,

02:16:24   but I'm glad they tried something.

02:16:26   I'm glad they actually made something

02:16:28   that was noticeably different and an opinionated design.

02:16:33   Now, that opinion was bad,

02:16:35   but at least it's an opinionated design.

02:16:37   - That's fair.

02:16:37   - Well, I'm gonna say it's bad,

02:16:38   but that's what everyone says about the Cybertruck.

02:16:41   They're glad that someone tried something new,

02:16:43   but when someone tries something new

02:16:45   and it really is bad, nobody congratulates them.

02:16:47   Nobody congratulated Pontiac on the Aztec.

02:16:49   No one said, "Well, I don't like how the Pontiac Aztec looks,

02:16:52   "but I'm glad Pontiac tried something."

02:16:54   Nobody said that.

02:16:55   Nobody was glad they tried.

02:16:57   - But the Aztec was not, it was not like a strong opinion.

02:17:00   The Aztec was like a mishmash of like design by committee.

02:17:04   - Oh no, it was a strong opinion.

02:17:05   It was just a bad opinion.

02:17:07   The thing about the Cybertruck is

02:17:09   some people like how it looks,

02:17:11   which is not true of the Aztec.

02:17:12   Well, obviously some people like the Aztec,

02:17:14   but there's a large number of people

02:17:17   who think the Cybertruck looks cool.

02:17:19   So although it may not be to your particular taste,

02:17:21   I think it is more successful

02:17:23   than many other ugly cars that have come out.

02:17:25   So when people say, "I'm glad they tried something new,"

02:17:28   what they're really saying is,

02:17:29   "I'm glad they tried something new

02:17:31   "that enough people actually like,

02:17:33   "even if it's not for me."

02:17:34   - There are so many boring, bland car designs out there.

02:17:39   There's a thousand car models for you to pick from

02:17:41   if you want a really average looking,

02:17:43   quote, normal looking car.

02:17:45   - I did see a Cybertruck on the road for the first time

02:17:48   about a week or two ago.

02:17:49   - Yeah, me too.

02:17:50   I saw my first one like two days ago.

02:17:51   - Yeah, same.

02:17:52   - I wasn't as shocked to see it as I thought I would be,

02:17:55   'cause everyone, when you see everyone reacting online,

02:17:58   they're like, "Oh my god, it's so weird."

02:17:59   It wasn't that weird to see,

02:18:01   'cause I've already seen it online, I guess.

02:18:03   It was fine.

02:18:04   I commend any risk-taking in visual car design these days,

02:18:09   because it is so rare.

02:18:11   And Jon's right, the Cybertruck is for some people.

02:18:15   It's not for me, but it's for some people.

02:18:17   Like the iPad Pro, it's coming around.

02:18:21   Oh, the iPad Pro is probably

02:18:22   a much better all-around product.

02:18:23   - Yeah, and the Cybertruck,

02:18:25   enough people like how it looks.

02:18:27   I don't know if it's 50% or whatever,

02:18:28   but it's not like the percentage of people

02:18:30   like the Pontiac Aztec.

02:18:31   It is a pretty big number.

02:18:33   There is a large contingent of people

02:18:36   who think the Cybertruck looks really good.

02:18:38   - And I think it succeeds at its goal.

02:18:42   The goal of the Cybertruck was to be a really bold design.

02:18:47   - It's a statement car.

02:18:48   - Yeah, and it is that.

02:18:50   Setting aside thoughts on its founder,

02:18:53   and setting aside the various flaws it's had so far,

02:18:55   like the terrible gas pedal thing.

02:18:57   There's a lot of flaws in it,

02:19:00   and I'm not taking the safety flaws lightly either,

02:19:03   'cause that's a huge, obviously like the huge problem.

02:19:07   But as a visual design of a vehicle,

02:19:10   it succeeds in taking a bold statement

02:19:14   and doing something crazy.

02:19:16   Recently, my dog walk route,

02:19:18   one of the houses on it added a Hummer EV,

02:19:21   and it's the first time I'm seeing a Hummer EV in person.

02:19:23   And the Hummer EV, it is kind of a striking looking,

02:19:26   but it's striking because it just looks

02:19:28   a little bit wrong in its proportions.

02:19:31   It looks like you're watching a movie

02:19:32   in the wrong aspect ratio.

02:19:34   It looks like it's being stretched wide,

02:19:36   but it looks like just a regular, modern SUV,

02:19:39   just widened.

02:19:41   It doesn't look like a bold choice in design.

02:19:43   It looks like a boring car, wider.

02:19:46   - Well, that widening thing is the Hummer thing.

02:19:49   - Yeah, that is Hummer's thing.

02:19:50   - But Hummers always look more like,

02:19:52   a little more of the military, like kind of

02:19:53   utilitarian style.

02:19:55   - But they look wider than you think they're gonna be.

02:19:56   - Yes, but this doesn't look like a Hummer.

02:19:59   This looks like every other boring SUV

02:20:02   stretched out a little bit wider,

02:20:04   like weirdly wide.

02:20:05   But it doesn't look like cool or good.

02:20:09   - Yeah, they didn't capture the distinctiveness

02:20:11   of the actual original Hummer in the new one.

02:20:13   - Correct.

02:20:14   Whereas the Cybertruck is very distinctive.

02:20:17   It has this very divisive design.

02:20:21   It is a bold choice.

02:20:23   No one can look at the Cybertruck and say,

02:20:26   that was designed by committee.

02:20:27   That's so bland.

02:20:28   Whereas the Hummer EV, I think,

02:20:31   when I saw one in person here,

02:20:32   I think it looks really bland.

02:20:35   Big and weird and wide, but just bland.

02:20:38   It looks like designed by committee.

02:20:40   Whereas no one would ever accuse a Cybertruck of that.

02:20:43   - Yeah, the Cybertruck is kind of the perfect

02:20:45   pickup truck for America,

02:20:47   because pickup trucks have long since

02:20:49   not been judged by their utility.

02:20:51   And the Cybertruck is perhaps the least utility

02:20:53   of any pickup truck ever made.

02:20:56   'Cause so many parts of it are sacrificed

02:20:58   on the alter of that look.

02:21:00   And it's like, oh, you're sacrificing practicality.

02:21:03   It's like no one buys, well, not no one.

02:21:05   So few people in this country buy pickup trucks

02:21:07   for their utility.

02:21:09   They buy them for all sorts of other reasons.

02:21:11   And the fact that they've been slowly shrinking the beds

02:21:13   and making them harder to maneuver and bigger for no reason

02:21:17   other than to make people feel better.

02:21:19   That's what the pickup truck is in this country

02:21:21   for most people who buy them.

02:21:23   They're the best selling vehicle.

02:21:25   And so this is like, oh, a pickup truck

02:21:27   where you don't care about how useful it is,

02:21:29   and everything about it is super weird and annoying,

02:21:31   but you just want it to look cool, let's do that to 11.

02:21:33   And they did, it's got sharp angles everywhere.

02:21:36   The bed is actually bigger than it is

02:21:37   on a lot of the other big pickup trucks, but like it's,

02:21:39   it's, you know, and they did do some smart things

02:21:42   by trying to make this big truck easier to maneuver

02:21:44   than other ones, but like, it's just, yeah.

02:21:46   I don't, it's a, it's probably not a great choice

02:21:51   for the company in terms of how many of these

02:21:52   they're going to sell, 'cause it's $100,000 pickup truck.

02:21:55   And yeah, they sell a lot of pickup trucks,

02:21:56   so they don't sell a lot of $100,000 pickup trucks.

02:21:59   It doesn't have a lot of utility.

02:22:01   Half the people or whatever the percentages think

02:22:03   it is hideously ugly and the other half loves it.

02:22:06   But it's, but it's iconic and we'll remember it in history

02:22:09   the same way we remember the Subaru Brat.

02:22:12   - No, no, we will not.

02:22:13   - And the El Camino, I guess.

02:22:14   - Don't you even, you bite your tongue, sir.

02:22:17   Both of those are way better looking

02:22:19   and way better cars than this is.

02:22:21   - They were iconic.

02:22:23   People said, "This doesn't look like the usual car

02:22:25   "that I'm used to seeing.

02:22:26   "I don't even know what it is I'm looking at."

02:22:27   And we remembered them to this day.

02:22:29   - Look at the original MacBook Air.

02:22:31   That was a terrible, believe me, I owned one.

02:22:33   It was a terrible computer, but it was iconic

02:22:36   and some people loved the design of it.

02:22:39   It doesn't need to necessarily be a great car

02:22:43   in the stats and the on paper ways

02:22:46   to be an iconic success story in that way.

02:22:50   - Yeah, it's more like the Lamborghini Countach,

02:22:52   which is totally impractical, very difficult car

02:22:55   to live with, but everyone knows

02:22:56   what it looks like, don't they?

02:22:57   - Yeah, and I think if the Cybertruck was made

02:23:00   by somebody who wasn't a total turd,

02:23:01   you would not hear nearly as much negativity about it.

02:23:04   - Oh, well, until people start slicing people in half

02:23:07   with those stainless steel panels and everything.

02:23:09   'Cause there are--

02:23:09   - Yeah, that's part of what I'm saying,

02:23:11   like there are safety concerns with its design.

02:23:13   - Well, we don't know, there are unknowns.

02:23:14   There are unknowns, setting aside like all the defects

02:23:17   in the pedal, like things they didn't mean to do on purpose.

02:23:19   They meant to on purpose make it out of stainless steel

02:23:21   and it is yet to be seen and they meant to on purpose

02:23:23   put those sharp corners in it and I'm not sure

02:23:25   if there'll be any fallout from that,

02:23:27   but that is a direct consequence

02:23:29   of the look they've chosen.

02:23:30   That look has ramifications in the real world

02:23:34   for possibly for safety, but certainly for things

02:23:36   like practicality and that ridiculous windshield wiper

02:23:38   and all sorts of other crap.

02:23:40   (laughing)

02:23:41   - I did not have on my bingo card for today

02:23:43   that I would be the only person that does not like

02:23:45   the Cybertruck and you two would be defending it.

02:23:47   - I mean, I don't like how it looks either,

02:23:49   but I think Marco and I appreciate, like I said,

02:23:52   appreciate someone trying something new

02:23:54   and succeeding enough that some people really love it.

02:23:57   - And not letting concerns like regulation

02:24:01   and safety water down the design.

02:24:03   (laughing)

02:24:04   - Well, let's not applaud that too much.

02:24:06   Not worrying about the accelerator pedal

02:24:08   staying attached to the pedal,

02:24:10   'cause that's not that important.

02:24:11   - And then you just put a rivet in it and call it a day.

02:24:14   - There are legitimate safety concerns,

02:24:15   but as a designed object, I honestly,

02:24:19   when I saw it in person, I did not hate it as much

02:24:21   as I thought I would.

02:24:22   - Oh, I hate it so badly.

02:24:23   - Speaking of design choices, did you hear about this one?

02:24:26   You probably haven't if you're not super into,

02:24:27   so when you saw the Cybertruck

02:24:29   when it was announced and everything,

02:24:30   there was like these wheel covers,

02:24:31   like the aerodynamic wheel covers

02:24:32   that sort of essentially cover over the wheel

02:24:34   to make it, you know, but they're removable, right?

02:24:36   It was very often those wheel covers are removable

02:24:38   because people think the wheels look better

02:24:39   without the aero covers on them.

02:24:41   But the Cybertruck ones, I don't know if you remember,

02:24:42   I can go pull up a picture of it now,

02:24:44   they have these little things that stick out

02:24:47   basically over the rubber,

02:24:49   like into the sidewall a little bit,

02:24:50   like it's part of the look, right?

02:24:52   So it's not just a cover that covers

02:24:53   the metal part of the wheel,

02:24:54   that cover also extends into the rubber part.

02:24:57   But, and it looks cool in all the demos,

02:25:00   and like wow, it's a distinctive look for the Cybertruck.

02:25:03   But if you notice how the rubber on the wheels are made,

02:25:07   the parts that stick out from the wheel cover

02:25:10   sort of essentially mate with,

02:25:12   or line up with structures in the sidewall,

02:25:15   like it's, you know.

02:25:16   - Oh yeah.

02:25:17   - You can't just rotate it,

02:25:18   the wheel cover has to be lined up

02:25:20   with the rubber of the wheel,

02:25:22   and that's not how cars work.

02:25:24   You may not know it,

02:25:25   but your rubber tire does move within the wheel,

02:25:30   slip a little bit within the wheel.

02:25:32   - Whoa, I didn't know that.

02:25:33   - And so they thought they were gonna ship this,

02:25:35   but they realized if you actually drive the car

02:25:37   with these on it,

02:25:38   especially with the incredible power this thing has,

02:25:40   they quickly go out of alignment.

02:25:42   Like the wheel, the rubber goes out of alignment

02:25:45   with the metal wheel that it's on,

02:25:47   which makes the wheel cover also go out of alignment.

02:25:49   And so they basically, if you buy a Cybertruck,

02:25:52   you do not get those covers

02:25:53   that you ostensibly paid for.

02:25:54   And Tesla said, yeah, those, that doesn't work.

02:25:58   So I don't know if they're gonna give them

02:26:00   alternate wheel covers that don't extend,

02:26:03   if they're gonna give them all new wheels,

02:26:04   but there are a couple of things about the Cybertruck

02:26:06   that, you know, they either didn't think through all the way

02:26:11   or didn't quite work out the way they wanted.

02:26:12   I love that one,

02:26:13   'cause it just shows the kind of like,

02:26:15   this is a young car company that no one thought of,

02:26:18   or was overridden perhaps by some other jerky person to say,

02:26:21   you can't make part of the wheel

02:26:23   be forced to line up with part of the rubber

02:26:26   and give you a car with a thousand horsepower.

02:26:27   That's not gonna work after like, you know,

02:26:31   10 minutes to a couple of days.

02:26:33   So no wheel covers for you, Cybertruck owner.

02:26:36   Not yet anyway.

02:26:37   - Well, I agree lightly that a bold statement was made

02:26:43   and I admire that, but everything else about it,

02:26:46   it's hideous, it's way too big, it's obnoxious.

02:26:50   It's just, it's not a DeLorean.

02:26:51   Like the DeLorean was wrong in other ways,

02:26:53   but it was also adorable and delightful.

02:26:55   There's nothing adorable or delightful

02:26:56   about this monstrosity.

02:26:58   - I think it's adorable next to an F-350.

02:27:00   Ugh.

02:27:01   [XBOX SOUND]